History of Qatar

History of Qatar. o Like the other Arab emirates on the Persian Gulf— Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, (leaving aside the separate history of Oman)— Qatar has been inhabited for millennia, a part of the Persian Empire and Persian Gulf trade route connecting Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Societies retain their tribal structures based on extended family kinships and clientage.Thani bin Mohammed, the founder of the Al-Thani family was elected Sheikh of Qatar, where he ruled in Al-Bida (now known as Doha). The Al Khalifa family of Bahrain occupied the northern part of Qatar until 1868. That year, at the request of Qatari nobles, the British negotiated the termination of the Al Khalifa claim to Qatar, except for the payment of tribute. The tribute ended with the occupation of Qatar by the Ottoman Turks in 1872, when the Al Khalifa family moved to Bahrain.When the Turks left at the beginning of World War I, the British recognized Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani as Ruler. The Al Thani family had lived in Qatar for 200 years. The 1916 treaty between the United Kingdom and Sheikh Abdullah was similar to those entered into by the British with other Gulf principalities. Under it, the Ruler agreed not to dispose of any of his territory except to the UK and not to enter into relationships with any other foreign government without British consent. In return, the British promised to protect Qatar from all aggression by sea and to lend their good offices in case of a land attack. A 1934 treaty granted more extensive British protection.

 Oil

In 1935, a 75-year oil concession was granted to Qatar Petroleum Company, which was owned by Anglo-Dutch, French, and U.S. interests. High-quality oil (petroleum) was discovered in 1940 at Dukhan, on the western side of the Qatari peninsula. Exploitation was delayed by World War II, and oil exports did not begin until 1949.During the 1950s and 1960s gradually increasing oil reserves brought prosperity, rapid immigration, substantial social progress, and the beginnings of Qatar’s modern history.

Full independence

In 1971, the present United Arab Emirates (and Bahrain) planned to form a union of Arab emirates. By mid-1971, however, the nine still had not agreed on terms of union, and the termination date (end of 1971) of the British treaty relationship was approaching. Accordingly, Qatar sought independence as a separate first countries to recognize Qatar, and the state promptly gained admittance to the United Nations and the Arab League. Qatar established diplomatic relations with the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic of China in 1988. It was an early member of OPEC and a founding member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose rotating presidency it held until December 1997. Oil and natural gas revenues enable Qatar to have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.Qatar and Bahrain have argued over who owns the Hawar Islands. In 2001, Qatar agreed to give the islands to Bahrain in exchange for territorial concessions relating to previous Bahrain claims on mainland Qatar.

Reforms

The current emir has announced his intention for Qatar to move toward democracy and has permitted a nominally free and open press and municipal elections. Economic, social, and democratic reforms have occurred in recent years. In 2003, the country’s constitution was approved by a democratic referendum. That same year, a woman was appointed to the cabinet as minister of education. 

History of Japan

The written history of Japan began with brief appearances in Chinese history texts from the first century AD. However, archaeological research indicates that people were living on the islands of Japan as early as the upper paleolithic period. Following the last ice-age, around 12,000 BC, the rich ecosystem of the Japanese Archipelago fostered human development, yielding the earliest known pottery during the Jomon period. Japanese history has alternating periods of long isolation punctuated by radical, often revolutionary, influences from the outside world.

Japanese Pre-History

Jomon Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Jomon period.Main article: Jomon periodThe Jomon period (縄文時代, Jōmon-jidai^?) lasted from about 10,000 BC to 300 BC.The earliest known polished stone tools in the world. Stone axes, Hinatabayashi, B site, Shinanomachi, Nagano. Pre-Jomon (Paleolithic) period, 30,000 BC. Tokyo National Museum.The first signs of civilization and stable living patterns appeared around 10,000 BC with the Jōmon culture, characterized by a mesolithic to neolithic semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle of wood stilt house and pit dwelling and a rudimentary form of agriculture. Weaving was still unknown and clothes were often made of bark. Bear worship was common, as many place names still today have the word “kuma” (bear) in them. Around that time, however, the Jomon people started to make clay vessels, decorated with patterns made by impressing the wet clay with braided or unbraided cord and sticks (Jōmon means “patterns of plaited cord”). Some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery in the world may be found in Japan, based on radio-carbon dating, along with daggers, jade, combs made of shells, and other household items, although the specific dating is disputed. The household items suggest trade routes existed with places as far away as Okinawa. Many believe and DNA analysis suggests that the Ainu, an indigenous people found mostly today on the northern island of Hokkaidō, but previously had lived on Honshū, and potentially other groups, as mentioned in the Kojiki, such as the tsuchi-gumo (English: dirt spiders), are descended from the Jomon and thus represent descendants of the first inhabitants of Japan. Also, entire wood dwellings (that normally would rot away) have been dug up in northern Japan that were preserved in ice, dated back to before 8000 BC (radio-carbon dating).According to disputed archeological evidence based on carbon-14, the Jomon people created the first known pottery type in the world, dated to the 11th millennium BC.^[1] The Jomon people(s) were making clay figures (one popular type called dogu that was buried with the dead) and vessels decorated with patterns made by impressing the wet clay with braided or unbraided cord and sticks with a growing sophistication.

Yayoi Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Yayoi period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)Main article: Yayoi periodMain article: RiceThe Yayoi period (弥生時代, Yayoi jidai^?) lasted from about 300 BC (although this date is debated) to AD250. It is named after the section of Tokyo where archaeological investigations uncovered its first recognized traces.The start of the Yayoi period around 300 BC marked the influx of new practices such as rice farming, shamanism and iron and bronze-making brought by migrants (i.e. Yayoi-jin) from outside of Japan.^[2] Some research in paleoethnobotany supports the theory that wet-rice cultivation began about 2500 B.C. in the Yangzte Delta which experiences frequent flooding.The tribes organized over time into many small countries (国, kuni or koku^?), and alliances and warfare led to the emergence of larger and more organized entities.Japan first appeared in written history in AD 57 with the following mention in China’s Book of Later Han: “Across the ocean from Luoyang are the people of Wa (in Chinese, “Wo” or “dwarf state“). Formed from more than one hundred tribes, they come and pay tribute frequently.”China’s Book of Wei in the 3rd century noted the country of Yamataikoku, the unification of some 30 smaller tribes or states and ruled by a shaman queen named Himiko.

Ancient and Classical Japan

Iron helmet and armour with gilt bronze decoration, Kofun period, 5th century. Tokyo National Museum.Yamato polity (大和政権, Yamato polity^?) was the main ruling power in Japan from the middle of the 3rd century until 710. The Kofun period (mid 3rd century – mid 6th century), is defined by a tumulus-building culture; the keyhole-shaped tumuli are called kofun. The Asuka period (mid 6th century – 710), is defined as the time in which the capital was in Asuka, near present-day Nara.During the 5th and 6th centuries, there was much contact between the Baekje kingdom of the southern part of the Korean peninsula and the Yamato state. Some of the results of this contact were the introduction of Buddhism to Japan by people from Baekje, and military support given by the Yamato state to Baekje.^[3][4]

Kofun Period

Main article: Kofun periodThe following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Kofun period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)The Kofun period, beginning around AD 250, is named after the large burial mounds (古墳, Kofun^?) that appeared at the time. The Kofun period saw the establishment of strong military states centered around powerful clans, and the establishment of a dominant polity centered in the Yamato area, from the 3rd century to the 7th century, the Yamato Court, origin of the Japanese imperial lineage. The Yamato Court, suppressing the clans and acquiring agricultural lands, maintained a strong influence in the western part of Japan (the Asuka region). Based upon the Chinese model, they developed a central administration and an imperial court system and society was organized into occupation groups.Several proto-state formations rivalled, possibly representing different ethnic backgrounds. There are hypotheses of a couple of bigger migrations waves of continental population to central areas of Japanese islands during this period, each bringing something vitally new or becoming a basis of a polity formation.^{[citation needed]}

Asuka period

Main article: Asuka periodThe following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Asuka period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)The Asuka period (飛鳥時代, Asuka period^?) is when the proto-Japanese Yamato polity gradually became a clearly centralized state, defining and applying a code of governing laws, such as the Taika Reform and Taihō Codes.^[5] The introduction of Buddhism led to the discontinuing of the practice of burial mounds, or kofun.Buddhism was introduced to Japan by Baekje, to which Japan provided military support, ^[6] and it was promoted by the ruling class. Prince Shotoku devoted his efforts to the spread of Buddhism and Chinese culture in Japan. He is credited with bringing relative peace to Japan through the proclamation of the Jūshichijō kenpō (十七条憲法), often referred to in Japan as the Seventeen-article constitution, a Confucian style document that focused on the kinds of morals and virtues that were to be expected of government officials and the emperor’s subjects.He wrote in a letter to the Emperor of China that the ‘Emperor of the Land where the Sun rises’ (Japan) sends a letter to the ‘Emperor of the land where Sun sets’ (China), thereby implying a declaration of equal footing with China which angered the Chinese emperor.^[7]Starting with the Taika Reform Edicts of 645, Japanese intensified the adoption of Chinese cultural practices and reorganized the government and the penal code in accordance with the Chinese administrative structure (the Ritsuryo state) of the time. This paved the way for the dominance of Confucian philosophy in Japan until the 19th century. This period also saw the first uses of the word Nihon (日本) as a name for the emerging state.

Nara Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Nara Period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)  The Great Buddha at Nara, 752 AD.Main article: Nara PeriodThe Nara period of the 8th century marked the first emergence of a strong Japanese state. Following an Imperial rescript by Empress Genmei the move of the capital to Heijō-kyō, present-day Nara, took place in 710. The city was modelled on the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, Chang’an (now Xi’an).During the Nara Period, political developments were quite limited, since members of the imperial family struggled for power with the Buddhist clergy as well as the regents, the Fujiwara clan. Japan did enjoy friendly relations with Silla as well as formal relationships with Tang China. In 784, the capital was moved again to Nagaoka (to escape the Buddhist priests) and then in 794 to Heian-kyo, present-day Kyoto.Historical writing in Japan culminated in the early 8th century with the massive chronicles, the Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters, 712) and the Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720). These chronicles give a legendary account of Japan’s beginnings in which the people were descendants of the gods themselves. According to the myths contained in these 2 chronicles, Japan was founded in 660 BC by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu, a direct descendant of the Shinto deity Amaterasu, or the Sun Goddess. The myths also claim that Jimmu started a line of emperors that remains unbroken to this day. However, historians believe the first emperor who actually existed was Emperor Ōjin, though the date of his reign is uncertain. For most of Japan’s history, actual political power has not been in the hands of the emperor, but in the hands of the court nobility, the shoguns, the military and, more recently, the prime minister.

Heian Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Heian Period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)Main article: Heian PeriodThe Heian period (平安時代, Heian period^?), lasting from 794 to 1185, is the final period of classical Japanese history. It is considered the peak of the Japanese imperial court and noted for its art, especially in poetry and literature. In the early 11th century, Lady Murasaki wrote the world’s oldest surviving novel called The Tale of Genji.Strong differentiations from Asian mainland culture traits emerged (such as an indigenous writing system, the kana). Chinese influence had effectively ended with the last imperial-sanctioned mission to Tang China in 838, due to the decline of the Tang Dynasty, although trade expeditions and Buddhist pilgrimages to China continued.^[8]Political power in the Imperial court was in the hands of powerful aristocratic families, especially the Fujiwaras who ruled under the titles Sessho and Kampaku (regents).The end of the period saw the rise of various military clans. Towards the end of the 12th century, conflicts between those clans turned into civil war (the Hōgen and Heiji Rebellions, followed by the Genpei war), from which emerged a society led by samurai clans, under the political rule of a shogun.

Feudal Japan

The “feudal” period of Japanese history, dominated by the powerful regional families (daimyo) and the military rule of warlords (shogun), stretched from the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries. The Emperor remained but was (mostly) kept to a de jure figurehead ruling position. This time is usually divided into periods following the reigning family of the shogun:

Kamakura Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Kamakura period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)Main article: Kamakura periodThe Kamakura period (鎌倉時代, Kamakura period^?), 1185 to 1333, is a period that marks the governance of the Kamakura Shogunate and the transition to the Japanese “medieval” era, a nearly 700-year period in which the emperor (天皇 tennō), the court, and the traditional central government were left intact but were largely relegated to ceremonial functions. Civil, military and judicial matters were controlled by the bushi (武士) class, the most powerful of whom was the de facto national ruler, the shogun. This period in Japan differed from the old shōen system in its pervasive military emphasis.In 1185, Minamoto no Yoritomo defeated the rival Taira clan. And in 1192, Yoritomo was appointed Seii Tai-Shogun by the emperor, and has established a base of power in Kamakura. Yoritomo ruled as the first in a line of Kamakura shoguns. However, after Yoritomo’s death, another warrior clan, the Hōjō, came to rule as regents for the shoguns.  Japanese samurai boarding Mongol ships in 1281.A traumatic event of the period was the Mongol invasions of Japan between 1272 and 1281, in which massive Mongol forces with superior naval technology and weaponry attempted a full-scale invasion of the Japanese islands. A famous typhoon referred to as kamikaze, translating as divine wind in Japanese, is credited with devastating both Mongol invasion forces, although some scholars assert that the defensive measures the Japanese built on the island of Kyūshū may have been adequate to repel the invaders. Although the Japanese were successful in stopping the Mongols, the invasion attempt had devastating domestic repercussions, leading to the extinction of the Kamakura shogunate.The Kamakura period ended in 1333 with the destruction of the shogunate and the short reestablishment of imperial rule (the Kemmu restoration) under the Emperor Go-Daigo by Ashikaga Takauji, Nitta Yoshisada, and Kusunoki Masashige. The Kamakura period is also said to be the beginning of the “Japanese Middle Ages”, which also includes the Muromachi period and lasted until the Meiji Restoration.

Muromachi Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Muromachi period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)Main article: Muromachi periodThe Muromachi period (室町時代, Muromachi-jidai^?) is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Ashikaga shogunate also called Muromachi shogunate, which was officially established in 1336 by the first Muromachi shogun Ashikaga Takauji, who seized political power from Emperor Go-Daigo, ending the Kemmu restoration. The period ended in 1573 when the 15th and last shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki was driven out of the capital in Kyōto by Oda Nobunaga.The early years of 1336 to 1392 of the Muromachi period is also known as the Nanboku-chō or Northern and Southern Court period, as the Imperial court was split in two.The later years of 1467 to the end of the Muromachi period is also known as the Sengoku period, the “Warring States period”, a time of intense internal warfare, and corresponds with the period of the first contacts with the West, with the arrival of Portuguese “Nanban” traders.See also: Nanban trade period and Sengoku period   A group of Portuguese Nanban foreigners, 17th century, Japan.In about 1542, a Portuguese ship, blown off its course to China, landed in Japan. Firearms introduced by Portuguese would bring the major innovation to Sengoku period culminating in the Battle of Nagashino where reportedly 3,000 arquebuses (the actual number is believed to be around 2,000) cut down charging ranks of samurai. During the following years, traders from Portugal, the Netherlands, England, and Spain arrived, as did Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan missionaries.See also: Christianity in Japan

Azuchi-Momoyama Period

Main article: Azuchi-Momoyama periodThe Azuchi-Momoyama period (安土桃山時代, Azuchi-Momoyama-jidai^?) runs from approximately 1568 to 1600. The period marks the military reunification and stabilization of the country under a single political ruler, first by the campaigns of Oda Nobunaga who almost united Japan, achieved later by one of his generals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The name Azuchi-Momoyama comes from the names of their respective castles, Azuchi castle and Momoyama castle.After having united Japan, Hideyoshi invaded Korea, however, after unsuccessful campaigns toward the allied forces of Korea and China and his death, his forces retreated from the Korean peninsula.The short period of succession conflict to Hideyoshi was ended when Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of the regents for Hideyoshi’s young heir, emerged victorious at the Battle of Sekigahara and seized political power.

Edo Period

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Edo period.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)Main article: Edo period
A 1634 Japanese Red seal ship, during the Edo period.During the Edo Period (江戸時代, Edo Period^?), the administration of the country was shared by over two hundred daimyo. The Tokugawa clan, leader of the victorious eastern army in the Battle of Sekigahara, was the most powerful of them, and for fifteen generations monopolized the title of Sei-i Taishōgun (often shortened to shōgun). With their headquarters at Edo (present-day Tokyo), the Tokugawa commanded the allegiance of the other daimyo, who in turn ruled their domains with a rather high degree of autonomy.The shogunate carried out a number of significant policies. They placed the samurai class above the commoners: the agriculturists, artisans, and merchants. They enacted sumptuary laws limiting hair style, dress, and accessories. They organized commoners into groups of five, and held all responsible for the acts of each individual. To prevent daimyo from rebelling, the shoguns required them to maintain lavish residences in Edo and live at these residences on a rotating schedule; carry out expensive processions to and from their domains; contribute to the upkeep of shrines, temples, and roads; and seek permission before repairing their castles.Many artistic developments took place during the Edo Period. Most significant among them were the ukiyo-e form of wood-block print, and the kabuki and bunraku theaters. Also, many of the most famous works for the koto and shakuhachi date from this time period.

Throughout the Edo Period, the development of commerce, the rise of the cities, and the pressure from foreign countries changed the environment in which the shoguns and daimyo ruled. In 1868, following the Boshin War, the shogunate collapsed, and a new

Seclusion

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Sakoku. Japan’s first treatise on Western anatomy, published in 1774, an example of Rangaku.During the early part of the 17th century, the shogunate suspected that the traders and missionaries were actually forerunners of a military conquest by European powers. This caused the shogunate to place foreigners under progressively tighter restrictions. It monopolized foreign policy, and expelled traders, missionaries, and foreigners, with the exception of the Dutch and the Chinese merchants restricted to the manmade island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay and several small trading outposts outside the country. However, during this period of isolation (sakoku) that began in 1641, Japan was much less cut off from the rest of the world than is commonly assumed, and some acquisition of western knowledge occurred under the Rangaku system.Russian encroachments from the north led the shogunate to extend direct rule to Hokkaidō, Sakhalin and the Kuriles in 1807 but the policy of exclusion continued.

End of seclusion

The following text needs to be harmonized with text in the article Late Tokugawa shogunate.(See e.g. Wikipedia:Summary style.)Main article: Late Tokugawa shogunate Landing of Commodore Perry, officers & men of the squadron, to meet the Imperial commissioners at Yoku-Hama (Yokohama?) July 14 1853. Lithograph by Sarony & Co., 1855, after W. Heine.This policy of isolation lasted for more than 200 years, until, on July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy with four warships: the Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna, steamed into the bay at Edo, old Tokyo, and displayed the threatening power of his ships’ cannon. He demanded that Japan open to trade with the West. These ships became known as the kurofune, the Black Ships.The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854, Perry returned with seven ships and forced the Shogun to sign the “Treaty of Peace and Amity,” establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. Within five years Japan had signed similar treaties with other western countries. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858. These treaties were widely regarded by Japanese intellectuals as unequal, having been forced on Japan through gunboat diplomacy, and as a sign of the West’s desire to incorporate Japan into the imperialism that had been taking hold of the rest of the Asian continent. Among other measures, they gave the Western nations unequivocal control of tariffs on imports and the right of extraterritoriality to all their visiting nationals. They would remain a sticking point in Japan’s relations with the West up to the turn of the century.

