{"eras":[{"year":-3000,"title":"The First Kings","age":"Early Bronze Age","overview":"Around 3000 BCE the first states in history have only just appeared. In Egypt, the Nile valley has recently been united under a single king, and the pharaohs of the First Dynasty rule from Memphis, building tombs at Abydos and Saqqara. In southern Mesopotamia, Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur have invented writing, first as clay-tablet accounts and soon as cuneiform script. Elam in south-west Iran is developing its own Proto-Elamite writing, and farming towns along the Indus are growing toward the great Harappan cities to come. Elsewhere, almost everyone still lives in villages or bands. Herders of the Yamnaya culture ride the grasslands north of the Black Sea with ox-drawn wagons, Neolithic farmers in Britain are digging the first ditch at Stonehenge, and on the coast of Peru the Norte Chico people are beginning to build monumental platforms. Copper and bronze tools are spreading, but stone tools are still the norm for most of humanity.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Africa south of the equator is home to hunter-gatherers, ancestors of today's San and other Khoisan-speaking peoples, who have lived here for tens of thousands of years. Bantu-speaking farmers have not yet begun their great migration; their homeland is still in West-Central Africa around present-day Cameroon and Nigeria. Rock art and stone tools record a long-established way of life.","northern-africa":"Egypt has just been unified, traditionally by Narmer (Menes), and First Dynasty kings rule the Nile valley from Memphis. South of the First Cataract live the A-Group people of Lower Nubia, trading with Egypt. The Sahara, green and dotted with lakes a few thousand years earlier, is drying out, pushing cattle herders toward the Nile and the Sahel.","europe":"Europe is a patchwork of Neolithic and Copper Age farming peoples. Megalith builders raise tombs and stone circles along the Atlantic coast, and the first earthwork at Stonehenge is dug around this time. On Crete, early Minoan villages and the Cycladic islanders are trading by sea, while Yamnaya herders dominate the steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia.","middle-east-south-asia":"Southern Mesopotamia is a land of rival Sumerian city-states such as Uruk, Ur and Kish, each ruled by its own king or temple elite, with writing newly invented. Elam, centred on Susa, is its eastern neighbour, while Semitic-speaking peoples live across Syria and Arabia and probably the ancestors of the Hurrians in the northern hills. In the Indus valley, Early Harappan farming towns are laying the groundwork for one of the world's first great urban civilizations.","north-central-asia":"The Afanasevo culture, probably related to the Yamnaya herders of the west, raises cattle and sheep in the Altai and southern Siberia. In the oases of southern Turkmenistan, Namazga farming towns grow wheat and barley with irrigation. Across the vast forests of Siberia, people live as hunters, fishers and gatherers.","east-asia":"There are no states yet in China. Late Neolithic cultures such as Yangshao on the Yellow River give way to the Longshan, while the Liangzhu culture of the lower Yangtze builds a walled centre and carves fine jade. In Japan the Jōmon people make some of the world's oldest pottery, and the Dapenkeng culture farms and fishes on Taiwan.","southeast-asia":"Mainland Southeast Asia is home to hunter-gatherers and the first small farming communities. In Taiwan and southern China, Austronesian-speaking peoples are preparing the great seaborne migrations that will soon carry them to the Philippines and Indonesia. Rice farming is only beginning to spread south from the Yangtze region.","northern-north-america":"Canada and Alaska are inhabited by Archaic hunting, fishing and gathering peoples who follow the seasons, with caribou and salmon important in the north. The far eastern Arctic and Greenland are still largely empty of people; Paleo-Eskimo hunters will cross from Alaska only around 2500 BCE.","southern-north-america":"Across North America, Archaic peoples hunt, fish and gather wild plants, and in Louisiana some have already built earthen mounds such as Watson Brake. In Mexico, people grow early, small-cobbed maize alongside squash, but still move with the seasons. Villages and pottery are still centuries away.","northern-south-america":"On the dry coast of Peru, the Norte Chico (Caral-Supe) people are beginning to build platform mounds and sunken plazas, among the oldest monuments in the Americas. In coastal Ecuador, the Valdivia culture lives in villages and makes some of the earliest pottery in the Americas. The Amazon basin is home to foragers and early cultivators.","southern-cone":"The southern cone is inhabited by hunter-gatherers. On the Atacama coast of northern Chile, the Chinchorro fishing people have been mummifying their dead for two thousand years, long before the Egyptians. Guanaco hunters roam the Pampas and Patagonia, and shellfish gatherers live along the coasts of Tierra del Fuego.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians, who arrived at least 50,000 years ago, live as hunter-gatherers across the whole continent, with Tasmania cut off by rising seas since about 10,000 BCE. In the highlands of New Guinea, farmers have been growing taro and bananas for thousands of years. The remote Pacific islands and New Zealand have not yet been reached by humans."},"powers":[{"name":"Egypt (First Dynasty)","map":"Egypt","ruler":"First Dynasty kings (e.g. Aha or Djer)","capital":"Memphis","extent":"The Nile valley and Delta from the First Cataract to the Mediterranean","clio":"Early Dynastic Period of Egypt"},{"name":"Sumerian city-states","map":"Ur","ruler":"Kings and temple elites of Uruk, Ur, Kish and other cities","capital":"Uruk (largest city)","extent":"Southern Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates","clio":"Sumerian City-States"},{"name":"Elam","map":"Elam","ruler":"Proto-Elamite rulers (names unknown)","capital":"Susa","extent":"South-western Iran, from Khuzestan into the Zagros highlands","clio":"Elam"},{"name":"Early Harappan culture","map":"Indus valley civilization","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Farming towns across the Indus basin in present-day Pakistan and north-west India","clio":"Indus Valley Civilization"},{"name":"Yamnaya culture","map":"Yamnaya culture","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Pastoral herders across the steppe north of the Black and Caspian seas","clio":null},{"name":"Syrian city-states","map":"city-states","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Early towns of northern Syria and the upper Euphrates","clio":null},{"name":"Norte Chico (Caral-Supe)","map":"Norte Chico","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"River valleys of the north-central coast of Peru","clio":null},{"name":"Minoan Crete","map":"Minoan","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Early Bronze Age villages on Crete","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-3500,"text":"Wheeled carts appear in Mesopotamia and Europe (c. 3500 BCE)"},{"year":-3300,"text":"Ötzi the Iceman dies in the Alps (c. 3300 BCE)"},{"year":-3200,"text":"Writing is invented in Sumer, first as accounting tablets at Uruk (c. 3200 BCE)"},{"year":-3100,"text":"Upper and Lower Egypt are united, traditionally by Narmer (c. 3100 BCE)"},{"year":-3000,"text":"First circular ditch and bank dug at Stonehenge (c. 3000 BCE)"},{"year":-3000,"text":"Norte Chico people begin monumental building on the Peruvian coast (c. 3000 BCE)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Narmer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hor-Aha","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hor-Aha"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Stonehenge","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Caral–Supe civilization","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral%E2%80%93Supe_civilization"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hurrians","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrians"},{"title":"Smith (2005), Reassessing Coxcatlan Cave, PNAS","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1172257"},{"title":"Smith (2001), Documenting plant domestication, PNAS 98(4)","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC33375"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. I: The Vedic Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/vedicage00bhar"}]},{"year":-2000,"title":"Cities of Bronze","age":"Middle Bronze Age","overview":"By 2000 BCE, cities and kingdoms stretch from the Mediterranean to the Indus. Egypt has been reunited after a period of breakdown, and the Theban Eleventh Dynasty is about to give way to the Twelfth, founded by Amenemhat I, which will lead Egypt's classical Middle Kingdom. In Mesopotamia, the great Third Dynasty of Ur has just fallen: in 2004 BCE the Elamites sacked Ur and carried off its last king, and power is now shared among cities such as Isin and Larsa, many ruled by Amorite chiefs. The Indus civilization, with its planned cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, is at its height but about to decline. On Crete, the Minoans are building their first palaces, and on the Eurasian steppe the Sintashta people are pioneering the light, spoked-wheel chariot. In China, the Xia, remembered as the first dynasty, is traditionally ruling the Yellow River plain, while most of the world's people still live as farmers, herders and foragers.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Southern Africa is home to Khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherers. Bantu-speaking farmers, growing yams and oil palms, are slowly beginning to move out of their homeland in Cameroon into the equatorial rainforest. Metal-working has not yet reached the region.","northern-africa":"Egypt has been reunited by Mentuhotep II of Thebes, whose Eleventh Dynasty successors still rule; Amenemhat I will found the Twelfth Dynasty around 1991 BCE. Upriver in Nubia the kingdom of Kerma is growing rich on trade in gold, ivory and ebony. The drying Sahara is home to cattle-herding nomads, and Berber-speaking peoples live along the Maghreb coast.","europe":"Europe is entering the Bronze Age. The Únětice culture of central Europe works bronze and trades amber, the Beaker people have spread from Iberia to Britain, and Stonehenge stands complete with its great sarsens. On Crete, the Minoans are building their first palace at Knossos, while the Catacomb culture herders live on the Pontic steppe.","middle-east-south-asia":"After the fall of Ur in 2004 BCE, southern Mesopotamia is split among rival cities, chiefly Isin under Ishbi-Erra and Larsa, while Amorite peoples settle across Mesopotamia and Syria. Elam, under its Shimashki kings, is at a peak of power, and Assur is a small trading city about to set up merchant colonies in Anatolia. The Indus civilization is at its height with cities such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, and the Bactria-Margiana (Oxus) culture builds fortified towns in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.","north-central-asia":"On the steppe east of the Urals, the Sintashta people build fortified settlements, smelt copper and bury warriors with the earliest true chariots. The wider Andronovo culture of horse-riding, cattle-herding peoples is beginning to spread across Kazakhstan toward Siberia. In the northern forests, Finno-Ugric and Paleo-Siberian peoples live by hunting and fishing.","east-asia":"China's first dynasty, the Xia, is traditionally said to rule the middle Yellow River at this time, though its history is still debated; the Erlitou culture that may represent it emerges around 1900 BCE. Late Longshan towns with rammed-earth walls dot the northern plain. Korea is home to Neolithic farming and fishing villages, and Japan to the Jōmon foragers.","southeast-asia":"Rice-farming peoples speaking Austro-Asiatic languages are spreading from southern China into Vietnam and Thailand, where villages such as Ban Non Wat will be founded within a few centuries. Austronesian seafarers have reached the Philippines and are moving into Indonesia. Tai- and Tibeto-Burman-speaking peoples live in the hills to the north.","northern-north-america":"Paleo-Eskimo peoples of the Arctic Small Tool tradition have recently spread east from Alaska across the Canadian Arctic to Greenland, where the Saqqaq culture hunts seals and caribou. Further south, Archaic peoples hunt and fish across the forests and plains of Canada.","southern-north-america":"Across North America, Archaic peoples hunt and gather, and some coastal groups in Georgia and South Carolina build great rings of shell. In Mesoamerica, farmers growing maize are settling into the first permanent villages, and pottery appears on the Pacific coast of Chiapas around 1900 BCE.","northern-south-america":"The Norte Chico civilization of coastal Peru, with its pyramid city at Caral, is in its last centuries before decline, while highland temples like Kotosh flourish. Valdivia villagers farm coastal Ecuador, and the Amazon is home to foragers and early cultivators.","southern-cone":"The Chinchorro fishing people of the Atacama coast still practise their elaborate mummification. Elsewhere, hunter-gatherers hunt guanaco on the Pampas and in Patagonia, and canoe peoples gather shellfish in the channels of the far south.