History of Poland, a highly cultured, powerful, Roman Catholic empire in east central Europe in the late Middle Ages, Poland was partitioned by its neighbours in the late 18th century but re-emerged as an independent state at the end of World War I.
United under the Piast dynasty by the late 10th century, the Christian lands constituting Poland became a kingdom (1024—25) and afterward engaged in a series of struggles that involved territorial changes as well as the development of separatist tendencies among its provinces. Boleslaw III the Wry-Mouthed (ruled 1102—38) divided Poland among his sons, causing his lands to remain disunited until Wiadyslaw I the Short restored the kingdom (1320). Casimir III, the last Piast ruler (ruled 1330—70), then transformed Poland into a powerful, cosmopolitan empire, which in 1385 formed a dynastic union with Lithuania and came under the rule of the Jagiellon dynasty for the next two centuries.

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