history of manila

Manila – A History

The City of Manila occupies a unique position in Philippine political geography, for it is both a chartered city, and also it fulfills the functions of a province for the four cities and thirteen municipalities composing its metropolitan area. But then, Manila has always been an exceptional case, defying just about every political formula devised to govern other towns, cities and provinces. It has required special laws and governmental systems to rule it, practically from the beginning of the Spanish rule of the Philippines in the 16th Century up to the present.
Manila City proper is bounded on the north by Navotas and Caloocan City, on the northeast by Quezon City and San Juan del Monte, on the southeast by Mandaluyong and Makati, and on the south by Pasay City. It faces beautiful Manila Bay to the west.
A relatively new development is the incorporation of all the cities and municipalities comprising the Manila metropolitan area into one unit–a “mega-city”–called “Metro Manila.” It is governed as one unit by a governor, who coordinates its functions and services through the various city and municipal officials, very much like a provincial governor rules many towns. And yet, the component cities, provinces and municipalities retain their previous jurisdictions. Metro Manila is comprised of the cities of Manila, Quezon City, Caloocan City and Pasay City, and the municipalities of Navotas, Malabon, Valenzuela (in Bulacan province), Marikina, Pasig, Mandaluyong, San Juan del Monte, Makati, Pateros, Taguig (Tagig), Paranaque, Las Pinas and Muntinglupa.
Manila derived its name from two Tagalog words; “may,” meaning “there is,” and “nilad,” the name of a shrub that originally grew abundantly along the shores of the Pasig River and Manila Bay. Long before the Spanish conquest, Manila was settled by Mohammedans, who carried on a thriving trade with Chinese and other Southeast Asian merchants. “Maynilad” was the principal bay settlement of these Tagalogs south of the Pasig River, although it was probably less important commercially than Tondo, the town on the north bank.
Manila was first visited by Spaniards in 1570. Governor-General Legazpi, searching for a suitable place to establish his capital after being compelled to move from Cebu to Panay by Portugese pirates, and hearing of the existence of a prosperous Mohammedan community in Luzon, sent an expedition under Martin de Goiti to discover its location and potentials. De Goiti anchored at Cavite, and tried to establish his authority peaceably by sending a message of friendship to Maynilad. Rajah Soliman, then its ruler, was willing to befriend the Spaniards, but would not submit to Spanish sovereignity peaceably.
Naturally, this was unsatisfactory to the Spanish commander, so after he secured equipment and reinforcements, he attacked Maynilad in June of 1570. He captured it after a stout fight, and having formally taken possession of the city in the name of the King of Spain, he returned to Panay.
The next year, in 1571, the Spaniards returned, this time led by Governor-General Legazpi himself. Seeing them approach, the natives set fire to the town, levelling it to the ground, while the people fled to Tondo and neighboring towns.
After occupying the remains of Maynilad on June 19, 1591, and commencing the construction of a fort there, Legazpi made overtures of friendship to Rajah Lakandula of Tondo, which this time were prudently accepted. Soliman, however, refused to submit to the Spaniards, despite the wise counsel of Lakandula, whose aid Soliman solicited in an effort to expel the invaders. Failing to get Lakandula’s support, as well as that of the Pampangans and Pangasinans, Soliman gathered together a considerable force of Tagalog warriors, and attacked the Spaniards in a decisive battle at the town of Bangcusay. There the Filipinos were defeated, and Soliman himself was killed.
With the destruction of Soliman’s army, and the friendly interventions of Rajah Lakandula, the Spaniards were enabled to establish their authority throughout the city and its adjacent settlemnts, and soon several Christian missions were established.
Eventually, Roman Catholic missions, parishes and schools were established by nearly every religious order to come to the Philippines. The first priests were Augustinians and secular priests, followed by Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans and Augustinian Recollects, with many other orders following in later centuries.
The rule of the Spanish conquerers of the “City of Soliman” was full of dangers, since the people were opposed to foreign sovereignty. Consequently, the city was frequently the scene of serious disturbances. The Chinese, angered by the loss of free trade, the commercial restrictions placed by the untrusting Spanish upon them, and the laws forcing them to pay tribute to Spain, made several efforts to destroy the Spaniards.
The first of these Chinese revolts occurred in 1574, when a force of some 3,000 men and 62 Chinese warships under the command of Limahong attacked the city. This attenpt proved fruitless, the Chinese being defeated with heavy losses. As a safeguard against similar uprisings later, the Chinese residents and merchants of Manila were confined to a separate district, called “Parian de Alcaceria.”
However, this precaution was not totally effective, for at various times in the following century, the Chinese rose in revolt. In 1602, they set fire to Quiapo and Tondo, and for a time threatened to capture Intramuros. In 1662, they again revolted, while in 1686, a conspiracy led by Tingco plotted to kill all the Spaniards. It is no surprise, then, to learn that at various times during the Spanish era, the Chinese were expelled (or decrees were made to that effect) from Manila and from the entire country. Later reconciliations nearly always permitted the continuation of the Chinese community in the city, however.
In 1595, Manila was decreed to be the capital of the Archipelago, although it had already in fact served that function practically from its founding in 1571. Besides being Spain’s pre-eminent city in the Philippines, and dominant over other provincial capitals, it was itself a provincial capital over a province whose territory at one time covered nearly all of Luzon, and included the modern territorial subdivisions of Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon, Mindoro, Masbate and Marinduque. Later, these subdivisions were themselves made provinces, leaving Manila province with a territory roughly equal to the present City of Manila proper (except Intramuras, the capital site), and the northwestern two-thirds of Rizal province. The boundary of Manila province went from northeast to southwest, including Antipolo, Cainta, Taytay and Taguig, and all of the towns north and west of them, in Manila province; and Angono, Teresa, Morong, and the towns south and east of them, in Laguna province. Early in the province’s history, the provincial name was changed fran Manila to “Tondo” province, by which it was known for most of the Spanish era.
In 1762, during the “Seven Years’ War,” the British occupied Manila, remaining in the city until 1764. The fleeing Spaniards destroyed many of the records, and in the sack of the town by the British, many historical documents of great value were destroyed or stolen from the archives.
In about 1853, four pueblos or towns of Tondo province were joined with the northeastern towns of Laguna province to form the politico-military “Distrito de los Montes de San Mateo,” or District of the San Mateo Mountains. Tondo province annexed to this new district the towns of Cainta, Taytay, Antipolo and Boso-boso, while Laguna contributed the towns of Angono, Binangonan, Cardona, Morong, Baras, Tanay, Pililla and Jalajala. But the name of the new district proved unwieldy, too long, and misled many into thinking the town of San Mateo (in Tondo province) was the capital of the San Mateo Mountain District, when in reality the district capital was in Morong. So, in about 1859, following common practice of the day, the district was renamed after its capital; namely, Morong District. At about the same time, Tondo Province was renamed Manila Province.
Being the traditional seat of education and liberal thinking in the Philippines, Manila was a rich field for anti-Spanish propaganda. But outwardly it remained quiet until July 7, 1892, when the secret revolutionary organization devoted to the overthrow of Spanish rule of the country, called the Katipunan, was organized in Manila’s suburb, Tondo. Although initial skirmishes between the Filipinos and Spanish were brief and nearly always lost by the Filipinos, the movement grew until open rebellion broke out in 1896, with the Spaniards losing the Philippines to the combined Filipino-American forces in 1898. But Spain ceded the country only to the Americans, who exerted their control militarily, defeating the Filipinos in the “Mock Battle” of Manila on August 13, 1898. Thereafter, the Americans pursued the retreating Filipino forces province by province, until General Emilio Aguinaldo (then president of the Republic) surrendered in Palanan, Isabela, on March 23, 1901. Manila continued under an American military government until civil government was established for the city on July 31, 1901.
Along with the establishment of the civil government, the Philippine Commission dissolved the former province of Manila, and merged its pueblos with those of the District of Morong, forming the new province of Rizal. Afew weeks later, the Philippine Commission provided for a new charter for the city of Manila, defining its boundaries, and thus annexing some of Rizal Province’s towns to the city as districts. These boundaries were slightly revised and redefined on January 29, 1902, when the suburb of Gagalangin was annexed to the city district of Tondo, and the former pueblo of Santa Ana was annexed as a district to Manila City. On July 30 of that year, the city board officially divided the city into 13 political subdivisions named districts, and the boundaries of each were defined. On August 15 of the same year, Pandacan pueblo was annexed as a city district. The boundaries and city districts of Manila City proper have remained essentially unchanged ever since.
With the outbreak of World War II, Manila entered a five-year period of sorrow and destruction. Hoping to minimize the loss of life and property, government officials declared Manila an open city on December 26, 1941. The following New Years’ Day, 1942, President Quezon decreed the merger of the towns of Quezon City, Caloocan, San Juan del Monte, Mandaluyong, Makati, Pasay and Paranaque with Manila City to form the town he called “Greater Manila,” to sinplify the administration of the metropolitan area during the war. Being practically destroyed in the process, the city was liberated from Japanese control in March of 1945 by the joint Filipino-American forces. Soon thereafter, “Greater Manila” was dissolved, and its towns returned to their pre-war status.
In 1948, Quezon City was declared the national capital of the new Republic of the Philippines, thus robbing Manila City of an honor it had held since 1595. But on May 29, 1976, President Ferdinand Marcos’ Decree No 940 returned the national capital to Manila, declaring that “the area prescribed as Metro Manila by P. D. 824” was to be the seat of the national government.
Not even a hundredth part of Manila’s rich and lengthy history can be written here. Therefore, the reader is referred to other works for more details.(See the Valuable Printed Sources, and the Selected Bibliography of Chapter 10.)
Dialects
It is probable that nearly every dialect spoken in the Philippines is spoken in Manila, for this cosmopolitan city receives its population from the entire country. Many foreign languages are also spoken, mainly by foreign nationals engaged in the diplomatic corps or business enterprises. But Tagalog is the predominant dialect, spoken by 76.4% of Manila’s population, followed by Iloco (4.9%), Samar-Leyte (3.3%), Pampango (3.0%), Bicol (2.8%), Chinese (2.6%), Cebuano (1.9%), Hiligaynon (1.9%), Pangasinan (1.7%), and the remaining 1.5% speak any of the other dialects used in the country. Pilipino can be spoken by 98.0% of the population, English by 66.1%, and Spanish by 8.4%.
Religions
Roman Catholics predominate, comprising 93.5%, followed by Iglesia ni Cristo (1.9%), Protestants (1.8%), Buddhists (1.1%), Moslems and others comprising the remaining 1.4% of Manila’s population.

history of Italy

History of Italy

United in 1861, Italy has significantly contributed to the cultural and social development of the entire Mediterranean area, deeply influencing European culture as well. Important cultures and civilizations have existed there since prehistoric times.
After Magna Graecia, the Etruscan civilization and especially the Roman Republic and Empire that dominated this part of the world for many centuries came an Italy whose people would make immeasurable contributions to the development of European philosophy, science, and art during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Dominated by city-states for much of the medieval and Renaissance period, the Italian peninsula was eventually unified amidst much struggle in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Origins of the name
The name Italy (Italia) is an ancient name for the country and people of Southern Italy. Its origin is unclear, but could be Greek for “Land of Cattle Calves or Veal”. Coins bearing the name Italia were minted by an alliance of Italic tribes (Sabines, Samnites, Umbrians and other) competing with Rome in the first century B.C. By the time of emperor Augustus approximately, the multi-ethnic territory of Italy was included in Italia as the central unit of the Empire; Cisalpine Gaul, the Upper Po valley, for example, was appended in 42 BC. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Lombard invasions, “Italy” or “Italian” gradually became the collective name for diverse states appearing on the peninsula and their overseas properties. Pallotino claims that the name was originally derived from the Itali settled in modern Calabria. The Greeks gradually came to use the name for a greater region, but it was not until the time of the Roman conquests that the term was expanded to cover the entire peninsula (Pallotino, M., History of Earliest Italy, trans. Ryle, M & Soper, K. in Jerome Lectures, Seventeenth Series, p.50).
Bronze Age (15th to 8th c. BC)
Terramare culture takes its name from the black earth (terremare) residue of settlement mounds, which have long served the fertilizing needs of local farmers. The occupations of the terramare people as compared with their Neolithic predecessors may be inferred with comparative certainty. They were still hunters, but had domesticated animals; they were fairly skilful metallurgists, casting bronze in moulds of stone and clay, and they were also agriculturists, cultivating beans, the vine, wheat and flax. It is thought the Terremare culture may be an early manifestation of Italic-speaking Indo-Europeans.