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent as hunter-gatherers, and the dingo will arrive from Southeast Asia within the next few centuries. Papuan farmers cultivate the New Guinea highlands. Tasmanians live in isolation, and the remote Pacific islands remain unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Egypt (Middle Kingdom)","map":"Egypt","ruler":"Eleventh Dynasty kings (Mentuhotep III or IV), soon followed by Amenemhat I","capital":"Thebes","extent":"The Nile valley from the Delta to the First Cataract","clio":"Middle Kingdom of Egypt"},{"name":"Isin and Larsa (successors of Ur III)","map":"Ur","ruler":"Ishbi-Erra of Isin","capital":"Isin","extent":"The cities of Sumer and Akkad in southern Mesopotamia","clio":null},{"name":"Elam (Shimashki dynasty)","map":"Elam","ruler":"Shimashki kings (Kindattu sacked Ur in 2004 BCE)","capital":"Susa","extent":"South-western Iran and, briefly, parts of southern Mesopotamia","clio":"Elam"},{"name":"Indus Valley Civilization","map":"Indus valley civilization","ruler":null,"capital":"Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (largest cities)","extent":"The Indus basin, Punjab and Gujarat, from Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea","clio":"Indus Valley Civilization"},{"name":"Xia (traditional first dynasty)","map":"Xia","ruler":"Xia kings (traditional; existence debated)","capital":"Middle Yellow River valley","extent":"Part of the middle Yellow River plain in Henan","clio":null},{"name":"Minoan civilization","map":"Minoan","ruler":"Palace rulers (names unknown)","capital":"Knossos","extent":"Crete and trading links across the Aegean","clio":null},{"name":"Kingdom of Kerma","map":"Kerma","ruler":"Kings of Kerma (names unknown)","capital":"Kerma","extent":"Upper Nubia around the Third Cataract of the Nile","clio":null},{"name":"Bactria-Margiana (Oxus) culture","map":"Oxus","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Fortified oasis towns in northern Afghanistan and Turkmenistan","clio":null},{"name":"Sintashta culture","map":"Sintashta","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Fortified settlements on the steppe east of the southern Urals","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-2112,"text":"Ur-Nammu founds the Third Dynasty of Ur and issues one of the earliest law codes (c. 2112 BCE)"},{"year":-2040,"text":"Mentuhotep II reunites Egypt, beginning the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040 BCE)"},{"year":-2004,"text":"Elamites sack Ur and capture its last king, Ibbi-Sin (c. 2004 BCE)"},{"year":-2000,"text":"Earliest spoked-wheel chariots buried at Sintashta sites (c. 2000 BCE)"},{"year":-2000,"text":"First palaces built at Knossos and other sites on Crete (c. 2000–1900 BCE)"},{"year":-1991,"text":"Amenemhat I founds Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1991 BCE)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Middle Kingdom of Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Kingdom_of_Egypt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ibbi-Sin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibbi-Sin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ishbi-Erra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishbi-Erra"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sintashta culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintashta_culture"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ban Non Wat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Non_Wat"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dingo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. I part 2: Early History of the Middle East (1971)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-1-part-2"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. I: The Vedic Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/vedicage00bhar"}]},{"year":-1500,"title":"Chariots and Empires","age":"Late Bronze Age","overview":"Around 1500 BCE the Near East is entering an age of great powers and chariot warfare. Egypt, having expelled the Hyksos rulers of the Delta, is building its New Kingdom empire: Pharaoh Thutmose I has marched as far as the Euphrates and deep into Nubia. Its rivals are the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni in northern Syria and the Hittites of central Anatolia, who sacked Babylon in 1595 BCE; Babylonia is now ruled by the Kassites. In the Aegean, Minoan Crete still flourishes while warlike Mycenaean Greeks rise on the mainland. In India, the old Indus cities have been abandoned, and Indo-Aryan peoples in the Punjab are composing the earliest hymns of the Rigveda. In China, the Shang dynasty rules the Yellow River plain, soon to produce China's first writing. Across the Americas, the first Olmec settlements appear on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, and Austronesian sailors are about to strike out into the open Pacific.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Africa south of the equator is home to hunter-gatherers and Khoisan-speaking peoples. Bantu-speaking farmers are slowly spreading through the Congo rainforest from the north-west. There are no states or towns in the region.","northern-africa":"Egypt's New Kingdom is expanding under Thutmose I, who rules from Thebes and has campaigned up the Nile to defeat the Nubian kingdom of Kerma (Kush), Egypt's great southern rival. Across the Sahara, pastoral nomads herd cattle and goats, while West African farmers cultivate millet and sorghum in the Sahel, and Berbers live in the Maghreb.","europe":"On Crete, the Minoan palace civilization at Knossos is in its final great century, while mainland Mycenaean Greeks, whose kings are buried with gold masks, grow powerful. Central Europe's Bronze Age peoples trade amber, tin and copper over long distances, and Nordic Bronze Age cultures flourish in Scandinavia. The steppe north of the Black Sea is home to horse-riding herders.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Hittite kingdom, ruled from Hattusa in central Anatolia, is recovering under King Telipinu after a period of turmoil. The Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni dominates northern Syria and Mesopotamia, with Assyria under its shadow, while Kassite kings rule Babylonia and Elam controls south-west Iran. In India the Indus cities have been abandoned; Indo-Aryan herders in the Punjab, the Vedic Aryans, are composing the Rigveda, and Dravidian-speaking peoples live across the south.","north-central-asia":"The Andronovo culture of horse-riding, chariot-using herders spreads across the Kazakh steppe, and the Karasuk culture later grows from it in southern Siberia. Iranian-speaking pastoralists move south toward Iran and Central Asia. The northern taiga belongs to Finno-Ugric and Paleo-Siberian hunters and fishers.","east-asia":"The Shang dynasty rules the middle Yellow River from a walled capital at Zhengzhou, casting fine bronze ritual vessels in the Erligang style. Beyond the Shang, Neolithic and early Bronze Age peoples live across southern China and Korea. In Japan, Late Jōmon foragers live in settled villages, and the Ainu ancestors inhabit Hokkaido.","southeast-asia":"Austro-Asiatic rice farmers live in villages across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and bronze-working is beginning to spread south from China. Austronesian peoples are established in the Philippines and Indonesia, and their descendants, the Lapita people, will soon sail into the open Pacific.","northern-north-america":"Paleo-Eskimo hunters of the Pre-Dorset and Saqqaq traditions live in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, hunting seals, muskox and caribou. Subarctic forest hunters roam inland Canada, and Pacific coast peoples fish for salmon.","southern-north-america":"At Poverty Point in Louisiana, hunter-gatherers are building huge semicircular earthworks, the largest in North America at this time. Bison hunters live on the Great Plains. In Mexico, maize farmers live in permanent villages, and on the Gulf Coast the first Olmec communities are taking shape.","northern-south-america":"In Peru, the Initial Period has begun: villages build U-shaped temple complexes and start to make pottery and irrigate their fields. The Chorrera culture is emerging in coastal Ecuador, and manioc farmers and foragers live along the rivers of the Amazon basin.","southern-cone":"The Chinchorro mummy-making tradition on the Atacama coast is coming to an end after some 3,500 years. Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, while in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego peoples hunt guanaco and marine mammals.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent, and the dingo is arriving from Southeast Asia around this time. Papuan farmers cultivate New Guinea. In the Bismarck Archipelago, Austronesian newcomers are about to develop the Lapita culture, whose sailors will settle the islands of the western Pacific."},"powers":[{"name":"Egypt (New Kingdom)","map":"Egypt","ruler":"Thutmose I (c. 1506–1493 BCE)","capital":"Thebes","extent":"The Nile valley and Delta, with campaigns reaching the Euphrates and Upper Nubia","clio":"New Kingdom of Egypt"},{"name":"Hittite Old Kingdom","map":"Hittites","ruler":"Telipinu (c.)","capital":"Hattusa","extent":"Central and southern Anatolia","clio":"Hittites"},{"name":"Mitanni","map":null,"ruler":"Hurrian kings (Parattarna, c.)","capital":"Washukanni","extent":"Northern Syria and northern Mesopotamia, with Assyria as a vassal","clio":"Mitanni"},{"name":"Kassite Babylonia","map":"Babylonia","ruler":"Kassite kings (e.g. Burna-Buriash I, c.)","capital":"Babylon","extent":"Southern Mesopotamia","clio":"Babylonia"},{"name":"Shang dynasty","map":"Zhoa","ruler":"Shang kings (Erligang period)","capital":"Zhengzhou (Ao)","extent":"The middle and lower Yellow River plain","clio":"Shang Dynasty"},{"name":"Kingdom of Kerma (Kush)","map":"Kush","ruler":"Kings of Kerma","capital":"Kerma","extent":"Upper Nubia along the middle Nile","clio":null},{"name":"Elam","map":"Elam","ruler":"Kidinuid kings (c.)","capital":"Susa","extent":"South-western Iran","clio":"Elam"},{"name":"Mycenaean Greece","map":"Greek city-states","ruler":"Warrior kings of Mycenae and other citadels","capital":"Mycenae","extent":"Southern mainland Greece and Aegean islands","clio":"Mycenaean Greece"},{"name":"Vedic Aryans","map":"Vedic Aryans","ruler":null,"capital":null,"extent":"Pastoral tribes of the Punjab and north-west India","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-1600,"text":"Tang founds the Shang dynasty in China (traditional date c. 1600 BCE)"},{"year":-1600,"text":"Volcanic eruption of Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean (c. 1600 BCE, date debated)"},{"year":-1595,"text":"Hittite king Mursili I sacks Babylon (c. 1595 BCE)"},{"year":-1550,"text":"Ahmose I expels the Hyksos and founds Egypt's New Kingdom (c. 1550 BCE)"},{"year":-1525,"text":"Telipinu issues his edict setting rules for the Hittite royal succession (c. 1525 BCE)"},{"year":-1500,"text":"Thutmose I campaigns to the Euphrates and conquers Kerma (c. 1500 BCE)"},{"year":-1500,"text":"Earliest hymns of the Rigveda composed in the Punjab (c. 1500–1200 BCE)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Thutmose I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Telipinu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telipinu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Barattarna","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baratarna"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Burnaburiash I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnaburiash_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kerma culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerma_culture"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Independence I culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_I_culture"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. II part 1: The Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1800-1380 BC (1973)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-2-part-1"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. I: The Vedic Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/vedicage00bhar"}]},{"year":-1000,"title":"Out of the Collapse","age":"Early Iron Age","overview":"Around 1000 BCE the world is recovering from the Late Bronze Age collapse, when around 1200–1150 BCE the Hittite empire and the Mycenaean palaces fell, many cities were burned, and Egypt was weakened by the Sea Peoples. The great empires are gone, and smaller kingdoms fill the gap. In the Levant, King David, according to the Bible, rules a new kingdom of Israel from Jerusalem, the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon have developed the alphabet their traders will later carry across the Mediterranean, and Aramaean tribes settle much of Syria. Egypt is divided, with pharaohs at Tanis and priests of Amun at Thebes. Assyria is small but survives, waiting to rise again. Iron, cheaper than bronze, is spreading. In China, the Zhou dynasty has overthrown the Shang and claims the Mandate of Heaven. In India, the Kuru kingdom leads the Later Vedic age. In the Americas, the Olmec flourish in Mexico and the Chavín cult is rising in Peru, while Lapita sailors are settling the islands of the western Pacific.