Meiji Restoration

Samurai of the Satsuma clan, during the Boshin War period. Photograph by Felice BeatoMain article: Meiji RestorationRenewed contact with the West precipitated profound alteration of Japanese society. The shogun resigned and soon after the Boshin War of 1868, the emperor was restored to power. The subsequent “Meiji Restoration” initiated many reforms. The feudal system was abolished, and numerous Western institutions were adopted, including a Western legal system and a quasi-parliamentary constitutional government, based on Great Britain’s Parliament, outlined in the Meiji Constitution. While many aspects of the Meiji Restoration were adopted directly from Western institutions, others, such as the dissolution of the feudal system and removal of the shogunate, were processes that had begun long before the arrival of Perry.Russian pressure from the north appeared again after Muraviev had gained Outer Manchuria at Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). This led to heavy Russian pressure on Sakhalin which the Japanese eventually yielded in exchange for the Kuril islands (1875). The Ryukyu Islands were similarly secured in 1879, establishing the borders within which Japan would “enter the World”. In 1898, the last of the “unequal treaties” with Western powers was removed, signalling Japan’s new status among the nations of the world. In a few decades, by reforming and modernizing social, educational, economic, military, political and industrial systems, the Emperor Meiji’s “controlled revolution” had transformed a feudal and isolated state into a world power.

Wars with China and Russia

Main article: Foreign relations of Meiji JapanJapanese intellectuals of the late-Meiji period espoused the concept of a “line of advantage,” an idea that would help to justify Japanese foreign policy at the turn of the century. According to this principle, embodied in the slogan fukoku kyōhei (富国強兵, fukoku kyōhei^?), Japan would be vulnerable to aggressive Western imperialism unless it extended a line of advantage beyond its borders which would help to repel foreign incursions and strengthen the Japanese economy. Emphasis was especially placed on Japan’s “preeminent interests” in the Korean Peninsula, once famously described as a “dagger pointed at the heart of Japan.” It was tensions over Korea and Manchuria, respectively, that led Japan to become involved in the first Sino-Japanese War with China in 1894-1895 and the Russo-Japanese War with Russia in 1904-1905.The war with China made Japan the world’s first Eastern, modern imperial power, and the war with Russia proved that a Western power could be defeated by an Eastern State. The aftermath of these two wars left Japan the dominant power in the Far East, with a sphere of influence extending over southern Manchuria and Korea, which was formally annexed as part of the Japanese Empire in 1910 (see below).For Japan and for the moment, it established the country’s dominant interest in Korea, while giving it the Pescadores Islands, Formosa (now Taiwan), and the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria, which was eventually retroceded in the “humiliating” Triple Intervention. Over the next decade, Japan would flaunt its growing prowess, including a very significant contribution to the Eight-Nation Alliance, formed to quell China’s Boxer Rebellion. Many Japanese, however, believed their new empire was still regarded as inferior by the Western powers, and they sought a means of cementing their international standing. This set the climate for growing tensions with Russia, who would continually intrude into Japan’s “line of advantage” during this time.

World War I to End of World War II

In a manner perhaps reminiscent of its participation in quelling the Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the century, Japan entered World War I and declared war on the Central Powers. Though Japan’s role in World War I was limited largely to attacking German colonial outposts in East Asia, it took advantage of the opportunity to expand its influence in Asia and its territorial holdings in the Pacific. Acting virtually independently of the civil government, the Japanese navy seized Germany’s Micronesian colonies. It also attacked and occupied the German coaling port of Qingdao in the Chinese Shandong peninsula. The post-war era brought Japan unprecedented prosperity. Japan went to the peace conference at Versailles in 1919 as one of the great military and industrial powers of the world and received official recognition as one of the “Big Five” of the new international order. It joined the League of Nations and received a mandate over Pacific islands north of the Equator formerly held by Germany. Japan was also involved in the post-war Allied intervention in Russia, occupying Russian (Outer) Manchuria and also north Sakhalin (with its rich oil reserves). It was the last Allied power to withdraw from the interventions against Soviet Russia (doing so in 1925).During the 1920s, Japan progressed toward a democratic system of government in a movement known as ‘Taishō Democracy’. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the late 1920s and 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential. These shifts in power were made possible by the ambiguity and imprecision of the Meiji Constitution, particularly its measure that the legislative body was answerable to the Emperor and not the people, and the February 26 Incident. Party politics came under increasing fire because it was believed they were divisive to the nation and promoted self-interest where unity was needed. As a result, the major parties voted to dissolve themselves and were absorbed into a single party, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA), which also absorbed many prefectural organizations such as women’s clubs and neighborhood associations. However, this umbrella organization did not have a cohesive political agenda and factional in-fighting persisted throughout its existence, meaning Japan did not devolve into a totalitarian state. The IRAA has been likened to a sponge, in that it can soak everything up, but there is little one could do with it afterwards. Its creation was precipitated by a series of domestic crises, including the advent of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the actions of extremists such as the members of the Cherry Blossom Society, who enacted the May 15 incident.

World War II

The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Yamato, the largest battleship in history, 1941.Under the pretense of the Manchurian Incident, Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara invaded Inner (Chinese) Manchuria in 1931, an action the Japanese government mandated with the creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Manchu emperor, Pu Yi. As a result of international condemnation of the incident, Japan resigned from the League of Nations in 1933. After several more similar incidents fueled by an expansionist military, the second Sino-Japanese War began in 1937 after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Japan allied with Germany and Italy, and formed the Axis Pact of September 27, 1940. Many Japanese, including Kanji, believed war with the West to be inevitable due to inherent cultural differences and the oppression of Western imperialism (Japanese imperialism, often just as brutal, was justified as “preparing” Asia for the upcoming confrontation). However, while Kanji took his action in the belief that his nation should focus on subduing Soviet Russia, tensions were mounting with the U.S. As a result of public outcry over Japanese aggression and reports of atrocities in China, such as the infamous Nanjing Massacre, the U.S. began an embargo on such goods as petroleum products and scrap iron in 1940. On July 25, 1941, all Japanese assets in the US were frozen. Because Japan’s military might, especially the Navy, was dependent on their dwindling oil reserves, this action had the contrary effect of increasing Japan’s dependence on and hunger for new acquisitions. Many civil leaders of Japan, including Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, believed a war with America would end in defeat, but felt the concessions demanded by the U.S. would almost certainly relegate Japan from the ranks of the World Powers, leaving it prey to Western collusion. They also believed that such a war would be brought to a close quickly, settled with negotiations. Civil leaders offered political compromises in the form of Hakko Ichiu and the Amau Doctrine, dubbed the “Japanese Monroe Doctrine” that would have given the Japanese free reign with regards to war with China. These offers were flatly rejected by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull; the military leaders instead vied for quick military action. However, there were dissenters in the ranks about the wisdom of that option, most notably Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku. He pointedly warned that at the beginning of hostilities with the US, he would have the advantage for six months, after which Japan’s defeat in a prolonged war would be almost certain. Planes from the Japanese aircraft carrier Shokaku preparing the attack on Pearl Harbor.The Americans were expecting an attack in the Philippines (and stationed troops appropriate to this conjecture), but on Yamamoto Isoroku’s advice, Japan made the decision to attack Pearl Harbor where it would make the most damage in the least amount of time. The United States believed that Japan would never be so bold as to attack so close to its home base (Hawaii had not yet gained statehood) and was taken completely by surprise. The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred December 7, 1941 (December 8 in Japan). However, the attack proved a long term strategic disaster that actually did relatively little lasting damage to the U.S. military and provoked the United States to retaliate with full commitment against Japan and its allies. At the same time as the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese army attacked colonial Hong Kong and occupied it for nearly four years.While Nazi Germany was in the middle of its Blitzkrieg through Europe, Japan was following suit in Asia. In addition to already having colonized Taiwan and Manchuria, the Japanese Army invaded and captured most of the coastal Chinese cities such as Shanghai, and had conquered French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), British Malaya (Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore) as well as the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) while Thailand got in a loose alliance with Japan. They had also conquered Burma (Myanmar) and reached the borders of India and Australia, conducting air raids on the port of Darwin, Australia. Japan had soon established an empire stretching over much of the Pacific.However, thanks in part to superior US intelligence, the Japanese Navy’s offensive ability was crippled on its defeat in the Battle of Midway at the hands of the American Navy which turned the tide against them. After almost 4 years of war resulting in the loss of 3 million Japanese lives, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the daily air raids on Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, the destruction of all other major cities (except Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura, for their historical importance), and finally the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan the day before the second atomic bomb was dropped, Japan signed an instrument of surrender on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2, 1945. Symbolically, the deck of the Missouri was furnished bare except for two American flags. One had flown over the White House on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. The other had flown the mast of Commodore Perry’s ship when he had sailed into that same harbor nearly a century before to urge the opening of Japan’s ports to foreign trade.As a result of its defeat at the end of World War II, Japan lost all of its overseas possessions and retained only the home islands. Manchukuo was dissolved, and Inner Manchuria was returned to the Republic of China; Japan renounced all claims to Formosa; Korea was taken under the control of the UN; southern Sakhalin and the Kuriles were occupied by the U.S.S.R.; and the United States became the sole administering authority of the Ryukyu, Bonin, and Volcano Islands. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, an international war crimes tribunal, sentenced seven Japanese military and government officials to death on November 12, 1948, including General Hideki Tōjō, for their roles in the war.The 1972 reversion of Okinawa completed the United States’ return of control of these islands to Japan. Japan continues to protest for the corresponding return of the Kuril Islands (Northern territory or ‘Hoppou Ryoudo’) from Russia.Defeat came for a number of reasons. The most important is probably Japan’s underestimation of the industro-military capabilities of the U.S. The U.S. recovered from its initial setback at Pearl Harbor much quicker than the Japanese expected, and their sudden counterattack came as a blow to Japanese morale. U.S. output of military products also skyrocketed past Japanese counterparts over the course of the war. Another reason was factional in-fighting between the Army and Navy, which led to poor intelligence and cooperation. This was compounded as the Japanese forces found they had overextended themselves, leaving Japan itself vulnerable to attack. Another important factor is Japan’s underestimation of resistance in China, which Japan claimed would be conquered in three months. The prolonged war was both militarily and economically disastrous for Japan.

Occupied Japan

General MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito.Main article: Occupied JapanAfter the war, Japan was placed under international control of the Allies through the Supreme Commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Entering the Cold War with the Korean War, Japan came to be seen as an important ally of the US government. Political, economic, and social reforms were introduced, such as an elected Japanese Diet (legislature) and expanded suffrage. The country’s constitution took effect on May 3, 1947. The United States and 45 other Allied nations signed the Treaty of Peace with Japan in September 1951. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty in March 20, 1952, and under the terms of the treaty, Japan regained full sovereignty on April 28, 1952.

Post-Occupation Japan

Main article: Post-Occupation JapanFrom the 1950s to the 1980s, Japan’s history consists mainly of its rapid development into a first-rank economic power, through a process often referred to as the “economic miracle”. The post-war settlement transformed Japan into a genuine constitutional party democracy, but, extraordinarily, it was ruled by a single party throughout the period of the “miracle”. This strength and stability allowed the government considerable freedom to oversee economic development in the long term. Through extensive state investment and guidance, and with a kick-start provided by technology transfer from the U.S.A. and Europe, Japan rapidly rebuilt its heavy industrial sector (almost destroyed during the war). Given a massive boost by the Korean War, in which it acted as a major supplier to the UN force, Japan’s economy embarked on a prolonged period of extremely rapid growth, led by the manufacturing sectors. Japan emerged as a significant power in many economic spheres, including steel working, car manufacture and the manufacture of electronic goods.It is usually argued that this was achieved through innovation in the areas of labour relations and manufacturing automation (Japan pioneered the use of robotics in manufacturing). Throughout this period its annual GNP growth was over twice that of its nearest competitor, the U.S.A. By the 1980s, Japan – despite its small size – had the world’s second largest economy, after the U.S.A. These developments had a marked effect on its relations with the U.S.A., the foreign nation with which it had the closest links. The U.S.A. initially heavily encouraged Japan’s development, seeing a strong Japan as a necessary counterbalance to Communist China.By the 1980s, the sheer strength of the Japanese economy had become a sticking point. The U.S.A. had a massive trade deficit with Japan – that is, it imported substantially more from Japan than it exported to it. This deficit became a scapegoat for American economic weakness, and relations between the two cooled substantially. There was particular friction over the issue of Japanese car exports, as Japanese cars by this point accounted for over 30% of the American market. The U.S.A. also criticised the closed nature of the Japanese economy, which was marked by heavy tariff protection which made entry into the Japanese market difficult for foreign firms. Japan throughout the 1980s and 1990s embarked on a process of economic liberalisation aimed at appeasing American criticism. The car issue was dealt with through a series of “voluntary” restrictions on Japanese exports and by making factories in America.

The ‘Lost Decade’

The economic miracle ended abruptly at the very start of the 1990s. In the late 1980s, abnormalities within the Japanese economic system had fueled a massive wave of speculation by Japanese companies, banks and securities companies. Briefly, a combination of incredibly high land values and incredibly low interest rates led to a position in which credit was both easily available and extremely cheap.This led to massive borrowing, the proceeds of which were invested mostly in domestic and foreign stocks and securities. Recognising that this bubble was unsustainable, resting, as it did, on unrealisable land values—the loans were ultimately secured on land holdings, the Ministry of Finance sharply raised interest rates.This “popped the bubble” in spectacular fashion, leading to a major crash in the stock market. It also led to a debt crisis; a large proportion of the huge debts that had been run up turned bad, which in turn led to a crisis in the banking sector, with many banks having to be bailed out by the government. Eventually, many became unsustainable, and a wave of consolidation took place, and as such there are now only four national banks in Japan.Critically for the long-term economic situation, it meant many Japanese firms were lumbered with massive debts, affecting their ability for capital investment. It also meant credit became very difficult to obtain, due to the beleaguered situation of the banks; even now the official interest rate is at 0% and has been for several years. Despite this, credit is still difficult to obtain.Overall, this has led to the phenomenon known as the “lost decade”; economic expansion effectively came to a total halt in Japan during the 1990s. The effect on everyday life has been rather muted, however.Unemployment ran reasonably high, but not at crisis levels. Rather than suffer large scale unemployment and layoffs, Japan’s labor market suffered in more subtle, yet no less profound effects that were none-the-less difficult to gauge statistically. During the prosperous times, jobs were seen as long term the point of being life long. In contrast, Japan during the lost decade saw a marked increase in temporary and part time work which only promised employment for short periods and marginal benefits. This also created a generational gap, as those who had entered the labor market prior to the lost decade usually retained their employment and benefits, and were effectively insulated from the economic slowdown, whereas younger workers who entered the market a few years later suffered the brunt of its effects. The official figure is a little under 5%, but this is a considerable underestimate — the actual situation would probably be around 10%.This has combined with the traditional Japanese emphasis on frugality and saving (saving money is a cultural habit in Japan) to produce a quite limited effect on the average Japanese family, which continues much as it did in the period of the miracle.

Political life

Since the end of American rule in 1952, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been the largest political party. While various scandals have plagued the party, the LDP has been in power almost constantly since 1955, when it was created with the merging of Japan’s Liberal and Democratic conservative parties. Only in 1993 did Japan come under reformist rule for a year. Today, the Liberal Democratic Party continues to dominate Japanese politics, though the opposition, led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) seems to be gaining stronger influence in the Diet.Today, the government is led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, beginning in 2006. Recently, the government was led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, holding office 2001 to 2006, who is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. He made a radical change when allowed for members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (the modern day antecedent of the Imperial Army) to be sent to Iraq. The ruling coalition was formed by the conservative LDP and also the New Clean Government Party, a conservative yet theocratic Buddhist political party affiliated with the Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai. The opposition was formed by the Democratic Party, as well as the moderate yet staunchly communist Japanese Communist Party, and the somewhat social-democratic Social Democratic Party (Japan), formerly the Japan Socialist Party.Minor political parties included the conservative Liberal League, as well as the Midori no kaigi, an ecologist-reformist party formerly known as the Sakigake Party, and before that, the New Party Sakigake.

Modern Life (Heisei Era)

Headquarters of Tokyo Metropolitan Government was buit in 1991Main article: Heisei1989 marked one of the most rapid economic growth spurts in Japanese history. With a strong yen and a favorable exchange rate with the dollar, the Bank of Japan kept interest rates low, sparking an investment boom that drove Tokyo property values up sixty percent within the year. Shortly before New Year’s Day, the Nikkei 225 reached its record high of 39,000. By 1991, it had fallen to 15,000, signifying the end of Japan’s famed “bubble economy.”The Recruit Scandal of 1988 had already eroded public confidence in the Liberal Democratic Party, which had controlled the Japanese government for 38 years. In 1993, the LDP was ousted by a coalition led by Morihiro Hosokawa. However, the coalition collapsed as parties had gathered to simply overthrow LDP and lacked an unified position on almost every social issue. The LDP returned to the government in 1996, when it helped to elect Social Democrat Tomiichi Murayama as prime minister.In 1991 Headquarters of Tokyo Metropolitan Government was built. Some people used to call this building “Tax Tower” or “Tower of Bubble” (because it was built during the bubble economy.)In 1993 the Okushiri tsunami occurred off the coast of Hokkaidō as a result of an earthquake on July 12. As a result, 202 people on the small island of Okushiri lost their lives, and hundreds more were missing or injured.In 1995, there was a large earthquake in Kobe. The same year, there was a sarin gas terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway system by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo (see Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway).The Heisei period also marked Japan’s reemergence in military. In 1991, Japan pledged billions of dollars in support of Operation Desert Storm, but constitutional arguments prevented a participation in or support of actual war. Minesweepers were sent in after the war as a part of the reconstruction effort. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Cabinet approved a plan to send about 1,000 soldiers of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to help in Iraq’s reconstruction, the biggest overseas troop deployment since World War II without the sanction of the United Nations. These troops were deployed in 2004.On October 23, 2004, the Heisei 16 Niigata Prefecture earthquakes (magnitude 6.9) rocked the Hokuriku region, killing 32 and injuring hundreds.