Iron Age (8th to 5th c BC)
Main article: Ancient Italic peoples

Languages in Iron Age Italy, 6th century BC.
Villanovan culture brought iron-working to the Italian peninsula; Villanovans practiced cremation and buried the ashes of their dead in pottery urns of distinctive double-cone shape. Generally speaking, Villanovan settlements were centered in the Po River valley and Etruria round Bologna, later an important Etruscan center, and areas in Emilia Romagna (at Verruchio and Fermi), in Tuscany and Lazio. Further south, in Campania, a region where inhumation was the general practice, Villanovan cremation burials have been identified at Capua, at the “princely tombs” of Pontecagnano near Salerno (finds conserved in the Museum of Agro Picentino) and at Sala Consilina.

history of china

History of China

The history of China is told in traditional historical records that go back to the Three sovereigns and five emperors about 5,000 years ago, supplemented by archaeological records dating to the 16th century BC. China is one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations. Turtle shells with markings reminiscent of ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been carbon dated to around 1500 BC. Chinese civilization originated with city-states in the Yellow River valley. 221 BC is the commonly accepted year when China became unified under a large kingdom or empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to control the large territory.
The foundations of Chinese civilization were the Qin Dynasty (秦) Emperor’s imposition of a common system of writing in the 3rd century BC and the development of a state ideology based on Confucianism in the 2nd century BC. China alternated between periods of political unity and disunity, with occasionally conquests by foreign peoples, some of whom were assimilated into the Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and assimilation, merged to create Chinese culture.
From hunter-gatherers to farmers
What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago. Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site is magnetostratigraphically dated as 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu (西侯渡) in Shanxi Province is the earliest record of use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago[1] The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man found in 1923. Two pottery pieces were unearthed at Liyuzui Cave in Liuzhou, Guangxi Province dated 16,500 and 19,000 BC[2]. Early evidence for proto-Chinese millet agriculture is carbon-dated to about 7,000 BC, and associated with the Jiahu site, which is also the earliest site of playable music instruments, earliest stage of Chinese language writing system (still under debate) and earliest wine production in world. Jiahu is the early stage of Peiligang culture of Xinzheng county, Henan, of which only 5% has been excavated as of 2006. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo (半坡), Xi’an.

Prehistory
The early history of China is complicated by the lack of a written language during this period coupled with the existence of documents from later time periods attempting to describe events that occurred several centuries before. The problem in some sense stems from centuries of introspection on the part of the Chinese people which has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in regards to this early history. By 7000 BC, the Chinese were farming millet, giving rise to the Jiahu culture. Later Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture around 2500 BC. Archaeological sites such as Sanxingdui and Erlitou show evidence of a Bronze Age civilization in China. The earliest bronze knife was found at Majiayao in Gansu and Qinhai province dated 3000 BC.
Three sovereigns and five emperors
Main article: Three August Ones and Five Emperors
The earliest comprehensive history of China, the Records of the Grand Historian written by Chinese historiographer Sima Qian in the 2nd century BC, and the Bamboo Annals trace Chinese history from about 2800 BC, with an account of the Three August Ones and the Five Emperors. These rulers were semi-mythical sage-kings and moral exemplars. Tradition regards one of them, the Yellow Emperor, as the ancestor of the Han Chinese people.
Sima Qian says that the system of inherited ruler-ship was established during the Xia Dynasty, and that this model was perpetuated in the recorded Shang and Zhou dynasties. It is during this period of the Three Dynasties (Chinese: 三代; pinyin: sāndài) that the historical China emerges.
Ancient history
Sima Qian and Bamboo Annals’s account dates the founding of the Xia Dynasty to 4,200 years ago, but this date has not been corroborated.
There were 17 kings of 14 generations during Xia Dynasty from Yu the Great to Jie of Xia according to Sima Qian and other records in the later Qin Dynasty.
The Shang and Zhou people had existed with Xia Dynasty since the beginning of Xia. They were Xia’s vassal. The exact time length of the Xia Dynasty is hard to define now, but mainly focused on two options, either 431 years or 471 years.
Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province[3], where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period, found on pottery and shells, have been alleged to be ancestors of modern Chinese characters[4][dubious — see talk page]. With few clear written records matching the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood.
Shang Dynasty
Main article: Shang Dynasty

Remnants of advanced, stratified societies dating back to the Shang period have been found in the Yellow River Valley.

Simuwu Ding(司母戊) of Later Shang Dynasty. Height 133cm, long 110cm, wide 79cm, weigh 832.84kg. the largest discovered bronze piece in the world. Made by Zu Jia of Shang for his mother Wu(戊), Wu Ding(武丁)’s wife. Unearthed at Anyang in 1939.
The earliest discovered written record of China’s past dates from the Shang Dynasty in perhaps the 13th century BC, and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones. Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c 1600–1046 BC is divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period (c 1600–1300 BC) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin (殷) period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang in modern day Henan has been confirmed as the last of the nine capitals of the Shang (c 1300–1046 BC). There were 31 kings from Tang of Shang to King Zhou of Shang of Shang Dynasty and it is the longest dynasty in Chinese history.
The Records of the Grand Historian states that the Shang Dynasty moved its capital six times. The final and most important move to Yin in 1350 BC led to the golden age of the dynasty. The term Yin Dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, although lately it has been used specifically in reference to the latter half of the Shang Dynasty.
Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou (successor state of the Shang), is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.
Written records found at Anyang confirm the existence of the Shang dynasty. However, Western scholars are often hesitant to associate settlements contemporaneous with the Anyang settlement with the Shang dynasty. For example, archaeological findings at Sanxingdui suggest a technologically advanced civilization culturally unlike Anyang. The evidence is inconclusive in proving how far the Shang realm extended from Anyang. The leading hypothesis is that Anyang, ruled by the same Shang in the official history, coexisted and traded with numerous other culturally diverse settlements in the area that is now referred to as China proper.
Zhou Dynasty
Main article: Zhou Dynasty
By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou were a people who lived west of Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed “Western Protector” by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his uncle, the Duke of Zhou, as regent managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every successive dynasty. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi’an, near the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.
Spring and Autumn Period
Main article: Spring and Autumn Period
In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋時代), named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second large phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. Local leaders for instance started using royal titles for themselves. The Hundred Schools of Thought (諸子百家) of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism (儒家), Taoism (道家), Legalism (法家) and Mohism (墨家) were founded, partly in response to the changing political world. The Spring and Autumn Period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. China now consists of hundreds of states, some only as large as a village with a fort.
Warring States Period
Main article: Warring States Period
After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other is known as the Warring States Period (戰國時代). Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power. As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan (四川)and Liaoning (遼寧), were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county, 省縣). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng (嬴政), the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang (浙江), Fujian (福建), Guangdong (廣東) and Guangxi (廣西) in 214 BC enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huangdi, 秦始皇帝).There had also 3 classes to help control their kingdom, the classes where:King, Nobles,and Peasants.
Qin Dynasty: The Beginning of Imperial China

The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
Main article: Qin Dynasty
Historians often refer to the period from Qin Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty as imperial China. Though the unified reign of the Qin (秦) Emperor lasted only twelve years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (咸陽)(in modern Xi’an). The doctrine of legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while very effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peace time. The Qin presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han Synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.
The Qin Dynasty is well known for beginning the Great Wall of China, which was later augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty (明朝). The other major contributions of the Qin included unifying the legal code, written language, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire[5].
Han Dynasty: A period of prosperity
Main article: Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty (漢朝) emerged in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu (Han Wudi 漢武帝) consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (匈奴) (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia (內蒙古), wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu (甘肅), Ningxia (寧夏) and Qinghai (青海). This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, the Silk Road (絲綢之路).
Nevertheless, land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. In AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang (王莽) founded the short-lived Xin (“New”) Dynasty (新朝) and started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms. These programs, however, were never supported by the land-holding families, for they favored the peasant and lesser gentry, and the instability they produced brought on chaos and uprisings.
Emperor Guangwu (光武帝) reinstated the Han Dynasty with the support of land-holding and merchant families at Luoyang (洛陽), east of Xi’an. This new era would be termed the Eastern Han Dynasty (東漢). Han power declined again amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion (黃巾之亂) broke out in 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the Period of the Three Kingdoms (三國). This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國演義).
The Jin Period
Main article: Jìn Dynasty (265-420)
Though three groups were reunited temporarily in 278 by the Jin Dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu, 五胡) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Chang Jiang. In 303 the Di people rebelled and later captured Chengdu, establishing the state of Cheng Han. Under Liu Yuan the Xiongnu rebelled near today’s Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao. His successor Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors. Sixteen kingdoms is a plethora of short-lived non-Chinese dynasties that from 303 came to rule the whole or parts of northern China. Many ethnic groups were involved, including ancestors of the Turks, the Mongolians, and the Tibetans. Most of these nomadic peoples, relatively few in number, had to some extent been Sinicized long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, notably the Ch’iang and the Xiong-nu, had already since late Han times been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall.
Southern and Northern Dynasties
Main article: Southern and Northern Dynasties
The time of Great split-up,Incessant Wars.

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Sui Dynasty: Reunification
Main article: Sui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty (隋朝), which managed to reunite the country in 589 after nearly four centuries of political fragmentation at which time the north and south had developed independently, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. In the same way that the Qin rulers of the 3rd century BC had unified China after the Warring States Period, so the Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overstrained their resources and fell. And also as in the case of the Qin, traditional history has judged the Sui somewhat unfairly; it has stressed the harshness of the Sui regime and the megalomania of its second emperor, giving very little credit for its many positive achievements.
Tang Dynasty: Return to prosperity