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers live across southern Africa. Bantu-speaking farmers continue moving east and south through the Congo rainforest toward the Great Lakes. There are still no towns or metal-working in the region.","northern-africa":"Egypt is in its Third Intermediate Period: Twenty-first Dynasty pharaohs such as Amenemope rule the north from Tanis, while the High Priests of Amun control Thebes. After Egypt's withdrawal from Nubia, local Kushite chiefs around Napata are building power. Saharan nomads, Berbers and Sahel farmers live much as before.","europe":"Greece is in its Dark Age after the fall of the Mycenaean palaces, with small villages and little writing. Urnfield cultures, who cremate their dead and bury the ashes in urns, cover central Europe, and the Villanovan culture is emerging in Italy. Cimmerian horsemen live north of the Black Sea, and Nordic Bronze Age chiefs rule Scandinavia.","middle-east-south-asia":"King David rules Israel from Jerusalem; the Bible says that under him and his son Solomon it became a regional power, though archaeologists debate how large their kingdom really was. Phoenician city-states such as Tyre and Byblos trade across the sea, Aramaean and Neo-Hittite kingdoms divide Syria and southern Anatolia, Assyria under Ashur-rabi II is reduced to its heartland, and Babylonia is weak. In India, the Kuru kingdom in the upper Ganges plain leads the Later Vedic age, while Dravidian peoples farm the south.","north-central-asia":"The Karasuk culture flourishes in southern Siberia and the steppe, known for its bronze knives and horse herds. Iranian-speaking pastoralists, among them the ancestors of the Medes, Persians and Scythians, live across Central Asia. Hunters and fishers inhabit the northern forests.","east-asia":"The Western Zhou dynasty, which overthrew the Shang at the Battle of Muye around 1046 BCE, rules northern China from its capital Haojing near present-day Xi'an, granting land to relatives and allies in a feudal system. Kings such as King Kang govern a realm stretching from the Wei valley to the coast. Korea's Bronze Age has begun, and Final Jōmon culture continues in Japan.","southeast-asia":"Austro-Asiatic rice farmers and bronze-workers live in villages across mainland Southeast Asia, such as Ban Chiang in Thailand. Austronesian peoples inhabit the Philippines and Indonesia, trading by outrigger canoe. Burmese and Tai ancestors live in the uplands to the north.","northern-north-america":"Paleo-Eskimo peoples hunt seals and caribou across Arctic Canada and Greenland, and the Norton tradition is developing in Alaska. Subarctic forest hunters roam inland Canada, and the peoples of the Pacific Northwest live richly from salmon and cedar.","southern-north-america":"The Olmec of Mexico's Gulf Coast rule from San Lorenzo, famed for colossal stone heads of its rulers, though its heyday is ending as La Venta rises. Poverty Point in Louisiana is being abandoned. Bison hunters live on the Plains, and Archaic hunter-gatherers fill the eastern woodlands.","northern-south-america":"In the Peruvian Andes, the temple of Chavín de Huántar is becoming a religious centre whose art and beliefs will spread across Peru. Chorrera potters live in coastal Ecuador, and manioc farmers and foragers inhabit the Amazon basin.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, hunting guanaco, rhea and marine mammals. Fishing communities on the Atacama coast continue the old Chinchorro way of life without its elaborate mummies.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. In the western Pacific, the Lapita people, known for their stamped pottery, have sailed from the Bismarck Archipelago to Vanuatu and New Caledonia and are about to reach Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, the first people ever to live there."},"powers":[{"name":"Western Zhou dynasty","map":"Zhoa","ruler":"King Kang of Zhou (c.)","capital":"Haojing","extent":"The Wei and Yellow River valleys and the North China Plain","clio":"Zhou Dynasty"},{"name":"Egypt (Third Intermediate Period)","map":"Egypt","ruler":"Twenty-first Dynasty (Amenemope, c.), with the High Priests of Amun at Thebes","capital":"Tanis","extent":"The Nile valley and Delta, divided between north and south","clio":null},{"name":"Kingdom of Israel","map":"Kingdom of David and Solomon","ruler":"David (traditional dates c. 1010–970 BCE)","capital":"Jerusalem","extent":"The hill country of Canaan; the Bible describes rule from the Negev toward Damascus, but the kingdom's real size is debated","clio":"Kingdom of Israel"},{"name":"Assyria","map":"Assyria","ruler":"Ashur-rabi II (c.)","capital":"Assur","extent":"The Assyrian heartland on the upper Tigris","clio":"Assyria"},{"name":"Neo-Hittite and Aramaean states","map":"Hittites","ruler":"Kings of Carchemish, Hamath and other city-states","capital":"Carchemish (largest)","extent":"South-eastern Anatolia and northern Syria","clio":"Neo-Hittite states"},{"name":"Kuru kingdom","map":"Vedic Aryans","ruler":"Kuru kings (names known only from Vedic texts)","capital":"Hastinapura (traditional)","extent":"The upper Ganges plain and northern India","clio":null},{"name":"Olmec","map":"Olmec","ruler":"Rulers of San Lorenzo","capital":"San Lorenzo","extent":"The Gulf Coast lowlands of southern Mexico","clio":null},{"name":"Chavín culture","map":"Chavin","ruler":null,"capital":"Chavín de Huántar","extent":"The northern and central Peruvian Andes","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-1177,"text":"Ramesses III repels the Sea Peoples amid the Late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1177 BCE)"},{"year":-1070,"text":"Egypt's New Kingdom ends and the country splits (c. 1070 BCE)"},{"year":-1050,"text":"The Phoenician alphabet comes into use (c. 1050 BCE)"},{"year":-1046,"text":"Battle of Muye: the Zhou overthrow the Shang dynasty (c. 1046 BCE)"},{"year":-1010,"text":"David becomes king of Israel (c. 1010 BCE)"},{"year":-1000,"text":"Iron tools and weapons spread across the Near East and India (c. 1000 BCE)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: King Kang of Zhou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kang_of_Zhou"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Amenemope (pharaoh)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenemope_(pharaoh)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashur-rabi II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashur-rabi_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: David","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Lapita culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapita_culture"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jōmon period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dmon_period"},{"title":"Wikipedia: San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lorenzo_Tenochtitl%C3%A1n"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. III part 1 (1982)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-3-part-1"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(united_monarchy)"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. I: The Vedic Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/vedicage00bhar"}]},{"year":-700,"title":"The Assyrian Colossus","age":"Iron Age","overview":"In 700 BCE the Neo-Assyrian Empire is the greatest power the world has yet seen. King Sennacherib rules from Nineveh over Mesopotamia, Syria, the Levant and parts of Anatolia and Iran; a year earlier his army besieged Jerusalem, and he has just put his own son on the throne of Babylon. Egypt is ruled by pharaohs from Kush in Nubia, whose Twenty-fifth Dynasty is set on a collision course with Assyria. To the north, Urartu and Phrygia, the kingdom of King Midas, famous from Greek legend but a real ruler (the Mita of Assyrian records), face raids by Cimmerian horsemen. In Greece, a new age of city-states, colonies, Olympic games and the poems of Homer has begun, while Rome is a young town of kings and Carthage a growing Phoenician colony. In China, the Zhou kings have fled east and lost real power to great feudal states. In India, the first kingdoms of the Ganges plain are forming, and in Mexico the Olmec of La Venta are at their peak.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Southern Africa remains the land of Khoisan hunter-gatherers. Bantu-speaking farmers have reached the region of the Great Lakes, where iron-working will soon develop, but have not yet moved south of the rainforest in large numbers.","northern-africa":"Egypt is ruled by the Kushite Twenty-fifth Dynasty, kings from Napata in Nubia who conquered Egypt under Piye around 728 BCE; Shabaka or Shebitku (their order is debated) now rule Kush and Egypt together. The Phoenician colony of Carthage, founded around 814 BCE, is growing on the Tunisian coast. Berbers, Saharan nomads and early Nok farmers in Nigeria live beyond the river valleys.","europe":"Greece is entering the Archaic Age: city-states such as Athens, Sparta and Corinth found colonies across Sicily, southern Italy and the Black Sea, and the Olympic games and Homer's epics are new. Rome is a small kingdom, said to have been founded in 753 BCE, and the Etruscans dominate central Italy. The Hallstatt culture, ancestor of the Celts, rises in central Europe, and Cimmerians and early Scythians hold the steppe.","middle-east-south-asia":"Sennacherib of Assyria rules an empire from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean; Assyria destroyed the kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, and Sennacherib has forced Judah under Hezekiah to pay tribute. Urartu, under Argishti II, rules the Armenian highlands, Phrygia under Midas holds central Anatolia, Elam resists from Susa, and the Medes, still divided among many local chiefs, live in western Iran. In India, Later Vedic kingdoms such as Kosala, Videha and Kuru-Panchala are growing into the first states of the Ganges plain.","north-central-asia":"Scythian and other Iranian-speaking nomads, fighting from horseback with powerful bows, dominate the steppes from the Black Sea to the Altai. Cimmerian raiders have pushed south through the Caucasus into Urartu and Anatolia. The Siberian forests remain the land of Finno-Ugric and Paleo-Siberian hunters.","east-asia":"The Zhou kings, forced to move their capital east to Luoyi in 770 BCE, now reign but do not rule; King Huan of Zhou is a figurehead while powerful states such as Zheng, Qi, Jin, Chu and Qin compete in the Spring and Autumn period. Korea is home to Bronze Age farmers who build dolmens, and Japan to the Final Jōmon foragers.","southeast-asia":"Bronze-working rice farmers live in villages across mainland Southeast Asia, and early Đông Sơn culture is developing in northern Vietnam. Austronesian peoples sail and trade among the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"Paleo-Eskimo peoples inhabit Arctic Canada and Greenland, where the Dorset culture is about to emerge. Subarctic forest hunters live inland, and Pacific Northwest peoples fish for salmon along the coast.","southern-north-america":"The Olmec are at their height at La Venta, a great ceremonial centre with a clay pyramid and colossal heads. Early Maya villages are growing in the lowlands of Guatemala, while woodland peoples of the Ohio valley are on the eve of the Adena mound-building culture.","northern-south-america":"The Chavín religious cult, centred on its temple at Chavín de Huántar, is spreading across Peru, carrying its feline and serpent imagery. Chorrera potters flourish in coastal Ecuador, and Amazonian peoples farm manioc along the rivers.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Small farming communities are beginning to appear in north-west Argentina and northern Chile, influenced by the Andes.