Periodization

One commonly accepted periodization of Japanese History:

Japanese era names

Main article: Japanese era nameEra Name (Nengō) in Japan (after Meiji)Nengō are commonly used in Japan as an alternative to the Gregorian calendar. For example, in censuses, birthdays are written using Nengō. Dates of newspapers and official documents are also written using Nengō. Nengō are changed upon the enthronement of each new Emperor of Japan (Tennō). Meiji ( 1858 – 1912) Taishō ( 1912 – 1925) Showa ( 1925 (December 25) – 1989 (January 6) ) Heisei ( 1989 (January 7) – present) For Example : 1945 was the 20th year of Shōwa. 2005 was the 17th year of Heisei. 1989 was the 55th year of Shōwa through January 6, but on January 7, it became the 1st year(Gan-nen) of Heisei. Before World War II ended, Imperial era (Kōki) is also used in common that the year of enthronement of first emperor (Jimmu-Tennō) is defined as First Year. (= 660 BC)

History of Norway

Etymology
Modern etymologists believe the country’s name means “the northward route” (the way north), which in Old Norse would be nor veg or *norð vegr. The Old Norse name for Norway was Nóregr, in Anglo-Saxon Norþ weg, and in mediaeval Latin Northvegia. The present name of the Kingdom of Norway in Norwegian Nynorsk is “Kongeriket Noreg”, which is only a couple of letters removed from the original “northern way”; “Nor(d)-(v)eg”.
Earliest times 10 000 BC -
Recent archaeological finds (2005) suggest that hunters from the south – most likely the Hamburg culture – in summer time could travel far north along the Norwegian coast line as early as the start of Holocene, 12 000 years ago, when the icecap was still on the highland. Temporary settlements and traces of tipis have been found as far north as the Alta region. Bremsnes-hulen, a cave near Kristiansund and Fosna north of Trondheim are the earliest sites. The clue to travel the coastal tundra dryshod was the sea level being 50 m lower than today.
Settled since the end of the last ice age, modern-day Scandinavia contains finds from the Stone age and Bronze age, such as rock carvings. From the time of the Roman Empire until about 800 AD, Scandinavia is known for its Iron Age culture. Many stone inscriptions can be found, written in Runes. Then Scandinavia became famous in the Middle Ages for its raiders, explorers, settlers and traders, the Vikings. Between AD 800 and AD 1100, the Vikings discovered and settled Iceland and Greenland, and conquered parts of Britain and Ireland, and were also known to travel as far as Constantinople, Greece, Northern Africa and Newfoundland. By using their excellent boats and organisation they became master traders and warriors.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, several history works, known as the kings’ sagas were written in Norway and Iceland, the best known of which is Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla (c. 1220). These provide our main sources for the early history of Norway. However, their accuracy for the earliest period is uncertain, and a much debated topic among modern historians. The stories about the earliest times are partly legendary in nature, and are not taken as accurate history by modern historians.
The Viking kings
See also: Viking Age
By the time of the first historical records of Scandinavia, about the 700s AD, Norway was divided into many petty kingdoms [citation needed]. A number of small communities were gradually organised into regions of larger stature in the 9th century, and in 872 King Harald Fairhair unified the realm and became its first supreme ruler. King Harald had many children, and his heirs ruled Norway with short interruptions until 1319. Religious influence from Europe (especially England and Ireland) led to the adoption of Christianity. Central in this was King Olav Haraldsson (“The Holy”) who died in the Battle of Stiklestad on July 29, 1030. He became Norway’s patron Saint Olav, and his tomb at Nidaros cathedral Trondheim became the most important pilgrimage destination in Northern Europe. The archdiocese of Nidaros was established in 1153. Between 1130 and 1240 Norway underwent a period known as the civil war era. Around 1200, the Norwegian king ruled over land from Man in the Irish Sea to the Kola Peninsula in the east. Greenland and Iceland were incorporated as dependencies in 1262.
The Kalmar Union and the union with Denmark
After the Black Death Norway entered into a period of decline. The Royal line died out and the country entered into two unequal unions from 1396 until 1814; this period was called “the 400-year-night” by Henrik Ibsen during the national romantic period as Norwegian national awareness was rediscovered in the 19th century. It can be broken into two main periods:
• The union of all Scandinavia referred to as the Kalmar Union, and
• The Danish Period or Union with Denmark.
The Kalmar Union (1396–1536)
Main article: Kalmar Union
King Haakon V died without male heirs in 1319. His daughter married a Swedish prince, whose son Magnus Eriksson inherited both kingdoms. Magnus’s son Haakon VI and his infant son Olav IV were Norway’s last native kings until Harald V ascended to the throne in 1991. Margrethe, the queen mother, succeeded in uniting Norway with Denmark and Sweden in the Kalmar Union (1397–1523), which ended after 180 years when Sweden seceded in 1536. Norway’s power was weakened during this period by the loss of a large part of the population during the Black Death pandemic of 1349–1351.
The Union with Denmark (1536–1814)
Main article: Denmark-Norway
The elite in Norway was so weakened that it was not able to resist the pressures from the Danes. More and more decisions were taken in Kopenhagen and the Norwegian Riksråd was eventually disbanded. The Danish crown was represented by a governor styled Statholder, but it was always important for the King to maintain Norway’s legal status as a separate hereditary kingdom. The Danish period can be separated into subperiods:
• The Reformation in Norway (1536–1596): Norway’s power was further weakened by the dissolution of the independent Norwegian church in the reformation of 1537.
• The Northern Wars (1596–1720): A period of virtually continual war and preparation for war, including the Kalmar War (1611–1613), the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), the Northern War (1655–1658), the Gyldenløve War (1675–1679) and culminating in the Great Northern War (1700–1721).
• The Period of Peace and Economic Growth (1721–1770): During the 18th century, Norway enjoyed a period of great prosperity and became an increasingly important part of the united kingdoms.
• National Reawakening and Preparation for Independence (1770–1814): This period was built on the strong natural independence of the Norwegian farm culture, combined with awareness of the American Revolution (1775–1783) and the French Revolution (1789–1799), building the natural national assertiveness, and culminating in the constitutional convention of 1814.
Union with Sweden
Main article: Union between Sweden and Norway

Constitution Day celebration march in Narvik, 2005.
In 1814 Denmark-Norway was defeated in the Napoleonic wars and the king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel (January 14). Owing to an omission in the treaty, the Norwegian dependencies Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands were kept by Denmark. In an attempt to retain control over Norway despite the treaty, the Viceroy and hereditary prince of Denmark-Norway encouraged representatives of various social and political factions to gather at Eidsvoll to declare independence, adopt a constitution and elect hereditary prince Christian Frederik as king. May 17 is still celebrated as the day of the new democratic constitution of independent Norway. Sweden responded later the same year by waging war on Norway. In the peace negotiations, Christian Frederik agreed to relinquish claims to the Norwegian throne and return to Denmark if Sweden would accept the democratic Norwegian constitution and a loose personal union. The Norwegian parliament (Stortinget) then elected the Swedish king as king of Norway on November 4, 1814. The Swedish crown was represented by a governor-general styled Stattholder, often noble, repeatedly even the Crown Prince (then called Viceroy).
The union was peacefully dissolved in 1905 after several years of political unrest when Sweden recognised Norwegian independence. The parliament offered the throne to Prince Carl of Denmark, who accepted it after a referendum confirmed the monarchy and rejected a republican form of government. On November 18 he ascended the throne under the Norwegian name of Haakon VII.
See: Dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905
Independent Monarchy
Norway’s kings (Norges Konge is the official style) in modern times, with periods of reign, are:
• Haakon VII (1905-1957)
• Olav V (1957-1991)
• Harald V (1991-present)
Norway in World War I
Norway remained neutral during World War I. However, 1,892 Norwegian sailors were lost during the U-boat war. Despite their neutrality, the Norwegian government went to considerable lengths to accommodate Britain, on account of both British pressure and an anti-German sentiment. These accommodations came in the form of the very large Norwegian merchant fleet, who delivered essential supplies to Britain, who in return supplied Norway with vital coal. This led to Norway occasionally being called The Neutral Ally.
Norway in World War II
Main Article: Occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany
See also: Norwegian Campaign, Norwegian resistance movement, and Legal purge in Norway after World War II
As World War II erupted, Norway insisted on remaining neutral despite warnings from some political factions that the country’s strategic importance was too great for Nazi Germany to leave it alone, and attempts from the same factions to obtain political consensus to build up sufficient defences to withstand an invasion long enough for Allied reinforcements to arrive from France and Britain, (the specially raised British Independent Companies, who were the immediate forerunners of the Commandos).
In a surprise dawn attack on April 9, 1940, Germany launched Operation Weserübung. The German forces attacked Oslo and the major Norwegian ports (Bergen, Trondheim, Kristiansand and Narvik) and quickly gained footholds in those cities and the surrounding areas. The Norwegian Army, manning a fort in the Oslofjord, sank the German cruiser Blücher using cannons and torpedoes. This delayed the Nazi German invasion long enough for King Haakon, his government and the parliament to escape the city with much of the treasury, and to resist the invaders. Despite the strength of the German invaders and the lack of air support, the Norwegian armed forces, together with allied British, French and Polish forces, kept up an organized military resistance for two months, longer than any other country invaded by Germany, except for the Soviet Union. Eventually, on June 7 the Norwegian forces had to surrender and King and government left Norway to form a government in exile in London. Many servicemen, and civilians who would join them, also escaped to Britain where they served invaluably with the British Forces and the Special Operations Executive (SOE).
The Norwegian national socialist politician Vidkun Quisling attempted a coup the same day, but was met with such strong resistance from the people that Nazi Germany deposed him within a week and installed a bureaucratic administration in lieu of a government. In September of 1940 the German Reichskommissar Josef Terboven formed a cabinet with himself presiding, and with most ministers recruited among members of Quisling’s Nazi party, plus some independent collaborators. In 1942 this administration was replaced with a semi-independent puppet government headed by Quisling, who was promoted to “minister president” by the Reichskommissar. Quisling’s name has come to mean “traitor” in several languages.
King Haakon and his government fled to Britain on June 7th, the same day the allied forces that had retaken Narvik abandoned it and the French forces returned to a quickly disintegrating France. The continued existence of a legitimate Norwegian government gave the exiles considerably more room for action than the French. The worldwide operations of the large Norwegian merchant fleet was a material aid to the Allies.
The Norwegian resistance movement began on a small scale right after the invasion, but gained in strength, especially after the installation of Quisling’s puppet government in late 1940 and its attempt to enforce the native brand of fascism (see the next paragraph), and to enroll labour, teachers and officials in its organizations (for an anecdote of Norwegian civil resistance, see paper clip).
The resistance became very active towards the end of the war, closely and continuously supported by the British SOE. Norwegian resistance, (generally termed the ‘Home Front’), and its military branch (milorg) kept many German divisions tied down in occupation duty, and Norwegian spotters contributed to the destruction of numerous German warships and installations. The Norwegian resistance also smuggled people in and out of Norway during the war, (typically to Scotland via the ‘Shetland Bus’, and to neutral Sweden), and, with the SOE, managed to destroy much of the world’s supply of heavy water and cripple the Vemork heavy water plant at Rjukan, thus perhaps preventing Germany from developing an atomic bomb (Operation Gunnerside).
Not all Norwegians sided with the legitimate government in exile. Some became members of Quisling’s National Socialist party (Nasjonal Samling – NS), some out of misguided idealism. Numerous opportunists joined his movement initially, while Germany seemed to be winning the war. Several thousand young Norwegians joined German Waffen-SS divisions to fight against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
Following the 1941 raid by British Commandos on the minor port of Vaagsoy, Hitler further reinforced Norway, mistakenly thinking that the British might invade northern Norway to put pressure on Sweden and Finland. By the end of the war the German garrison was 372,000 strong (the Norwegian population at the time numbering a little over 3 million)[1]. In May of 1945 when the milorg was advised they no longer need act covertly, they were found to number some 50,000 members.
During the entire occupation, the German authorities built the so called Festung Norwegen. Innumerable bunkers, pillboxes, air strips and submarine hangars dotted the coast to fend off any invaders. Coupled with the large number of German soldiers in Norway, the Allies (especially the Norwegian government in exile) were worried that the remnants of the Nazi party would flee to Norway and make their last stand there. They could probably have held out for months, which would have devastated Norway. Fortunately, the Wehrmacht commander Böhme saw that resistance was futile, and surrendered on the order of Hitler’s successor Dönitz on the May 8.
The Norwegian merchant ships that were in Allied waters at the time of invasion were requisitioned by the exiled Norwegian Government in London. The Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission was established in London shortly thereafter, and the name abbreviated to Nortraship, following a suggestion from the British Postal Services. The main duties were those of war transports, supply services etc. including the supply of food, ammunition and reinforcements to the front lines, besides evacuating the wounded. Nortraship had 1,081 ships with 33,000 sailors. 570 ships were lost (these numbers vary according to source), along with 3,734 sailors.
By the end of the war, Norwegian naval vessels were also fighting alongside the British. Norway was counted among the victors in World War II and was a founding member of the United Nations. The first UN Secretary General, Trygve Lie, was a Norwegian.
A side effect of the large German garrison was the birth of up to 12,000 children born to Norwegian women and German soldiers. Most of these women suffered recriminations after the war, as did their children, who were called “German children” or “Nazi children”. Many of these children were abused throughout their childhood, some were sexually abused.[1] [2] Norwegians who publicly regretted instances of maltreatment were occasionally accused of being too conciliatory.
After the liberation, active members of the National Socialist party and those who had collaborated with the enemy were prosecuted and sentenced. Twenty-five Norwegians, including Quisling, were executed for treason and/or war crimes, and 12 Germans were executed for war crimes.
After the war the Norwegian government forced German prisoners of war to clear minefields. When the clearing ended in September 1946, 392 of them had been injured and 275 had been killed. Meanwhile only 2 Norwegians and 4 British mine-clearers had sustained any injuries. Many of the Germans were killed through their British guards’ habit of chasing them criss-cross over a cleared field to ensure that no mines remained. The Geneva Convention, Relative to the treatment of prisoners of war which states that it is forbidden to use prisoners for harmful or dangerous labor proved to be of no value as it was circumvented by the Norwegians claim that the German prisoners were Disarmed Enemy Forces.[3]
Post-war Foreign and military policy
See main articles on Foreign relations of Norway, Military of Norway, and Norway and the European Union
In 1949 Norway became a member of NATO. The discovery of oil and gas in adjacent waters in the late 1960s boosted Norway’s economic fortunes. The current focus is on containing spending on the extensive welfare system and planning for the time when petroleum reserves are depleted. In referenda held in 1972 and on November 28, 1994, Norway rejected joining the European Union, though it remains associated with it through being part of the wider European Economic Area.
Militarily, while Norway and Britain both maintain independent forces, some common defence policies evolved as well as certain integration of training and deployment of both nations’ Special Forces.
Post-war Economic development
Post-war Social policy
Norway has advanced in its standard of living beyond many of its European counterparts, in large part to its affluent economy. As a result, for the last several years the United Nations has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. This ranking compares nations’ level of education and income, combined with expected length of life.
Norway also ranked 2nd in a study conducted by World Economic Forum on the gender gap in 58 nations based on measuring the level of equality with men in five areas: Economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, and health and well-being.[2] [3]

History of Brunei

Early history
Historians believe that there was a forerunner to the present day Brunei Sultanate. One possible predecessor state was called Vijayapura, which possibly existed in northwest Borneo in the seventh century A.D.[1] It was probably a subject state of the powerful Srivijaya empire based in Sumatra. Another possible predecessor state was called Po-ni. Chinese and Arabic records indicate that this trading kingdom existed at the mouth of the Brunei River as early as the seventh or eighth century A.D. By the tenth century Po-ni had a close mercantile relationship with first the Song and later the Ming Dynasty and at some point even entered into a tributary relationship with China. By the fourteenth century Po-ni also fell under the influence of the Javanese Majapahit Empire, but this may have been nothing more than a symbolic relationship, as one account of the annual tribute owed each year to Majapahit was a jar of areca juice obtained from the young green nuts of the areca palm. The relationship with mainland China nevertheless continued, culminating in 1408, when the Po-ni ruler Kala visited China and died there. Around the same time the Chinese admiral Zheng He visited the region and found a large trading port with numerous Chinese traders carrying on business with the mainland. In 1424 the Hongxi Emperor ended China’s maritime program, and the mainland’s relationship with Po-li effectively ended.
Song historians and archaeological evidence suggest that Po-ni was heavily influenced by Hindu civilization, as transmitted by Hindu culture in Java and Sumatra, and not directly from India. The system of writing used was a Hindu script, and discovered artifacts include elephants, bulls, and yonis. There was also a heavy Chinese influence, with Chinese coins dating from as early as the seventh century being found in present-day Brunei.
Conversion to Islam and “Golden Age”
The latter history of Po-li, or Brunei, remains somewhat obscure. By the middle of the fifteenth century the state had entered into a close relationship with the Muslim kingdom of Malacca. This era also saw the origin of the ruling dynasty, which continues to this day. According to the Syair Awang Semaun, Brunei’s national epic poem, the present-day sultanate originated when Dewa Emas Kayangan descended to earth from heaven in an egg. He had children with a number of aboriginal maidens, and one of these children converted to Islam and became the first sultan. However, the state continued to be multicultural. The second sultan was either Chinese or married a Chinese woman. The third sultan was Arabic, said to be a direct descendant of Muhammed.
The sultanate oversaw a gradual expansion of the state’s influence and borders. This was accelerated with the conquest of Malacca by the Portuguese in 1511. Brunei benefited from the scattering of Muslim merchants and traders who were forced to use other ports. These merchants probably also helped to speed the conversion of the general population to Islam.
The sultanate was a thalassocracy, a realm based more on controlling trade than land. Situated in a strategic location between China and the trading networks of southeast Asia, the state served as an entrepot and collected tolls on water traffic. The society was hierarchical, with the sultan serving as despot. His powers were limited, however, by a council of princes of royal blood. One of the council’s duties was to arrange for royal succession.
The reign of the fifth sultan, Bolkiah, is often marked as Brunei’s “Golden age”. The sultanate’s control extended over the coastal regions of modern-day Sarawak and Sabah, the Sulu archipelago, and the islands off the northwest tip of Borneo. The sultanate’s influence also spread north into the Philippines, where colonies were planted in Manila Bay. The sultan also visited Java and Malacca. At the end of Bolkiah’s reign, in 1521, the first Europeans visited Brunei when Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition arrived at the port. Antonio Pigafetta, a navigator on the trip, described an amazing city. The Europeans rode to visit the sultan on top of “elephants, caparisoned in silk-cloth”. The inhabitants of the palace “had their loins covered with gold-embroidered cloth and silk, wore poniards with golden hilts, ornamented with pearls and precious stones, and had many rings on their fingers”. The visitors were fed meals on porcelain plateware.
Pigafetta described a city of 25 000 families living in wooden houses built on stilts to raise them above the water. During high tides women would ride in boats selling merchandise. The sultan’s palace was surrounded by brick ramparts and protected by numerous brass and iron cannons.
This prosperous era continued through the reign of the ninth sultan, Hassan, who is credited with developing an elaborate Royal Court structure, elements of which remain today.
Relations with Europeans
Brunei’s relations varied with the different European powers in the region. The Portuguese, for the most part, were more interested in economic and trading relations with the regional powers and did little to interfere with Brunei’s development. This does not mean that relations were always cordial, such as in 1536 when the Portuguese attacked the Muslims in the Moluccas and the ambassador to the Brunei court had to leave because of the sultan’s hostility. The Portuguese also noted that the sultanate was heavily involved in the region’s politics and wars, and that Brunei merchants could be found in Ligor and Siam.
Relations with the Spanish were far more hostile. From 1565 on, Spanish and Brunei forces engaged in a number of naval skirmishes, and in 1571 the Spanish succeeded in capturing Manila from the Brunei aristocracy that had been established there. Brunei raised several large fleets with the intention of recapturing the city, but the campaigns, for various reasons, never launched.[2] In 1578, the Spanish took Sulu and late in the year attacked and captured Brunei itself, after demanding that the sultan cease sending missionaries to the Philippines and, in turn, allow Christian missionaries to visit his kingdom. The invaders were forced to withdraw because of sickness. The short term damage to the sultanate was minimal, as Sulu was recaptured soon after.
The long term effects of regional changes could not be avoided. After Sultan Hassan, Brunei entered a period of decline, due to internal battles over royal succession as well as the rising influences of European colonial powers in the region, that, among other things, disrupted traditional trading patterns, destroying the economic base of Brunei and many other Southeast Asian sultanates.
In 1839, the English adventurer James Brooke arrived in Borneo and helped the Sultan put down a rebellion. As a reward, he became governor and later “White Rajah” of Sarawak in northwest Borneo and gradually expanded the territory under his control. Brooke never gained control of Brunei; though he did attempt to. He asked the British to check whether or not it would be acceptable for him to claim Brunei as his own, however, they came back with bad news; although Brunei was poorly run, it had a definite sense of national identity and could therefore not be absorbed by Brooke.
Modern history
In 1959, a new constitution was written declaring Brunei a self-governing state, while its foreign affairs, security, and defence remained the responsibility of the United Kingdom, now represented by a High Commissioner. An attempt in 1962 to introduce a partially elected legislative body with limited powers was abandoned after the opposition political party, Parti Rakyat Brunei, launched an armed uprising, which the government put down with the help of British forces. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the government also resisted pressures to join neighbouring Sabah and Sarawak in the newly formed Malaysia. The Sultan eventually decided that Brunei would remain a separate state.
In 1967, Omar Ali Saifuddin abdicated in favour of his eldest son, Hassanal Bolkiah, who became the 29th ruler. The former Sultan remained as Defence Minister and assumed the royal title Seri Begawan. In 1970, the national capital, Brunei Town, was renamed Bandar Seri Begawan in his honour. The Seri Begawan died in 1986.
On January 4, 1979, Brunei and the United Kingdom signed a new treaty of friendship and cooperation. On January 1, 1984, Brunei Darussalam became a fully independent state.
References
Primary source
• The Philippine Islands: Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and their People, their History and Records of the Catholics Missions, as related in contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts. Vol. IV-1576-1582. Eds. Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson. Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1903.
Secondary sources
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Ongkili, James P. “Ancient Chinese Trading Links.” East Malaysia and Brunei. Ed. Wendy Hutton. Tuttle Publishing, 2001.
• Saunders, Graham. A History of Brunei. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002.
• Wright, Leigh. “Brunei: An Historical Relic.” Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol. 17 (1977).