A Chinese Tang Dynasty tri-colored glaze porcelain horse (ca. 700 CE).
Main article: Tang Dynasty
On June 18, 618, Gaozu (唐高祖) took the throne, and the Tang Dynasty (唐朝) was established, opening a new age of prosperity and innovations in arts and technology. Buddhism, which had gradually been established in China from the first century, became the predominant religion and was adopted by the royal family and many of the common people.
Chang’an (長安) (modern Xi’an), the national capital, is thought to have been the world’s biggest city at the time. The Tang and the Han are often referred to as the most prosperous periods of Chinese history.
The Tang, like the Han, kept the trade routes open to the west and south and there was extensive trade with distant foreign countries and many foreign merchants settled in China.
From about 860 the Tang Dynasty began to decline due to a series of rebellions within China itself, and in the previously subject Kingdom of Nanzhao (南詔) to the south. One of the warlords, Huang Chao (黃巢), captured Guangzhou (廣州) in 879, killing most of the 200,000 inhabitants including most of the large colony of foreign merchant families there. In late 880 Luoyang surrendered to him and on 5 January, 881 he conquered Changan. The emperor Xizong (唐僖宗) fled to Chengdu and Huang established a new temporary regime, which was eventually destroyed by Tang forces. However, another time of political chaos followed.
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Main article: Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period
The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (五代十国), lasted little more than half a century, from 907 to 960. During this brief era, when China was in all respects a multistate system, five regimes succeeded one another rapidly in control of the old Imperial heartland in northern China. During this same time, 10 more stable regimes occupied sections of southern and western China, so the period is also referred to as that of the Ten Kingdoms (十国).
Political Division: Liao, Song, Western Xia, Jin, Mongols
Main article: Song Dynasty
In 960, the Song Dynasty (960-1279) (宋朝) gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng (汴京/開封), starting a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitan Liao Dynasty (契丹族遼國) ruled over Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. In 1115 the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) (女真族金國) emerged to prominence, annihilating the Liao Dynasty in 10 years. It also took power over northern China and Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which moved its capital to Hangzhou (杭州). The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. In the ensuing years China was divided between the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty, and the Tangut Western Xia (西夏). Southern Song experienced a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north.
Mongols and the Yuan Dynasty
Main article: Yuan Dynasty
The Jin Empire was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war where firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In China, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of Han Chinese.
Kublai Khan (忽必烈/元世祖), grandson of Genghis Khan (成吉思汗), wanting to adopt Han Chinese customs, established the Yuan Dynasty (元朝). This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing (北京) as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the 16 Prefectures of Yan Yun (燕雲十六州). Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.
Ming Dynasty: Revival of Han rule
Main article: Ming Dynasty
(1368-1644)
There was strong sentiment, among the populace, against the rule of the “foreigner” (known as Dázi 韃子), which finally led to peasant revolts. The Mongolians were pushed back to the steppes and replaced by the Ming Dynasty (明朝) in 1368.
During Mongol rule, the population had dropped by 40 percent, to an estimated 60 million. Two centuries later, it had doubled. Urbanization thus increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.
Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming Dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan (倭國), increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He (鄭和, original name Ma Sanbao 馬三保).
Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) or (Hong-wu, 洪武皇帝/明太祖), the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor’s background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian Dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le (永樂皇帝/明成祖), independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked remained essentially as they had been under the Song, but now the remnants of the older foreign merchant class also fell under these new Ming laws. Their influence quickly dwindled.

1580s foreign relations of the Ming Empire (shown in blue)
The dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The emperor’s role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the “Grand Secretaries” to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. It was this same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline.
Emperor Yong-le strenuously tried to extend China’s influence beyond its borders by demanding other rulers send ambassadors to China to present tribute. A large navy was built, including four-masted ships displacing 1,500 tons. A standing army of 1 million troops (some estimate as many as 1.9 million) was created. The Chinese armies conquered Annam (安南) while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained influence over Turkestan. Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded, and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books were printed using movable type. The imperial palace in Beijing’s Forbidden City reached its current splendor. The Ming period seems to have been one of China’s most prosperous. It was also during these centuries that the potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops were widely cultivated, and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished.
During the Ming dynasty was the last construction on the Great Wall. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.
Qing Dynasty
Main article: Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty (清朝, 1644–1911) was founded after the defeat of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by the Manchus (滿族). The Manchus were formerly known as the Jurchen and invaded from the north in the late seventeenth century. Even though the Manchus started out as alien conquerors, they quickly adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government. They eventually ruled in the manner of traditional native dynasties.
The Manchus enforced a ‘queue order’ forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue and Manchu-style clothing. The Manchus had a special hair style: the “queue”. They cut hair off the front of their heads and made the remaining hair into a long pigtail. The traditional Chinese clothing, or Hanfu (漢服) was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing. Qipao (bannermen dress, 旗袍) and Tangzhuang (唐裝), usually regarded as traditional Chinese clothing nowadays, are actually Manchu-style clothing. The penalty for not complying was death.
Emperor Kangxi (康熙皇帝/清聖祖) ordered the creation of the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time. Under Emperor Qianlong, the compilation of a catalogue of the important works on Chinese culture was made.
The Manchus set up the “Eight Banners” system (八旗制度) in an attempt to avoid being assimilated into Chinese society. The “Eight Banners” were military institutions, set up to provide a structure with which the Manchu “bannermen” were meant to identify. Banner membership was to be based on traditional Manchu skills such as archery, horsemanship, and frugality. In addition, they were encouraged to use the Manchu language, rather than Chinese. Bannermen were given economic and legal privileges in Chinese cities.
Over the next half-century, the Manchus consolidated control of some areas originally under the Ming, including Yunnan (雲南). They also stretched their sphere of influence over Xinjiang (新疆), Tibet (西藏) and Mongolia (蒙古).
During the 19th century, Qing control weakened. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, and Western penetration and influence. Britain’s desire to continue its opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War (鴉片戰爭) erupted in 1840. Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, thereupon forcibly occupied “concessions” and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong (香港) was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking (南京條約). In addition, the Taiping Rebellion (太平天國) (1851–1864) and the Boxer Rebellion (義和團之亂) occurred in this century. In many ways the rebellions and the treaties the Qing were forced to sign with the imperialist powers are symptomatic of the inability of the Chinese government to respond adequately to the challenging conditions facing China in the 19th century.
Modern Era
The two Opium wars and the opium trade were costly outcomes for the Qing dynasty and the Chinese people. The Qing imperial treasury was declared bankrupt twice arising from indemnities incurred in the Opium wars and the large outflow of silver due to the opium trade (in tens of billions of ounces). China suffered two extreme famines exactly twenty years after each opium war in the 1860s and 1880s, and the Qing imperial dynasty was ineffective in helping the population. Socially these events had a profound impact as it challenged the hegemony that the Chinese had enjoyed in Asia for centuries. As a result, the country was in a state of turmoil.
A large rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, involved around a third of China falling under control of the Taiping Tianguo, a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the “Heavenly King” Hong Xiuquan. Only after fourteen years were the Taipings finally crushed – the Taiping army was destroyed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. In total between twenty million and fifty million lives were lost, making it the second deadliest war in human history.
The Qing officials were slow to adopt modernity and suspicious of social and technological advances that they viewed as a threat to their absolute control over China. As an example, gunpowder had been widely used by the army of the Song and Ming Dynasties, then was forbidden by the Qing rulers after they took over China.[citation needed] Therefore, the dynasty was ill-equipped to handle the Western encroachment. Western powers did intervene militarily to quell domestic chaos, such as the Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion (義和團起義). General Gordon, later killed in the siege of Khartoum, Sudan, was often credited with having saved the Qing dynasty from the Taiping insurrection.
By the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty had put down the rebellions at enormous cost and loss of life. This undermined the credibility of the Qing regime and, spearheaded by local initiatives by provincial leaders and gentry, contributed to the rise of warlordism in China. The Qing Dynasty under the Emperor Guangxu (光緒皇帝/清德宗) proceeded to deal with the problem of modernization through the Self-Strengthening Movement (自強運動). However, between 1898 and 1908 the Empress Dowager Cixi had the reformist Guangxu imprisoned for being ‘mentally disabled’. The Empress Dowager (慈禧太后), with the help of conservatives, initiated a military coup, effectively removed the young Emperor from power, and overturned most of the more radical reforms. He died one day before the death of the Empress Dowager (some believe Guangxu was poisoned by Cixi). Official corruption, cynicism, and imperial family quarrels made most of the military reforms useless. As a result, the Qing’s “New Armies” were soundly defeated in the Sino-French War (1883-1885) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895).
At the start of the 20th century, the Boxer Rebellion threatened northern China. This was a conservative anti-imperialist movement that sought to return China to old ways. The Empress Dowager, probably seeking to ensure her continued grip on power, sided with the Boxers when they advanced on Beijing. In response the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China. Consisting of British, Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, US and Austrian troops, the alliance defeated the Boxers and demanded further concessions from the Qing government.
The Republic of China
Main article: History of the Republic of China
Frustrated by the Qing court’s resistance to reform and by China’s weakness, young officials, military officers, and students—inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) —began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and creation of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on October 10, 1911 in Wuhan (武漢). The provisional government of the Republic of China (中華民國) was formed in Nanjing on March 12, 1912 with Sun Yat-sen as President, but Sun was forced to turn power over to Yuan Shikai (袁世凱) who commanded the New Army and was Prime Minister under the Qing government, as part of the agreement to let the last Qing monarch abdicate (a decision he would later regret). Yuan Shikai proceeded in the next few years to abolish the national and provincial assemblies and declared himself emperor in 1915. Yuan’s imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by his subordinates, and faced with the prospect of rebellion, Yuan abdicated and died shortly after in 1916, leaving a power vacuum in China. His death left the republican government all but shattered, ushering in the era of the “warlords” when China was ruled by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders.
A little noticed event (to the rest of the world) in 1919 would have long-term repercussions for the rest of Chinese history in the 20th century. This was the May Fourth Movement (五四運動). This movement began as a response to the insult imposed on China by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I but became a protest movement about the domestic situation in China. The discrediting of liberal Western philosophy amongst Chinese intellectuals was followed by the adoption of more radical lines of thought. This in turn planted the seeds for the irreconcilable conflict between the left and right in China that would dominate Chinese history for the rest of the century.
In the 1920s, Sun Yat-Sen established a revolutionary base in south China, and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he entered into an alliance with the fledgling Communist Party of China (CPC, 中國共產黨). After Sun’s death from cancer in 1925, one of his protégés, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), seized control of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT, 國民黨) and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition (北伐). Having defeated the warlords in south and central China by military force, Chiang was able to secure the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CPC and relentlessly chased the CPC armies and its leaders from their bases in southern and eastern China. In 1934, driven from their mountain bases such as the Chinese Soviet Republic (中華蘇維埃共和國), the CPC forces embarked on the Long March (長征) across China’s most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan’an in Shanxi Province (陝西省延安市).
During the Long March, the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung, 毛澤東). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year long Japanese invasion (1931-1945), even though the two parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) portion of World War II. The war between the two parties resumed following the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CPC occupied most of the country. (see Chinese Civil War)
Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his government to Taiwan in 1949 and his Nationalist Party would control the island as well as a few neighboring islands until democratic elections in the late 1990’s. Since then the political status of Taiwan has always been under dispute.
The present
Main article: History of the People’s Republic of China
With the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (中華人民共和國) on October 1, 1949, China was divided once again, into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan and several outlying islands of Fujian (福建省), with the two governments each regarding itself as the one true government of China and denouncing the other as illegitimate. Since the 1990s, the ROC has been pushing to gain international recognition, while the People’s Republic of China vehemently opposes foreign involvement, and insists that foreign relations not deviate from the One-China policy.
See also: People’s Republic of China and Political status of Taiwan
See also

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• Chinese sovereign
• Chinese historiography
• Dynasties in Chinese history
• Ethnic groups in Chinese history

