For hundreds of years afterward, Poland's fortunes waxed and waned at the hands of powerful neighbors and invaders, from the German Teutonic Knights to the Mongol Golden Horde to the Soviet Union's forces. Poland became a recognizable ethnic and political entity in the mid-10th Century AD under the Piast dynasty of kings its modern history begins in 966 when the first Piast king, Mieszko I, was converted to Christianity. Lying between the Baltic Sea to the north and the Carpathian Mountains to the south, the Polish plain served as the gateway for invasions of the heartland of Europe from the east and invasions of the vast tracts of Russia from the west. Invasion, occupation, partition, rebellion and rebirth - that cycle has characterized the tragic and triumphant history of Poland for the past millennium.
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