History of Taiwan

Taiwan (including the Pescadores) was first populated by Austronesian peoples. It was colonised by the Dutch in the 17th century, when influx of Han from the continent across the Taiwan Strait took place. The Spanish later settled in the North for a brief period, but were driven out by the Dutch. In 1662, it became a base for Koxinga, a Ming loyalist. It was defeated by the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty of China in 1683. The Qing Dynasty was forced to cede the island to Japan in 1895 after the 1st Sino-Japanese War. Then Japan was forced to renounce control to Taiwan in 1945 after Japanese defeat in the 2nd World War. In 1949, after losing the Chinese mainland as a result of the Chinese civil war, the ROC government under the Kuomintang (KMT) withdrew to Taipei. KMT had been the seat of the government of the ROC until the presidential election in 2000, when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian was elected president of Taiwan, becoming the first non-KMT member to assume the executive office since 1945. Chen was elected again in the 2004 election and currently serves as Taiwan’s president.

Prehistoric Settlement

The Puyuma’s Moon-shape Monolith ca. 1896
Taiwan is estimated by anthropologists to have been populated for approximately 30,000 years. Little is known about the original inhabitants, but distinctive jadeware, and corded pottery of the Changpin, Puyuma and Tapenkeng (Dapenkeng) cultures show a marked diversity in the island’s early inhabitants. Today’s Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples are classified as belonging to the Austronesian ethno-linguistic group of people, a linguistic group that stretches as far west as Madagascar, to Easter Island in the east and to New Zealand in the south with Taiwan as the northern most point. Austronesian culture on Taiwan begins about 4,000 B.C.
Early history
Several entries that may refer to Taiwan appear in Chinese historical records, but otherwise no records exist of Taiwan in the early period. Between 607 and 610, some generals of Sui Dynasty embarked on several military operations on Liuqiu (流求國), described in the Book of Sui (《隋書流求傳》). Many scholars think that the Liuqiu of the Sui Dynasty was what is the island of Taiwan. In 1292, Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty tried to force minorities in Yizhou (夷州) to pay tribute. Between 1335 and 1340, Wang Dayuan (汪大渊) wrote a book (《岛夷志略》) which describes Liuqiu (琉求) after he had visited it. In 1375, the Ming Dynasty dispatched a delegation to the now Ryūkyū Islands. Thereafter the Han referred to the Ryūkyū Islands as “Liuqiu” (琉球) and an island south of the Ryūkyū Islands as “little Liuqiu” (小琉球), which may be the island of Taiwan. Between 1403 and 1424, the great fleet of Ming Dynasty’s admiral Zheng He possibly visited Taiwan. None of these records were definite (the earlier records being set in mythical or legendary contexts), and it was not certain that the island(s) referred to is indeed Taiwan (Teng;2004, pp. 33-49). Permanent Han settlement on Penghu began in the 1100s but the same on the main island of Taiwan did not take place until several centuries later (Shepherd;1993, pp.1-8).
Despite Taiwan being rumored as the fabled “Island of Dogs,” “Island of Women,” or any of the other fabled island thought, by Han literati, to lie beyond the seas, Taiwan was officially regarded by Qing Emperor Kangxi as “a ball of mud beyond the pale of civilization” and did not appear on any map of the imperial domain until 1683 (Teng;2004, pp. 34-59). The act of presenting a map to the emperor was equal to presenting the lands of the empire. It took several more years before the Qing court would recognize Taiwan as part of the Qing realm. Prior to the Qing Dynasty, the Middle Kingdom was conceived as a land bound by mountains, rivers and seas. The idea of an island as a part of the Middle Kingdom was unfathomable to the Han prior to the Qing frontier expansion effort of the 17th Century (Teng;2004:pp 34-49, 177-179) The presence of the Great Wall demonstrates some earlier concepts of “China’s” borders in relation to the PRC’s current holdings and claims (Millward;1998, pp 36-38). The “suspicious history” of Taiwan is often cited by Chinese nationalists to support their claim that “Taiwan has belonged to China since antiquity”. Supporters of Taiwan Independence do not regard these claims as valid.
Dutch and Spanish rule
Main article: Taiwan under Dutch rule
Portuguese sailors, passing Taiwan in 1544, first jotted in a ship’s log the name of the island “Ilha Formosa”, meaning Beautiful Island. In 1582 the survivors of a Portuguese shipwreck spent ten weeks battling malaria and aborigines before returning to Macau on a raft.
Dutch traders, in search of an Asian base first arrived on the island at the request of the Ming court in 1623 to use the island as a base for Dutch commerce with Japan and the coastal areas of China. The Spanish and allies established a settlement at Santissima Trinidad, building Fort San Salvador on the northwest coast of Taiwan near Keelung in 1626 which they occupied until 1642 when they were driven out by a joint Dutch-Aborigine invasion force. They also built a fort in Tamsui (1628) but already abandoned it in 1638. The Dutch later built Fort Anthonio here (1642), which still stands (now part of the Fort San Domingo museum complex).

The Island Formosa and the Pescadores/ Johannes Vingboons/ ca.1640/ Nationaal Archief, Den Haag
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) administered the island and its predominantly aboriginal population until 1662, setting up a tax system, schools to teach romanized script of aboriginal languages and evangelizing. Although its control was mainly limited to the western plain of the island, the Dutch systems were adopted by succeeding occupiers. The first influx of migrants from coastal Fujian came during the Dutch period, in which merchants and traders from the Chinese coast sought to purchase hunting licenses from the Dutch or hide out in aboriginal villages to escape the Qing authorities. Most of the immigrants were young single males who were discouraged from staying on the island often referred to by Han as “The Gate of Hell” for its reputation in taking the lives of sailors and explorers.
The Dutch originally sought to use their castle Zeelandia at Tayowan as a trading base between Japan and China, but soon realized the potential of the huge deer populations that roamed in herds of thousands along the alluvial plains of Taiwan’s western regions. Deer were in high demand by the Japanese who were willing to pay top dollar for use of the hides in samurai armor. Other parts of the deer were sold to Han traders for meat and medical use. The Dutch paid aborigines for the deer brought to them and tried to manage the deer stocks to keep up with demand. The Dutch also employed Han to farm sugarcane and rice for export, some of these rice and sugarcane reached as far as the markets of Persia. Unfortunately the deer the aborigines had relied on for their livelihoods began to disappear forcing the aborigines to adopt new means of survival. The Dutch built a second administrative castle on the main island of Taiwan in 1633 and set out to earnestly turn Taiwan into a Dutch colony.

Fort Zeelandia built in Tainan.
The first order of business was to punish villages that had violently opposed the Dutch and unite the aborigines in allegiance with the VOC. The first punitive expedition was against the villages of Baccloan and Mattauw, north of Saccam near Tayowan. The Mattauw campaign had been easier than expected and the tribe submitted after having their village razed by fire. The campaign also served as a threat to other villages from Tirossen (Chia Yi) to Lonkjiaow (Heng Chun). The 1636 punitive attack on Lamay Island (Hsiao Liu Chiu) in response to the killing of the shipwrecked crew of the Beverwijck and the Golden Lion ended ten years later with the entire aboriginal population of 1100 removed from the island including 327 Lamayans killed in a cave, having been trapped there by the Dutch and suffocated in the fumes and smoke pumped into the cave by the Dutch and their allied aborigines from Saccam, Soulang and Pangsoya. The men were forced into slavery in Batavia (Java) and the women and children became servants and wives for the Dutch officers. The events on Lamay changed the course of Dutch rule to work closer with allied aborigines, though there remained plans to depopulate the outlying islands.
Japanese invasions
Japan had sought to claim sovereignty over Taiwan (known as Takayama Koku) since 1592, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi undertook a policy of overseas expansion and extending Japanese influence southward [1]. Korea, to the west, was invaded and an attempt to invade Taiwan and subsequent invasion attempts were to be unsuccessful due mainly to disease and attacks by aborigines on the island. In 1609, the Tokugawa Shogunate sent Haruno Arima on an exploratory mission of the island. In 1616, Murayama Toan led an unsuccessful invasion of the island. In 1871, an Okinawan vessel shipwrecked on the southern tip of Taiwan and the crew of 54 were beheaded by the Botan aborigines. When Japan sought compensation from Qing China, the court rejected compensation on the account that they didn’t have jurisdiction over the island. This was to lead to Japan testing the situation for colonizing the island and in 1874 an expedition force of 3,000 troops were sent to the island . It was not until the defeat of the Chinese navy during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95 was Japan to finally realize possession of Taiwan and the shifting of Asian dominance from China to Japan. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed in 1895 ceding Taiwan and the Pescadores over to Japan, which would rule the island for 50 years until its defeat in World War II.
Ming loyalist rule
Main article: Kingdom of Tungning
Manchu forces broke through Shanhai Pass in 1644 and rapidly overwhelmed the Ming Dynasty. In 1661, a naval fleet led by the Ming loyalist Koxinga, arrived in Taiwan to oust the Dutch from Zeelandia and establish a pro-Ming base in Taiwan.
Koxinga, born in 1624 in Japan to Japanese mother and a Chinese father, Iquan, in a family made wealthy from shipping and piracy, inherited his father’s trade networks, which stretched from Nagasaki to Macao. Following the Manchu advance on Fujian, Koxinga retreated from his stronghold in Amoy (Xiamen) and besieged Taiwan in the hope of establishing a strategic base to marshal his troops to retake his base at Amoy. In 1662, following a nine month siege, Koxinga captured the Dutch fortress Zeelandia and Taiwan became his base (see Kingdom of Tungning). Concurrently the last Ming pretender had been captured and killed by General Wu Sangui, extinguishing any hope Koxinga may have had of re-establishing the Ming Empire. He died four months thereafter in a fit of madness after learning of the cruel killings of his father and brother at the hands of the Manchus. Other accounts are more simple, chalking up Koxinga’s passing to a case of malaria.
Qing Dynasty rule
In 1683, following a naval engagement with Admiral Shi Lang, one of Koxinga’s father’s trusted friends, Koxinga’s grandson Zheng Keshuang submitted to Manchu Qing Dynasty control. Koxinga’s followers were forced to depart from Taiwan to the more unpleasant parts of Qing controlled land. By 1682 there were only 7000 Han left on Taiwan as they had intermarried with aboriginal women and had property in Taiwan. The Koxinga reign had continued the tax systems of the Dutch, established schools and religious temples.

1896 map of Formosa, revised by Rev. William Campbell
From 1683, the Qing Dynasty ruled Taiwan as a prefecture and in 1875 divided the island into two prefectures, north and south. In 1887 the island was made into a separate Chinese province.
The Manchu authorities tried to limit immigration to Taiwan and barred families from travelling to Taiwan to ensure the immigrants would return to their families and ancestral graves. Illegal immigration continued, but many of the men had few prospects in war weary Fujian and thus married locally, resulting in the idiom “mainland grandfather no mainland grandmother” (有唐山公無唐山媽). The Qing tried to protect aboriginal land claims, but also sought to turn them into tax paying subjects. Han and tax paying aborigines were barred from entering the wilderness which covered most of the island for the fear of raising the ire of the non taxpaying, highland aborigines and inciting rebellion. A border was constructed along the western plain, built using pits and mounds of earth, called “earth cows”, to discourage illegal land reclamation.
Following a shipwreck of an Ryūkyūan vessel on the southeastern tip of Taiwan in winter of 1871, in which the heads of 54 crew members were taken by the aboriginal Taiwanese Paiwan people in Mutan village (牡丹社), the Japanese sought to use this incident as a pretext to formally annex the Ryūkyū Kingdom as a Japanese prefecture.[1] and expand into Taiwan. According to records from Japanese documents, Mao Changxi (毛昶熙) and Dong Xun (董恂), the Chinese (Qing) ministers at Zongli Yamen (總理衙門) who handled the complaints from Japanese envoy Yanagihara Sakimitsu (柳原前光) replied first that they had heard only of a massacre of Ryūkyūans, not of Japanese, and quickly noted that Ryūkyū was under Chinese suzerainty, therefore this issue was not Japan’s business. In addition, the governor-general of Chinese province Fukien had rescued the survivors of the massacre and returned them safely to Ryūkyū. The Chinese explained that there were two kinds of aborigines on Taiwan: those governed by Chinese, and those unnaturalized “raw barbarians… beyond the reach of [the Chinese] government and customs.” They indirectly hinted that foreigners travelling in those areas settled by unnaturalized aboriginal people must exercise caution. After the Yanagihara-Yamen interview, the Japanese said that the Chinese government had not opposed Japan’s claims to sovereignty over the Ryūkyū Islands, disclaimed any jurisdiction over aboriginal Taiwanese, and had indeed consented to Japan’s expedition to Taiwan; however, these claims were unfounded [2]. The Qing Dynasty made it clear to the Japanese that Taiwan was definitely within Chinese jurisdiction, even though part of that island’s aboriginal population was not yet under the influence of Chinese civilization. The Qing also pointed to similar cases all over the world where an aboriginal population within a national boundary was not under the influence of the dominant culture of that country.
The Japanese nevertheless launched an expedition with a force of 2000 soldiers in 1874. The number of casualties for the Paiwan was about 30, and that for the Japanese was 543 (12 Japanese soldiers were killed in battle and 531 by disease). Eventually, the Japanese withdrew as about Qing Dynasty sent 3 divisions of forces (9000 soldiers) to reinforce Taiwan. The Okinawan affair was more of a trial balloon sent up by the Japanese to test the situation on Taiwan for a possible colonization campaign of their own. This caused the Qing to re-think the importance of Taiwan in their maritime defense strategy and greater importance was placed on gaining control over the wilderness regions. The second test of Qing commitment came during the French blockade of Keelung harbor during the Sino-French War of 1884-1885. The result was a brief bombardment of Qing positions and a French amphibious operation. The French had some limited early gains but was eventually forced to withdraw. The Qing finally made Taiwan a province and appointed Liu Mingchuan as the first governor of Taiwan to initiate Taiwan development in 1887. In the waning years of Qing control over Taiwan, Governor Liu Mingchuan initiated a series of modernizing reforms and infrastructure projects, including 60 km of railroad track laid between Keelung and Hsinchu. This segment of railroad became too old in the Japanese eye, and was demolished for modernization later under Japanese rule.
On the eve of the Sino-Japanese War about 45 percent of the island was administered under direct Qing administration while the remaining was lightly populated by Aboriginal. As part of the settlement for losing the Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan in 1895. The loss of Taiwan would become a rallying point for the Chinese nationalist movement in the years that followed.
Japanese rule
Main article: Taiwan under Japanese rule.

A 1912 map of Japan with Taiwan, which was part of the Empire of Japan from 1895 to 1945.
After receiving sovereignty of Taiwan, the Japanese feared military resistance from both Taiwanese and Aborigines who followed the establishment by the local elite of the short-lived Republic of Formosa. Taiwan’s elite hoped that by declaring themselves a republic the world would not stand by and allow a sovereign state to be invaded by the Japanese, thereby allying with the Qing. The plan quickly turned to chaos as standard Green troops and ethnic Yue soldiers took to looting and pillage. Given the choice between chaos at the hands of Chinese or submission to the Japanese, the Taipei elite sent Ku Hsien-rong to Keelung to invite the advancing Japanese forces to proceed to Taipei and restore order.
The Taiwanese resistance was sporadic, yet at times fierce, but was largely crushed by 1902, although relatively minor rebellions occurred in subsequent years, including the Ta-pa-ni incident of 1915 in Tainan county. The rebellions were often caused by a combination of the effects of colonial policies on local elites and extant millenarian beliefs of the local Taiwanese, rather than nationalism or patriotism. Aboriginal resistance to the heavy-handed Japanese policies of acculturation and pacification lasted up until the early 1930s. The last major Aboriginal rebellion, the Wushe Uprising in late 1930 by the Atayal people angry over their treatment while laboring in the burdensome job of camphor extraction, launched the last headhunting party in which over 150 Japanese officials were killed and beheaded during the opening ceremonies of a school. The uprising, led by Mona Rudao, was crushed by 2,000-3,000 Japanese troops and Aboriginal auxiliaries with the help of poison gas.
Japanese colonization of the island fell under three stages. It began with an oppressive period of crackdown and paternalistic rule, then a dōka (同化) period of aims to treat all people (races) alike proclaimed by Taiwanese Nationalists who were enlightened by the Self-Determination of Nations (民族自決) proposed by Woodrow Wilson after World War I, and finally, during World War II, a period of kōminka (皇民化), a policy which aimed to turn Taiwanese into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor.

Bank of Taiwan established in 1897 headquartered in Taipei.
Initial infrastructural development took place quickly. The Bank of Taiwan was established in 1899 to encourage Japanese private sectors, including Mitsubishi and the Mitsui Group, to invest in Taiwan. In 1900, the third Taiwan Governor-General passed a budget which initiated the building of Taiwan’s railroad system from Keelung to Takao (Kaohsiung). By 1905 the island had electric power supplied by water power in Sun-Moon Lake, and in subsequent years Taiwan was considered the second-most developed region of East Asia (after Japan). By 1905, Taiwan was financially self-sufficient and had been weaned off of subsidies from Japan’s central government.
Under the governor Shinpei Goto’s rule, many major public works projects were completed. The Taiwan rail system connecting the south and the north and the modernizations of Keelung and Kaohsiung ports were completed to facilitate transport and shipping of raw material and agricultural products. Exports increased by four-fold. 55% of agricultural land was covered by dam-supported irrigation systems. Food production had increased four-fold and sugar cane production had increased 15-fold between 1895 to 1925 and Taiwan became a major foodbasket serving Japan’s industrial economy. The health care system was widely established and infectious diseases were almost completely eradicated. The average lifespan for a Taiwanese resident would become 60 years by 1945.

