KomÃ¡rno in Slovakia is an inland port on the Danube River which is an important international waterway. Several international treaties have established freedom of navigation on semi-enclosed seas. The Copenhagen Convention of 1857 opened access to the Baltic by abolishing the Sound Dues and making the Danish Straits an international waterway free to all commercial and military shipping.
The expansion of cocoa in Europe (17th - 19th centuries) During the 17th century, cocoa began arriving in other ports throughout Europe, effortlessly conquering every region's palate. Chocolate beverages were first embraced by the French court following the royal marriage of King Louis XIII to the Spanish Princess Anne of Austria in 1615.
In Europe, too, chocolate was always served together with vanilla for more than a century after it arrived from America. Then people began to use sugar instead of vanilla to sweeten chocolate, and vanilla became a flavoring on its own. All the vanilla in the world was grown in Mexico until 1836, when scientists found ways of growing it in other lands. Today, most of the worldâs vanilla comes from Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean.