As an ideology, conservatism, like liberalism, was a modern product, the reaction to the French Revolution. It consisted of two aspects: as a political program, and as an ideology/intellectual thought. As a political program, it was decided at the series of congresses held at Vienna to deal with post-Napoleonic France and redraw the boundaries of Europe which had been changed by the French Revolution and Napoleon. At these congresses, the Concert of Europe (Quadruple Alliance, 1815) of Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, started 1) the “balance of power” politics in Europe and 2) policed smaller European states. Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia were the coalition that defeated Napoleon. Although they differed greatly, Britain being a constitutional monarchy and seat of liberalism, while the others were all conservative monarchies, they shared the common goal of preventing another revolution in Europe through the conservation of traditional social and political order that had been disrupted by the French Revolution. This especially catered to the interests of Austria, Prussia and Russia, which all freshly acquired new territories after redrawing the boundaries of European states, and did not want a popular uprising to topple their rule from the people they subjugated.
A similar type of symbol cropped up independently in the Americas sometime around 350 A.D., when the Mayans began using a zero marker in their calendars. These early counting systems only saw the zero as a placeholder—not a number with its own unique value or properties