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History of China
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• Military history of China
• Table of Chinese monarchs
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• Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project
[References
1. ^ “Magnetostratigraphic dating of early humans in China”, Rixiang Zhua, Zhisheng Anb, Richard Pottsc, Kenneth A. Hoffman, 9 October 2002.
2. ^ “The discovery of early pottery in China” by Zhang Chi, Department of Archaeology, Peking University, China
3. ^ Bronze Age China at National Gallery of Art
4. ^ Scripts found on Erlitou pottery (written in Simplified Chinese)
5. ^ Book “QINSHIHUANG”
Sources
From hunter-gatherers to farmers
• Magnetostratigraphic dating of early humans in China, by Rixiang zhu, Zhisheng An, Richard Potts, Kenneth A. Hoffman.[1]
• The Discovery of Early Pottery in China, by Zhang Chi, Department of Archaeology, Peking University, China.[2]
Prehistory
• Discovery of residue from fermented beverage consumed up to 9,000 years ago in Jiahu, Henan Province, China. By Dr. Patrick E McGovern, University of Pennsylvania archaeochemist and colleagues from China, Great Britain and Germany.
Xia Dynasty
• David S. Nivison (1993), “Chu shu chi nien”, Early Chinese Texts: a bibliographical guide (editor—Loewe M.) p.39–47 (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China).
• James Legge (1865), The Chinese Classics III: The Shoo King Prolegomena (Taipei: Southern Materials Center). (This contains an English translation of the Bamboo Annals.)
Shang Dynasty
• Stephen W. Durrant (1995), The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian. Albany : State University of New York Press.
Han Dynasty
• de Crespigny, Rafe. 1977. The Ch’iang Barbarians and the Empire of Han: A Study in Frontier Policy. Papers on Far Eastern History 16, Australian National University. Canberra.
• de Crespigny, Rafe. 1984. Northern Frontier. The Policies and Strategies of the Later Han Empire. Rafe de Crespigny. 1984. Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University. Canberra.
• de Crespigny, Rafe. 1989. “South China under the Later Han Dynasty” (Chapter One from Generals of the South: the Foundation and early history of the Three Kingdoms state of Wu by Rafe de Crespigny, in Asian Studies Monographs, New Series No. 16 Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra 1989)[3]
• de Crespigny, Rafe. 1996. “Later Han Military Administration: An Outline of the Military Administration of the Later Han Empire.” Rafe de Crespigny. Based on the Introduction to Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling being the Chronicle of Later Han for the years 189 to 220 AD as recorded in Chapters 59 to 69 of the Zizhi tongjian of Sima Guang, translated and annotated by Rafe de Crespigny and originally published in the Asian Studies Monographs, New Series No. 21, Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra 1996. [4]
• Dubs, Homer H. 1938. The History of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku. Vol. One. Baltimore. Waverly Press, Inc.
• Dubs, Homer H. 1944. The History of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku. Vol. Two. Baltimore. Waverly Press, Inc.
• Dubs, Homer H. 1955. The History of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku. Vol. Three. Ithaca, New York. Spoken Languages Services, Inc.
• Hill, John E. 2004. The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu. Draft annotated English translation.[5]
• Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West from the Weilue ?? by Yu Huan ??: A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between AD 239 and 265. Draft annotated English translation. [6]
• Hirth, Friedrich. 1875. China and the Roman Orient. Shanghai and Hong Kong. Unchanged reprint. Chicago, Ares Publishers, 1975.
• Hulsewé, A. F. P. and Loewe, M. A. N. 1979. China in Central Asia: The Early Stage 125 BC – AD 23: an annotated translation of chapters 61 and 96 of the History of the Former Han Dynasty. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
• Twitchett, Denis and Loewe, Michael, eds. 1986. The Cambridge History of China. Volume I. The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 BC – AD 220. Cambridge University Press.
Jin, the Sixteen Kingdoms, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties
• de Crespigny, Rafe. 1991. “The Three Kingdoms and Western Jin: A History of China in the Third Century AD.” East Asian History, no. 1 [June 1991], pp. 1-36, & no. 2 [December 1991], pp. 143-164. Australian National University, Canberra. [7]
• Miller, Andrew. 1959. Accounts of Western Nations in the History of the Northern Chou Dynasty. University of California Press.
Sui Dynasty
• Wright, Arthur F. 1978. The Sui Dynasty: The Unification of China. AD 581-617. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. ISBN 0-394-49187-4 ; 0-394-32332-7 (pbk).
Tang Dynasty
• Benn, Charles. 2002. China’s Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517665-0.
• Pelliot, Paul. 1904. “Deux itinéraires de Chine en Inde à la fin du VIIIe siècle.” BEFEO 4 (1904), pp. 131-413.
• Schafer, Edward H. 1963. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of T’ang Exotics. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1st paperback edition. 1985. ISBN 0-520-05462-8.
• Schafer, Edward H. 1967. The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Reprint 1985. ISBN 0-520-05462-8.
• Shaffer, Lynda Norene. 1996. Maritime Southeast Asia to 1500. Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe, Inc. ISBN 1-56324-144-7.
• Wang, Zhenping. 1991. “T’ang Maritime Trade Administration.” Wang Zhenping. Asia Major, Third Series, Vol. IV, 1991, pp. 7-38.
Song Dynasty, the Liao and the Jin
• Shiba, Yoshinobu. 1970. Commerce and Society in Sung China. Originally published in Japanese as So-dai sho-gyo–shi kenkyu-. Tokyo, Kazama shobo-, 1968. Yoshinobu Shiba. Translation by Mark Elvin, Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.
Ming Dynasty
• Duyvendak, J.J.L. China’s Discovery of Africa (London: Probsthain, 1949)
• Sung, Ying-hsing. 1637. T’ien kung k’ai wu. Published as Chinese Technology in the seventeenth century. Translated and annotated by E-tu Zen Sun and Shiou-chuan Sun. 1996. Mineola. New York. Dover Publications.
Further study
• Giles, Herbert Allen. The Civilization of China. Project Gutenburg e-text. A general history, originally published around 1911.
• Giles, Herbert Allen. China and the Manchus. Project Gutenburg e-text. Covers the Qing (Manchu) dynasty, published shortly after the fall of the dynasty, around 1912.
• Laufer, Berthold. 1912. JADE: A Study in Chinese Archaeology & Religion. Reprint: Dover Publications, New York. 1974.
• Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends. Moscow: URSS, 2006. ISBN 5-484-00559-0 [8] (Chapter 2: Historical Population Dynamics in China).
• Hammond, Kenneth J. From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History. The Teaching Company, 2004. (A lecture on DVD.)
External links

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• China Chronology World History Database
• Ancient Asian WorldHistory, culture and archaeology of the ancient Asian continent. Many articles and pictures
• A universal guide for China studies
• Chinese History Forum
• History Forum – Discuss Chinese history at History Forum’s Asian History section
• Chinese Siege Warfare – Mechanical Artillery and Siege Weapons of Antiquity – An Illustrated History bought to you by History Forum
• A Simplified History of China
• Ancient Civilizations – Ancient China Great research site for kids
• Yin Yu Tang: A Chinese Home Explore the historical contents of domestic architecture during the Qing dynasty and its pertinence to Chinese heritage and historical culture.
• Early Medieval China is a journal devoted to academic scholarship relating to the period roughly between the end of the Han and beginning of the Tang eras.
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History of United state

History of the United States

 The United States of America is located in the middle of the North American continent, between the Commonwealth of Canada to the north and the United Mexican States to the south. The United States ranges from the Atlantic Ocean on the nations east coast to the Pacific Ocean bordering the west, and also includes the state of Hawaii, a series of Islands located in the Pacific Ocean, the state of Alaska located in the northwestern part of the continent above the Yukon and numerous other holdings and territories.The first known inhabitants of the area now possessed by the United States are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand years beginning approximately 20,000 years ago by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska. The first solid evidence of these cultures settling in what would become the US begins as early as 15,000 years ago with the Sandia and Clovis tribes.Relatively little is known of these early settlers compared to the Europeans who colonized the area after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Columbus’ men were also the first known Old Worlders to land in the territory of the United States when they arrived in Puerto Rico during their second voyage. The first European known to set foot in the continental U.S. was Juan Ponce de León, who arrived in Florida in 1513, though there is some evidence suggesting that he may have been preceded by John Cabot in 1497.

Pre-Colonial America

Monk’s Mound in Cahokia, Illinois, at 100 feet high is the largest man-made earthen mound in North America, was part of a city which had thousands of people around 1050 ADArchaeological as well as Geological evidence suggests that the present-day United States was originally populated by people migrating from Asia via the Bering land bridge starting some 20,000 years ago.^[1] These people became the indigenous people who inhabited the Americas prior to the arrival of European explorers in the 1400s and who are now called Native Americans.Many cultures thrived in the Americas before Europeans came, including the Puebloans (Anasazi) in the southwest and the Adena Culture in the east. Several such societies and communities, over time, intensified this practice of established settlements, and grew to support sizeable and concentrated populations. Agriculture was independently developed in what is now the eastern United States as early as 2500 BC, based on the domestication of indigenous sunflower, squash and goosefoot.^[2] Eventually, Mexican maize and legumes were adapted to the shorter summers of eastern North America and replaced the indigenous crops.The first European contact with the Americas was with the Vikings in the year 1000. Leif Erikson established a short-lived settlement called Vinland in present day Newfoundland. It would be another 500 years before European contact would be made again.

Early European exploration and settlements

Main article: European colonization of the AmericasOne recorded the European exploration of the Americas was by Christopher Columbus in 1492, sailing on behalf of the King and Queen of Spain. He did not reach mainland America until his fourth voyage, almost 20 years after his first voyage. He first landed on Haiti, where the Arawaks, whom he mistook for people of the Indies (thus, “Indians”) greeted him and his fleet by swimming out to their ships with gifts and food. Columbus, after island-hopping for several months, heard nothing of gold, his main drive for the voyage.After a period of exploration by various European countries, Dutch, Spanish, English, French, Swedish, and Portuguese settlements were established. Columbus was the first European to set foot on what would one day become U.S. territory when he came to Puerto Rico in 1493; the oldest continuously occupied European settlements in the U.S. are San Juan, Puerto Rico, founded 1521, and on the mainland, St. Augustine in what is now the state of Florida, founded in 1565.In the 15th century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses and ponies to the Americas. The introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America. The horse offered revolutionary speed and efficiency, both while hunting and in battle. The horse also became a sort of currency for native tribes and nations. Horses became a pivotal part in solidifying social hierarchy, expanding trade areas with neighboring tribes, and creating a stereotype both to their advantage and against it.

Spanish exploration and settlement

 Although most Americans associate the early Spanish in this hemisphere with Hernán Cortés in Mexico and Francisco Pizarro in Peru, Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States, too. The first confirmed landing in the continental US was by a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened La Florida. 
An anachronous map showing areas of the United States and other territories pertaining to the Spanish Empire over a period exceeding 400 years. For detailed key click on map. ██  The Spanish colonial empire at its territorial height in 1790. ██  Regions of influence (explored/claimed but never controlled or vice versa) or short-lived / disputed colonies. ██  Portuguese possessions ruled jointly under the Spanish sovereign, 1580–1640. ██  Territories lost at, or prior to, the 1714 Peace of Utrecht. ██  Spanish Morocco and Spanish West Africa, 1884–1975.Within three decades of Ponce de León’s landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Maine, and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon. From 1528 to 1536, four castaways from the Narváez expedition, including a black Moor, journeyed all the way from Florida to the Gulf of California.In 1540, De Soto undertook an extensive exploration of the present US and, in the same year, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today’s Arizona–Mexico border and traveled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States.Other Spanish explorers of the US make up a long list that includes Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Gaspar de Portolà, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Tristán de Luna y Arellano and Juan de Oñate. In all, Spaniards probed half of today’s lower 48 states before the first English tried to colonize, at Roanoke Island.The Spanish did not just explore; they settled, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565. Santa Fe, New Mexico also predates Jamestown, Virginia and Plymouth Colony (of Mayflower and Pilgrims fame). Later came Spanish settlements in San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Most Spanish settlements were along the California coast or the Sante Fe River in New Mexico, though the Spanish Empire claimed even more land, including most of what is now the Western United States.

English Colonial America (1493-1776)

 In 1607, the Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River, both named after King James IThe strip of land along the seacoast was settled primarily by English colonists in the 17th century, along with much smaller numbers of Dutch and Swedes. Colonial America was defined by a severe labor shortage that gave birth to forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude, and by a British policy of benign neglect (salutary neglect) that permitted the development of an American spirit distinct from that of its European founders.The first successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown. It languished for decades until a new wave of settlers arrived in the late 17th century and set up commercial agriculture based on tobacco. One example of conflict between Native Americans and English settlers was the 1622 Powhatan uprising in Virginia, in which Indians had killed hundreds of English settlers. The largest conflict between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century was King Philip’s War in New England. [1]New England was founded primarily by Puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of diversity. The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the Province of Carolina, with Georgia Colony the last of the Thirteen Colonies established in 1733. Several colonies were used as penal settlements from the 1620s until the American Revolution.