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Descendants of the Lapita people have settled Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, where a distinct Polynesian culture is beginning to develop. Most of the Pacific and New Zealand remain unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Neo-Assyrian Empire","map":"Assyria","ruler":"Sennacherib (705–681 BCE)","capital":"Nineveh","extent":"From the Persian Gulf and western Iran to the Mediterranean and the borders of Egypt","clio":"Neo-Assyrian Empire"},{"name":"Kushite Egypt (25th Dynasty)","map":"Egypt","ruler":"Shabaka or Shebitku (order debated)","capital":"Memphis and Napata","extent":"The Nile valley from the Delta to Nubia","clio":"Kingdom of Kush"},{"name":"Zhou dynasty (Spring and Autumn)","map":"Zhoa","ruler":"King Huan of Zhou (719–697 BCE), a figurehead","capital":"Luoyi","extent":"Nominal overlord of the feudal states of northern and central China","clio":"(Spring and Autumn States)"},{"name":"Urartu","map":"Urartu","ruler":"Argishti II (c.)","capital":"Tushpa (Van)","extent":"The Armenian highlands around Lake Van","clio":null},{"name":"Kingdom of Kush","map":"Kush","ruler":"Kushite kings of the 25th Dynasty","capital":"Napata","extent":"Nubia along the middle Nile","clio":"Kingdom of Kush"},{"name":"Phrygia","map":"Phrygians","ruler":"Midas (c.)","capital":"Gordion","extent":"Central and western Anatolia","clio":"Phrygia"},{"name":"Greek city-states","map":"Greek city-states","ruler":"Aristocracies and kings of independent cities","capital":null,"extent":"Greece, the Aegean and new colonies in Italy, Sicily and the Black Sea","clio":"Greek City-States"},{"name":"Elam","map":"Elam","ruler":"Shutruk-Nakhunte II (717–699 BCE)","capital":"Susa","extent":"South-western Iran","clio":"Elam"},{"name":"Kingdom of Saba","map":"Saba","ruler":"Sabaean mukarribs (rulers)","capital":"Marib","extent":"The incense lands of Yemen","clio":"Sabaeans"},{"name":"Olmec","map":"Olmec","ruler":"Rulers of La Venta","capital":"La Venta","extent":"The Gulf Coast lowlands of southern Mexico","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-776,"text":"First recorded Olympic Games in Greece (traditional date)"},{"year":-771,"text":"Western Zhou falls; the Zhou court moves east to Luoyi the next year (770 BCE)"},{"year":-753,"text":"Legendary founding of Rome by Romulus"},{"year":-728,"text":"Piye of Kush conquers Egypt (c. 728 BCE)"},{"year":-722,"text":"Assyria captures Samaria and ends the kingdom of Israel"},{"year":-714,"text":"Sargon II of Assyria defeats Urartu"},{"year":-701,"text":"Sennacherib invades Judah and besieges Jerusalem"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashur-nadin-shumi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashur-nadin-shumi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shebitku","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebitku"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Argishti II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argishti_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Eastern Zhou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Zhou"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Midas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas"},{"title":"UCLouvain (Gorris), Shutruk-Nahhunte II, Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa","url":"https://research.dial.uclouvain.be/entities/publication/d1dbbd3c-0b43-49d9-9868-94e19c5439c1"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. III part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires (1991)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-3-part-2"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Median kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spring and Autumn period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_and_Autumn_period"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. I: The Vedic Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/vedicage00bhar"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, The Pre-Mauryan Age","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Pre-Mauryan_Age.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"year":-500,"title":"The Persian Peace","age":"Axial Age","overview":"In 500 BCE one empire overshadows all others: the Achaemenid Persian Empire of Darius I, the largest state the world has yet known, reaching from Egypt and Thrace to the Indus. Its roads, satraps and royal couriers hold together dozens of peoples. On its western edge, the Greek cities are restless; Athens has just become a democracy, and next year the Ionian Greeks will revolt against Persia, setting off the Persian Wars. Rome has recently expelled its last king and become a republic, while Carthage leads a trading empire in the western Mediterranean. This is also an age of great thinkers. In China, Confucius is teaching amid the wars of the Spring and Autumn period; in India, by traditional dates, Magadha is rising among the kingdoms of the Ganges plain, where the Buddha and Mahavira lived and taught around this time (their exact dates are debated). In the Americas, the Zapotecs are founding Monte Albán in Oaxaca and early Maya cities are growing in Guatemala.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers live across southern Africa. Around the Great Lakes, Bantu-speaking farmers of the Urewe culture are beginning to smelt iron, a skill that will speed their spread southward in the centuries to come.","northern-africa":"Egypt is a province of the Persian Empire, conquered by Cambyses in 525 BCE. The kingdom of Kush rules Nubia from Napata, with Meroë rising as a second centre, and Carthage commands the North African coast. The Nok culture of Nigeria makes striking terracotta sculptures and is beginning to work iron, and the kingdom of D'mt rules the Ethiopian highlands.","europe":"Athens has just adopted democracy under Cleisthenes (508/507 BCE), and Sparta, under King Cleomenes I, leads the Peloponnese. Rome became a republic in 509 BCE, the Etruscans dominate much of Italy, and Greek colonies dot the Mediterranean coasts. Hallstatt Celtic chiefs rule central Europe, Scythian nomads hold the steppe, and Germanic peoples farm the north.","middle-east-south-asia":"Darius I rules the Achaemenid Empire from Persepolis and Susa, governing Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Afghanistan and the Indus valley through satraps. South Arabia's Sabaean kingdom grows rich on incense. In India, sixteen great kingdoms and republics (the Mahajanapadas) compete in the Ganges plain, with Magadha under Bimbisara, Kosala and Avanti the strongest; Gandhara in the north-west is a Persian province.","north-central-asia":"Iranian-speaking nomads such as the Saka and Massagetae roam the steppes of Central Asia; the Massagetae killed Cyrus the Great in 530 BCE. Bactria and Sogdiana are Persian provinces. Further north, the Pazyryk horse-riding peoples of the Altai and the forest hunters of Siberia live beyond any empire.","east-asia":"China is in the late Spring and Autumn period: King Jing of Zhou reigns in name, while the great states of Jin, Qi, Chu, Wu and Yue fight for supremacy. Confucius, now about 50, holds office in his home state of Lu. Korea's Bronze Age chiefdoms include the early state of Gojoseon, and in Japan the Jōmon way of life is beginning to give way to Yayoi rice farming.","southeast-asia":"The Đông Sơn culture of northern Vietnam casts magnificent bronze drums that are traded across Southeast Asia. The Sa Huỳnh culture lives along the central Vietnamese coast, and Austronesian peoples trade among the islands. Contacts with India are beginning.","northern-north-america":"The Dorset culture (Paleo-Inuit) hunts seals on the sea ice of Arctic Canada and Greenland. The Norton tradition flourishes in Alaska, and forest hunters and Pacific coast fishing peoples live across the rest of the north.","southern-north-america":"The Olmec world is fading, while the Zapotecs found their mountaintop capital at Monte Albán in Oaxaca around 500 BCE and the Maya build early cities such as Nakbé. In the Ohio valley, the Adena people bury their dead in great earthen mounds and trade copper and mica.","northern-south-america":"The Chavín culture, centred on its temple in the Peruvian highlands, is at its peak, uniting much of Peru through shared religion and art. Along the south coast, the Paracas culture is beginning to weave elaborate textiles. Amazonian peoples farm manioc and enrich their soils.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in the channels of Tierra del Fuego. Farming villages influenced by the Andes are spreading in north-west Argentina.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent, and Papuan farmers cultivate New Guinea. Polynesians live in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, but a long pause before their next great voyages has begun. New Zealand and eastern Polynesia remain uninhabited."},"powers":[{"name":"Achaemenid Persian Empire","map":"Achaemenid Empire","ruler":"Darius I (522–486 BCE)","capital":"Persepolis and Susa","extent":"From Egypt, Anatolia and Thrace to Central Asia and the Indus","clio":"Achaemenid Empire"},{"name":"Zhou states (Spring and Autumn)","map":"Zhou states","ruler":"King Jing of Zhou (figurehead); real power with Jin, Qi, Chu, Wu and Yue","capital":"Luoyi","extent":"Northern and central China","clio":"(Spring and Autumn States)"},{"name":"Carthaginian Empire","map":"Carthaginian Empire","ruler":"Magonid family (Hamilcar, c.)","capital":"Carthage","extent":"Coastal North Africa, western Sicily, Sardinia and southern Spain","clio":"Carthage"},{"name":"Magadha","map":"Magadha","ruler":"Bimbisara (traditional dates; chronology debated)","capital":"Rajagriha","extent":"The lower Ganges plain in Bihar","clio":"Magadha - Haryanka dynasty"},{"name":"Greek city-states","map":"Greek city-states","ruler":"Independent cities, including democratic Athens and Sparta under Cleomenes I","capital":null,"extent":"Greece and the Aegean, with colonies across the Mediterranean and Black Sea","clio":"Greek City-States"},{"name":"Kingdom of Kush","map":"Meroe","ruler":"Napatan kings of Kush","capital":"Napata","extent":"Nubia along the middle Nile","clio":"Kingdom of Kush"},{"name":"Kosala","map":"Kosala","ruler":"Prasenajit (c.)","capital":"Shravasti","extent":"The central Ganges plain in present-day Uttar Pradesh","clio":"Janapada of Kosala"},{"name":"Etruscans","map":"Etrurians","ruler":"Kings and nobles of the Etruscan cities","capital":null,"extent":"Tuscany and much of central Italy","clio":"Etruscans"},{"name":"Roman Republic","map":"Rome","ruler":"Two annually elected consuls","capital":"Rome","extent":"The city of Rome and nearby Latium","clio":"Roman Republic"}],"events":[{"year":-551,"text":"Confucius is born in the state of Lu (traditional date)"},{"year":-539,"text":"Cyrus the Great of Persia captures Babylon"},{"year":-525,"text":"Cambyses II conquers Egypt for Persia"},{"year":-522,"text":"Darius I seizes the Persian throne"},{"year":-509,"text":"Romans expel their last king and found the Republic (traditional date)"},{"year":-508,"text":"Cleisthenes' reforms establish democracy in Athens"},{"year":-499,"text":"Ionian Greeks revolt against Persia, beginning the road to the Persian Wars"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Darius the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: King Jing of Zhou (Ji Gai)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Jing_of_Zhou_(Ji_Gai)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bimbisara","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimbisara"},{"title":"Wikipedia: The Buddha","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buddha"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cleomenes I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleomenes_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Monte Albán","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Alb%C3%A1n"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, The Pre-Mauryan Age","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Pre-Mauryan_Age.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":-400,"title":"Age of Philosophers","age":"Classical Age","overview":"In 400 BCE the Persian Empire still stretches from the Aegean to the Indus, but it is shaken: Egypt has broken free, and the ruling king, Artaxerxes II, has just defeated his rebel brother Cyrus at Cunaxa, after which ten thousand Greek mercenaries marched home through hostile lands. Greece is exhausted after the Peloponnesian War, which ended in 404 BCE with Sparta defeating Athens; in Athens, the philosopher Socrates will be tried and executed next year. In the west, Rome is besieging the Etruscan city of Veii, Carthage and Syracuse fight over Sicily, and Celtic tribes are pushing into Italy. In China, the old state of Jin has split into Han, Zhao and Wei, opening the brutal Warring States period. In India, Magadha is becoming the dominant kingdom of the Ganges plain. In Mexico, the Olmec centre of La Venta is being abandoned as the Zapotecs and Maya rise.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers still occupy most of southern Africa. Iron-using Bantu farmers are spreading from the Great Lakes south and west, carrying cattle, crops and new pottery styles toward the Zambezi.","northern-africa":"Egypt has thrown off Persian rule and is governed by Amyrtaeus, sole king of the Twenty-eighth Dynasty. The kingdom of Kush flourishes in Nubia, increasingly centred on Meroë and its iron-working. Carthage dominates North Africa's coast, while Berbers, Saharan nomads and the Nok culture of Nigeria live beyond.","europe":"Sparta, under its two kings Pausanias and Agis II (soon succeeded by his half-brother Agesilaus II), leads Greece after defeating Athens, though the Athenians have restored their democracy. Dionysius I rules Syracuse, the Roman Republic fights its neighbours in central Italy, and Celts of the new La Tène culture are spreading across Europe and into northern Italy. Scythians rule the Pontic steppe and Germanic tribes the north.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II rules Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan from Susa and Persepolis, though his grip on the Indus is loosening. In India, Magadha under the Shishunaga dynasty is absorbing its rivals from its capitals at Rajagriha and Vaishali, while other kingdoms and republics share the rest of the north and Dravidian chiefdoms the south.","north-central-asia":"Scythian, Saka and Massagetae nomads dominate the steppes from Ukraine to Kazakhstan, and the Pazyryk chiefs of the Altai are buried with horses, carpets and tattoos preserved in ice. Ancestors of the Xiongnu and other nomads roam Mongolia and the eastern steppe.","east-asia":"China has entered the Warring States period after the partition of Jin into Han, Zhao and Wei was recognized in 403 BCE. Wei, under Marquis Wen and his reforming minister Li Kui, is the strongest state, while King An of Zhou is a powerless figurehead. Gojoseon rules north-western Korea, Yayoi rice farmers are settling Kyushu in Japan, and western Tibet is home to Iron Age peoples later remembered in Tibetan tradition as the kingdom of Zhangzhung.","southeast-asia":"The Đông Sơn bronze culture flourishes in northern Vietnam, and Tai and Austro-Asiatic rice farmers live across the mainland. Austronesian traders link the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines, and the first Indian goods are reaching the region.","northern-north-america":"The Dorset culture hunts on the sea ice of Arctic Canada and Greenland, while the Norton tradition lives along the coasts of Alaska. Subarctic forest hunters and Pacific Northwest fishing peoples inhabit the rest of Canada.","southern-north-america":"La Venta, the last great Olmec centre, is abandoned around 400 BCE. The Zapotecs build up their capital at Monte Albán, and Maya cities such as El Mirador grow in the Guatemalan lowlands. The Adena culture builds burial mounds in the Ohio valley.","northern-south-america":"The Chavín culture is beginning to decline in the Peruvian highlands, while the Paracas people of the south coast bury their dead wrapped in brilliantly embroidered textiles. The Wankarani culture farms the Bolivian high plateau, and Amazonian peoples farm and fish along the rivers.