While Poles trace their roots to prehistoric times, as a nation, present-day Poland dates its real origins to the year 966, when the foundation of Polish statehood was laid. That was the year when Mieszko I, the first historical representative of the old Polish Piast dynasty, accepted Christianity from the south. He is the first member of the gallery of Polish Kings in spite of the fact that only his son, Boleslaw Chrobry - Boleslaw the Brave - was the first ruler to be actually crowned.

In Poland's lengthy and tumultuous history, its Golden Age, which flourished under the last two kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty, deserves special attention. This was a time rich in art, poetry, religious experience, scientific advances and economic prosperity. It inspired astronomer Nicholas Copernicus to assign Earth a new place in the solar system and moved Wit Stwosz to create his unsurpassed altarpiece, which can still be admired in Krakow's St. Mary's Church to this very day. In Krakow, the Royal Castle on Wawel Hill was converted into a splendid Renaissance residence, while a handsome fortress city went up in Zamosc.

Between 1795 and 1918, Poland disappeared from Europe's maps, to re-emerge once more independent and proud at the end of World War I. The Nazi conquest of 1939, another war and four decades of Communist rule could not vanquish the indomitable and tenacious Polish spirit.

Living and prospering alongside their Polish neighbors, a sizable Jewish community has called the country home since the 11th century. It was all but wiped out during the nightmarish years of the Holocaust during World War II. Monuments to the millions killed have been erected throughout Poland at such sites as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka.