| |
Baltic Sea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 | | The Baltic Sea's salinity is much lower than the ocean's, as a result of abundant freshwater runoff from the surrounding land; indeed, runoff contributes roughly 1/40th its total volume.(Alhonen 88) It varies from 0.1% in the north to 0.6-0.8% in the center. |
| | Lands next to the sea's eastern shore were among the last in Europe to be converted into Christianity in the Northern Crusades: Finland in the 12th century by the Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early 13th century by the Danes and the Germans (Livonian Brothers of the Sword). |
| | After 1945 the sea was a border between opposing military blocks: in the case of military conflict in Germany, in parallel with a Soviet offensive towards the Atlantic Ocean, communist Poland's fleet was prepared to invade the Danish isles. |
| en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Baltic_Sea (3269 words) |