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Andean-influenced farming villages are growing in north-west Argentina and northern Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Polynesians inhabit Tonga and Samoa, and New Zealand and the islands of eastern Polynesia remain unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Achaemenid Persian Empire","map":"Achaemenid Empire","ruler":"Artaxerxes II (404–358 BCE)","capital":"Susa and Persepolis","extent":"From Anatolia and the Levant to Central Asia and the Indus (Egypt now lost)","clio":"Achaemenid Empire"},{"name":"Zhou states (Warring States)","map":"Zhou states","ruler":"King An of Zhou (figurehead); leading states Wei, Zhao, Han, Qi, Chu and Qin","capital":"Luoyi","extent":"Northern and central China","clio":"(Warring States China)"},{"name":"Magadha","map":"Magadha","ruler":"Shishunaga (c. 413–395 BCE)","capital":"Rajagriha and Vaishali (Pataliputra from c. 395 BCE)","extent":"The middle and lower Ganges plain","clio":"Magadha - Shaishunaga dynasty"},{"name":"Carthaginian Empire","map":"Carthaginian Empire","ruler":"Carthaginian council and generals (Himilco in Sicily)","capital":"Carthage","extent":"Coastal North Africa, western Sicily, Sardinia and southern Spain","clio":"Carthage"},{"name":"Greek city-states","map":"Greek city-states","ruler":"Sparta leads, under kings Pausanias and Agis II (succeeded c. 400 BCE by Agesilaus II)","capital":"Sparta (leading city)","extent":"Greece and the Aegean, with colonies across the Mediterranean","clio":"Greek City-States"},{"name":"Scythians","map":"Scythians","ruler":"Scythian royal clans","capital":null,"extent":"The steppe north of the Black Sea","clio":"Scythia"},{"name":"Celts (La Tène)","map":"Celts","ruler":"Tribal chiefs","capital":null,"extent":"Gaul, central Europe and the Alps, moving into northern Italy","clio":null},{"name":"Gojoseon","map":"Gojoseon","ruler":"Kings of Gojoseon (names uncertain)","capital":"Wanggeom-seong (location debated)","extent":"North-western Korea and southern Manchuria","clio":null},{"name":"Roman Republic","map":"Roman Republic","ruler":"Elected magistrates (consular tribunes)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Rome and part of Latium","clio":"Roman Republic"}],"events":[{"year":-431,"text":"Peloponnesian War begins between Athens and Sparta"},{"year":-404,"text":"Athens surrenders to Sparta; Egypt revolts from Persia"},{"year":-403,"text":"Zhou king recognizes Han, Zhao and Wei, marking the Warring States period"},{"year":-401,"text":"Battle of Cunaxa and the march of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries"},{"year":-400,"text":"The Olmec centre of La Venta is abandoned (c. 400 BCE)"},{"year":-399,"text":"Socrates is tried and executed in Athens"},{"year":-396,"text":"Rome captures the Etruscan city of Veii"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Agis II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agis_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Agesilaus II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agesilaus_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pausanias (king of Sparta)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pausanias_(king_of_Sparta)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shishunaga dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishunaga_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Amyrtaeus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyrtaeus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: King An of Zhou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_An_of_Zhou"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhangzhung","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, The Pre-Mauryan Age","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Pre-Mauryan_Age.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":-323,"title":"The Death of Alexander","age":"Hellenistic Age","overview":"In June 323 BCE Alexander the Great dies in Babylon at the age of 32, leaving the largest empire yet built by conquest, from Greece and Egypt to the Indus. In just eleven years he destroyed the Persian Empire and marched to India, founding cities named Alexandria along the way. Now his generals meet in Babylon: Perdiccas becomes regent for Alexander's half-brother Philip III and his unborn son Alexander IV, Ptolemy takes Egypt, and Antipater holds Macedonia, where the Greek cities have revolted in the Lamian War. Within a few years the generals, the Diadochi, will tear the empire apart. In India, the Nanda kings of Magadha rule the Ganges, but a young Chandragupta Maurya is about to overthrow them. In China, the Warring States are locked in conflict, and Qin is growing stronger. Rome is fighting the Samnites for central Italy, Carthage rules the western seas, and in the Americas the Maya and Zapotecs build cities.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Southern Africa is still home to Khoisan hunter-gatherers. Iron-using Bantu farmers are spreading south through the regions of present-day Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania.","northern-africa":"Egypt, taken by Alexander in 332 BCE, is now governed by his general Ptolemy, who will soon make it his own kingdom with its capital at Alexandria. The kingdom of Kush under King Nastasen rules Nubia from Napata and Meroë, and Carthage dominates the coast of North Africa. The Nok culture flourishes in Nigeria, and small kingdoms that followed D'mt rule the Ethiopian highlands.","europe":"Macedonia rules Greece through the regent Antipater, but Athens and its allies have just risen in the Lamian War. Rome is fighting the Second Samnite War for control of central Italy, and Carthage holds western Sicily and Sardinia. Celtic tribes of the La Tène culture spread across Gaul and central Europe, and the Bosporan Kingdom rules the Crimea.","middle-east-south-asia":"Alexander's empire covers Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan up to the Indus, but local dynasts keep Cappadocia, Armenia and Atropatene (Media) partly independent. In India, the Nanda dynasty under Dhana Nanda rules a large and wealthy kingdom from Pataliputra, while the Punjab is held by Alexander's satraps and allied kings such as Porus. In South Arabia, the incense kingdoms of Saba, Qataban, Hadramaut and Ma'in prosper.","north-central-asia":"Sogdiana and Bactria were conquered by Alexander after fierce resistance and are held by Macedonian garrisons and new cities. Beyond the Syr Darya, Saka nomads rule the steppe, Sarmatians the lands north of the Caspian, and the forests of Siberia are home to hunters and fishers.","east-asia":"China's Warring States fight for supremacy: Qin, reformed by Shang Yang and now ruled by King Huiwen, has become the most powerful, while Qi, Chu, Zhao, Wei, Han and Yan resist. King Xian of Zhou is a figurehead. Gojoseon rules north-western Korea, Yayoi rice farming spreads across Japan, and western Tibet is home to Iron Age peoples later remembered in Tibetan tradition as the kingdom of Zhangzhung.","southeast-asia":"Bronze-drum-making Đông Sơn chiefdoms rule northern Vietnam, and Sa Huỳnh traders live on the central coast. Austronesian peoples sail between the islands, and trade with India across the Bay of Bengal is growing.","northern-north-america":"The Dorset culture hunts seals and walrus in Arctic Canada and Greenland. The Norton tradition lives in Alaska, and forest hunters and Pacific Northwest fishing peoples live across the rest of Canada.","southern-north-america":"Maya chiefdoms and early states build pyramids at El Mirador and other lowland cities, and the Zapotecs rule the Oaxaca valley from Monte Albán. The Adena culture builds burial mounds in the Ohio valley, and bison hunters roam the Plains.","northern-south-america":"The Chavín cult is fading in the Peruvian highlands, while the Paracas culture flourishes on the south coast with its famous textiles. Farming peoples of the Amazon create rich dark soils, and the Wankarani culture lives on the Bolivian high plateau.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Small farming villages influenced by the Andes grow in north-west Argentina and northern Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Polynesians inhabit Tonga and Samoa, and the islands of eastern Polynesia and New Zealand remain uninhabited."},"powers":[{"name":"Macedonian Empire","map":"Empire of Alexander","ruler":"Perdiccas (regent for Philip III and the infant Alexander IV)","capital":"Babylon","extent":"From Greece and Egypt to the Indus","clio":"(Macedonian Empire)"},{"name":"Nanda Empire (Magadha)","map":"Magadha","ruler":"Dhana Nanda","capital":"Pataliputra","extent":"The Ganges plain and much of northern and eastern India","clio":"Nanda Empire"},{"name":"Zhou states (Warring States)","map":"Zhou states","ruler":"King Xian of Zhou (figurehead); rival kings of Qi, Chu, Zhao, Wei, Han and Yan","capital":"Luoyi","extent":"Northern, central and southern China","clio":"(Warring States China)"},{"name":"Qin","map":"Qin","ruler":"King Huiwen of Qin","capital":"Xianyang","extent":"The Wei valley and the western frontier lands of China","clio":"Qin"},{"name":"Carthaginian Empire","map":"Carthaginian Empire","ruler":"Carthaginian council of elders and suffetes","capital":"Carthage","extent":"Coastal North Africa, western Sicily, Sardinia and southern Spain","clio":"Carthage"},{"name":"Kingdom of Kush","map":"Meroe","ruler":"Nastasen (c.)","capital":"Napata and Meroë","extent":"Nubia along the middle Nile","clio":"Kingdom of Kush"},{"name":"Roman Republic","map":"Rome","ruler":"Two annually elected consuls","capital":"Rome","extent":"Latium and Campania in central Italy","clio":"Roman Republic"},{"name":"Celts (La Tène)","map":"Celts","ruler":"Tribal chiefs","capital":null,"extent":"Gaul, central Europe and northern Italy","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-336,"text":"Alexander becomes king of Macedon after the murder of Philip II"},{"year":-333,"text":"Alexander defeats Darius III at Issus"},{"year":-331,"text":"Alexandria founded in Egypt; Battle of Gaugamela ends Persian power"},{"year":-326,"text":"Battle of the Hydaspes against Porus in the Punjab"},{"year":-323,"text":"Alexander dies in Babylon; Perdiccas becomes regent"},{"year":-323,"text":"Athens and its allies revolt against Macedon in the Lamian War"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Partition of Babylon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_Babylon"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nanda Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nastasen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastasen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: King Huiwen of Qin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Huiwen_of_Qin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Lamian War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamian_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Reindeer herding","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer_herding"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhangzhung","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, Campaigns and empire of Alexander the Great, 333-326 B.C.","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Campaigns_and_empire_of_Alexander_the_Great_333-326_B.C.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":-300,"title":"Heirs of Alexander","age":"Hellenistic Age","overview":"By 300 BCE Alexander's empire has broken into rival kingdoms ruled by his former generals. A year ago, at the Battle of Ipsus, Seleucus, Lysimachus and Cassander defeated and killed Antigonus the One-Eyed, the last who hoped to reunite the empire. Seleucus now rules most of the Asian lands from Syria to Afghanistan and is founding his new capital of Antioch; Ptolemy holds Egypt; Cassander rules Macedonia, and Lysimachus Thrace and much of Anatolia. Greek language and culture are spreading through the old Persian world. In India, Chandragupta Maurya has built the Mauryan Empire, the first to unite most of the subcontinent, and has made peace with Seleucus in exchange for 500 war elephants. In China, the Warring States continue and Qin keeps growing. Rome is close to mastering central Italy, while Carthage dominates the western Mediterranean. Further afield, the Maya and Zapotecs grow in Mesoamerica.