In October 1935, the Governor-General of Taiwan held an “Exposition to Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Beginning of Administration in Taiwan,” which served as a showcase for the achievements of Taiwan’s modernization process under Japanese rule. This attracted worldwide attention, including the Republic of China’s KMT regime which sent the Japanese-educated Chen Yi to attend the affair. He expressed his admiration about the efficiency of Japanese government in developing Taiwan, and commented on how lucky the Taiwanese were to live under such effective administration. Somewhat ironically, Chen Yi would later become the ROC’s first Chief Executive of Taiwan, who would be infamous for the corruption that occurred under his watch.
The later period of Japanese rule saw a local elite educated and organized. During the 1930s several home rule groups were created at a time when others around the world sought to end colonialism. In 1935, the Taiwanese elected their first group of local legislators. By March 1945, the Japanese legislative branch hastily modified election laws to allow Taiwanese representation in the Japanese Diet.
See also
Political divisions of Taiwan (1895-1945), List of Governor-General of Taiwan,Structure of the Taiwan Army of Japan
As Japan embarked on full-scale war in China in 1937, it expanded Taiwan’s industrial capacity to manufacture war material. By 1939, industrial production had exceeded agricultural production in Taiwan. At the same time, the “kominka” imperialization project was put under way to instill the “Japanese Spirit” in Taiwanese residents, and ensure the Taiwanese would remain loyal subjects of the Japanese Emperor ready to make sacrifices during wartime. Measures including Japanese-language education, the option of adopting Japanese names, and the worship of Japanese religion were instituted. In 1943, 94% of the children received 6-year compulsory education. From 1937 to 1945, 126,750 Taiwanese joined and served in the military of the Japanese Empire, while a further 80,433 were conscripted between 1942 to 1945. Of the sum total, 30,304, or 15%, died in Japan’s war in Asia.
In 1942, after the United States entered in war against Japan and on the side of China, the Chinese government under the KMT renounced all treaties signed with Japan before that date and made Taiwan’s return to China (as with Manchuria) one of the wartime objectives. In the Cairo Conference of 1943, the Allied Powers declared the return of Taiwan to China as one of several Allied demands. In 1945, Japan unconditionally surrendered and ended its rule in Taiwan.
Chinese Republic rule
Main article: History of the Republic of China
See also: Legal status of Taiwan
The Republic of China proclaimed October 25, 1945 as Taiwan Retrocession Day with the surrender of Japanese troops. The validity of the proclamation is subject to some debate, with some supporters of Taiwan independence arguing that it is invalid, and that the date only marks the beginning of military occupation that persists to the present. During the immediate postwar period, the Kuomintang (KMT) administration on Taiwan was repressive and extremely corrupt compared with the previous Japanese rule, leading to local discontent. Anti-mainlander violence flared on February 28, 1947, prompted by an incident in which a cigarette seller was injured and a passerby was indiscriminately shot dead by Nationalist authorities (Kerr, 1966; pp. 254-255).

Tensions between local Taiwanese and Chinese mainlanders resulted in an uprising known as the “February 28 Incident” where 30,000 civilians were killed by the ROC military.
For several weeks after the February 28 Incident the rebels held control of much of the island. Feigning negotiation, the Nationalists assembled a large military force (carried on United States naval vessels) that attacked Taiwan, massacring nearly 30,000 Taiwanese and imprisoning thousands of others.
The killings were both random and premeditated as local elites or educated Taiwanese were sought out and disposed of. Many of the Taiwanese who had formed home rule groups under the Japanese were the victims of 2-28. This was followed by the “White Terror” in which many thousands of Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang military regime, leaving many native Taiwanese with a deep-seated bitterness to the mainlanders. Until 1995, the KMT authorities suppressed accounts of this episode in Taiwan history. In 1995 a monument was dedicated to the victims of the “2-28 Incident”, and for the first time the ROC President Lee Teng-hui publicly apologized for the Nationalists’ brutality.
From the 1930s onward a civil war was underway in China between Chiang Kai-shek’s ROC government and the Communist Party of China led by Mao Zedong. When the civil war ended in 1949, 2 million refugees, predominantly from the Nationalist government, military, and business community, fled to Taiwan. In October 1949 the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) was founded on the mainland by the victorious communists; several months before, Chiang Kai-shek had established a “provisional” ROC capital in Taipei and moved his government there from Nanjing. Under Nationalist rule, the mainlanders dominated the government and civil service forcing 37,000 Taiwanese out of the government sector.
In the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, Japan renounced all right, claim, and title to Taiwan, but no “receiving country” was specified. This ambiguity has been used by independence supporters to argue against the legitimacy of the ROC government’s rule over the island.
Economic developments

The Chinese Civil War led to severe inflation. Currency was issued in denominations of 1 million Old Taiwan dollars.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, post-war economic conditions compounded with the then-ongoing Chinese Civil War caused severe inflation across China and in Taiwan, made worse by corruption. This gave way to the reconstruction process and reforms.
The KMT took control of Taiwan’s monopolies and property that had been government property under the Japanese passed into possession of the KMT party-state. Approximately 17% of Taiwan’s GNP was nationalized. Also, Taiwanese investors lost their claim to the Japanese bond certificates they possessed. These real estate holdings as well as the large amount gold reserves brought from the Chinese mainland helped KMT become one the wealthiest political parties in the world but also helped to ensure Taiwan recover quickly from war.
With the help of the China Aid Act of 1948 and the Chinese-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, the KMT authorities implemented a far-reaching and seemingly highly successful land reform program on Taiwan during the 1950s. They redistributed land among small farmers and compensated large landowners with commodities certificates and stock in state-owned industries. Although this left some large landowners impoverished, others turned their compensation into capital and started commercial and industrial enterprises. These entrepreneurs were to become Taiwan’s first industrial capitalists. Together with businessmen who fled from the mainland, they once again revived Taiwan’s prosperity previously ceased along with Japanese withdraw and managed Taiwan’s transition from an agricultural to a commercial, industrial economy.
Taiwan has developed steadily into a major international trading power with more than $218 billion in two-way trade. Tremendous prosperity on the island was accompanied by economic and social stability.
Taiwan’s phenomenal economic development earned it a spot as one of the Four Asian Tigers.
Democratic reforms

Until the early 1970s, the Republic of China was recognized as the sole legitimate government of China by the United Nations and most Western nations, both of which refused to recognize the People’s Republic of China on account of the Cold War. The KMT ruled Taiwan under martial law until the late 1980s, with the stated goal of being vigilant against Communist infiltration and preparing to retake the mainland. Therefore, political dissent was not tolerated.
The late 1970s and early 1980s were a turbulent time for Taiwanese as many of the people who had originally been oppressed and left behind by economic changes became members of the Taiwan’s new middle class. Free enterprise had allowed native Taiwanese to gain a powerful bargaining chip in their demands for respect for their basic human rights. The Kaohsiung Incident would be a major turning point for democracy in Taiwan.
Taiwan also faced setbacks in the international sphere. In 1971, the ROC government walked out of the United Nations shortly before it recognized the PRC government in Beijing as the legitimate holder of China’s seat in the United Nations. The ROC had been offered dual representation, but Chiang Kai-shek demanded to retain a seat on the UN Security Council, which was not acceptable to the PRC. Chiang expressed his decision in his famous “the sky is not big enough for two suns” speech. In October 1971, Resolution 2758 was passed by the UN General Assembly and “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” (and thus the ROC) was expelled from the UN and replaced as “China” by the PRC. In 1979, the United States switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
Chiang Kai-shek’s eventual successor, his son Chiang Ching-kuo, began to liberalize Taiwan’s political system. The events of 1979 highlighted the need for change and groups like Amnesty International were mobilizing a campaign against the government and President Chiang Ching-kuo. Finally, in 1986, the Democratic Progressive Party was formed illegally and inaugurated as the first opposition party in Taiwan to counter the KMT. A year later Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law. Chiang selected Lee Teng-hui, a native Taiwanese technocrat to be his Vice President. The move followed other reforms giving more power to the native Taiwanese and calmed anti-KMT sentiments during a period in which many other Asian autocracies were being shaken by People Power movements.
After the 1988 death of Chiang Ching-Kuo, his successor as President Lee Teng-hui continued to hand more government authority over to the native Taiwanese and democratize the government. Under Lee, Taiwan underwent a process of localization in which local culture and history was promoted over a pan-China viewpoint. Lee’s reforms included printing banknotes from the Central Bank rather than the Provincial Bank of Taiwan, and disbanding the Taiwan Provincial Government. Under Lee, the original members of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly, elected in 1947 to represent mainland constituencies, were forced to resign in 1991. Restrictions on the use of Taiwanese languages in the broadcast media and in schools were lifted as well.
However, Lee failed to crack down on the massive corruption that developed under authoritarian KMT party rule. Many KMT loyalists feel Lee betrayed the R.O.C. by taking reforms too far, while other Taiwanese feel he did not take reforms far enough.
Lee ran as the incumbent in Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996 against DPP candidate and former dissident, Peng Min-ming. This election prompted the PRC to conduct a series of missile tests in the Taiwan Strait to intimidate the Taiwanese electorate so that electorates would vote for other pro-unification candidates, Chen Li-an and Lin Yang-kang. The aggressive tactic prompted U.S. President Clinton to invoke the Taiwan Relations Act and dispatch two aircraft carrier battle groups into the region off Taiwan’s southern coast to monitor the situation, and PRC’s missile tests were forced to end earlier than planned. This incident is known as the 1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis.
One of Lee’s final acts as president was to declare on German radio that the ROC and the PRC have a special state to state relationship. Lee’s statement was met with the PRC’s People’s Army conducting military drills in Fujian and a frightening island-wide blackout in Taiwan, causing many to fear an attack. Lee’s assertion that the ROC is a sovereign and independent nation separate from the mainland was popular among Taiwanese. However, many suspected that his two nation theory was intended to ultimately create a Republic of Taiwan, which was not popular among the electorate.
In the 2000 presidential election marked the end to KMT rule. Opposition DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian won a three way race that saw the pro-reunification vote split by independent James Soong and KMT candidate Lien Chan. President Chen garnered 39% of the vote. In 2004, President Chen was re-elected to a second four year term after an apparent assassination attempt which occurred the day before the election. The gunman fired two shots, one grazing the President’s belly, the other grazing the vice president’s knee.

History of India

The archaeological record in India (that is “Greater India” or the Indian subcontinent, encompassing the territory of the modern nations of the Republic of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal) shows first traces of Homo sapiens from ca. 34,000 years ago. Bronze Age civilization emerges contemporary to the civilizations of the Ancient Near East, from ca. 3300 BC, with the Indus Valley Civilization reaching its mature phase from around 2600 BC.The Vedic period in the Early Iron Age saw the rise of major kingdoms known as the Mahajanapadas. The births of Mahavira and Buddha in ca. the 6th century BC still fall into the prehistoric period, and the historical era sets in gradually over the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, in which period the subcontinent was also first united under the Maurya Empire. Medieval India saw a series of Muslim conquests leading to fragmentation into numerous kingdoms until renewed unification under the Mughals in the 17th century, replaced by British rule after 1858.India regained independence in 1947, being partitioned into the Republic of India and Pakistan. The two nations immediately engaged in wafare, with East Pakistan gaining independence as Bangladesh in 1971. See History of the Republic of India, History of Pakistan and History of Bangladesh for the post-1947 history of the individual states. 

The Stone Age

Stone Age civilization in the Indian subcontinent started with the beginning of human settlement, and progressed towards farming, and the development of tools derived from natural objects, or crafted from raw material. The Mehrgarh community represents the earliest stage of agriculture in the subcontinent ^{[citation needed]}, and led to the emergance of Bronze Age culture of the Indus Valley.

 The Paleolithic era

Isolated remains of Homo erectus in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley in Central India indicate that India might have been inhabited since at least the Middle Pleistocene era.^[1] The precise date of these remains is unclear, and archaeologists put it anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 years ago.^[2] The fossils are the earliest human remains found in South Asia. Recent finds include a quarry along the Malaprabha River and Ghataprabha River in the Kaladgi Basin in Karnataka.

 The Mesolithic era

The Mesolithic period in the Indian subcontinent covered a timespan of around 25,000 years, starting around 30,000 years ago, where the earliest discovered sites of Mesolithic culture has been unearthed in Sri Lanka. Other settlements have also been found as far north as the caves of the Hindu Kush, which seem to be a direct progression from Upper Paleolithic art. Cave paintings of game animals and human activity such as hunting, have been found at Mesolithic sites, and early forms of religious activity seem to have been found at some sites^{[citation needed]}. Overall there is a great proliferation of Mesolithic culture throughout India, suggesting widespread habitation. Hunting, gathering, fishing, and other forms of hunter-gatherer subsistence seem to have dominated the period, however early forms of herding and small scale farming have been detected. Modern humans seem to have settled the subcontinent towards the end of the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago.

The Neolithic era

The first confirmed permanent settlements appeared 9,000 years ago in Bhimbetka in modern Madhya Pradesh. By 5100 BC, people in the Indus Valley were farming and harvesting Einkorn wheat, a primitive form of wheat^{[citation needed]}. Early Neolithic culture in South Asia is represented by the Mehrgarh findings (7000 BC onwards), in present day Balochistan, Pakistan. The Mehrgarh community was mostly pastoral, lived in mud houses, wove baskets and tended to goats and their farms. By 5500 BC, pottery began to appear and later chalcolithic implements began to appear. By 2000 BC, the settlement was abandoned.Traces of a Neolithic culture have been found submerged in the Gulf of Khambat in 2002.^[3] Many of the finds recovered from the area have been radiocarbon dated to 7500 BC. Late Neolithic cultures sprang up in the Indus Valley region between 6000 and 2000 BCE (see below), and in southern India between 2800 and 1200 BC.

The Bronze Age

Bronze Age civilizations in the Indian subcontinent laid the foundations for, including urban settlements and the development of Vedic beliefs, which form the core of Hinduism. Many historians claim that the rise, and eventual decline of the Indus Valley Civilization, and the migration of nomadic peoples from Central Asia into the Indian subcontinent shaped its history during this period^{[citation needed]}.

Indus Valley Civilization

Seals with the Indus script The irrigation of the Indus Valley, which provided enough resources to support major urban centers such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro around 2500 BC, marked the beginning of the Harappan Civilization. This period marked the beginning of the earliest urban society in India, known as the Indus Valley Civilization (or, the Harappan Civilization), which thrived between 2500 and 1900 BC. It was centred on the Indus River and its tributaries, including the Ghaggar-Hakra River, and extended into the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, Gujarat, and northern Afghanistan^{[citation needed]}.The civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, road-side drainage system and multi-storied houses. The earliest historic references to India may be those to the Meluhha in Sumerian records, possibly referring to the Indus Valley Civilization^{[citation needed]}. When compared to the contemporary civilizations of Egypt and Sumer, the Indus Civilization possessed unique urban planning techniques, covered the largest geographical area, and may have been a single state, as suggested by the amazing uniformity of its measurement systems^{[citation needed]}.The Mohenjo-daro ruins were once the centre of this ancient society. Indus Civilization settlements spread as far south as present-day Bombay, as far east as Delhi, as far west as the Iranian border, and as far north as the Himalayas^{[citation needed]}. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, as well as Dholavira, Ganweriwala, Lothal, Kalibanga and Rakhigarhi. At its peak, some archaeologists are of the opinion that the Indus Civilization may have had a population of well over five million^{[citation needed]}. To date, over 2,500 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region to the east of the Indus River in Pakistan. It is thought by some that geological disturbances and climate change, leading to a gradual deforestation may ultimately have contributed to the civilization’s downfall.Archaeological resources suggest that the diverse geography of ancient India was increasing in the amount and specialization of faunal remains around 2400 to 1500 BC. This specialization suggests that the Indus Valley Civilizations were dependent upon the alluvial soils of the rivers, which produced high yield crops. By 2600 BC, the presence of a state level society is evident, complete with hierarchical rule and large scale public works^{[citation needed]}. These include accomplishments such as irrigation, warehouses for grain, public streets, and brick-lined drainage systems for sanitation. Around the middle of the second millennium BC, the region of the Indus River basin, in which approximately two-thirds of currently known sites were located dried up, and the sites were abandoned.

Vedic Civilization

Main article: Vedic periodThe Vedic Civilization is the Indo-Aryan culture associated with the Vedas, which are some of the oldest extant texts, orally composed in Vedic Sanskrit. Most scholars^[4] today postulate a Indo-Aryan migration into India, proposing that early Indo-Aryan speaking tribes migrated into the north-west regions of the Indian subcontinent in the early 2nd millennium BCE. The nature of this migration, the place of origin of the Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers, and sometimes even the very existence of the Aryans as a separate people are hotly debated in India, a phenomenon termed the ‘Indigenous Aryan debate‘ by Edwin Bryant.The exact connection between the genesis of this civilization and the Indus Valley Civilization on one hand, and a possible Indo-Aryan migration on the other hand, is the subject of dispute^{[citation needed]}. Early Vedic society was largely pastoral. After the Rigveda, Aryan society became increasingly agricultural, and was organized around the four Varnas. Several small kingdoms and tribes merged to form a few large ones, such as the Kuru and Pançala, some of which were often at war with each other^{[citation needed]}.In addition to the principal texts of Hinduism (the Vedas), the great Indian epics (the Ramayana and Mahabharata) including the famous stories of Rama and Krishna are said to have their ultimate origins during this period, from an oral tradition of unwritten bardic recitation^{[citation needed]}. The Bhagavad Gita, another primary text of Hinduism well-known for its philosophical nature, is contained in the Mahabharata.Early Indo-Aryan presence probably corresponds, in part, to the presence of Ochre Coloured Pottery in archaeological findings. The kingdom of the Kurus corresponds to the Black and Red Ware culture and the beginning of the Iron Age in Northwestern India, around 1000 BC (This date is most likely, contemporaneous with the composition of the Atharvaveda)^{[citation needed]}. Painted Grey Ware cultures spanning much of Northern India marks the Middle Vedic pdas]] (great lands), are referred to in the ancient literature of the period^{[citation needed]}.

The 16 Mahajanapadas of the Iron Age

  The Mahajanapadas were the sixteen most powerful kingdoms and republics of the era, located mainly across the fertile Gangetic plains, however there were a number of smaller kingdoms stretching the length and breadth of IndiaDuring the Iron Age, a number of small kingdoms or city states covered the subcontinent, many mentioned during Vedic literature as far back as 1000 BC. By 500 BC, sixteen monarchies and ‘republics’ known as the Mahajanapadas viz: Kasi, Kosala, Anga, Magadha, Vajji (or Vriji), Malla, Chedi, Vatsa (or Vamsa), Kuru, Panchala, Machcha (or Matsya), Surasena, Assaka, Avanti, Gandhara, Kamboja– stretched across the Indo-Gangetic plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh, and many smaller clans mentioned within early literature seem to have been present across the rest of the subcontinent. The largest of these nations were Magadha, Kosala, Kuru and Gandhara^{[citation needed]}. The right of a king to his throne, no matter how it was gained, was usually legitimized through religious rite and genealogies concocted by priests who ascribed divine origins to the rulers. There is some controversy about how closely the political entities of this period can be represented by those mentioned in the Vedas, and ancient epics of India. The educated speech at that time was Sanskrit, while the dialects of the general population of northern India were referred to as Prakrits.Hindu rituals at that time were complicated and conducted by the priestly class. It is thought that the Upanishads, late Vedic texts dealing mainly with incipient philosophy, were first composed early in this period. They had a huge effect on Indian philosophy, and were contemporary to the development of Buddhism and Jainism, indicating a golden age of thought in this period, similar to that in ancient Greece. It was in 537 BC, that Gautama Buddha gained enlightenment and founded Buddhism, which was initially intended as a supplement to the existing Vedic dharma. Around the same time period, in mid-6th century BC, Mahavira founded Jainism. Both religions had a simple doctrine, and were preached in Prakrit, which helped it gain acceptance amongst the masses. While the geographic impact of Jainism was limited, Buddhist nuns and monks eventually spread the teachings of Buddha to Central Asia, East Asia, Tibet, Sri Lanka and South East Asia.Recorded history from this period of fragmented states is sparse, up until the advent of Buddhism and Jainism but the Mahajanapadas were roughly equivalent to the ancient Greek city-states of the same period in the Mediterranean, producing philosophy which would eventually form the basis of much of the eastern world’s beliefs, just as ancient Greece would produce philosophy that much of the western world’s subsequent beliefs were based on. The period effectively ended with the onset of Persian and Greek invasion, and the subsequent rise of a single Indian empire from the kingdom of Magadha.

Kuru kingdom

Main article: KuruThe location of the Kuru kingdom was in the area of modern Haryana state in India, and their capital was Indraprastha, which may have been the most powerful city in India, prior to the rise of the Magadhan city of Pataliputra. The Kuru kingdom figures prominently in the list of Mahajanapadas. At the time of Buddha, the Kuru realm was only three hundred leagues in extent, but was a cultural hub^{[citation needed]}. The kingdom corresponds in name to the Kuru dynasty mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata.

