Congress comes from a Latin word that means a meeting. Any group of people who represent organizations, regions, or nations, and who meet together to discuss their problems, may be called a congress. In the United States, the word congress usually refers to the Congress of the United States. An international congress is a conference attended by representatives of various nations. The name congress was given to several important international conferences that took place in the 1800’s to determine boundaries and arrange political settlements in Europe. The most important were as follows:
Congress of Vienna
(1814-1815), which divided up Napoleon’s empire after the Napoleonic Wars.
Congress of Paris
(1856), which settled the problems that grew out of the Crimean War. This congress also was an important step in the growing unity of Italy.
Congress of Berlin
(1878), which took away from Russia Balkan land it had won from Turkey during the Russo-Turkish Wars.