Formation of the United States of America (1776-1789)

The United States declared its independence in 1776 and defeated Great Britain with help from France in the American Revolutionary War. As Seymour Martin Lipset points out, “The United States was the first major colony successfully to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it was the first ‘new nation.'” (Lipset, The First New Nation (1979) p. 2)On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of a nation called “the United States of America” in the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. July 4 is celebrated as the nation’s birthday. The new nation was dedicated to principles of republicanism, which emphasized civic duty and a fear of corruption and hereditary aristocracy. The Boston Tea Party in 1773, often seen as the event which started the American RevolutionThe structure of the national government was profoundly changed on March 4, 1789, when the people replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The new government reflected a radical break from the normative governmental structures of the time, favoring representative, elective government with a weak executive, rather than the existing monarchial structures common within the western traditions of the time. The system of republicanism borrowed heavily from Enlightenment Age ideas and classical western philosophy in that a primacy was placed upon individual liberty and upon constraining the power of government through division of powers and a system of checks and balances.The colonists’ victory at Saratoga led the French into an open alliance with the United States. In 1781, a combined American and French Army, acting with the support of a French fleet, captured a large British army, led by General Charles Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia. The surrender of General Cornwallis ended serious British efforts to find a military solution to their American problem.A series of attempts to organize a movement to outline and press reforms culminated in the Congress calling the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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U.S. territorial growth maps

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Years

1775 · 1790 · 1800 · 1810 · 1820 · 1830 · 1840 · 1850 · 1860 · 1870 · 1880 · 1900 · 1920

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Westward expansion (1789–1849)

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This article has been tagged since January 2007.Economic growth in America per capita incomeGeorge Washington—a renowned hero of the American Revolutionary War, commander and chief of the Continental Army, and president of the Constitutional Convention—became the first President of the United States under the new U.S. Constitution. The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when settlers in the Monongahela River valley of western Pennsylvania protested against a federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks, was the first serious test of the federal government.The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, gave Western farmers use of the important Mississippi River waterway, removed the French presence from the western border of the United States, and provided U.S. settlers with vast potential for expansion. In response to continued British impressment of American sailors into the British Navy, Madison had the Twelfth United States Congress— led by Southern and Western Jeffersonians — declare war on Britain in 1812. The United States and Britain came to a draw in the War of 1812 after bitter fighting that lasted until January 8, 1815. The Treaty of Ghent, officially ending the war, essentially resulted in the maintenance of the ‘status quo ante bellum’; crucially for the U.S., the British ended their alliance with the Native Americans.The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the United States’ opinion that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas. This was a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States.In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Indian tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. This established Andrew Jackson, a military hero and President, as a cunning tyrant in regards to native populations. The act resulted most notably in the forced migration of several native tribes to the West, with several thousand Indians dying en route, and the Creeks’ violent opposition and eventual defeat. The Indian Removal Act also directly caused the ceding of Spanish Florida and subsequently led to the many Seminole Wars. US territorial growth, 1810-1920Mexico refused to accept the annexation of Texas in 1845, and war broke out in 1846. The U.S., using regulars and large numbers of volunteers, defeated Mexico which was badly led, short on resources, and plagued by a divided command. Public sentiment in the U.S. was divided as Whigs and anti-slavery forces opposed the war. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded California, New Mexico, and adjacent areas to the United States. In 1850, the issue of slavery in the new territories was settled by the Compromise of 1850 brokered by Whig Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas.

Civil War era (1849–1865)

 Main article: History of the United States (1849–1865)In the middle of the 19th century, white Americans of the North and South were unable to reconcile fundamental differences in their approach to government, economics, society and African American slavery. Abraham Lincoln was elected President, the South seceded to form the Confederate States of America, and the Civil War followed, with the ultimate defeat of the South.In 1854, the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act abrogated the Missouri Compromise by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its stance on slavery. After the election of Lincoln, eleven Southern states seceded from the union between late 1860 and 1861, establishing a rebel government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. Blue, the Union; Brown, the ConfederacyThe Civil War began when Confederate General Pierre Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter. They fired because Fort Sumter was in a confederate state. Along with the northwestern portion of Virginia, four of the five northernmost “slave states” did not secede and became known as the Border States. Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North when General Robert E. Lee led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland. The Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single day in American history.At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made General Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union armies. General William Tecumseh Sherman marched from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta, Georgia, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood. Sherman’s army laid waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his “March to the Sea“, and reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah in December 1864. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.

Reconstruction and the rise of industrialization (1865–1918)

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This article has been tagged since January 2007. General Custer‘s last stand in the Battle of the Little BighornMain article: History of the United States (1865–1918)After the Civil War, America experienced an accelerated rate of industrialization, mainly in the northern states. However, Reconstruction and its failure left the Southern whites in a position of firm control over its black population, denying them their Civil Rights and keeping them in a state of economic, social and political servitude.U.S. Federal government policy, since the James Monroe Administration, had been to move the indigenous population beyond the reach of the white frontier into a series of Indian reservations. Tribes were generally forced onto small reservations as white farmers and ranchers took over their lands. In 1876, the last major Sioux war erupted when the Black Hills Gold Rush penetrated their territory. Ellis island in 1902, the main immigration port for immigrants entering the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.An unprecedented wave of immigration to the United States served both to provide the labor for American industry and to create diverse communities in previously undeveloped areas. Abusive industrial practices led to the often violent rise of the labor movement in the United States.The United States began its rise to international power in this period with substantial population and industrial growth domestically and numerous military ventures abroad, including the Spanish-American War, which began when the United States blamed the sinking of the USS Maine (ACR-1) on Spain without any real evidence.This period was capped by the 1917 entry of the United States into World War I.

Post-World War I and the Great Depression (1918–1940)

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This article has been tagged since January 2007.Following World War I, the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and military world power. The after-shock of Russia‘s October Revolution resulted in real fears of communism in the United States, leading to a three year Red Scare. Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in Chicago, 1921The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles imposed by its Allies on the defeated Central Powers; instead, the United States chose to pursue unilateralism, if not isolationism.In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Prohibition ended in 1933, a failure.During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity: farm prices and wages fell, while industrial profits grew. The boom was fueled by a rise in debt and an inflated Stock Market. The 1929 Stock Market crash, Dust Bowl, and the ensuing Great Depression led to government efforts to re-start the economy and help its victims, with Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s New Deal. The recovery was rapid in all areas except unemployment, which remained fairly high until 1940.

World War II (1940-1945)

Main articles: World War II and Homefront-United States-World War IIThis article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
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This article has been tagged since February 2007.After the outbreak of World War II, as was the case with World War I, the United States was the last of the active Allied countries to declare war when it was forced to become the 17th country to declare war following the attack on Pearl Harbour. Until now Isolationalism policy had bound the country by law to neutrality until a hostile attack was made on American soil. Any potential active contributions that the United States could have made upon the outbreak of war on the 3rd of September 1939 were limited by the general unpreparedness of the country for a conflict of such a magnitude. The American armed forces were significantly smaller than the equivalent forces of France, Germany, Britain, The Soviet Union and Japan, allowing president Franklin Roosevelt to justify this neutrality to allow the country time to rearm.The United States first contribution to the war was to cut off oil and raw material supplies desperately needed by Japan for it to maintain its offensive in Manchuria, while at the same time increasing military and financial aid to China. The first contribution to the allied powers came approximately 1 year after the outbreak of war in September 1940 when the United States gave England 50 old destroyers in exchange for military bases in the Caribbean. This was followed in December 1940 when the United States began a “Lend Lease” program with England, supplying much needed Military equipment.On 31 October 1941, more than two months before the attack on Pearl Harbour, an American destroyer which was escorting cargo ships in the Atlantic was sunk by a German U-Boat. War however was not declared on Germany. Finally on 7 December 1941 Japan attacked the American naval base in Pearl Harbour, citing Americas trade embargo with them as justification for the attack. Franklin D Roosevelt saw it as “A date which will live in Infamy”, the rest of the world saw it as the waking of a sleeping giant. The now well prepared armed forces of the United States entered the fold immediately.Battle against GermanyUpon entering the war the United States realized they could not fight both Japan and Germany at once. Thus it was decided to concentrate the bulk of their efforts on fighting Hitler in Europe, whilst maintaining a defensive position in the Pacific until Hitler was defeated. The United States first step was to set up a large airforce in England to concentrate on bombing raids into Germany itself. America brought a bomber to the war that was vastly superior to anything that had flown before, the B-17 flying fortress. England had long given up on daylight bombing raids, due to heavy casualties inflicted by German ground defences and the Luftwaffe. However the technical superiority of the B-17 allowed the Americans to conduct precision bombing raids through the day, whilst the English continued the attack throughout the night. Germany was bombed 24 hours a day from August 1942 to the end of the war in Europe.The American army’s first ground action was fighting alongside the British and Australian armies in North Africa, to reclaim the Suez canal and important ground in North Africa that had been won by Rommel in the previous 12 months of fighting. This ground was one of the two crucial cargo links that England relied on throughout the war, along with the Atlantic. By May 43 the Germans had been expelled from North Africa and the Allies controlled this vital link until the end of the war. The American navy also played a crucial defensive role in the Atlantic protecting the cargo lines bringing American war equipment and supplies to England itself. By midway through 1943 the Allies were fighting the war from England with unbroken supply lines, whilst at the same time Hitlers armies were very much on the back foot, with heavy bombing taking its toll on production. The tide had swung dramatically from the grim days of early 1942.By early 1944 a planned invasion of Western Europe was underway. Germany fully expected this attack to occur, but brilliant allied strategy and a complete lack of intelligence flowing to Germany from England following the efficient elimination of virtually all German spies by the English SS allowed this attack to occur largely as a surprise. What followed on the 6th of June 1944 was Operation Overlord, or D-Day. The largest war armada ever assembled landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the penetration of Western Europe that eventually overthrew Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hitler had fallen for the Allied bluff and prepared most of his troops for an invasion at Calais, much further north than where the actual landing would take place. It wasn’t until the attack was well underway that the German army realised what was occurring and sent forces in defense. It was too late. In all, almost 5,000 ships, 10,000 aircraft and 176,000 troops took part in the 6 week battle that ended in a decisive victory for the allies.Following the landing at Normandy the Americans contributed greatly to the outcome of the war, with dogged fighting in the Battle of the Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge resulting in Allied victories against the Germans despite overwhelming odds. The battles took a heavy toll on the Americans, who lost 19,000 men during the Battle of the Bulge alone. The allied bombing raids on Germany increased to unprecedented levels after the D-Day invasion, with over 70% of all bombs dropped on Germany occurring after this date. Germany was flattened, the country was physically and emotionally rubble. On 30 April 1945, with Berlin completely overrun with Russian forces and his country in tatters, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. On 8 May 1945 the war with Germany was over, following their unconditional surrender to the Allied forces.From a modest contribution in troops at the beginning of the campaign in Europe, by the end of the war approximately 66% of all allied divisions in Western Europe were American.Battle against JapanDue to the United States commitment to defeating Hitler in Europe, the first years of the war against Japan was largely a defensive battle with the U.S. Navy attempting to prevent the Japanese Navy from asserting dominance of the Pacific region. Initially Japan won the majority of its battles and did so with frightening speed. Japan quickly defeated and set up strong bases in Guam, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Burma. This was done virtually unhindered and with quicker speed that the German Blitzkrieg of the early stages of the war. This was an important period for Japan as they had only 10% of the homeland industrial production capacity of the United States.The turning point is this period was the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The United States Navy had broken the Japanese communication codes which allowed it to strategically position its ships in order to deliver a comprehensive defeat to the Japanese Navy. Following this the Americans began fighting towards China where they could build an airbase suitable to commence bombing of mainland Japan with its B-29 Superfortress fleet. The Americans began by selecting smaller, lesser defended islands as targets as opposed to attacking the major Japanese strongholds. During this period they inadvertently triggered what would become their most comprehensive victory in the entire war.After defeating Japanese troops and landing in the Marianas Islands, the Japanese retaliated by sending 6 Aircraft carriers carrying 430 planes to counter attack. The battle that ensued on 19 June 1944 became known as the “Marianas Turkey Shoot”. The American Navy pilots shot down 369 of the 430 Japanese bombers, fighters and dive bombers, and heavily wounded many others. Only 36 Japanese aircraft remained operational after this battle, or around 8%.The pacific war became the largest naval conflict in history. The American Navy emerged victorious after at one point being stretched to almost breaking point with almost complete destruction of the Japanese Navy in this period. The American forces were now poised for an invasion of the Japanese mainland itself, in order to force the Japanese into unconditional surrender. The decision to use nuclear weapons to end the conflict has become one of the most hotly debated topics of the war. Supporters of the bombs accurately point out that an invasion would have cost enormous numbers of lives, as the battle of Okinawa showed where more people perished than both of the bombs put together. Supporters also point out that a conventional fire bombing campaign would have caused enormous civilian casualties, as the bombing of Tokyo had done. Those against the bomb argue that a military demonstration should have taken place, or that footage of the test bomb in Los Alamos should have been sent to the Japanese along with a demand for surrender. All hypotheticals aside the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and the Japanese were completely shocked. The second bomb dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August along with a bluff that there was plenty more where that came from. On 15 August 1945 the Japanese surrendered unconditionally and the war was over. The end came about without a bloody invasion, and it occurred as swiftly as the Americans had planned.