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers live across most of southern Africa, while iron-using Bantu farmers continue to move south through East and Central Africa.","northern-africa":"Ptolemy I rules Egypt as king from Alexandria, where the great Library and Museum are being founded. The kingdom of Kush flourishes around Meroë, and Carthage controls the North African coast. The Nok culture of Nigeria and Saharan nomads live beyond, and early kingdoms rule the Ethiopian highlands.","europe":"Cassander rules Macedonia and much of Greece, Lysimachus holds Thrace, and Demetrius, son of Antigonus, keeps a fleet and scattered cities. The Roman Republic dominates central Italy and is about to fight the Third Samnite War, while Greek cities still rule southern Italy and Sicily. Celtic tribes spread across Europe, and Sarmatians are moving onto the steppe.","middle-east-south-asia":"Seleucus I rules a vast kingdom from Syria and Mesopotamia to Bactria, having ceded Arachosia, the Paropamisadae (Kabul region) and probably Gedrosia to Chandragupta. Armenia, Cappadocia and Atropatene keep their own rulers, and the Nabataeans trade from Petra. Chandragupta Maurya's empire stretches from Afghanistan to Bengal, governed from Pataliputra with the help of his minister Chanakya (Kautilya).","north-central-asia":"Bactria and Sogdiana are Seleucid provinces where Greek cities such as Ai-Khanoum are being founded. Beyond them, Saka, Sarmatian and Yuezhi nomads roam the steppe, and Siberia's forests are home to hunters and herders.","east-asia":"The Warring States continue: Qin under King Zhaoxiang is steadily conquering territory, while Qi, Chu and Zhao, whose King Wuling has adopted nomad-style cavalry, are its main rivals. King Nan of Zhou is a figurehead. Gojoseon rules north-western Korea, Yayoi rice farmers spread across Japan, and western Tibet is home to Iron Age peoples later remembered in Tibetan tradition as the kingdom of Zhangzhung.","southeast-asia":"Đông Sơn chiefdoms rule northern Vietnam, and the kingdom of Âu Lạc will form there later in the century. Austronesian traders link the islands, and Indian merchants are increasingly sailing to Southeast Asia's ports.","northern-north-america":"The Dorset culture lives in the Arctic, the Norton tradition in Alaska, and forest and coastal peoples throughout Canada live by hunting, fishing and gathering.","southern-north-america":"Maya chiefdoms and states grow in the lowlands of Guatemala and Mexico, and the Zapotec capital at Monte Albán dominates Oaxaca. The Adena culture builds mounds in the Ohio valley, while Plains bison hunters and desert foragers live further west.","northern-south-america":"The Chavín culture is ending in the Peruvian highlands, while the Paracas culture flourishes on the south coast. Amazonian farmers and foragers, and the Wankarani of the Bolivian plateau, live in their own worlds.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas and Patagonia. Farming villages grow in north-west Argentina and northern Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Polynesians live in Tonga and Samoa, and the wider Pacific remains unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Seleucid Empire","map":"Seleucid Kingdom","ruler":"Seleucus I Nicator","capital":"Seleucia on the Tigris (Antioch being founded)","extent":"From Syria and Mesopotamia to Iran and Bactria","clio":"Seleucid Empire"},{"name":"Mauryan Empire","map":"Mauryan Empire","ruler":"Chandragupta Maurya","capital":"Pataliputra","extent":"Northern India from Afghanistan and the Indus to Bengal","clio":"Maurya Empire"},{"name":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","map":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","ruler":"Ptolemy I Soter","capital":"Alexandria","extent":"Egypt and Cyrenaica, with claims on southern Syria (Cyprus is held by Demetrius until 295 BCE)","clio":"Ptolemaic Kingdom"},{"name":"Zhou states (Warring States)","map":"Zhou states","ruler":"King Nan of Zhou (figurehead); rival kings of Qi, Chu, Zhao and others","capital":"Luoyi","extent":"Northern, central and southern China","clio":"(Warring States China)"},{"name":"Qin","map":"Qin","ruler":"King Zhaoxiang of Qin","capital":"Xianyang","extent":"Western China, including the Wei valley and Sichuan","clio":"Qin"},{"name":"Carthaginian Empire","map":"Carthaginian Empire","ruler":"Carthaginian council and suffetes","capital":"Carthage","extent":"Coastal North Africa, western Sicily, Sardinia and southern Spain","clio":"Carthage"},{"name":"Demetrius (Antigonid remnant)","map":"Kingdom of Antigonus","ruler":"Demetrius I Poliorcetes","capital":null,"extent":"A powerful fleet, Cyprus, Phoenician ports and some Greek cities","clio":null},{"name":"Kingdom of Lysimachus","map":"Kingdom of Lysimachus","ruler":"Lysimachus","capital":"Lysimachia","extent":"Thrace and, since Ipsus, much of western Anatolia","clio":"Kingdom of Lysimachus"},{"name":"Kingdom of Cassander","map":"Kingdom of Kassander","ruler":"Cassander","capital":"Pella","extent":"Macedonia and much of mainland Greece","clio":null},{"name":"Roman Republic","map":"Roman Republic","ruler":"Two annually elected consuls","capital":"Rome","extent":"Central Italy","clio":"Roman Republic"}],"events":[{"year":-321,"text":"Chandragupta Maurya overthrows the Nanda dynasty (c. 321 BCE)"},{"year":-312,"text":"Seleucus retakes Babylon, starting the Seleucid era"},{"year":-306,"text":"Alexander's generals begin calling themselves kings (306–305 BCE)"},{"year":-303,"text":"Seleucus and Chandragupta make peace; 500 elephants change hands (c. 303 BCE)"},{"year":-301,"text":"Battle of Ipsus: Antigonus is killed and his realm divided"},{"year":-300,"text":"Seleucus founds Antioch on the Orontes"},{"year":-295,"text":"Library and Museum of Alexandria founded under Ptolemy I (c. 295 BCE)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucus I Nicator","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucus_I_Nicator"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemaic Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ipsus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ipsus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ai-Khanoum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai-Khanoum"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Âu Lạc","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%82u_L%E1%BA%A1c"},{"title":"Wikipedia: King Wuling of Zhao","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Wuling_of_Zhao"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhangzhung","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemaic Cyprus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Cyprus"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, The time of the Mauryan Empire, 321-181 B.C.","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_time_of_the_Mauryan_Empire_321-181_B.C.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":-200,"title":"Rome and Han Rise","age":"Hellenistic Age","overview":"Around 200 BCE two new powers are rising at opposite ends of Eurasia. In the west, Rome has just defeated Hannibal at Zama and forced Carthage to surrender its empire, making Rome master of the western Mediterranean; now it turns east to fight Philip V of Macedon. In the east, China was united by the First Emperor of Qin in 221 BCE, but his dynasty collapsed after his death; Liu Bang has founded the Han dynasty as Emperor Gaozu. This year, at Baideng, he was surrounded by the Xiongnu, the steppe confederation built by Modu Chanyu, and had to buy peace. Between them, the Seleucid king Antiochus III is restoring his empire and seizing southern Syria from the boy-king Ptolemy V of Egypt. Parthia and Greek Bactria grow in Iran and Central Asia, while the Mauryan Empire in India is in decline. In the Americas, Teotihuacan is beginning to grow in the Valley of Mexico.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers still inhabit southern Africa, but iron-using Bantu farmers are moving south through East Africa, and the first sheep are reaching the region's herders.","northern-africa":"Ptolemy V, a child, reigns in Alexandria while his ministers lose southern Syria to the Seleucids and revolts break out in Upper Egypt. Carthage, defeated by Rome, keeps only its home territory in Tunisia, while Masinissa unites the Numidians and Mauretania rules the far west. The kingdom of Meroë flourishes in Nubia, and the Garamantes rule the Libyan Sahara.","europe":"The Roman Republic, victorious in the Second Punic War, rules Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and eastern and southern Spain, and declares war on Philip V of Macedon, head of the Hellenic League. Pergamon under Attalus I and Rhodes back Rome. Celtic tribes hold Gaul and central Europe, Germanic peoples the north, and Sarmatians and Scythians the steppe.","middle-east-south-asia":"Antiochus III the Great rules the Seleucid Empire from Antioch, having just won the Battle of Panium. Parthia under Arsaces II rules north-eastern Iran, Nabataeans and the South Arabian kingdoms grow rich on the incense trade, and Greek Bactria under Euthydemus I expands toward India. The Mauryan Empire still rules much of India from Pataliputra, but it is shrinking and its last king will be overthrown around 185 BCE.","north-central-asia":"Greek Bactria holds the oases of the Oxus. On the steppe, Scythian, Sarmatian and Saka nomads roam from the Black Sea to the Tian Shan, while the Yuezhi in Gansu are under pressure from the newly powerful Xiongnu.","east-asia":"Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang) has just founded the Han dynasty and is building his capital at Chang'an. North of the Great Wall, Modu Chanyu has forged the Xiongnu into a great steppe empire. Zhao Tuo rules the breakaway kingdom of Nanyue in the south, Gojoseon holds north-western Korea, and Yayoi farmers spread across Japan.","southeast-asia":"Nanyue, ruled from Panyu (Guangzhou), will soon absorb the kingdom of Âu Lạc in northern Vietnam. Mon-Khmer, Tai and Malay peoples farm and trade across the region, and trade routes link India, Southeast Asia and southern China.","northern-north-america":"Dorset hunters live in the Arctic, the Norton tradition in Alaska, and forest hunters and Pacific coast fishing peoples across the rest of Canada.","southern-north-america":"Maya cities such as El Mirador are building huge pyramids, the Zapotecs rule Oaxaca from Monte Albán, and Teotihuacan is starting to grow. In the eastern woodlands, the Adena culture is giving way to the Hopewell tradition.","northern-south-america":"With the Chavín culture gone, regional cultures flourish in Peru, among them the Paracas on the south coast. Amazonian farmers and foragers and the Wankarani of the Bolivian plateau live in their own worlds.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas and Patagonia, and farming villages grow in north-west Argentina and northern Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Polynesians are settled in Tonga and Samoa, and the rest of the Pacific and New Zealand remain unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Han dynasty","map":"Han Empire","ruler":"Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang)","capital":"Chang'an","extent":"Most of China from the Great Wall to the Yangtze and beyond","clio":"Han Dynasty"},{"name":"Roman Republic","map":"Rome","ruler":"Senate and consuls (P. Sulpicius Galba and C. Aurelius Cotta)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and eastern and southern Spain","clio":"Roman Republic"},{"name":"Seleucid Empire","map":"Seleucid Kingdom","ruler":"Antiochus III the Great","capital":"Antioch","extent":"From Anatolia and Syria through Mesopotamia to western Iran","clio":"Seleucid Empire"},{"name":"Xiongnu","map":"Xiongnu","ruler":"Modu Chanyu","capital":null,"extent":"The steppes of Mongolia and beyond","clio":"Xiongnu"},{"name":"Mauryan Empire","map":"Mauryan Empire","ruler":"Late Mauryan kings (names uncertain)","capital":"Pataliputra","extent":"Much of northern and central India, shrinking","clio":"Maurya Empire"},{"name":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","map":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","ruler":"Ptolemy V Epiphanes (a child)","capital":"Alexandria","extent":"Egypt, Cyrenaica and Cyprus","clio":"Ptolemaic Kingdom"},{"name":"Greco-Bactrian Kingdom","map":"Bactria","ruler":"Euthydemus I (c.)","capital":"Bactra","extent":"Bactria, Sogdiana and the Hindu Kush","clio":"Greco-Bactrian Kingdom"},{"name":"Parthia","map":"Parthia","ruler":"Arsaces II (c. 217–191 BCE)","capital":"Hecatompylos","extent":"North-eastern Iran","clio":"Parthian Empire"},{"name":"Macedon","map":"Macedon and Hellenic League","ruler":"Philip V","capital":"Pella","extent":"Macedonia and much of Greece","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":-221,"text":"Qin Shi Huang unifies China as the First Emperor"},{"year":-218,"text":"Hannibal crosses the Alps into Italy"},{"year":-209,"text":"Modu becomes chanyu and builds the Xiongnu empire"},{"year":-202,"text":"Liu Bang proclaimed emperor of Han; Scipio defeats Hannibal at Zama"},{"year":-200,"text":"Xiongnu surround Emperor Gaozu at Baideng"},{"year":-200,"text":"Antiochus III defeats the Ptolemies at Panium; Rome declares war on Macedon"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Panium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Panium"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Baideng","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baideng"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Sulpicius_Galba_Maximus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Euthydemus I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthydemus_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Arsaces II of Parthia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsaces_II_of_Parthia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Second Punic War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Punic_War"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, The time of the Mauryan Empire, 321-181 B.C.","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_time_of_the_Mauryan_Empire_321-181_B.C.