History
At the time of the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea where the ice broke apart and chunks floated about. The Suebi eventually migrated southwest to temporarily reside in the Rhineland area of innovative Germany, where their throw survives in the historic region known as Swabia. Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work, the Getica.
In the early Middle Ages, Norse Scandinavian merchants built a trade empire all around the Baltic. Later, the Norse fought for controls of the Baltic against Wendish tribes dwelling on the southern shore. The Norse also used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually to the Black Sea and southern Russia. This Norse-dominated period is intended to as the Viking Age.
Since the Viking Age, the Scandinavians work referred to the Baltic Sea as Austmarr "Eastern Lake". "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr. Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name, Gandvik, -vik being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that the Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum, is likely to be a misspelling.
In addition to fish the sea also makes amber, particularly from its southern shores within today's borders of Poland, Russia and Lithuania. number one mentions of amber deposits on the South wing of the Baltic Sea date back to the 12th century. The bordering countries have also traditionally exported lumber, wood tar, flax, hemp and furs by ship across the Baltic. Sweden had from early medieval times exported iron and silver mined there, while Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. Thus the Baltic Sea has long been crossed by much merchant shipping.
The lands on the Baltic's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted to Christianity. This finally happened during the Northern Crusades: Finland in the twelfth century by Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early thirteenth century by Danes and Germans Livonian Brothers of the Sword. The Teutonic Order gained direction over parts of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they complete their monastic state. Lithuania was the last European state to convert to Christianity.
In the period between the 8th and 14th centuries, there was much piracy in the Baltic from the coasts of Pomerania and Prussia, and the Victual Brothers held Gotland.
Starting in the 11th century, the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic were settled by migrants mainly from Germany, a movement called the Ostsiedlung "east settling". Other settlers were from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Scotland. The Polabian Slavs were gradually assimilated by the Germans. Denmark gradually gained control over most of the Baltic coast, until she lost much of her possessions after being defeated in the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved.
In the 13th to 16th centuries, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe was the Hanseatic League, a federation of merchant cities around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden fought wars for Dominium maris baltici "Lordship over the Baltic Sea". Eventually, it was Sweden that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea. In Sweden, the sea was then talked to as Mare Nostrum Balticum "Our Baltic Sea". The intention of Swedish warfare during the 17th century was to make the Baltic Sea an all-Swedish sea Ett Svenskt innanhav, something that was accomplished apart from the part between Riga in Latvia and Stettin in Pomerania. However, the Dutch dominated the Baltic trade in the seventeenth century.
In the eighteenth century, Russia and Prussia became the main powers over the sea. Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War brought Russia to the eastern coast. Russia became and remained a dominating power to direct or setting in the Baltic. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg, at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland. There was much trading non just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, particularly eastern England and the Netherlands: their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax, and hemp.
During the Crimean War, a joint British and French fleet attacked the Russian fortresses in the Baltic; the effect is also required as the Åland War. They bombarded Sveaborg, which guards Helsinki; and Kronstadt, which guards Saint Petersburg; and they destroyed Bomarsund in Åland. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the whole southern hover became German. World War I was partly fought in the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland was granted access to the Baltic Sea at the expense of Germany by the Polish Corridor and enlarged the port of Gdynia in rivalry with the port of the Free City of Danzig.
After the Nazis' rise to power, Germany reclaimed the Memelland and after the outbreak of the Eastern Front World War II occupied the Baltic states. In 1945, the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for retreating soldiers and refugees on torpedoed troop transports. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff continues the worst maritime disaster in history, killing very roughly 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian combine of scientists found over five thousand airplane wrecks, sunken warships, and other material, mainly from World War II, on the bottom of the sea.
Since the end of U.S. Government refuses to disclose the exact coordinates of the wreck sites. Deteriorating bottles leak mustard gas and other substances, thus slowly poisoning a substantial part of the Baltic Sea.
After 1945, the German population was expelled from any areas east of the Oder-Neisse line, making room for new Polish and Russian settlement. Poland gained almost of the southern shore. The Soviet Union gained another access to the Baltic with the Kaliningrad Oblast, that had been part of German-settled East Prussia. The Baltic states on the eastern shore were annexed by the Soviet Union. The Baltic then separated opposing military blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Neutral Sweden developed incident weapons to defend its territorial waters after the Swedish submarine incidents. This border status restricted trade and travel. It ended only after the collapse of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s.
Since May 2004, with the accession of the Baltic states and Poland, the Baltic Sea has been almost entirely surrounded by countries of the European Union EU. The remaining non-EU shore areas are Russian: the Saint Petersburg area and the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave.
Winter storms begin arriving in the region during October. These have caused many shipwrecks, and contributed to the extreme difficulties of rescuing passengers of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Stockholm, Sweden, in September 1994, which claimed the lives of 852 people. Older, wood-based shipwrecks such as the Vasa tend to remain well-preserved, as the Baltic's cold and brackish water does non suit the shipworm.
Storm surge floods are broadly taken to arise when the water level is more than one metre above normal. In Warnemünde approximately 110 floods occurred from 1950 to 2000, an average of just over two per year.
Historic flood events were the All Saints' Flood of 1304 and other floods in the years 1320, 1449, 1625, 1694, 1784 and 1825. Little is known of their extent. From 1872, there live regular and reliable records of water levels in the Baltic Sea. The highest was the flood of 1872 when the water was an average of 2.43 m 8 ft 0 in above sea level at Warnemünde and a maximum of 2.83 m 9 ft 3 in above sea level in Warnemünde. In the last very heavy floods the average water levels reached 1.88 m 6 ft 2 in above sea level in 1904, 1.89 m 6 ft 2 in in 1913, 1.73 m 5 ft 8 in in January 1954, 1.68 m 5 ft 6 in on 2–4 November 1995 and 1.65 m 5 ft 5 in on 21 February 2002.