Cold War beginnings and the Twentieth Century Civil Rights Movement (1945–1964)

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This article has been tagged since February 2007. Martin Luther King delivering the I Have a Dream speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.Following World War II, the United States emerged as one of the two dominant superpowers. The U.S. Senate, on December 4, 1945, approved U.S. participation in the United Nations (UN), which marked a turn away from the traditional isolationism of the U.S. and toward more international involvement. The post-war era in the United States was defined internationally by the beginning of the Cold War, in which the United States and the Soviet Union attempted to expand their influence at the expense of the other, checked by each side’s massive nuclear arsenal and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. The result was a series of conflicts during this period including the Korean War and the tense nuclear showdown of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Within the United States, the Cold War prompted concerns about Communist influence, and also resulted in government efforts to encourage math and science toward efforts like the space race. Alabama governor George Wallace attempting to stop desegregation at the University of Alabama in 1963.In the decades after the Second World War, the United States became a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural and technological affairs. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it stands today as the sole superpower. The power of the United States is nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints. At the center of middle-class culture since the 1950s has been a growing obsession with consumer goods.President Kennedy‘s address on Civil Rights, 11 Jun 63John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. Known for his charisma, he was the only Catholic to ever be President. The Kennedys brought a new life and vigor to the atmosphere of the White House. During his time in office, the Cold War reached its height with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.Meanwhile, the American people completed their great migration from the farms into the cities, and experienced a period of sustained economic expansion. At the same time, institutionalized racism across the United States, but especially in the American South, was increasingly challenged by the growing Civil Rights movement and African American leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. During the 1960s, the Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation between Whites and Blacks came to an end.

 Cold War (1964–1980)

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This article has been tagged since February 2007.The Cold War continued through the 1960s and 1970s, and the United States entered the Vietnam War, whose growing unpopularity fed already existing social movements, including those among women, minorities and young people. President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society social programs and the judicial activism of the Warren Court added to the wide range of social reform during the 1960s and 70s. The period saw the birth of feminism and the environmental movement as political forces, and continued progress toward Civil Rights.In the early 1970s, Johnson’s successor, President Richard Nixon brought the Vietnam War to a close, and the American-backed South Vietnamese government collapsed. The war cost the lives of 58,000 American troops and millions of Vietnamese. Nixon’s own administration was brought to an ignominious close with the political scandal of Watergate. The OPEC oil embargo and slowing economic growth led to a period of stagflation under President Jimmy Carter as the 1970s drew to a close.

End of the Cold War (1980–1988)

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This article has been tagged since February 2007.Ronald Reagan produced a major realignment with his 1980 and 1984 landslides. In 1980 the Reagan coalition was possible because of Democratic losses in most social-economic groups.In the 1984 election, Ronald Reagan won 49 states in one of the largest ever election victories.“Reagan Democrats” were those who usually voted Democratic but were attracted by Reagan’s policies, personality and leadership, notably his social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy. Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate tells Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall in 1987, shortly before the end of the Cold WarIn foreign affairs bipartisanship was not in evidence. The Democrats doggedly opposed the president’s efforts to support the Contras of Nicaragua. He took a hard line against the Soviet Union, alarming Democrats who wanted a nuclear freeze, but he succeeded in growing the military budget and launching a very high-tech “Star Wars” missile defense system that the Soviets could not match. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in Moscow many conservative Republicans were dubious of the friendship between him and Reagan. Gorbachev tried to save Communism in Russia first by ending the expensive arms race with America, then (1989) by shedding the East European empire. Communism finally collapsed in Russia in 1991.

1988–present

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This article has been tagged since February 2007. New York under attack in the September 11, 2001 attacks    George W. Bush in a televised address from the USS Abraham Lincoln with the Mission Accomplished banner in the background.After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world’s sole remaining superpower and continued to involve itself in military action overseas, including the 1991 Gulf War. Following his election in 1992, President Bill Clinton oversaw the longest economic expansion in American history, a side effect of the digital revolution and new business opportunities created by the Internet (see Internet bubble).At the beginning of the new millennium, the United States found itself attacked by Islamist terrorism, with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon orchestrated by Osama bin Laden. Another flight, Flight 93, crashed in Pennsylvania near a forest. In response, under the administration of President George W. Bush, the United States (with the military support of NATO and the political support of most of the international community) invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban regime, which had supported and harbored bin Laden. More controversially, President Bush continued what he dubbed the War on Terrorism with the invasion of Iraq by overthrowing and capturing Saddam Hussein in 2003. This second invasion proved to be unpopular in many parts of the world and helped fuel a global wave of anti-American sentiment.The presidential election in 2000 was one of the closest in American history, and helped lay the seeds for political polarization to come. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded parts of the city of New Orleans and heavily damaged other areas of the gulf coast, including major damage to the Mississippi coast. The preparation and the response of the government were criticized as ineffective and slow. As of 2006, the political climate remains polarized as debates continue over partial birth abortion, federal funding of stem cell research, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and the ongoing war in Iraq.By 2006, rising prices saw Americans become increasingly conscious of the nation’s extreme dependence on steady supplies of inexpensive petroleum for energy, with President Bush admitting a U.S. “addiction to oil.” The possibility of serious economic disruption, should conflict overseas or declining production interrupt the flow, could not be ignored, given the instability in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions of the world. Many proposals and pilot projects for replacement energy sources, from ethanol to wind power and solar power, received more capital funding and were pursued more seriously in the 2000s than in previous decades.

history of europe

Prehistoric Europe

Main article: Prehistoric Europe

Palaeolithic

Homo erectus and Neanderthals settled Europe long before the emergence of modern humans, Homo sapiens. The bones of first Europeans are found in Dmanisi, Georgia, dated 2,000,000 BC. The earliest appearance of anatomically modern people in Europe has been dated to 35,000 BC. Evidence of permanent settlement dates from the 7th millennium BC in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

Neolithic

The Neolithic reached Central Europe in the 6th millennium BC and parts of Northern Europe in the 5th and 4th millennium BC. There is no prehistoric culture that covers the whole of Europe.

Bronze Age

Main article: European Bronze AgeThe first well-known literate civilization in Europe was that of the Minoans of the island of Crete and later the Myceneans in the adjacent parts of Greece, starting at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

Iron Age

Greece and Balkans

Main article: Ancient GreeceAt the end of the Bronze Age the older Greek kingdoms collapsed, followed by the Greek Dark Ages and Classical Greece. The Iron Age Balkans were inhabited by various “Palaeo-Balkans” peoples, such as Thracians, Illyrians

Celts

Around 400 BC, the La Tene culture spread over most of the interior as far as the Iberian Peninsula, mingling with earlier residents of Iberia to produce a unique Celtiberian culture, and later Anatolia. As the Celts did not use a written language, knowledge of them is piecemeal. The Romans encountered them and recorded a great deal about them; these records and the archaeological evidence form our primary understanding of this extremely influential culture. The Celts posed a formidable, but disorganized, competition to the Roman state, that later colonized and conquered much of the southern portion of Europe.

Italy

Main articles: Etruria and Italic peoples

Northern Europe

Main articles: Pre-Roman Iron Age and Germania

Britain

Main article: Pre-Roman Britain

Hellenism and Roman Empire

Main articles: Hellenistic period and Ancient RomeThe Hellenic civilization took the form of a collection of city-states (the most important being Athens, Corinth, Siracuse and Sparta), having vastly differing types of government and cultures, including what are unprecedented developments in various governmental forms, philosophy, science, politics, sports, theatre and music. The Hellenic city-states founded a large number of colonies on the shores of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean sea, Asia Minor, Sicily and Southern Italy in Magna Graecia, but in the 4th century BC their internal wars made them an easy prey for king Philip II of Macedon. The campaigns of his son Alexander the Great spread Greek culture into Persia, Egypt and India, but also favoured contact with the older learnings of those countries, opening up a new period of development, known as Hellenism.  Europe in 220BCMuch of Greek learning was assimilated by the nascent Roman state as it expanded outward from Italy, taking advantage of its enemies’ inability to unite: the only real challenge to Roman ascent came from the Phoenician colony of Carthage, but its defeat in the end of the 3rd century BC marked the start of Roman hegemony. First governed by kings, then as a senatorial republic (the Roman Republic), Rome finally became an empire at the end of the 1st century BC, under Augustus and his authoritarian successors. The Roman Empire had its centre in the Mediterranean Sea, controlling all the countries on its shores; the northern border was marked by the Rhine and Danube rivers; under emperor Trajan (2nd century AD) the empire reached its maximum expansion, including Britain, Romania and parts of Mesopotamia. The empire brought peace, civilization and an efficient centralized government to the subject territories, but in the 3rd century a series of civil wars undermined its economic and social strength. In the 4th century, the emperors Diocletian and Constantine were able to slow down the process of decline by splitting the empire into a Western and an Eastern part. Whereas Diocletian severely persecuted Christianity, Constantine declared an official end to state-sponsored persecution of Christians in 313 with the Edict of Milan, thus setting the stage for the empire to later become officially Christian in about 380 (which would cause the Church to become an important institution).

