Here's the background: I'm organizing a history study meetup, we're about 30 people now, none of us are historians, we just like discussing and want to learn more about this topic.
So we want divide the topics between ourselves, meet once per month and take turns presenting to the rest of the audience, so that would give each presenter about a month to prepare.
The format we're thinking about is a 1 hour presentation and 1 hour discussions on some theme or key questions which would lead to the next session, and so on.
Our key goal, I would say, is to understand why Europe looks the way it does today, what are the key historical drivers behind its current achievements and predicaments, and how might we apply these learnings to understand possible future developments.
As you can imagine, we're not really sure where to begin, so it would be really great to get some help in structuring our next 12 sessions!
You should take my class, I do Western Civilization since the Big Bang in 14 weeks (plus a final).
Edit: Here's the course schedule (the text or film for discussion each evening is indicated in brackets). Unfortunately, I missed two classes with illness and got a sub only one of those night; he was helpful but kind of went his own way, so the topics got quite muddled. You can see the idea though.
Foundations of Western Civilization Course Schedule: Section B, Monday 4-7pm
Week 1: January 19: Introductions; Earth & Human Origins [Fossils]
Week 2: January 26: Stone, Bronze, and Iron; Early Agriculture [The Epic of Gilgamesh selections]
Week 3: February 2: Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greece; the Persian Empire [Aeschylus, The Eumenides]
Week 4: February 9: Roman Republic & Empire [Caesar and Tacitus]
No Class Monday February 16
Week 5: February 23: The Post-Roman World: Byzantium, Islam, Europe [Procopius; sources from the Abbasid Caliphate; several other Byzantine documents]
Week 6: March 2: Medieval Europe [Beowulf; accounts of "feudal" relationships; plague]
Week 7: March 9: Renaissance and Reformation [Can't recall what sources we used for this week] Midterm Exam due
Week 8: March 16: State Development in Europe and Abroad [H. J. Grimmelshausen, Simplicius Simplicissimus]
Spring Break March 22-29
Week 9: March 30 Black Robe and the Atlantic World [Black Robe film]
Week 10: April 6: Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and French Revolution [Galileo, Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems; Revolutionary documents]
Week 11: April 13: Industrialization and the Market-Based Society [Emile Zola, Germinal]
Week 12: April 20: Romanticism, Reform, and Nationalism [Sources TBA]
Week 13: April 27: 19th c. Globalization and Imperialism [Potluck]
Week 14: May 4: World Wars and Cold War [George Orwell, 1984]
Final Exam: May 11
Edit 2: It's funny that I have a syllabus more heavily weighted to the ancient, classical, and medieval worlds than the others suggested here--despite my training and research, which focuses on the modern world and the 19th century in particular. Before teaching this class as I have done for the past three years, I thought of the pre-modern world as more or less static, and assumed that everything changed after 1500, or even 1800. While it is true that many of the institutions that shape our existence today are products of relatively recent developments--the national state and the market-based society most notably--I've increasingly found that those changes are paradoxically both far more profound and less novel with a longer view of history.
1: Geography. Talk about the variations in climate, placement of mountain ranges/passes, best areas for grazing/agriculture, placement of key resources, etc. Understand the differences in climate and landscape and the way they can impact the societies in those areas, and for a person coming from one area to another.
2: Prehistory. European history is extremely hazy until Greek times, and even then it's spotty. I'd mix how people got there (rough genealogy and societal development) with the first powers to arise (Mediterranean cultures: Greeks, even Egypt, nation-states on the sea).
3: The Greeks, their conflicts with each other and the Persians, and everything up to the rise of Rome. This includes philosophy and political thought.
4: Rome's rise to power, the political differences from Greece, the expansion and structure of the empire, the various peoples they fought.
5: The fall of Rome, the shift into feudalism, and the spread of Christianity's influence, particularly the Catholic church. The Crusades and the Reconquista.
6: The Ottoman wars, the Renaissance. The enlightenment.
7: Exploration and trade. Mercantilism and colonial expansion.
8: Industrial revolution. French revolutions. Imperialism.