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":-100,"title":"The Silk Road Opens","age":"Late Hellenistic Age","overview":"In 100 BCE the Han dynasty of China and the Roman Republic are the great powers of the world, linked by the trade routes we now call the Silk Road. Emperor Wu of Han has pushed China's borders into Korea, southern China, northern Vietnam and the Gansu corridor, and his envoy Zhang Qian has opened contact with Central Asia; Chinese silk now travels west. Rome, which destroyed Carthage and Corinth in 146 BCE, rules most of the Mediterranean coast, but is torn by political violence; Gaius Marius, consul for the sixth time, has just saved Italy from invading Germanic tribes, and Julius Caesar is born this year. Between them, the Parthian king Mithridates II has made Parthia the great power of Iran and Mesopotamia, while the once-mighty Seleucid kingdom is reduced to a quarrelling rump in Syria. In India, the Shunga dynasty rules the Ganges and Indo-Greek kings the north-west. In the Americas, the Maya city of El Mirador is at its height.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers live across southern Africa, and herding of sheep and cattle is spreading among some Khoe peoples. Iron-using Bantu farmers continue their spread southward through East Africa.","northern-africa":"Ptolemy X Alexander I rules Egypt from Alexandria, but the dynasty is weak and dependent on Rome. Roman Africa (old Carthage) is a province, Numidia is ruled by Gauda after Jugurtha's defeat, and Mauretania by Bocchus I. The kingdom of Meroë flourishes in Nubia, and early Aksum is emerging in the Ethiopian highlands.","europe":"The Roman Republic rules Italy, much of Spain, southern Gaul, Greece, Macedonia and western Anatolia, though its politics are turning violent. Marius has destroyed the migrating Cimbri and Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (102 BCE) and Vercellae (101 BCE). Celtic tribes hold Gaul and Britain, Dacians the Carpathians, Germanic peoples the north, and Sarmatians the steppe; Mithridates VI of Pontus controls much of the Black Sea coast.","middle-east-south-asia":"Mithridates II of Parthia rules from Iran to Mesopotamia, while rival Seleucid kings fight over what is left of Syria. Pontus, Armenia, the Nabataeans and the South Arabian kingdoms are growing. In India, the Shunga dynasty rules the Ganges plain, Indo-Greek kings rule the Punjab and Gandhara, and the Satavahanas are rising in the Deccan, with Tamil kingdoms in the far south.","north-central-asia":"The Yuezhi, driven west by the Xiongnu, have conquered Greek Bactria and settled north of the Hindu Kush; one of their clans will found the Kushan Empire. Saka tribes have pushed south into Iran and India, while Sarmatians and Kangju nomads hold the steppe.","east-asia":"Emperor Wu of Han rules from Chang'an over an empire that now includes southern China, northern Vietnam and northern Korea, where four commanderies were set up in 108 BCE. The Xiongnu, under Qiedihou Chanyu, still rule Mongolia but have been driven back by Han armies. Yayoi Japan is divided into many small states.","southeast-asia":"Northern Vietnam is now part of Han China, governed as the commanderies of Jiaozhi and Jiuzhen. Elsewhere, Đông Sơn bronze drums are traded widely, and Indian merchants sail to Southeast Asia's ports, while kingdoms such as early Arakan arise.","northern-north-america":"The Dorset culture hunts in the Arctic, and the Norton tradition along Alaska's coasts. In southern Canada, the Laurel and Point Peninsula cultures fish, hunt and make pottery around the Great Lakes.","southern-north-america":"The Hopewell culture of the Ohio valley builds geometric earthworks and trades across the continent. The Maya city of El Mirador, with its huge pyramids, is at its height, Monte Albán rules Oaxaca, and Teotihuacan is growing in the Valley of Mexico.","northern-south-america":"On Peru's south coast, the Nazca culture is emerging from the Paracas and will soon create its famous ground drawings. Regional cultures flourish along the Andes, and Amazonian peoples farm and fish along the rivers.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and farming villages grow in north-west Argentina and northern Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Polynesians are settled in Tonga and Samoa, and New Zealand and most of the Pacific remain unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Han dynasty","map":"Han Empire","ruler":"Emperor Wu of Han","capital":"Chang'an","extent":"China, northern Korea, northern Vietnam and the Gansu corridor","clio":"Han Dynasty"},{"name":"Roman Republic","map":"Roman Republic","ruler":"Senate and consuls (Gaius Marius, sixth consulship)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy, much of Spain, southern Gaul, Greece, Macedonia, North Africa and western Anatolia","clio":"Roman Republic"},{"name":"Parthian Empire","map":"Parthia","ruler":"Mithridates II","capital":"Ctesiphon and Ecbatana","extent":"Iran and Mesopotamia","clio":"Parthian Empire"},{"name":"Xiongnu","map":"Xiongnu","ruler":"Qiedihou Chanyu","capital":null,"extent":"The steppes of Mongolia and southern Siberia","clio":"Xiongnu"},{"name":"Yuezhi (forerunners of the Kushans)","map":"Kushan Empire","ruler":"Yuezhi chiefs","capital":null,"extent":"Bactria and the lands north of the Hindu Kush","clio":"Yuezhi"},{"name":"Shunga dynasty","map":"Mauryan Empire","ruler":"Shunga kings (Bhagabhadra, c.)","capital":"Pataliputra and Vidisha","extent":"The Ganges plain and central India","clio":"Shunga Empire"},{"name":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","map":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","ruler":"Ptolemy X Alexander I","capital":"Alexandria","extent":"Egypt (Cyprus is held by his exiled brother and rival Ptolemy IX)","clio":"Ptolemaic Kingdom"},{"name":"Seleucid Kingdom","map":"Seleucid Kingdom","ruler":"Rival kings Antiochus VIII and Antiochus IX","capital":"Antioch","extent":"Northern Syria and Cilicia","clio":"Seleucid Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of Meroë","map":"Meroe","ruler":"Meroitic kings and queens","capital":"Meroë","extent":"Nubia along the middle Nile","clio":null},{"name":"Numidia","map":"Numidia","ruler":"Gauda","capital":"Cirta","extent":"Present-day Algeria and western Tunisia","clio":"Kingdom of Numidia"}],"events":[{"year":-146,"text":"Rome destroys Carthage and Corinth"},{"year":-126,"text":"Zhang Qian returns to Chang'an after his journey to Central Asia"},{"year":-111,"text":"Han conquers Nanyue and northern Vietnam"},{"year":-108,"text":"Han conquers Gojoseon and sets up commanderies in Korea"},{"year":-102,"text":"Marius defeats the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae"},{"year":-101,"text":"Han armies defeat Dayuan (Ferghana) and win its famous horses"},{"year":-100,"text":"Julius Caesar is born in Rome"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mithridates II of Parthia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_II_of_Parthia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qiedihou","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiedihou"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bhagabhadra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagabhadra"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemy IX Soter","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_IX_Soter"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gaius Marius","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Marius"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hispania","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispania"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemy IX Soter II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_IX_Soter_II"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.C.2, The Satavahana-Saka-Kusana age, c. A.D. 1-300","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Satavahana-Saka-Kusana_age_c._A.D._1-300.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":-1,"title":"The Augustan World","age":"Classical Antiquity","overview":"At the end of the last year before the Common Era, by some estimates about half of humanity lives under two empires. Augustus, the first Roman emperor, rules the whole Mediterranean, from Spain and Gaul to Syria and Egypt, after ending a century of civil wars at Actium in 31 BCE. Peace, roads and trade bind his empire together. At the other end of Eurasia, the Han dynasty rules China; this year the young Emperor Ai died and the child Emperor Ping was enthroned, with the powerful courtier Wang Mang as regent, who will one day seize the throne. Between them, the Parthian Empire rules Iran and Mesopotamia, nomads such as the Xiongnu, Sarmatians and Yuezhi control the steppes, and Saka and Indo-Parthian kings rule north-western India, while the Satavahanas hold the Deccan. In Judea, Herod the Great has recently died and Jesus of Nazareth has been born. In the Americas, Teotihuacan is growing fast, and the Nazca are drawing their lines in the Peruvian desert.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Khoisan hunter-gatherers and the first Khoe herders of sheep live across southern Africa. Iron-using Bantu farmers are spreading south from the Great Lakes toward the Zambezi. Madagascar has not yet been settled.","northern-africa":"Egypt is a Roman province, annexed after the deaths of Cleopatra and Antony in 30 BCE, and the coast from Morocco to Libya is Roman or ruled by client kings such as Juba II of Mauretania. Meroë, under its queens (kandakes), flourishes in Nubia after making peace with Rome, and the kingdom of Aksum is rising in Ethiopia. Berbers and Saharan nomads live beyond.","europe":"Augustus rules an empire covering Italy, Spain, Gaul, Greece and the Balkans, and his armies are campaigning in Germany beyond the Rhine. Client kings rule Thrace and the Bosporan Kingdom in the Crimea. Germanic peoples such as the Marcomanni under Maroboduus hold central Europe, Dacians the Carpathians, Celts Britain and Ireland, and Sarmatians the steppe.","middle-east-south-asia":"Rome rules Anatolia and Syria, with Herod's son Archelaus ruling Judea and Aretas IV the Nabataeans at Petra. Phraates V rules the Parthian Empire from Ctesiphon, the Indo-Parthians (Suren) hold eastern Iran and Afghanistan, and Indo-Scythian kings rule north-west India. The Satavahanas rule the Deccan, Kalinga holds the east coast, Tamil kingdoms the south, and the Himyarites are rising in Yemen.","north-central-asia":"The Yuezhi tribes in Bactria are about to be united by Kujula Kadphises into the Kushan Empire. Sarmatian and Alan nomads hold the western steppe, while the Kangju and Wusun roam Central Asia and the Xiongnu rule Mongolia.","east-asia":"The Han dynasty rules China, Korea's north-west and northern Vietnam from Chang'an; the child Emperor Ping has just been enthroned with Wang Mang as regent. The Xiongnu, now at peace with and partly dependent on Han, rule the steppe. In Korea, the young kingdoms of Goguryeo, Silla and Baekje are emerging, and Yayoi Japan has many small states.","southeast-asia":"Northern Vietnam is governed as Han commanderies, while elsewhere chiefdoms grow rich on sea trade between India and China. Indian traders and ideas reach the Malay Peninsula and the Mekong delta, where the kingdom of Funan will soon arise, and Arakan grows in western Burma.","northern-north-america":"The Dorset culture lives in the Arctic, and the Norton tradition along Alaska's coasts. In southern Canada, the Laurel and Point Peninsula peoples fish and hunt around the Great Lakes, and the Pacific Northwest peoples live in large cedar-plank villages.","southern-north-america":"The Hopewell culture of the Ohio valley builds great earthworks and trades obsidian, copper and shells over thousands of kilometres. Teotihuacan is becoming the largest city in the Americas, Monte Albán rules Oaxaca, and the Maya Preclassic cities of the lowlands, such as El Mirador, are at their height.","northern-south-america":"The Nazca culture of Peru's south coast is beginning to draw its giant lines in the desert, and the Moche are emerging on the north coast. Amazonian peoples farm and fish along the rivers, and the Wankarani and other cultures live on the Bolivian high plateau.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers live across the Pampas, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Farming villages flourish in north-west Argentina and northern Chile, and the ancestors of the Mapuche live in central Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians and Papuan farmers live as before. Polynesians live in Tonga and Samoa, and the great voyages to eastern Polynesia, Hawaii and New Zealand are still many centuries away."