Middle Ages

 Europe in 998Western Europe emerged as the site of a distinct civilization after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, as Germanic peoples conquered it, while the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the Byzantine Empire) survived for another millennium. The Roman Empire was already divided into Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking regions for centuries. In the 7th and 8th century the Arab expansion brought Islamic cultures to the southern Mediterranean shores (from Syria to Sicily and Spain), further enlarging the differences between the various Mediterranean civilizations. In the same century, Bulgarians created the first Slavic state in Europe – Bulgaria. Feudalism created a new order in a world without cities and replaced the centralized Roman administration which was based on cities and a highly organized army. The only institution surviving the collapse of the Western Roman Empire was the Roman Catholic Church, which preserved part of the Roman cultural inheritance and remained the primary source of learning in its domain at least until the 13th century; the bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, became the leader of the western church (in the east his supremacy was not accepted in the end).The Holy Roman Empire emerged around 800, as Charlemagne, king of the Franks, was crowned by the pope as emperor. His empire based in modern France, the Low Countries and Germany expanded into modern Hungary, Italy, Bohemia, Lower Saxony and Spain. He and his father received substantial help from an alliance with the Pope, who wanted help against the Lombards. The pope was officially a vassal of the Byzantine Empire, but the Byzantine emperor did (could do) nothing against the Lombards.Two empires, Great Moravia and Kievan Rus’, emerged among the Western and Eastern Slavs respectively in the 9th century. In the late 9th century and 10th century, northern and western Europe felt the burgeoning power and influence of the Vikings who raided, traded, conquered and settled swiftly and efficiently with their advanced sea-going vessels such as the longships. The Hungarians pillaged mainland Europe and the Arabs the south. In the 10th century independent kingdoms were established in Central Europe, for example, Poland and Kingdom of Hungary. Hungarians had stopped their pillaging campaigns; prominent nation states also included Bulgaria and Serbia, that have rivalled Byzantium in the Balkans.The subsequent period, ending around 1000, saw the further growth of feudalism, which weakened the Holy Roman Empire.

High Middle Ages

Main article: High Middle AgesAfter the East-West Schism, Western Christianity was adopted by newly created kingdoms of Central Europe: Poland, Hungary and Bohemia.The Roman Catholic Church developed as a major power, leading to conflicts between the Pope and Emperor.The area of the Roman Catholic Church expanded enormously due to conversions of pagan kings (Scandinavia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary) and crusades. Most of Europe was Roman Catholic in the 15th century.

Late Middle Ages

 Europe in 1328Early signs of the rebirth of civilization in western Europe began to appear in the 11th century as trade started again in Italy, leading to the economic and cultural growth of independent city states such as Venice and Florence; at the same time, nation-states began to take form in places such as France, England, Spain, and Portugal, although the process of their formation (usually marked by rivalry between the monarchy, the aristocratic feudal lords and the church) actually took several centuries. These new nation-states began writing in their own cultural vernaculars, instead of the traditional Latin. Notable figures of this movement would include Christine de Pisan and Dante, the former writing in French, and the latter in Italian.(See Reconquista for the latter two countries.) On the other hand, the Holy Roman Empire, essentially based in Germany and Italy, further fragmented into a myriad of feudal principalities or small city states, whose subjection to the emperor was only forma.
Europe in the 14th centuryOne of the largest catastrophes to have hit Europe was the Black Death. There were numerous outbreaks, but the most severe was in the mid-1300s and is estimated to have killed a third of Europe’s population. Since many Jews worked as money-lenders (usury was not allowed for Christians) the Jews were often disliked by Europeans, so it was popular to blame them for the epidemic. This led to increased persecution of Jews in some areas. Thousands of Jews fled to Poland which, ironically, was spared by the first plague, but black death came back time after time.Beginning in the 14th century, the Baltic Sea became one of the most important trade routes. The Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading cities, facilitated the absorption of vast areas of Poland, Lithuania and other Baltic countries into the economy of Europe. This fed the growth of powerful states in Eastern Europe including Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Muscovy. The conventional end of the Middle Ages is usually associated with the fall of the city Constantinople and of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Turks made the city the capital of their Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1919 and also included Egypt, Syria and most of the Balkans.

Renaissance and Reformation

Europe in the 1470sPetrarch wrote in the 1330s: ‘I am alive now, yet I would rather have been born in another time.’ He was enthusiastic about the Greek and Roman antiquity with great men who were dead. Matteo Palmieri wrote in the 1430s: ‘Now indeed may every thoughtful spirit thank god that it has been permitted to him to be born in a new age.’ The renaissance was born: a new age where learning was very important.The Renaissance was inspired by the growth in study of Latin and Greek texts and the admiration of the Greco-Roman era as a golden age. This prompted many artists and writers to begin drawing from Roman and Greek examples for their works, but there was also much innovation in this period especially by multi-faceted artists like Leonardo da Vinci. Much of the Greek texts came from Islamic sources who also improved upon them. Important political precedents were also set in this period. Machiavelli‘s political writing in The Prince influenced later absolutism and real-politik, also important was the fact that many patrons ruled states and used the artistry of the Renaissance as a sign of their power.During this period corruption in the Catholic Church lead to a sharp backlash in the Protestant Reformation. It gained many followers especially among princes and kings seeking a stronger state by ending the influence of the Catholic Church. Figures other than Martin Luther began to emerge as well like John Calvin whose Calvinism had influence in many countries and King Henry VIII of England who broke away from the Catholic Church in England and set up the Anglican Church. These religious divisions brought on a wave of wars inspired and driven by religion but also by the ambitious monarchs in Western Europe who were becoming more centralized and powerful.The Protestant Reformation also led to a strong reform movement in the Catholic Church called the Counter-Reformation, which aimed to reduce corruption as well as to improve and strengthen Catholic Dogma. An important group in the Catholic Church who emerged from this movement were the Jesuits who helped keep Eastern Europe within the Catholic fold. Still, the Catholic Church was intensely weakened by the Reformation, large parts of Europe were no longer under its sway and kings in the remaining Catholic countries began to take control of the Church institutions within their kingdoms.Unlike Western Europe, the countries of Central Europe, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Hungary, were more tolerant. While still enforcing the predominance of Catholicism they continued to allow the large religious minorities to maintain their faiths. Central Europe became divided between Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox and Jews.Another important development in this period was the growth of pan-European sentiments. Eméric Crucé (1623) came up with the idea of the European Council, intended to end wars in Europe; attempts to create lasting peace were no success, although all European countries (except the Russian and Ottoman Empires, regarded as foreign) agreed to make peace in 1518 at the Treaty of London. Many wars broke out again in a few years. The Reformation also made European peace impossible for many centuries.Another development was the idea of European superiority. The ideal of civilization was taken over from the ancient Greeks and Romans: discipline, education and living in the city were required to make people civilized; Europeans and non-Europeans were judged for their civility, and Europe regarded itself as superior to other continents. There was a movement by some such as Montaigne that regarded the non-Europeans as a better, more natural and primitive people. Post services were founded all over Europe, which allowed a humanistic interconnected network of intellecutals across Europe, despite religious divisions. However, the Roman Catholic church banned many leading scientific works; this led to an intellectual advantage for Protestant countries, where the banning of books was regionally organized. Francis Bacon and other advocates of science tried to create unity in Europe by focusing on the unity in nature. ¹In the 15th century, at the end of the Middle Ages, powerful states were appearing, built by the New Monarchs who were centralizing power in France, England, and Spain. On the other hand the Parliament in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth grew in power, taking legislative rights from the Polish king. The new state power was contested by parliaments in other countries especially England. New kinds of states emerged which were cooperations between territorial rulers, cities, farmer republics and knights.

 Colonial expansion

Main article: Age of DiscoveryThe numerous wars did not prevent the new states from exploring and conquering wide portions of the world, particularly in Asia (Siberia) and in the newly-discovered America. In the 15th century, Portugal led the way in geographical exploration, followed by Spain in the early 16th century. They were the first states to set up colonies in America and trade stations on the shores of Africa and Asia, but they were soon followed by France, England and the Netherlands. In 1552 Russian tsar Ivan IV the Terrible conquered Kazan and the Yermak‘s voyage of 1580 led to the annexation of Siberia into Russia.Colonial expansion proceeded in the following centuries (with some setbacks, such as the American Revolution and the wars of independence in many American colonies). Spain had control of part of North America and a great deal of Central America and South America, the Caribbean and the Philippines; Britain took the whole of Australia and New Zealand, most of India, and large parts of Africa and North America; France held parts of Canada and India (nearly all of which was lost to Britain in 1763), Indochina and large parts of Africa; the Netherlands gained the East Indies (now Indonesia) and islands in the Caribbean; Portugal obtained Brazil and several territories in Africa and Asia; and later, powers such as Germany, Belgium, Italy and Russia acquired further colonies.This expansion helped the economy of the countries owning them. Trade flourished, because of the minor stability of the empires. The European countries fought wars that were largely paid for by the money coming in from the colonies.

[edit] Early Modern period: 16th, 17th and 18th centuries

Main article: Early Modern EuropeThe Reformation had profound effects on the unity of Europe. Not only were nations divided one from another by their religious orientation, but some states were torn apart internally by religious strife, avidly fostered by their external enemies. France suffered this fate in the 16th century in the series of conflicts known as the French Wars of Religion, which ended in the triumph of the Bourbon Dynasty. England avoided this fate for a while and settled down under Elizabeth to a moderate Anglicanism. Much of modern day Germany was divided into numerous small states under the theoretical framework of the Holy Roman Empire, was also divided along internally drawn sectarian lines, until the Thirty Years’ War seemed to see religion replaced by nationalism as the motor of European conflict. The single exception to this was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, an entity created by the agreement between the nobility of those two countries, highly valuing the religious tolerance.Throughout the early part of this period, capitalism was replacing feudalism as the principal form of economic organization, at least in the western half of Europe. The expanding colonial frontiers resulted in a Commercial Revolution. The period is noted for the rise of modern science and the application of its findings to technological improvements, which culminated in the Industrial Revolution. Iberian exploits of the New World, which started with Christopher Columbus’s venture westward in search of a quicker trade route to the East Indies in 1492, was soon challenged by English and French exploits in North America. New forms of trade and expanding horizons made new developments in international law necessary.Map of Europe in 1648 at the end of the Thirty Years’ WarAfter the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years’ War, Absolutism became the norm of the continent, while parts of Europe experimented with constitutions foreshadowed by the English Civil War and particularly the Glorious Revolution. European military conflict did not cease, but had less disruptive effects on the lives of Europeans. In the advanced north-west, the Enlightenment gave a philosophical underpinning to the new outlook, and the continued spread of literacy, made possible by the printing press, created new secular forces in thought. Again, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would be an exception to this rule, with its unique quasi-democratic Golden Freedom.Eastern Europe was an arena of conflict for domination between Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. This period saw a gradual decline of these three powers which were eventually replaced by new enlightened absolutist monarchies, Russia, Prussia and Austria. By the turn of the 19th century they became new powers, having divided Poland between them, with Sweden and Turkey having experienced substantial territorial losses to Russia and Austria respectively. Numerous Polish Jews emigrated to Western Europe, founding Jewish communities in places where they had been expelled from during the Middle Ages.

Modern Europe

The French Revolution

The storming of the BastilleBy the late 18th century France’s finances were in disarray. Lavish royal expenditure and costly wars, such as the French intervention in the American war of Independence, had bankrupted the state. After repeated failed attempts at financial reform, Louis XVI was persuaded to convene the Estates-General, a representative body of the country made up of three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. The members of the Estates-General assembled in Versaille in May 1789, but the debate as to which voting system should be used soon became an impasse. Come June, the third estate, joined by members of the other two, declared itself to be a National Assembly and swore an oath not to dissolve until France had a constitution and created, in July, the National Constituent Assembly. At the same time the people of Paris revolted, famously storming the Bastille prison on 14 July.At the time the assembly wanted to create a constitutional monarchy, and over the following two years passed various laws including the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the abolition of feudalism, and a fundamental change in the relationship between France and Rome. At first the king went along with these changes and enjoyed reasonable popularity with the people, but as anti-royalism increased along with threat of foreign invasion, the king, stripped of his power, decided to flee along with his family. He was recognized and brought back to Paris. On 12 January 1793, having been convicted of treason, he was executed.On 20 September 1792 the National Convention abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic. Due to the emergency of war the National Convention created the Committee of Public Safety, controlled by the Jacobin Robespierre, to act as the country’s executive. Under Robespierre the committee initiated the Reign of Terror, during which up to 40,000 people were executed in Paris, mainly nobles, and those convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal, often on the flimsiest of evidence. Elsewhere in the country, counter-revolutionary insurrections were brutally suppressed. The regime was overthrown in the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) and executed. The regime which followed ended the Terror and relaxed Robespierre’s more extreme policies.