Gandhara kingdom

Main article: GandharaThe location of the Gandhara kingdom was in the area of what is today northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, and major cities included Peshawar and Taxila, the latter of which is where Panini formulated his complete Sanskrit grammar around 500 BC, marking the transition from Vedic Sanskrit to Classical Sanskrit. It was one of the most powerful of the Mahajanapadas, and also appeared in the Mahabharata epic, as an ally of the Kuru kingdom. The name Gandhara only disappeared 1500 years later, as part of the conquests of the controversial Mahmood of Ghazni.

Kosala kingdom

Main article: KosalaThe location of the Kosala kingdom was in the area of Oudh in Uttar Pradesh state in India, and their capital was Ayodhya. Like Kuru, Magadha and Gandhara, they represented one of the most powerful post-Vedic states in India, but were eventually weakened and absorbed by the growing Magadhan Empire during the Haryanka dynasty, and subsequent dynasties. The area featured prominently in epic Sanskrit literature such as the Ramayana, and was visited by Buddha and Mahavira.

Anga kingdom

Main article: AngaThe location of the Anga kingdom was in the area of Bhagalpur and Monghyr in Bihar state of India. Their capital was said in the Indian epics to be the city of Malini, known later as Champa. Their territory may have at some point extended to the sea, and their capital was known as a center of commerce, perhaps trading as far away as modern Vietnam^{[citation needed]}.

Kalinga kingdom

Main article: Kalinga Kalinga was one of the many kingdoms throughout India at the time that were not one of the Mahajanapadas, however, they would play an important role in one of ancient India’s most famous events – the conquest of their kingdom by the Emperor Asoka Maurya. Located in modern Orissa, the Kalinga kingdom may have begun the cultural link between India and the islands that would later become Indonesia that persisted throughout history^{[citation needed]}.

Persian and Greek invasion

Around the 5th century BC, the northern Indian subcontinent was invaded by the Achaemenid Empire and, by the late 4th century BC, the Greeks of Alexander’s army. This had important repercussions for Indian Civilization, as the political systems of the Persians would have an influence on later Indian political philosophy, including the administration of the Mauryan dynasty, and a melting pot of Indian, Persian, Central Asian and Greek culture was created in the modern regions of Afghanistan and western Pakistan, producing a unique hybrid culture.

 Achaemenid Empire

Main article: Achaemenid EmpireMuch of the northwestern Indian Subcontinent (present day Eastern Afghanistan and most of Pakistan) was ruled by the Persian Achaemenid Empire from c. 520 BC during the reign of Darius the Great, up until its conquest by Alexander. Lands in present-day Punjab, the Indus River from the borders of Gandhara down to the Arabian Sea, and some other parts of the Indus plain, became a satrapy of Alexander’s empire. According to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, it was the most populous and richest of all the twenty satrapies of the empire. Achaemenid rule lasted about 186 years. The Achaemenids used the Aramaic script for the Persian language. After the end of Achaemenid rule, the use of Aramaic in the Indus plain diminished, although we know from inscriptions from the time of Emperor Asoka that it was still in use two centuries later. Other scripts, such as Kharosthi (a script derived from Aramaic) and Greek became more common after the arrival of Alexander.Alexander’s conquests reached the northernmost edge of India, around the Indus river in modern day Pakistan, which was slightly further than the Achaemenid EmpireThe interaction between Hellenistic Greece and Buddhism began when Alexander the Great conquered Asia Minor and the Achaemenid Empire, reaching the north-west frontiers of the Indian subcontinent in 334 BC. There, he defeated King Puru in the Battle of the Hydaspes (near modern-day Jhelum, Pakistan) and conquered much of the Punjab. However, Alexander’s troops refused to go beyond the Hyphases (Beas) River near modern day Jalandhar, Punjab, India, he crossed the river and ordered to erect giant altars to mark the eastern most extent of his empire on the east bank of the Beas. He also set up a city named Alexandria nearby and left many Macedonian veterans there, he himself turned back and marched his army southwest.Alexander created garrisons for his troops in his new territories, and founded several cities in the areas of the Oxus, Arachosia, and Bactria, and Macedonian/Greek settlements in Gandhara (see Taxila) and the Punjab. The regions included the Khyber Pass — a geographical passageway south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush mountains — and the Bolan Pass, on a trade route connecting Drangiana, Arachosia and other Persian and Central Asian kingdoms to the lower Indus plain. It is through these regions that most of the interaction between South Asia and Central Asia took place, generating intense cultural exchange and trade.

Greco-Buddhist period

Main article: Greco-BuddhismGreco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Græco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between the culture of Classical Greece and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BC and the 5th century AD. Greco-Buddhism especially influenced the artistic development of Mahayana Buddhism, before it was adopted by Central and Northeastern Asia from the 1st century AD, ultimately spreading to China, Korea, and Japan. It was mainly centered about the area of Gandhara, or modern Afghanistan, the area of the subcontinent that had most been influenced by Persian and Greek contact. Gandhara was roughly contemporary to the other Mahajanapada kingdoms elsewhere in India.

The Magadha empire

Amongst the sixteen Mahajanapadas, the kingdom of Magadha rose to prominence under a number of dynasties that peaked in power under the reign of Asoka Maurya, one of India’s most legendary and famous emperors. The kingdom of Magadha had emerged as a major power following the subjugation of two neighbouring kingdoms, and possessed an unparalleled military.

Haryanka dynasty

Main article: Haryanka dynastyAccording to tradition, the Haryanka dynasty founded the Magadha Empire in 684 BC, whose capital was Rajagriha, later Pataliputra, near the present day Patna. This dynasty was succeeded by the Shishunaga dynasty.

Shishunaga dynasty

Main article: Shishunaga dynastyThis period saw the development of two of India’s major religions. Gautama Buddha in the 6th or 5th century BC was the founder of Buddhism, which later spread to East Asia and South-East Asia, while Mahavira founded Jainism. This dynasty lasted till 424 BC, when it was overthrown by the Nanda dynasty.

Nanda dynasty

Main article: Nanda DynastyThe Nanda dynasty was established by an illegitimate son of the king Mahanandin of the previous Shishunaga dynasty. Mahapadma Nanda died at the age of 88, ruling the bulk of this 100-year dynasty. The Nandas were followed by the Maurya dynasty. It is said that rumors of the huge size of the Nanda army was in part responsible for the retreat of Alexander from India.

Maurya dynasty

Main article: Maurya Dynasty  Map depicting the largest extent of the Mauryan Empire in dark blue, and allied or friendly areas in light blueIn 321 BC, exiled general Chandragupta Maurya, under direct patronage of the genius of Chanakya, founded the Maurya dynasty after overthrowing the reigning king Dhana Nanda to establish the Maurya Empire. During that time, most of the subcontinent was united under a single government for the first time. Capitalising on the destabilization of northern India by the Persian and Greek incursions, the Mauryan empire under Chandragupta would not only conquer most of the Indian subcontinent, but also push its boundaries into Persia and Central Asia, conquering the Gandhara region. Chandragupta Maurya was influenced by the jainacharya Bhadrabahu and he adopted Jainism.He is credited for the spread of Jainism in southern Indian region. Chandragupta was succeeded by his son Bindusara, who expanded the kingdom over most of present day India, barring Kalinga, and the extreme south and east, which may have held tributary status. Modern day India is an image of the Mauryana, that tied all the peoples and cultures of the erstwhile separate kingdoms under one banner, and predicted a common destiny for all Indians (then mainly Hindus and Buddhists). The tradition was continued later by the Mughals and the British, who formed similar empires.Bindusara’s kingdom was inherited by his son Ashoka The Great who initially sought to expand his kingdom. In the aftermath of the carnage caused in the invasion of Kalinga, he renounced bloodshed and pursued a policy of non-violence or ahimsa after converting to Buddhism. The Edicts of Ashoka are the oldest preserved historical documents of India, and from Ashoka’s time, approximate dating of dynasties becomes possible. The Mauryan dynasty under Ashoka was responsible for the proliferation of Buddhist ideals across the whole of East Asia and South-East Asia, fundamentally altering the history and development of Asia as a whole. Ashoka the Great has been described as one of the greatest rulers the world has seen.Ashoka’s grandson Samprati adopted Jainism.He was influenced by the teachings of a great jain acharya Arya Suhasti. Following the lines of Ashoka, Samprati spread Jainism in many parts of this world and Indian sub-continent.It is said that Samprati built 1,25,000 Jain Temples all over India, many of which are worshipped today as well.

Sunga dynasty

Main article: Sunga DynastyThe Sunga dynasty was established in 185 BC, about fifty years after Ashoka’s death, when the king Brihadratha, the last of the Mauryan rulers, was brutally murdered by the then commander-in-chief of the Mauryan armed forces, Pusyamitra Sunga, while he was taking the Guard of Honour of his forces. Pusyamitra Sunga then ascended the throne.

Kanva dynasty

Main article: Kanva dynastyThe Kanva dynasty replaced the Sunga dynasty, and ruled in the eastern part of India from 71 BC to 26 BC. The last ruler of the Sunga dynasty was overthrown by Vasudeva of the Kanva dynasty in 75 BC. The Kanva ruler allowed the kings of the Sunga dynasty to continue to rule in obscurity in a corner of their former dominions. Magadha was ruled by four Kanva rulers. In 30 BC, the southern power swept away both the Kanvas and Sungas and the province of Eastern Malwa was absorbed within the dominions of the conqueror. Following the collapse of the Kanva dynasty, the Satavahana dynasty of the Andhra kindgom replaced the Magandhan kingdom as the most powerful Indian state.

Early middle kingdoms – the golden age

Main article: Middle kingdoms of IndiaThe middle period, especially which associated with the Gupta dynasty, is known as India’s Golden Age, a time of unparalleled cultural development. The Kushanas invaded north-western India about the middle of the 1st century AD, from Central Asia, and founded an empire that eventually stretched from Peshawar to the middle Ganges and, perhaps, as far as the Bay of Bengal. It also included ancient Bactria (in the north of modern Afghanistan) and southern Tajikistan. Their power also extended into Turkestan and helped spread Buddhism to China. In South India, several kingdoms emerged. The earliest of these is the Pandya kingdom in southern Tamil Nadu, with its capital at Madurai. Around the same time in southern India, the Pandyan kingdom began to take shape. An important source for the geography and history of that period is the Greek historian Arrian. This period lasted roughly from the rise of the Satavahanas in 200 BC as the Mauryans declined, to the end of the Guptas, around the middle of the first millennium AD, a span of 700 years, and ended with the onset of Huna invasion.

Satavahana empire

Main article: Satavahanas The Satavahanas, also known as the Andhras, were a dynasty which ruled in Southern and Central India starting from around 230 BC. Although there is some controversy about when the dynasty came to an end, the most liberal estimates are of about 450 years. Long before that their kingdom had disintegrated into successor states. Conflict with the Sakas and the rising ambitions of their feudatories, led to their decline. Several dynasties divided the lands of the kingdom among themselves.

Kuninda kingdom

Main article: Kuninda KingdomThe Kuninda kingdom is noteworthy for being a small Himalayan state that survived for almost 500 years, and like many other small kingdoms of the era, were related to states contemporary to the Mahajanapadas, and mentioned in the epics. It was documented from around the 2nd century BC, and lasted until roughly the 3rd century AD.

 Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras

 Main articles: Pandya, Chola dynasty, and CheraThree different empires, the Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras, dominated the southern part of the Indian peninsula, at different periods of time. Eventually, due to the destabalisation of the large northern empires, caused by the onset of invasion from West Asia and Central Asia, replaced the southen plains as the center of classical Indian art and culture. They formed overseas empires that stretched across South East Asia. In the time period leading up to this, the kingdoms mainly warred with each other and Deccan states, for domination of the south.

Chola empire

Main article: Chola dynastyThe Cholas emerged as the most powerful empire in the 9th century and retained their pre-eminent position until the 12th century when the Hoysala empire was founded in Karnataka. The Cholas, like the Chalukyas and Pallavas before them, and the Hoysala and Vijayanagar after them, were responsible for some of India’s finest monuments, and being located on the south tip of the peninsula, ruled Sri Lanka, and culturally dominated most of South East Asia, where the Hindu Srivijaya and Khmer empires of Indonesia and Cambodia used south Indian temple design. The Chola Navy was the most powerful for its time having conquered the neighbouring island of Lanka and other areas across the Bay of Bengal. One particular medieval Chola ruler, Raja Raja the Great, is known as one of India’s greatest Emperors, having initiated a massive building programme, that produced some of the finest temple architecture in the subcontinent. 

Kushan empire

Main article: Kushan Empire An early Mahayana Buddhist triad. From left to right, a Kushan devotee, the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha, the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, and a Buddhist monk. 2nd-3rd century, GandharaThe Kushan Empire (c. 1st–3rd centuries) was a state that at its height, about 105–250, stretched from Tajikistan to the Caspian Sea to Afghanistan and down into the Ganges river (Ganga) valley. The empire was created by Tocharians from modern East Turkestan, China, but was culturally dominated by north India. They had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Sassanian Persia and China, and for several centuries were at the centre of exchange between the East and the West, spreading Buddhism through trade with China.

Western Kshatrapas

Main article: Western KshatrapasThe Western Kshatrapas, or Western Satraps, (35-405 CE) were Saka rulers of the western and central part of India (Saurashtra and Malwa: modern Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh states). They were contemporaneous with the Kushans who ruled the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, and the Satavahana (Andhra) who ruled in Central India. Altogether, there were 27 independent Kshatrapa rulers during a period of about 350 years. The word Kshatrapa stands for satrap, and its equivalent in Persian Ksatrapavan, which means viceroy or governor of a province.

Gupta dynasty

Main article: Gupta EmpireIn the 4th and 5th centuries, the Gupta Dynasty unified northern India. During this period, known as India’s Golden Age, Hindu culture, science and political administration reached new heights. After the collapse of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century, India was again ruled by numerous regional kingdoms. The Gupta ‘golden age’ marked a period of significant cultural development.Their origins are largely unknown; however the Chinese traveller Yi Jing(義淨) provides the first evidence of the Gupta kingdom in Magadha. The Vedic Puranas are also thought to have been written around this period. The empire came to an end with the attack of the Huns from central Asia. A minor line of the Gupta clan continued to rule Magadha after the disintegration of the empire. These Guptas were ultimately ousted by the Vardhana king Harsha, who established an empire in the first half of the seventh century that, for a brief time, rivalled that of the Guptas in extent.

White Hun invasion

Main article: HunasThe White Huns, (sometimes known as Alchon, and inaccurately portrayed as the Indo-Hephthalites), seem to have been part of the Hephthalite group, who established themselves in Afghanistan by the first half of the fifth century, with their capital at Bamiyan. They were responsible for the downfall of the Gupta dynasty, and thus brought an end to what historians consider a golden age in northern India. However, much of the Deccan and southern India were largely unaffected by this state of flux in the north.The Gupta Emperor Skandagupta repelled a Hun invasion in 455 AD, but they continued to pressure India’s northwest frontier (present day Pakistan), and broke through into northern India by the end of the fifth century, thereby hastening the disintegration of the Gupta Empire. After the end of the sixth century, little is recorded in India about the Huns, and their ultimate fate is unclear; some historians surmise that the remaining Huns were assimilated into northern India’s population. Certain historians, such as Romila Thapar, have suggested that the Huns are the ancestors of the Rajputs. Many Rajputs themselves however have hotly rejected this suggestion.

Kalabhras

Main article: KalabhrasIn the south, a Buddhist kingdom, the Kalabhras, briefly interrupted the usual domination of the Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas, imposing the only known Buddhist dynasty to have ever ruled there. However, between the 3rd and the 6th century AD, they would succeed in uniting the south.

Northwestern hybrid cultures

A series of hybrid cultures formed in the region of northwestern India, around modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, due to remnant kingdoms left by Persian and Greek conqests, who were later supplanted by invading nomads from central Asia. These unique cultures often dominated the area of the silk route where trade and culture from India, China and Persia met, gaining influence from cultures throughout the world, and spreading Indian developments to other countries connected along the trade route. Their rulers adopted Buddhism and Hinduism, and their culture influenced north Indian styles.

Indo-Greeks

 The Indo-Greek Kingdom (or sometimes Greco-Indian Kingdom) covered various parts of northwest and northern India from 180 BC to around 10 AD, and was ruled by a succession of more than thirty Greek kings, often in conflict with each other. The kingdom was founded when the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius invaded India in 180 BC, ultimately creating an entity which seceded from the powerful Greco-Bactrian Kingdom centred in Bactria (today’s northern Afghanistan).

Indo-Scythians

Main article: Indo-Scythians The Indo-Scythians are a branch of the Indo-European Sakas (Scythians), who migrated from southern Siberia into Bactria, Sogdiana, Kashmir and finally into Arachosia and then India from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century BCE. They displaced the Indo-Greeks and ruled in northern India from Gandhara to Mathura.

Indo-Parthians

Main article: Indo-Parthian KingdomThe Indo-Parthian Kingdom was established during the 1st century AD, by a Parthian leader named Gondophares, in an area covering today’s Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India. The Parthians ended up controlling all of Bactria and extensive territories in Northern India, after fighting many local rulers such as the Kushan Empire ruler Kujula Kadphises, in the Gandhara region. They were known in India as Pahlava.

Indo-Sassanians

Main article: Indo-SassaniansThe Sassanian empire of Persia, who were close contemporaries of the Guptas, began to expand into the north-western part of ancient India (now Pakistan), where they established their rule. The mingling of Indian and Persian cultures in this region gave birth to the Indo-Sassanian culture, which flourished in the western part of the Punjab and the areas now known in Pakistan as the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan. The last Hindu kingdom in this region, the Shahi dynasty, also may have arisen from this culture.

Late Middle Kingdoms – the classical age

Main article: Middle kingdoms of IndiaLater during the middle period, the Chola kingdom emerged in northern Tamil Nadu, and the Chera kingdom in Kerala. The ports of southern India were involved in the Indian Ocean trade, chiefly involving spices, with the Roman Empire to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. In the north, the first of the Rajputs, a series of kingdoms which managed to survive in some form for almost a millennium until Indian independence from the British. This period produced some of India’s finest art, considered the epitomy of classical development, and the main spiritual and philosophical systems of India continued to be Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. This period began with the resurgence of the north during Harsha’s conquests around the 7th century, and ended with the fall of the Vijaynagar Empire in the South, due to pressure from the invaders to the north in the 13th century. 

Harsha’s empire

Main article: HarshaKing Harsha of Kannauj succeeded in reuniting northern India during his reign in the 7th century, after the collapse of the Gupta dynasty. His kingdom collapsed after his death. From the 7th to the 9th century, three dynasties contested for control of northern India: the Pratiharas of Malwa and later Kannauj; the Palas of Bengal, and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan. King Harsha is often referred to as The Last Hindu Emperor of North India, seeing that no king until Akbar in the 16th century managed to conquer an empire as large as Harsha’s. 

The Chalukyas and Pallavas

Main articles: Chalukyas and PallavasThe Vishnukundina dynasty was located around the area of Kalinga or Orissa, starting around the 6th century, and would eventually become part of the Chalukya holdings. The Chalukya Empire ruled parts of southern and central India from 550 to 750 from Badami, Karnataka and again from 970 to 1190 from Kalyani, Karnataka. The Pallavas of Kanchi were their contemporaries to the south. Over a period of roughly a century, the two kingdoms fought a series of low-intensity wars, each conquering the other’s capitals at various points. The kings of Sri Lanka and the Keralan Cheras rendered support to the Pallavas, while the Pandyas rendered support to the Chalukyas. Whilst the northern concept of a pan-Indian empire had collapsed at the end of Harsha’s empire, the ideal instead shifted to the south. The two dynasties were responsible for some of the greatest examples of both rock-cut and free-standing temples.