9: The rise of "nations" throughout Europe. Nationalism in general.
10: World Wars I and II.
11: Recovery. The Cold War.
12: The rise of the Eurozone, EEA, EU, and the backgrounds of the ongoing economic and political problems.
That's how I'd do it, anyway!
I would go with this:
Greece , end with Alexander death and the partition of his empire. Talk more about culture and philosophy than geopolitics IMO.
Roman republic, Roman empire end with 476
The middle ages, start with Charlemagne, end with discovery of Americas. For expediency focus on western Europe and england in particular. Mention the partition of the Carolingian empire and the role of the catholic church Feudalism. Don't bother with that much detail on geopolitical history.
Reformation period (to 1648) in europe
Colonization and how it impacted Europe (1500-1900), wars of colonialism like the 7 Years war. Major conquest like India and mexico should be mentioned.
Napoleon and the French revolution
The Industrial revolution: late 1700s to late 1800s; social, economic changes to 1914
Revolutions and nationalism (1789, 1848) how Europe reacted to it. Rise of radical Marxism. Unification of Germany.
WW1 and the great depression
WW2 and the start of cold war.
The cold war, counterculture, decolonization.
The end of history (1991) and the future
This is just rough I'm not an expert on all European history, I don't think anyone is lol, but: Greek to start of Rome, Start to fall of West Rome (pick rough date I guess), fall to end of crusades, end crusades to end of 30 years war, end thirty years to War of Spanish succession, end Spanish to Seven Years, end Seven to end napoleonic, "Pax Brittanica", kind of overlap that with Franco Prussian to end WWI, end WWI to end WWII, Cold War, History since fall of Berlin Wall. This is super rough but it sounded like kind of a fun idea. Time frames shorten towards end but that will give you the best idea of why Europe is the way it is I guess. Some might want pre Greek history but it's pretty spotty and you're already looking at a pretty enormous task. Edit: just saw you said themes not times necessarily but I'll leave the suggestion...
I would personally start with the fall of the Roman empire, and there's a lot that happened between then and now. If you're not sure how to get from there to, say, the renaissance or the long nineteenth century, I would begin with these lectures:
If you live in a populated area, you can probably find them at a public or university library. They come with these little guidebooks to follow along with that are really just an outline of each lecture (it takes a long time to actually listen to them all, probably too long for your purposes). I recommend this because the lecturer did a great job of demystifying how Europe got from the Romans to the renaissance in what is a similar format to what you are doing. It might be worth looking at how he divided that span of history into little chunks and then augmenting it to fit your needs. If you're not in a populated area, you might be able to find them for download by typing "ttc guidebooks" and "ttc middle ages" into your favorite search engine.
There's really a million different ways to approach this. Have fun!
In the Netherlands the teaching of history has official standards which have to be adhered to. In these standards, history is divided into 10 periods and each period has certain features which have to be covered. Of course the standards are a bloated bureaucratic mess, but I'll try to give a quick overview with the most important features so you can get an idea of what educational policy makers consider important:
Firstly, this is a great idea; I'm outside academic life now and I know how hard it is to do this kind of thing in your spare time.
I wonder, given your aims, if you should do Europe since the French Revolution rather than trying for a comprehensive Europe 101 course. The downside is that you leave out some fantastic material but you get more time to look at the big developments that made modern Europe. For example
The French Revolution and Napoleon
The international system after 1815
The industrial revolution. Social life, religion and family
Arts, culture and ideology
Colonialism and Empire
The unification of Germany
The Great War
Inter war Europe
World War II
Cold War Europe
the European Union
The collapse of communism
Remember that your advantage is that you are amateurs ; you have no responsibility to anyone but yourselves so focus on the things you are interested in as a group.
It might help to pick readings for each meeting and ensure that everyone has read at least a chapter outlining the main events (or watched a video, listened to a podcast etc.) The speakers could then focus on themes or topics without having to give a general lecture. A few primary sources, photos pieces of literature or similar could focus the discussions. Setting up an online discussion would also help people prepare (a Facebook group or something).
Best of luck with it.