Napoleonic Wars

Europe in 1812Napoleon Bonaparte was France’s most successful general in the Revolutionary wars, having conquered large parts of Italy and forced the Austrians to sue for peace. In 1799 he returned from Egypt and on 18 Brumaire (9 November) overthrew the government, replacing it with the Consulate, in which he was First Consul. On 2 December 1804, after a failed assassination plot he crowned himself Emperor.In 1805 Napoleon planned to invade Britain, but a renewed British alliance with Russia and Austria (Third Coalition), forced him to turn his attention towards the continent, while at the same time failure to lure the superior British fleet away from the English Channel, ending in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October put an end to hopes of an invasion of Britain. On 2 December Napoleon defeated a numerically superior Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz, forcing Austria’s withdrawal from the coalition and dissolving the Holy Roman Empire.In 1806 a Fourth Coalition was set up, on 14 October Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, marched through Germany and defeated the Russians on 14 June 1807 at Freidland, the Treaties of Tilsit divided Europe between France and Russia and created the Duchy of Warsaw.On 12 June 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia with a Grande Armée of nearly 700,000 troops. After the measured victories at Smolensk and Borodino Napoleon occupied Moscow, only to find it burned by the retreating Russian Army, he was forced to withdraw, on the march back his army was harassed by Cossacks, and suffered disease and starvation. Only 20,000 of his men survived the campaign.By 1813 the tide had began to turn from Napoleon, having been defeated by a seven nation army at Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. He was forced to abdicate after the Six Days Campaign and the occupation of Paris, under the Treaty of Fontainebleau he was exiled to the Island of Elba. He returned to France on 1 March 1815 (see Hundred Days), raised an army, but was comprehensively defeated by a British and Prussian force at Waterloo on 18 June.

[edit] Congress of Vienna

Main article: Congress of ViennaThe Congress of Vienna was a conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe. It was held in Vienna from 1 October 1814, to 9 June 1815. The discussions continued despite Napoleon’s return and the Congress’s Final Act was signed nine days before his final defeat at Waterloo. The Congress was concerned with determining the entire shape of Europe after the Napoleonic wars, with the exception of the terms of peace with France, which had already been decided by the Treaty of Paris in May 1814.The Congress’s principal results, apart from its confirmation of France’s loss of the territories annexed in 1795 – 1810, were the enlargement of Russia, (which gained most of the Duchy of Warsaw) and Prussia, which acquired Westphalia and the northern Rhineland. Germany was consolidated from the ~300 states of the Holy Roman Empire (dissolved in 1806) into 39 states. These states were formed into a loose German Confederation under the leadership of Prussia and Austria.Poland was again divided by Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Polish Kingdom became part of Russia, while western Poland became Prussian and southern Poland was made Austrian. Only the Republic of Cracow stayed independent until 1846.Representatives at the Congress agreed to numerous other territorial changes. Norway was transferred from Denmark to Sweden. Austria gained Lombardy-Venetia in Northern Italy, while much of the rest of North-Central Italy went to Habsburg dynasts (The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modena, and the Duchy of Parma). The Pope was restored to the Papal States. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was restored to its mainland possessions, and also gained control of the Republic of Genoa. In Southern Italy the Bourbon Ferdinand IV was restored to the throne. A large United Kingdom of the Netherlands was created for the Prince of Orange, including both the old United Provinces and the formerly Austrian-ruled territories in the Southern Netherlands.There were other, less important territorial adjustments, including significant territorial gains for the German Kingdoms of Hanover and Bavaria, and the Portuguese rights to the Territory of Olivenza were recognized.The countries involved with the Congress also agreed to meet at intervals and this led to the establishment of the “Congress system“. This system was frequently criticized by 19th century historians for ignoring national and liberal impulses associated with the French Revolution. However, in the twentieth century many historians began to admire the work of the statesmen at the Congress of Vienna, whose work appeared to have prevented another large-scale European war for nearly one hundred years (1818-1914).

The 19th century

After the defeat of revolutionary France, the other great powers tried to restore the situation which existed before 1789. However, their efforts were unable to stop the spread of revolutionary movements: the middle classes had been deeply influenced by the ideals of democracy of the French revolution, the Industrial Revolution brought important economical and social changes, the lower classes started to be influenced by Socialist, Communist and Anarchistic ideas (especially those summarized by Karl Marx in the Manifesto of the Communist Party), and the preference of the new capitalists became Liberalism (a term which then, politically, meant something different from the modern usage). Further instability came from the formation of several nationalist movements (in Germany, Italy, Poland etc.), seeking national unification and/or liberation from foreign rule. As a result, the period between 1815 and 1871 saw a large number of revolutionary attempts and independence wars. Even though the revolutionaries were often defeated, most European states had become constitutional (rather than absolute) monarchies by 1871, and Germany and Italy had developed into nation states. The 19th century also saw the British Empire emerge as the world’s first global power due in a large part to the Industrial Revolution and victory in the Napoleonic Wars.The first revolution to occur in Europe after the French Revolution was the Serbian Uprising of 1804, and the Second Serbian Uprising of 1815, which resulted in the proclamation of autonomous Serbia by the Ottoman Empire. The political dynamics of Europe changed three times over the 19th century – first after the Congress of Vienna, and again after the Crimean War. In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna, the major powers of Europe managed to produce a peaceful balance of power among the empires after the Napoleonic wars (despite the occurrence of internal revolutionary movements). But the peace would only last until the Ottoman Empire had declined enough to become a target for the others. (See history of the Balkans#Rise of Independence.) This instigated the Crimean War in 1854 and began a tenser period of minor clashes among the globe-spanning empires of Europe that set the stage for the first World War. It changed a third time with the end of the various wars that turned the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of Prussia into the Italian and German nation-states, significantly changing the balance of power in Europe.From 1870, the Bismarkian hegemony on Europe put France in a critical situation, and it slowly rebuilt its relationships, seeking alliances with Russia and Britain, to control the growing power of Germany. By this way, two sides grew in Europe, improving year by year their military forces and alliances.

Early 20th century: The World Wars

 Main articles: World War I and World War IIAfter the relative peace of most of the 19th century, the rivalry between European powers exploded in 1914, when World War I started. On one side were Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey (the Central Powers/Triple Alliance), while on the other side stood Serbia and the Triple Entente – the loose coalition of France, the United Kingdom and Russia, which were joined by Italy in 1915 and by the United States in 1917. Despite the defeat of Russia in 1917 (the war was one of the major causes of the Russian Revolution, leading to the formation of the communist Soviet Union), the Entente finally prevailed in the autumn of 1918.In the Treaty of Versailles (1919) the winners imposed relatively hard conditions on Germany and recognized the new states (such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Yugoslavia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) created in central Europe out of the defunct German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, supposedly on the basis of national self-determination. Most of those countries engaged in local wars, the largest of them being the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921). In the following decades, fear of Communism and the economic Depression of 1929-1933 led to the rise of extreme nationalist governments – sometimes loosely grouped under the category of ‘Fascism‘ – in Italy (1922), Germany (1933), Spain (after a civil war ending in 1939) and other countries such as Hungary.
Europe in 1929-1939After allying with Mussolini’s Italy in the “Pact of Steel” and signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the German dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin started World War II on 1st and 17 September 1939 attacking Poland and following a military build-up throughout the late 1930s. After initial successes (mainly the conquest of western Poland, much of Scandinavia, France and the Balkans before 1941) the Axis powers began to over-extend themselves in 1941. Hitler’s ideological foes were the Communists in Russia but because of the German failure to defeat the United Kingdom and the Italian failures in North Africa and the Mediterranean the Axis forces were split between garrisoning western Europe and Scandinavia and also attacking Africa. Thus, the attack on the Soviet Union (which together with Germany had partitioned central Europe in 1939-1940) was not pressed with sufficient strength. Despite initial successes, the German army was stopped close to Moscow in December 1941. During this period, Germany began the systematic genocide of over 11 million people, including the majority of the Jews of Europe, in the Holocaust. Even as German persecution grew, over the next year the tide was turned and the Germans started to suffer a series of defeats, for example in the siege of Stalingrad and at Kursk. Meanwhile, Japan (allied to Germany and Italy since September 1940) attacked the British in south-east Asia and the United States in Hawaii on December 7, 1941; Germany then completed its over-extension by declaring war on the United States. War raged between the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied Forces (British Empire, Soviet Union, and the United States). Allied Forces won in North Africa, invaded Italy in 1943, and invaded occupied France in 1944. In the spring of 1945 Germany itself was invaded from the east by Russia and from the west by the other Allies respectively; Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered in early May ending the war in Europe.

 Late 20th century: the Cold War

Countries in the “Iron Curtain” are marked in red. Yugoslavia and Albania were communist, but isolated themselves from Russia, making them not part of the Iron CurtainWorld War I and especially World War II ended the pre-eminent position of western Europe. The map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided as it became the principal zone of contention in the Cold War between the two power blocs, the Western countries and the Eastern bloc. The United States and Western Europe (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, West Germany, etc.) established the NATO alliance as a protection against a possible Soviet invasion. Later, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany) established the Warsaw Pact as a protection against a possible U.S. invasion.Meanwhile, Western Europe slowly began a process of political and economic integration, desiring to unite Europe and prevent another war. This process resulted eventually in the development of organizations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe.The Solidarność movement in the 1980s in weakened the Communist government in Poland. The Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev initiated perestroika and glasnost, which weakened Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. Soviet-supported governments collapsed, and West Germany absorbed East Germany by 1990. In 1991 the Soviet Union itself collapsed, splitting into fifteen states, with Russia taking the Soviet Union’s seat on the United Nations Security Council.The most violent breakup happened in Yugoslavia, in the Balkans. Four (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republic of Macedonia) out of six Yugoslav republics declared independence and for most of them a violent war ensued, in some parts lasting until 1995. The remaining two republics formed a new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under the direction of Slobodan Milošević. Milošević presided over the Kosovo War, and was overthrown after his government was weakened by NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia.In the post-Cold War era, NATO and the EU have been gradually admitting most of the former members of the Warsaw Pact.

Early 21st century: the European Union

Main article: History of the European Union By the turn of the century, the states within the European Union had created much more than a mere free trade zone. They had successfully ceded a great deal of their sovereignty – in legislative, judicial, and executive matters – to a supranational authority. They operated under unified external trade policy and had eliminated most travel barriers across their internal borders. A new common currency for many European nations, the euro, was established electronically in 1999, officially tying all of the currencies of each participating nation to each other. The new currency was put into circulation in 2002 and most of the old currencies were phased out. (Not all EU member states have decided to join the euro project, including the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden). In 2004 the Union undertook a major expansion, admitting 10 new member states; two more joined in 2007, establishing a union of 27 nations.In 2005, the member states of the European Union began attempting to ratify a new constitution. However, the creation of the constitution has been controversial. There has been disagreement as member states wrangle over how much voting power each will have in the EU, taxes, and the standards to which new member states must be held before they are admitted. Moreover, the constitution is seen by many eurosceptics as an undesirable step towards a single EU state; others fear a perceived neoliberal economic agenda; and still more criticize it for its sheer size and complexity. In the Spring of 2005 both France and the Netherlands rejected the constitution in national referenda. Its implementation being contingent on unanimous ratification, the future of the European Constitution is currently unclear.The Balkans remained in the spotlight due to the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the border changes with the introduction of Serbia and Montenegro as a move to placate the frictions between the two federal units, and the eventual split between the two states, into Serbia and Montenegro. The Kosovo question remained unsolved (as of 2006). 

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