Pratiharas, Palas, and Rashtrakutas

Main articles: Pratihara, Pala Empire, and RashtrakutaThe Pratiharas, also called the Gurjara-Pratiharas were an Indian dynasty who ruled kingdoms in Rajasthan and northern India from the sixth to the eleventh centuries. The Pala Empire controlled Bihar and Bengal, from the 8th to the 12th century. The Rashtrakutas of Malakheda (Karnataka) were a dynasty which ruled the Deccan during the 8th-10th centuries after the end of Chalukya rule. Each three kingdoms vied for north Indian domination around the same time that the Cholas were flourishing in the south. The Sena dynasty would later assume control of the Pala kingdom, and the Pratiharas fragmented into various Rajput states.

The Rajputs

A fine piece of Rajput architecture, Hawa Mahal or “Hall of the Winds”, Jaipur. The first recorded Rajput kingdoms emerged in Rajasthan in the 6th century, and Rajput dynasties later ruled much of northern India, including Mewar (Sisodias), Gujarat (Solankis), Malwa (Paramaras), Bundelkhand (Chandelas), and Haryana (Tomaras). One Rajput of the Chauhan dynasty, Prithviraj Chauhan, was known for bloody conflicts against the encroaching Islamic Sultanates, and the Rajputs in general, due to their location in the north of India, bore the brunt of this assault for centuries, successfully maintaining their kingdoms. Later, some of them cooperated with the Mughal empire. The Rajput period is known for its artistic and architectural contribution. The Rajputs constructed some of the most beautiful architectural marvels of India, including the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, the palaces of Udaipur, and the temples of Khajuraho. Rajput architecture played a major role in the fruition of Mughal architecture. Rajasthani art and paintings (also called Pahari art) depicting the pastimes of Lord Krishna became a landmark, paving the way for religious and artistic movements in India during the Mughal period. Hindi was the result of amalgamation of Hindu cultures like the Rajputs with the Mughals.

Hoysalas, Kakatiyas, southern Kalachuris, Seuna Yadavas

 Sala killing tiger, Hoysala emblem, Chennakeshava temple Belur, KarnatakaWith the decline of the Kalyani Chalukya empire, their feudatories, Hoysalas of Halebidu, Kakatiya of Warangal, Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri and a southern branch of the Kalachuri divided the vast Chalukya empire amongst themselves around the middle of 12th. century. Literature in local vernaculars and spectacular architecture flourished till about the beginning of the 14th century when southern expeditions of the sultan of Delhi took their toll on these kingdoms. By 1343 A.D., all these kingdoms had ceased to exist giving rise to the Vijayanagar empire that rose to power in the domains of the Hoysalas and Kakatiya. 

 Shahi kingdom

Main article: ShahiThe Shahi dynasty ruled portions of eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and Kashmir from the mid-seventh century to the early eleventh century. They are split into two eras the Buddhist Turk Shahis and the Hindu Shahis with the changeover occurring sometime around 870. They were the last Hindu or Buddhist dynasty to rule the area of Gandhara or Afghanistan, prior to the invasions of the Ghaznavids and other Sultanates or warlords.

Vijayanagar empire

Main article: Vijayanagara Empire This 14th century statue depicts Shiva (on the left) and his wife Uma (on the right}. It is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.The brothers Harihara and Bukka founded the Vijayanagara Empire, in 1336 with its regal capital as Vijayanagara, which is present day Hampi in Karnataka. The Vijayanagara empire prospered during the reign of Krishnadevaraya. It suffered a major defeat in 1565 but continued for another century or so in an attenuated form. Southern Indian kingdoms of the time expanded their influence as far as Indonesia, controlling vast overseas empires in Southeast Asia. The Hindu dynasty came into conflict with Islamic rule (the Bahmani Kingdom) and the clashing of the two systems, caused a mingling of the indigenous and foreign culture that left lasting cultural influences on each other. The empire contributed greatly to arts, architecture and literature in Telugu, Sanskrit and Kannada. The vast theatre of monuments at Hampi are testimony to this.The Vijaynagar Empire eventually declined due to pressure from the first Delhi Sultanates who had managed to establish themselves in the north, centered around the city of Delhi, a former Rajput holding. This marked a new period in Indian history, and the end of the classical culture that had been created in India, and influenced the east, for almost two thousand years.

The Islamic sultanates

Main article: Islamic empires in IndiaAfter the Arab-Turkic invasion of India’s ancient northern neighbour Persia, expanding forces in that area were keen to invade India, which was the richest classical civilization, with the only known diamond mines in the world. After resistance for a few centuries by various north Indian kingdoms, short lived Islamic empires invaded and spread across the northern subcontinent over a period of a few centuries. Prior to Turkic invasions, Muslim trading communities flourished throughout coastal South India, particularly in Kerala, where they arrived in small numbers through trade links via the Indian Ocean with the Arabian peninsula, however, this marked the largescale introduction of western religion into the primarily dharmic culture of India, often in puritanical form.

Delhi sultanate

In the 12th and 13th centuries, Arabs, Turks and Afghans invaded parts of northern India and established the Delhi Sultanate at the beginning of the 13th century, from former Rajput holdings. The subsequent Slave dynasty of Delhi managed to conquer large areas of northern India, approximate to the ancient extent of the Guptas, while the Khilji Empire was also able to conquer most of central India, but were ultimately unsuccessful in conquering most of the subcontinent.See also: Islamic invasion of India and Decline of Buddhism in India

The Mughal era

Main article: Mughal era  Approximate extent of the Mughal dynasty in the 17th centuryDuring the Mughal era, the dominant political forces consisted of the Mughal Empire, its tributaries, and the rise of its successor states, including the Maratha confederacy, who fought an increasingly weak and disfavoured Mughal dynasty.

Mughal empire

Main article: Mughal EmpireIn 1526, Babur, a Timurid (Turco-Persian) descendant of Timur, swept across the Khyber Pass and established the Mughal Empire, which lasted for over 200 years. (The traditional form of “Mughal” in English is “Mogul,” leading to the use of that word as a term for a powerful businessman.) The Mughal Dynasty ruled most of the Indian subcontinent by 1600; it went into a slow decline after 1707 and was finally defeated during the Indian rebellion of 1857. This period marked vast social change in the subcontinent as the Hindu majority were ruled over by the Mughal emperors, some of whom showed religious tolerance, liberally patroning Hindu culture, and some of whom destroyed historical temples and imposed taxes on non-Muslims. During the decline of the Mughal Empire, which at its peak occupied an area slightly larger than the ancient Maurya Empire, several smaller empires rose to fill the power vacuum or themselves were contributing factors to the decline. The Mughals were perhaps the richest single dynasty to have ever existed. The Taj Mahal might have existed long before Shahjahan’s era is another debatable issue for some of the historians based on certain archaeological evidences which prove otherwise.The Mughals, while often employing brutal tactics to subjugate their empire, had a policy of integration with Indian culture, which is what made them successful where the short-lived Sultanates of Delhi had failed. This is much the same as how the earliest Mongols had conquered Asia, and then adopted local culture, whether Chinese or Persian. Akbar the Great was particularly famed for this. Akbar was greatly influenced by the teachings of JainAcharyaHir Vijay Suri and Jin Chandra Suri. Akbar gave up non-vegetarian food by their influence. Akbar declared “Amari” or non-killing of animals in the holy days of Jains like Paryushan and Mahavir Jayanti. He rolled back Zazia Tax from Jain Pilgrim places like Palitana.The Mughal Emperors quickly married local royalty, allied themselves with local Maharajas, and attempted to fuse their Turko-Persian culture with ancient Indian styles, creating unique Indo-Saracenic architecture. It was the erosion of this tradition coupled with increased brutality and centralisation that played a large part in their downfall after Aurangzeb, who unlike previous emperors, imposed relatively non-pluralistic policies on the general population, that often inflamed the majority Hindu population.

The Maratha Empire

  Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, became the first British Governor of Bengal.Main article: Maratha EmpireThe Maratha Kingdom was founded by Shivaji in 1674, when he annexed a portion of the Bijapur Sultanate. After consolidating his hold over his territories in the Deccan, Shivaji declared war on the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, gaining popular support against his controversial policies. By the 18th century, it had transformed itself into the Maratha Empire under the rule of the Peshwas. By 1760, the Empire had stretched across practically the entire subcontinent. This expansion was brought to an end by the defeat of the Marathas by an Afghan army led by Ahmad Shah Abdali at the Third Battle of Panipat (1761). The last Peshwa, Baji Rao II, was defeated by the British in the Third Anglo-Maratha War.

Post-Mughal regional kingdoms

The post-Mughal era was dominated by the rise of the Maratha suzerianity as other small regional states, post-Mughal tributary states, and the increasing activities of European powers, and the eventual collapse of the Marathas led to the British annexation of South Asia.

The Kingdom of Mysore

Main article: Kingdom of MysoreThe Kingdom of Mysore was a kingdom of southern India, which was founded around 1400 AD by the Wodeyar dynasty. The rule of the Wodeyars was interrupted by Hyder Ali and his son Tippu Sultan. Under their rule Mysore fought a series of wars sometimes against the combined forces of the British and Marathas, but mostly against the British with some aid or promise of aid from the French. After the death of Tippu Sultan in the Fourth War of Mysore in 1799, the Wodeyar dynasty regained limited power as a Princely State under the British. The Kingdom of Mysore became part of the modern day, Indian state of Karnataka.

The Hyderabad State

Main articles: Hyderabad State and Hyderabad, Andhra PradeshHyderābād and Berar under the Nizam’s, was a princely state in India. It was located in south-central India from 1724 until 1948, ruled by a hereditary Nizam, and an Indian state from 1948 to 1956. Its capital city Hyderabad was for most of that time one of India’s four largest cities.

The Punjab

Main article: Sikh EmpireThe Punjabi kingdom, ruled by members of the Sikh religious movement was a political entity that ruled the region of modern day Punjab. Founded by the ten Gurus of the Sikh faith, it expanded its borders during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh at the height of the Sikh Empire to include surrounding areas like Kashmir, Peshawar, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and was among the last areas of the subcontinent that was conquered by the British. The Anglo-Sikh wars marked the downfall of the Sikh Empire.

Afghanistan

Main article: Durrani EmpireIn 1748, the Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Abdali crossed the Indus River on the pretext of waging a jihad against the “Hindus“. He attacked Lahore (in present day Pakistan) in 1750, his first Indian target. Subsequently, he raided the rest of the Punjab (including Amritsar), Kashmir and finally Delhi. He also fought against the Marathas frequently. He left India with numerous treasures, including the Kohinoor diamond.

Gorkha kingdom

Main article: NepalIt was around the 18th century that modern Nepal, formerly part of several empires such as the Mauryans, was formed by Gorkha rulers, who conquered the Kathmandu valley. During later colonial rule, Nepal was made a puppet state of Great Britain, rather than annexed like other princely states, in part due to the use of Gurkhas in the British and British Indian armies.

Colonial era

During the colonial era, India, along with several ancient nations in Asia, Africa and South America, was targeted by expansionist European powers, and was eventually attempted to be incorporated as a vassal territory governed largely by the British Crown. This was a turning point in the development of modern world history. The subsequent independence struggle began with the Rebellion of 1857, and was later led by figures such as Mohandas Gandhi.

Trade-Post rule

Main article: Colonial IndiaVasco da Gama’s discovery of a new sea route to India in 1498 paved the way for European commerce with India. The Portuguese set up bases in Goa, Daman, Diu and Bombay. They maintained the longest trade-post for 500 years until 1962. The British established their first outpost in South Asia in 1619 at Surat on the northwestern coast of India, arriving in the wake of Portuguese and Dutch visitors. Later in the century, the British East India Company opened permanent trading stations at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, each under the protection of native rulers.

French factories/trade posts

See also: French IndiaThe French set up base along with the British in the 17^th century. They tried to occupy large parts of southern India. However, subsequent wars with the British led to the loss of almost all of their commercial posts. They did, however, retain the trade-posts of Pondicherry – (Pondicherry, Karaikal, Yanam, and Mahé.) and Chandernagore. The French were expelled from Pondicherry in 1950.The Dutch did not have a major presence in India. They maintained trade-posts in the towns of Travancore; however they were more interested in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). They were responsible for training the military of the princely state of Kerala. In 1845, the Danish trade-post of Tranquebar was sold to the United Kingdom.

The British Raj

 The British established a foothold in Bengal when the British soldiers, funded by the East India Company, and led by Robert Clive, defeated Nawab Siraj Ud Daulah in the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and plundered the Bengali treasure. Bengal became a protectorate, and then directly went under the rule of East India Company. The British East India Company monopolized the trade of Bengal. The Bengali craftsmen were inevitably fixed at foreign posts of the Company, where they were obliged to render their labour at minimal compensation while their collective tax burden increased harshly. The result was the famine of 1769 to 1773 in which 10 million Bengalis died, followed almost a century later by the catastrophic Great Calamity period, resulting in part from an extension of similar policies, in which up to 40 million Indians perished from famine amidst the collapse of India’s native industries and skilled workforce.By the 1850s Britain controlled most of the Indian sub-continent, which included present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. From 1830, the defeat of the Thugs played a part in securing establishing greater control of diverse Indian provinces for the British.The Indian rebellion of 1857 in the north, led by mutinous Indian soldiers and known in British history as the Great Mutiny, was crushed by the British. In the aftermath all political power was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown, which began administering most of India directly. It controlled the rest through local rulers.

The Indian Independence movement

The first step toward Indian independence and western-style democracy was taken with the appointment of Indian councillors to advise the symbolic British viceroy, and the establishment of provincial Councils with Indian members; the councillors participation was subsequently widened in legislative councils. Beginning in 1920, Indian leaders such as Subhas Chandra Bose transformed the Indian National Congress into a mass movement to campaign against the British Raj. The movement eventually succeeded in bringing a unified democratic nation-state to the people of the Indian subcontinent, by means of parliamentary action and non-violent resistance and non-cooperation. Following the division of India into the nations of India (officially secular, later the Republic of India) and Pakistan (Islamic, later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) in August 1947, rioting broke out between Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in several parts of India, including Punjab which was partitioned between India and Pakistan; Bengal and Delhi, leaving some 200,000 dead. Also, this period saw the largest mass migration ever recorded in modern history, with a total of 12 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims moved between the newly created nations of India and Pakistan.

History of Bangladesh

History of Bengal Bangladesh became one of the youngest major nation states following a pair of twentieth century secessions from India (1947) and Pakistan (1971). The region’s history combines Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Mughal, Persian, Turkic and British influences. Bangladesh’s territory became part of the state of Bengal as part of the Mughal Empire for two centuries and also during the succeeding two centuries of British rule. During the twentieth century, its resilient inhabitants seem to have suffered one trauma after another. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Mujib) led the nation to independence in 1971, but he and his successor Ziaur Rahman (Zia) were both assassinated only in a span of six years. Their legacies (and families) define Bangladesh’s democracy to this day.

Etymology

The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE.^[1]Other accounts speculate that the name is derived from Vanga(bôngo), which came from the Austric word “Bonga” meaning the Sun-god. According to Mahabharata, Purana, Harivamsha Vanga was one of the adopted sons of king Vali who founded the Vanga kingdom. The Muslim Accounts refer that “Bong”, a son of Hind (son of Hām who was a son of Noah) colonized the area for the first time.^[2] The earliest reference to “Vangala”(bôngal) has been traced in the Nesari plates (805 AD) of Rashtrakuta Govinda III which speak of Dharmapala as the king of Vangala. Shams-ud-din Ilyas Shah took the title “Shah-e-Bangalah” and united the whole region under one nationality for the first time.^{[citation needed]}

Ethnology

The Proto-Australoids were the earliest inhabitants of Bengal. Dravidians migrated to Bengal from Southern India, while Tibeto-Burman peoples migrated from the Himalayas, followed by the Indo-Aryans from north-western India. The ancestors of modern Bengali people were a blend of these peoples. Pathans, Iranians, Arabs and Turks also migrated to the region in the late Middle Ages while spreading Islam.

Ancient period

The Alpine civilization

Remnants of civilization in the greater Bengal region date back three millennia. The civilization that flourished in this region before the Aryan conquest was the Alpine civilization. The Alpines (Eastern Bracycephalic) from Taklamakan Desert in Central Asia settled in eastern India (Bengal, Orissa and the plains of Assam) and formed the main elements of today’s Bengali people. The Alpines were divided into various indigenous tribes: Vanga (south Bengal), Pundra (north Bengal), and Rarh/Suhma (West Bengal) according to their respective Totems. Mahasthangarh the oldest archaeological site of Bangladesh (dates back to 700 BCE) was the ancient capital of the Pundra kingdomNot much is known about this civilization. Some deprecatory references indicate that the primitive people in Bengal ware different in ethnicity and culture form the Vedic beyond the boundary of Aryandom and who were classed as ‘Dasyus‘. The Bhagavata Purana classes them as sinful people while Dharmasutra of Bodhayana prescribes expiatory rites after a journey among the Pundras and Vangas. However, the Alpines successfully resisted the Vedic Aryan invaders for about a millennium. It was only in the 4th century BCE when aryanism started to flux into this region with the Mauryan conquest.

 Overseas Colonization

According to Mahavamsa, Vijaya Singha, a Vanga prince, conquered Lanka (modern day Sri Lanka) in 544 BC and gave the name Sinhala to the country. Bengali people also colonized Laat(Gujarat), Madras and the Indonesian archipelago. The Chera, Tamil, Andhra and Karnataka peoples are also said to be connected with the Bengali people.Few Naga worshipping peoples–Marana, Chera, Pangalathirayar–migrated from Bengal to South India and established their own kingdoms there. Lac Long Quan, a Naga warrior migrated from bôn-lang(Bengal) to Anam (Vietnam) conquered the land (7th century BCE) and renamed it according to the name of his motherland (bon-lang). The kings of Lac Long’s line were known as bôns (Bongs)and they would rule Anam up to the 3rd century BCE.

Gangaridai Empire

In 326 BCE, with the invasion of Alexander the Great the region again comes into prominence. The Greek and Latin historians suggested that Alexander the Great withdrew from India anticipating the valiant counter attack of the mighty Gangaridai and Prasioi empires which were located in the Bengal region. Alexander, after the meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return. Diodorus Siculus mentions Gangaridai to be the largest and the most powerful empire in India whose king possessed an army of 20,000 horses, 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war. The allied forces of Gangaridai and Prasii (Nanda Empire) were preparing a massive counter attack against the forces of Alexander on the banks of Ganges. Gangaridai according to the Greek accounts kept on flourishing at least up to the 1st century AD.

Early Middle Ages

The pre-Gupta period of bengal is shrouded with obscurity. Before the conquest of Samudragupta Bengal was divided into two kingdoms Pushkarana and Samatata. Chandragupta II had to defeat a confederacy of Vanga kings. Bengal was a part of the Gupta Empire. However, the Mrigashikhaban Stupa of Varendra is a strong proof that the Guptas themselves had originated from Bengal. This implies that the Guptas were Bengali and the Gupta empire was in fact a Bengali empire. Even today the origin of the Guptas is still hotly debated.

Gupta Empire

Maharaja Sri-Gupta the founder of the dynasty probably ruled a portion of Northern or Central Bengal. Later, the Guptas extended their dominion as far as Magadha, Prayaga, and Saket(Ayodhya). Samudragupta and Chandragupta II were two celibrated kings of the empire. Gupta Age is often consudered as the Golden Age of India by modern historians. The Guptas, already weakened by the Hephthalite invasions was finally brought to an end by Yasodharman of Malwa. Factions of the Gupta dynasty, however, survived in Bengal where they will later form the Gauda kingdom.

Gauda Kingdom

By the sixth century, the Gupta Empire ruling over the northern Indian subcontinent was largely broken up. Eastern Bengal became the Vanga kingdom while the Gauda kings rose in the west with their capital at Karnasuvarna (Murshidabad). The first two kings of Independent Gauda kingdom Kumargupta and Damodargupta consolidated their power in Gaur and Magadha.Mahasengupta the greatest king of this dynasty not only expanded his kingdom to the Brahmaputra valley in Assam but also to Malava in Central India. Shashanka the successor of Mahasengupta unified the smaller principalities of Bengal (Gaur, Vanga, Samatata) and vied for regional power with Harshavardhana in northern India. But this burst of Bengali power did not last beyond his death, as Bengal descended afterwards into a period marked by disunity and foreign invasion.

The Pala Empire

The first independent Buddhist king of Bengal, Gopala I came to power in 750 in Gaur by democratic election. Gopala founded the Buddhist Pala dynasty which lasted for four centuries (750-1120 AD), ushering in a period of relative stability and prosperity.At its peak, under Dharmapala the empire extended into much of Bihar and once more wrestled for control of the subcontinent. He conquered Bhoja (Berar), Matsya (Jaipur), Madra (Central Punjab), Kuru (Thaneswar), Yadu (Mathura & Dwaraka), Avanti (Malwa), Yavana(Muslims of Sindh/Multan), Gandhara (Kabol valley), Kambojja (Northern Bengal ruled by Barman kings; later after the fall of Kambojja, another Kambojja was born — Cambodia, ruled by Barmans) and Kira (Kangra).Devapala the Great, successor of Dharmapala, expanded his empire farther up to Assam and Utkala in the east, Kamboja in the north-west and Deccan in the south. He exterminated the Utkalas, conquered the Pragjyotisha (Assam) shattered the pride of the Hunas and humbled the lords of GurjaraPratiharas and the Dravidas.  Paharpur Vihara the greatest Buddhist Vihara in the sub-continent built by DharmapalaThe Pala empire can be considered as the Roman empire of Bengal. Never had the Bengali people reached such height of power and glory and never had they influenced the outside world to that extent. Palas were responsible for the introduction of Mahayana Buddhism in Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar. The pre-dominant Pala sculptures and the proto-Bangla scripts of the Sailendra empire (Malaya, Java, Sumatra) of the late 8th century attest that the Sailendra dynasty originated from Bengal.The death of Devapala ended the period of ascendancy of the Pala empire and several independent dynasties and kingdoms emerged during this time including the Khadgas, Devas, the Chandras, and Varmanas.Mahipala I rejuveneted the reign of the Palas. He recovered north Bengal from the Kambojas and survived the invasions of Rajendra Chola and the Chalukyas. Mahipala I did not join the Hindu confederacy against Mahmud of Ghazni.After Mahipala I the Pala dynasty again saw its decline until Ramapala,the last great ruler of the dynasty, managed to retrieve the position of the dynasty to some extent. He crushed the Varendra rebellion and extended his empire farther to Kamarupa, Orissa and Northern India.The Palas were followed by the Sena dynasty who brought the East and West Bengal under one ruler only during the twelfth century. The Sena dynasty brought a revival of Hinduism and cultivated Sanskrit literature.  

Late Middle Ages – Arrival of Islam

Islam made its first appearance in Bengal during the twelfth century AD when Sufi missionaries arrived. Later occasional Muslim invaders reinforced the process of conversion by building mosques, madrassas and Sufi Khanqahs. Beginning in 1202 a military commander from the Delhi Sultanate, Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiar Khilji, overran Bihar and Bengal as far east as Rangpur, Bogra and the Brahmaputra River. The defeated Laksmanasena and his two sons moved to a place then called Vikramapura (south of Dhaka), where their diminished dominion lasted until the late thirteenth century.

Turkic dynasties

The period after Bakhtiar Khilji’s death in 1206 devolved into infighting among the Khiljis – representative of a pattern of succession struggles and intra-empire intrigues during later Turkish regimes. Ghiyasuddin Iwaz Khalji prevailed and extended the Sultan’s domain south to Jessore and made the eastern Bang province a tributary. The capital was made at Lakhnauti on the Ganges near the older Bengal capital of Gaur. He managed to make Kamarupa, Orissa and Trihut pay tribute to him. But he was later defeated by Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish.The weak successors of Iltutmish encouraged the local governors to declare independence. Bengal was sufficiently remote from Delhi that its governors would declare independence on occasion, styling themselves as Sultans of Bengal. It was during this time that Bengal earned the name “Bulgakpur”(land of the rebels). Tughral Togun Khan added Oudh and Bihar to Bengal. Mughisuddin Yuzbak also conquered Bihar and Oudh from Delhi but was killed during an unsuccessful expedition in Assam.Two Turkish attempts to push east of the broad Jamuna and Brahmaputra rivers were repulsed, but a third led by Mughisuddin Tughral conquered the Sonargaon area south of Dhaka to Faridpur, bringing the Sena Kingdom officially to an end by 1277. Mughisuddin Tughral repulsed two massive attacks of the sultanate of Delhi before finally being defeated and killed by Ghiyas ud din Balban.

Ilyas Shahi dynasty

Ilyas Shah founded an independent dynasty that lasted from 1342-1487 which successfully repulsed attempts by Delhi to reign them in. They continued to reel in the territory of modern-day Bengal, reaching to Khulna in the south and Sylhet in the east. The sultans advanced civic institutions and became more responsive and “native” in their outlook, having cut loose from Delhi. Considerable architectural projects were completed in Gaur including the massive Adina Mosque and the 1479 Darasbari Mosque which still stands in Bangladesh near the border. The Sultans of Bangalah were patrons of Bengali literature and began a process in which a common Bengali culture and identity would coalesce.The Ilyas Shahi Dynasty was interrupted by an uprising of the Hindus under Ganesh. However the Ilyas Shahi dynasty was restored by Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah, which was finally overthrown by the Habshi (Abyssinian) slaves of the sultanate.

Hussain Shahi dynasty

The Habshi rule gave way to the Hussain Shahi dynasty that ruled from 1494-1538. Alauddin Hussain Shah, considered as the greatest of all the sultans of Bengal for the cultural renaissance during his reign, conquered Kamarupa, Kamata, Jajnagar, Orissa and extended the sultanate all the way to the port of Chittagong, which witnessed the arrival of the first Portuguese merchants.Nasiruddin Nusrat Shah gave refuge to the Afghan lords during the invasion of Babur though he remained neutral. However Nusrat Shah made a treaty with Babur and saved Bengal from a Mughal invasion.The last Sultan of the dynasty, who continued to rule from Gaur, had to contend with rising Afghan activity on his northwestern border. Eventually, the Afghans broke through and sacked the capital in 1538 where they remained for several decades until the arrival of the Mughals.

Afghan rule

Sher Shah Suri established the Sur dynasty in Bengal. After the battle of Chausa he declared himself independent Sultan of Bengal and Bihar. Sher Shah was the only Muslim Sultan of Bengal to establish an empire in northern India. The Afghan rule in Bengal remained for 44 years. Their most impressive achievement was Sher Shah’s construction of the Grand Trunk Road connecting Sonargaon, Delhi and Peshawar.The Sur dynasty was followed by the Karrani dynasty.Sulaiman Karrani annexed Orissa to the Muslim sultanate permanently. Daud Shah Karrani declared total independence from Akbar which led to four years of bloody war between the Mughals and the Afghans. The Mughal onslaught against the Afghan Sultan ended with the battle of Rajmahal in 1576, led by Khan Jahan. However, the Afghans and the local land-lords (Baro Bhuyans) led by Isa Khan resisted the Moghul invasion.  

Mughal period

Bengal came once more under the suzerainty of Delhi as the Mughals conquered it in 1576. Not far from Sonargaon, Dhaka rose from the mists of obscurity as a Mughal provincial capital. But it remained remote and thus a difficult to govern region–especially the section east of the Brahmaputra River–outside the mainstream of Mughal politics. The Bengali ethnic and linguistic identity further cystallized during this period, since the whole of Bengal was united under an able and long-lasting administration. Furthermore its inhabitants were given sufficient autonomy to cultivate their own customs and literature.In 1612, during Emperor Jahangir’s reign, the defeat of Sylhet completed the Mughal conquest of Bengal, except for Chittagong. At this time the capital was established at Dhaka. Chittagong was later annexed in order to stifle Arakanese raids from the east. A well-known Dhaka landmark, Lalbagh Fort was built during Aurangzeb’s sovereignty as well.History repeated itself as the frontier Bengal province broke off from a Delhi-based empire around the time Aurangzeb’s death in 1707. Murshid Quli Khan ended Dhaka’s century of grandeur as he shifted the capital to Murshidabad ushering in a series of independent Bengal Nawabs. Nawab Alivardi Khan showed extra ordinary militarimanship during his wars with the Marathas. He completely routed the Marathas from Bengal. He crushed an uprising of the Afghans in Bihar and made the British pay 1,50,000 Tk for blocking Mughal and Armenian trade ships.

Europeans in Bengal

Portuguese traders and missionaries were the first Europeans to reach Bengal in the latter part of the fifteenth century. They were followed by representatives of the Dutch, the French, and the British East India Company. The Mughal Subahdar of Bengal Kasim Khan Mashadi completely destroyed the Portuguese in the Battle of Hoogly (1632). About 10,000 Portuguese men and women died in the battle and 4,400 were sent captive to Delhi.During Aurangzeb’s reign, the local Nawab sold three villages, including one then known as Calcutta, to the British. Calcutta was in fact Britain’s initial foothold on the Indian subcontinent and remained a focal point of their activity. The British gradually extended their commercial contacts and administrative control beyond Calcutta to the rest of Bengal. Job Charnock was one of the first dreamers of a British empire in India. He almost waged war against the Mughal authority of Bengal which led to the Anglo-Mughal war of Bengal (1686-1690). Shaista Khan the nawab of Bengal defeated the British in the battles of Hoogly, Baleshwar, and Hijly and expelled the British from Bengal. Captain William Heath with a fleet moved towards Chittagong but it was a failure and he had to retreat to Madras.

British Rule

The British East India Company gained official control of Bengal following the Battle of Plassey in 1757. This was the first conquest, in a series of engagements that ultimately lead to the expulsion of other European competitors, the defeat of the Mughals and the consolidation of the subcontinent under the rule of a corporation — a doubly unique event. Calcutta (nowadays Kolkata) on the Hooghly became a major trading port for the Muslin and Jute produced in Dhaka and the rest of Bengal.Scandals and the bloody rebellion known as the Sepoy Mutiny prompted the British government to intervene in the affairs of the East India Company. In 1858, authority in India was transferred from the Company to the crown and the rebellion was brutally suppressed. Rule of India was organized under a Viceroy and continued a pattern of economic exploitation. Famine racked the subcontinent many times, including at least two major famines in Bengal. The British Raj was politically organized into seventeen Provinces–of which Bengal was one of the most significant–most headed by a Governor. For a brief period in the early twentieth century, an abortive attempt was made to divide Bengal into two zones, West Bengal and East Bengal & Assam.See also: Bengal renaissance

Creation of Pakistan

As the independence movement throughout British-controlled India began in the late nineteenth century gained momentum during the twentieth century, Bengali politicians played an active role in Gandhi’s Congress Party and Jinnah’s Muslim League, exposing the opposing forces of ethnic and religious nationalism. By exploiting the latter, the British probably intended to distract the independence movement, for example by partitioning Bengal in 1905 along religious lines (the split only lasted for seven years). At first the Muslim League sought only to ensure minority rights in the future nation. But after faring poorly in the 1936 elections, in 1940 Jinnah shifted decisively towards the idea of a separate Islamic Pakistan. Non-negotiable was the inclusion of the Muslim parts of Punjab and Bengal in this new state. The stakes grew as a new Viceroy Mountbatten was appointed expressly for the purpose of effecting a graceful British exit. Communal violence in Noakhali and Calcutta sparked a surge in support for the Muslim League, which won a majority of Bengal’s Muslim seats in 1946. Accusations have been made that Hindu and Muslim nationalist instigators were involved in the latter incident.British India was partitioned and the independent states of India and Pakistan were created in 1947; the region of Bengal was divided along religious lines. The predominantly Muslim eastern half of Bengal became the East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan) state of Pakistan and the predominantly Hindu western part became the Indian state of West Bengal.Pakistan’s history from 1947 to 1971 was marked by political instability and economic difficulties. In 1956 a constitution was at last adopted, making the country an “Islamic republic within the Commonwealth”. The nascent democratic institutions foundered in the face of military intervention in 1958, and the government imposed martial law between 1958 and 1962, and again between 1969 and 1971.Almost from the advent of independent Pakistan in 1947, frictions developed between East and West Pakistan, which were separated by more than 1,000 miles of Indian territory. East Pakistanis felt exploited by the West Pakistan-dominated central government. Linguistic, cultural, and ethnic differences also contributed to the estrangement of East from West Pakistan.When Mohammad Ali Jinnah died in September 1948, Khwaja Nazimuddin became the Governor General of Pakistan while Nurul Amin was appointed the Chief Minister of East Bengal. Nurul Amin continued as the Chief Minister of East Bengal until 2 April 1954. The abolition of the Zamindari system in East Bengal (1950) and the Language Movement were two most important events during his tenure.

The Language Movement

The Language Movement began in 1948 and reached its climax in the killings of 21 February 1952, and ended in the adoption of Bangla as one of the state languages of Pakistan. The question as to what would be the state language of Pakistan was raised immediately after its creation.The central leaders and the Urdu-speaking intellectuals of Pakistan declared that Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan, just as Hindi was the state language of India. Bengalis strongly resisted attempts to impose Urdu as the sole official language of Pakistan. The students and intellectuals of East Pakistan, however, demanded that Bangla be made one of the state languages, which was the native language of the majority (54% native speakers as opposed to 7% native Urdu speakers) in the whole of Pakistan anyway.After a lot of controversy over the language issue, the final demand from East Pakistan was that Bangla must be the official language and the medium of instruction in East Pakistan and for the central government it would be one of the state languages along with Urdu. The first movement on this issue was mobilised by Tamaddun Majlish headed by Professor Abul Kashem. Gradually many other non-communal and progressive organisations joined the movement, which finally turned into a mass movement.

Politics: 1954 – 1970

The first election for East Bengal Provincial Assembly was held between 8 March and 12 March 1954. The Awami Muslim League, Krishak-Sramik Party and Nezam-e-Islam formed the United Front, on the basis of 21-points agenda.Notable pledges contained in the 21-points were:

• making Bangla one of the state languages
• autonomy for the province
• reforms in education
• independence of the judiciary
• making the legislative assembly effective, etc.

The United Front won 215 out of 237 Muslim seats in the election. The ruling Muslim League got only nine seats. Khilafat-E-Rabbani Party got one, while the independents got twelve seats. Later, seven independent members joined the United Front while one joined the Muslim League.There were numerous reasons for the debacle of the Muslim League. Above all, the Muslim League regime angered all sections of the people of Bengal by opposing the demand for recognition of Bangla as one of the state languages and by ordering the massacre of 1952.The United Front got the opportunity to form the provincial government after winning absolute majority in the 1954 election. Of the 222 United Front seats, the Awami Muslim League had won 142, Krishak-Sramik Party forty eight, Nezam-i-Islam]nineteen and Ganatantri Dal thirteen.The major leaders of the United Front were Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani of Awami Muslim League and AK Fazlul Huq of Krishak-Sramik Party. Suhrawardy and Bhasani did not take part in the election and Fazlul Huq was invited to form the government. But a rift surfaced at the very outset on the question of formation of the cabinet. The unity and solidarity among the component parties of the United Front soon evaporated. Finally, on 15 May, Fazlul Huq arrived at an understanding with the Awami Muslim League and formed a 14-member cabinet with five members from that party.But this cabinet lasted for only fourteen days. The Muslim League could not concede defeat in the elections in good grace. So, they resorted to conspiracies to dismiss the United Front government. In the third week of May, there were bloody riots between Bengali and non-Bengali workers in different mills and factories of East Bengal. The United Front government was blamed for failing to control the law and order situation in the province.Fazlul Huq was then quoted in an interview taken by the New York Times correspondent John P Callaghan and published in a distorted form that he wanted the independence of East Bengal. Finally, on 29 May 1954, the United Front government was dismissed by the central government and Governor’s rule was imposed in the province, which lasted till 2 June 1955.Curiously enough within two months of his sacking, Fazlul Huq was appointed the central Home Minister. As Home Minister, Fazlul Huq utilised his influence to bring his party to power in East Bengal. Naturally, the United Front broke up. The Muslim members of the United Front split into two groups. In 1955 the Awami Muslim League adopted the path of secularism and non-communalism, erased the word ‘Muslim’ from its nomenclature and adopted the name of Awami League. (Source: Banglapedia.)Great differences began developing between the two wings of Pakistan. While the west had a minority share of Pakistan’s total population, it had the maximum share of revenue allocation, industrial development, agricultural reforms and civil development projects. Pakistan’s military and civil services were dominated by the fair-skinned, Persian-cultured Punjabis and Afghans. Only one regiment in the Pakistani Army was Bengali. And many Bengali Pakistanis could not share the natural enthusiasm for the Kashmir issue, which they felt was leaving East Pakistan more vulnerable and threatened as a result.

Independence

Main article: Bangladesh Liberation WarAfter the Awami League won all the East Pakistan seats of the Pakistan’s National Assembly in the 1970-71 elections, West Pakistan opened talks with the East on constitutional questions about the division of power between the central government and the provinces, as well as the formation of a national government headed by the Awami League.The talks proved unsuccessful, however, and on March 1, 1971, Pakistani President Yahya Khan indefinitely postponed the pending national assembly session, precipitating massive civil disobedience in East Pakistan.In March 4, a group of students, lead by Abdur Rob, of Dhaka University raised the new (proposed) flag of Bangla.In March 7, there was a historical public gathering in Paltan Maidan to hear the guideline for the revolution and independence from Shaikh Mujib, the frontier leader of movement that time. Though he avoided the direct speech of independent as the talks were still on table, he influenced the mob to prepare for the separation war. The speech without the script is still an epic speech for the war of liberation. A hit dialog of that speech is, “Now the revolution for independence, now the revolution for freedom…”.After the military crackdown by the Pakistan army since the night of March 25, 1971 Sheikh Mujib Mujibur Rahman was arrested and the political leaders dispersed, mostly fleeing to neighbouring India where they organized a provisional government afterwards. The people were at a loss. At this crucial moment with a sudden forced political vacuum, the Eighth East Bengal Regiment under the leadership of Major Ziaur Rahman revolted against the Pakistan Army and took up the Bangladesh flag as its mainstay on the night of March 26 – March 27, 1971. Major Zia declared, on behalf of the Great Leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the independence of Bangladesh.The Bangladesh Government was formed in Meherpur, adjacent to Indian border. There the war plan was sketched.A war force was established named “Muktibahini”. M. A. G. Osmani was assigned as the Chief of the force. The land sketched into 11 sectors under 11 sector commanders. Major Ziaur Rahman was the sector commander of Chittagong-Comilla region.The training and most of the arms-ammunitions were arranged by the Meherpur government which were supported by India.As fighting grew between the army and the Bengali Mukti Bahini (“freedom fighters”), an estimated ten million Bengalis, mainly Hindus, sought refuge in the Indian states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal.The crisis in East Pakistan produced new strains in Pakistan’s troubled relations with India. The two nations had fought a war in 1965, mainly in the west, but the refugee pressure in India in the fall of 1971 produced new tensions in the east. Indian sympathies lay with East Pakistan, and on December 3, 1971, India intervened on the side of the Bangladeshis. On December 16, 1971, Pakistani forces surrendered, and Bangladesh (“Country of Bangla”) was finally established the following day