},"powers":[{"name":"Roman Empire","map":"Roman Empire","ruler":"Augustus","capital":"Rome","extent":"The whole Mediterranean, from Spain and Gaul to Syria and Egypt","clio":"Roman Empire"},{"name":"Han dynasty","map":"Han","ruler":"Emperor Ping (a child), with Wang Mang as regent","capital":"Chang'an","extent":"China, north-western Korea and northern Vietnam","clio":"Han Dynasty"},{"name":"Parthian Empire","map":"Parthian Empire","ruler":"Phraates V (Phraataces)","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Iran and Mesopotamia, from the Euphrates to Afghanistan","clio":"Parthian Empire"},{"name":"Xiongnu","map":"Xiongnu","ruler":"Wuzhuliu Chanyu","capital":null,"extent":"The steppes of Mongolia and southern Siberia","clio":"Xiongnu"},{"name":"Indo-Scythians (Saka)","map":"Saka Kingdom","ruler":"Indo-Scythian kings","capital":"Taxila and Mathura","extent":"North-western and western India","clio":"Indo-Scythians"},{"name":"Satavahana Empire","map":"Satavahanihara","ruler":"Satavahana kings","capital":"Pratishthana","extent":"The Deccan plateau of central India","clio":"Satavahana Dynasty"},{"name":"Indo-Parthian (Suren) realm","map":"Suren Kingdom","ruler":"House of Suren","capital":null,"extent":"Eastern Iran, Afghanistan and the lower Indus","clio":"Parthian Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of Meroë","map":"Meroe","ruler":"Kandake Amanishakheto (dates uncertain)","capital":"Meroë","extent":"Nubia along the middle Nile","clio":null},{"name":"Himyarite Kingdom","map":"Himyarite Kingdom","ruler":"Himyarite kings","capital":"Zafar","extent":"South-western Arabia (Yemen)","clio":"Himyarite Kingdom"}],"events":[{"year":-53,"text":"Parthians destroy a Roman army under Crassus at Carrhae"},{"year":-44,"text":"Julius Caesar is assassinated in Rome"},{"year":-31,"text":"Octavian defeats Antony and Cleopatra at Actium"},{"year":-27,"text":"Octavian takes the title Augustus, becoming the first Roman emperor"},{"year":-5,"text":"Birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Judea (c. 6–4 BCE)"},{"year":-4,"text":"Death of Herod the Great; his kingdom is divided among his sons"},{"year":-1,"text":"Emperor Ai of Han dies; the child Emperor Ping is enthroned with Wang Mang as regent"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor Ping of Han","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Ping_of_Han"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Phraates V","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phraates_V"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Wuzhuliu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuzhuliu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Herod Archelaus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Archelaus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Maroboduus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroboduus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Amanishakheto","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanishakheto"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.C.2, The Satavahana-Saka-Kusana age, c. A.D. 1-300","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Satavahana-Saka-Kusana_age_c._A.D._1-300.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"year":100,"title":"Trajan's Rome, Han China","age":"Classical Antiquity","overview":"Around 100 CE two giant empires anchor opposite ends of Eurasia. Rome, under the soldier-emperor Trajan, rules every shore of the Mediterranean and is about to conquer Dacia beyond the Danube, pushing the empire towards its greatest size. Han China, under the young Emperor He, has just smashed the Northern Xiongnu and controls the oasis cities of the Tarim Basin through its general Ban Chao. Between them, the Parthians hold Iran and Mesopotamia, and the Kushans rule a rich crossroads empire from Bactria into northern India. Silk, spices, glass and gold move along the Silk Roads and across the Indian Ocean, where monsoon winds carry Roman ships to Tamil ports. Most of the world's people are farmers, but huge areas of Africa, the Americas, Siberia and Australia are home to herders, foragers and village societies. In Mexico, the great city of Teotihuacan is rising, and in Peru the Moche and Nazca cultures are flourishing.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Most of Africa south of the equator is home to Khoisan-speaking foragers and herders. Bantu-speaking farmers who work iron are spreading south and east from the Great Lakes region, reaching the coasts of East Africa and moving towards present-day Zambia and Mozambique. Madagascar is still uninhabited or barely visited.","northern-africa":"Rome rules the entire North African coast, with Egypt and the province of Africa serving as the empire's breadbaskets. Up the Nile, the Kingdom of Kush rules from Meroe, famous for its iron-working and its ruling queens, while the trading kingdom of Axum is rising in the Ethiopian highlands. In the Sahara the Garamantes control oasis routes, and in West Africa farming towns such as Jenne-jeno are growing along the Niger.","europe":"The Roman Empire stretches from Britain and Spain to the Black Sea, with its frontier along the Rhine and Danube. Trajan (r. 98–117) is about to fight the Dacian Wars (101–106) against King Decebalus, turning Dacia into a Roman province. Beyond the frontier live Germanic peoples, Balts and Slavs in the forests, Sarmatians and Alans on the steppe, and Finno-Ugric and Sámi hunters in the far north.","middle-east-south-asia":"Rome holds Anatolia, Syria and Judea, and will annex the Nabataean kingdom of Petra in 106. The Parthian Empire under the Arsacid kings, with Pacorus II facing rival claimants, rules Mesopotamia and Iran from Ctesiphon, with Armenia a contested buffer between the two powers. In India the Kushans rule the northwest, the Satavahanas govern the Deccan, Saka satraps hold the west coast, and the Tamil kingdoms of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas trade pepper and pearls with Roman merchants.","north-central-asia":"The Kushan Empire controls Bactria and the routes across the Hindu Kush, while Saka and Kangju peoples herd on the steppes of Transoxiana. After Han victories in 89–91 CE, the Northern Xiongnu confederation has collapsed, and the Xianbei are moving into its old pastures. Siberia is inhabited by scattered hunting, fishing and reindeer-herding peoples.","east-asia":"The Eastern Han dynasty rules China from Luoyang under Emperor He (r. 88–106), whose reign sees eunuchs and empresses' families compete for power. Han armies and the general Ban Chao dominate the Tarim Basin, and Han commanderies still hold northern Korea. In Korea the kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla and the Gaya confederacy are forming, while Japan is in the Yayoi period of rice-farming chiefdoms that send envoys to the Han court.","southeast-asia":"Northern Vietnam is ruled as a Han Chinese province after the defeat of the Trung sisters' revolt in 43 CE. In the Mekong delta, the trading kingdom of Funan is emerging around the port of Oc Eo, linking Indian and Chinese sea trade. Pyu city-states are forming in Burma, and Austronesian peoples farm and sail throughout the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"The Arctic is home to Paleo-Inuit (early Dorset) hunters of seals and walrus, while Ipiutak and Norton cultures live along the Alaskan coast. The vast boreal forest is home to subarctic hunter-gatherers, and the Pacific Northwest coast supports rich fishing societies living off salmon and cedar.","southern-north-america":"In central Mexico the city of Teotihuacan is growing fast; the Pyramid of the Sun has just been completed and the city will soon be one of the largest in the world. Maya city-states fill the Yucatán lowlands as the great Preclassic centre of El Mirador begins to decline, and the Zapotecs rule Oaxaca from Monte Albán. Further north, the Hopewell culture builds great earthwork mounds in the Ohio valley and trades across much of the continent.","northern-south-america":"On the north coast of Peru the Moche are building adobe pyramids, irrigated fields and a powerful warrior state, while on the south coast the Nazca are drawing their giant lines in the desert. Around Lake Titicaca, early Tiwanaku is growing into a ceremonial centre. The Amazon basin and the Guianas are home to many farming and foraging peoples whose earthworks and villages are only now being studied.","southern-cone":"The Southern Cone is home to hunter-gatherers and early farmers rather than states. Guanaco hunters roam the pampas and Patagonia, shellfish and sea-mammal hunters live along the channels of Tierra del Fuego, and village farmers grow maize and quinoa in the valleys of northwest Argentina and central Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians, with tens of thousands of years of history, live across the whole continent in hundreds of language groups, and Tasmanians have been isolated since the end of the Ice Age. Farmers in the New Guinea highlands grow taro and bananas. Descendants of the Lapita seafarers live in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, but eastern Polynesia, Hawaii and New Zealand are still unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Roman Empire","map":"Roman Empire","ruler":"Trajan","capital":"Rome","extent":"All around the Mediterranean, from Britain and Spain to Egypt and Syria, with Dacia about to be added","clio":"Roman Empire"},{"name":"Han Dynasty","map":"Han","ruler":"Emperor He","capital":"Luoyang","extent":"China from southern Manchuria to northern Vietnam, plus protectorate over the Tarim Basin","clio":"Han Dynasty"},{"name":"Parthian Empire","map":"Parthian Empire","ruler":"Pacorus II (with rival claimants)","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau","clio":"Parthian Empire"},{"name":"Kushan Empire","map":"Kushan Empire","ruler":"Vima Takto or Vima Kadphises (dates uncertain)","capital":"Bactria and Gandhara (Peshawar region)","extent":"From Bactria across Afghanistan into the Indus and upper Ganges plains","clio":"Kushan Empire"},{"name":"Satavahana Dynasty","map":"Satavahanihara","ruler":"Satavahana kings (exact ruler uncertain)","capital":"Pratishthana (Paithan)","extent":"The Deccan plateau of central India","clio":"Satavahana Dynasty"},{"name":"Kingdom of Kush","map":"Meroe","ruler":"Meroitic kings and kandake queens (names uncertain)","capital":"Meroe","extent":"The middle Nile valley in present-day Sudan","clio":"Kingdom of Kush"},{"name":"Kingdom of Axum","map":"Axum","ruler":"Aksumite kings (names uncertain)","capital":"Axum","extent":"Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, with the Red Sea port of Adulis","clio":"Kingdom of Axum"},{"name":"Teotihuacan","map":"Teotihuacan","ruler":"Unknown (no named rulers survive)","capital":"Teotihuacan","extent":"The Valley of Mexico and growing influence across Mesoamerica","clio":"Teotihuacan"}],"events":[{"year":43,"text":"Han armies crush the Trung sisters' revolt in Vietnam"},{"year":70,"text":"Romans destroy the Temple in Jerusalem"},{"year":79,"text":"Mount Vesuvius buries Pompeii"},{"year":89,"text":"Han China defeats the Northern Xiongnu"},{"year":97,"text":"Han envoy Gan Ying is sent west to seek Rome"},{"year":98,"text":"Trajan becomes Roman emperor"},{"year":101,"text":"Trajan launches the First Dacian War"},{"year":105,"text":"Cai Lun presents improved papermaking to the Han court"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Trajan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor He of Han","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_He_of_Han"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Teotihuacan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.C.2, The Satavahana-Saka-Kusana age, c. A.D. 1-300","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Satavahana-Saka-Kusana_age_c._A.D._1-300.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"year":200,"title":"Han China Crumbles","age":"Classical Antiquity","overview":"In 200 CE the old order is cracking. In China the Han dynasty survives only in name: the boy Emperor Xian is a puppet, and warlords carve up the country. This very year Cao Cao defeats his rival Yuan Shao at Guandu, laying the foundations of the Three Kingdoms era. Rome is more stable under Septimius Severus, a North African general who seized power after the chaotic Year of the Five Emperors and has just sacked the Parthian capital Ctesiphon. Parthia is weakened and within a generation will be overthrown by the Persian Sasanians. In India the Kushans hold the north and the Satavahanas are fading in the Deccan. Christianity is spreading quietly through Roman cities, and Buddhism is travelling along the Silk Roads into China. In the Americas, Teotihuacan is reaching its height as a metropolis of perhaps 100,000 people, and the Maya stand on the threshold of their Classic age.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking iron-working farmers continue to spread through eastern and southern Africa, settling as far south as present-day Mozambique and the edge of South Africa. Khoisan foragers and herders still occupy the drier south and west. Madagascar remains essentially unsettled.","northern-africa":"Roman North Africa is prosperous, and its native son Septimius Severus is lavishing monuments on his home city of Leptis Magna. The Kingdom of Kush still rules from Meroe on the Nile, though it is past its peak, while Axum is becoming a major Red Sea trading power. West African farming and iron-working communities are growing along the Niger and in the savanna.","europe":"The Roman Empire is ruled by Septimius Severus (r. 193–211), who strengthens the army and will campaign in Britain at the end of his reign. The frontiers on the Rhine and Danube still hold, though Germanic peoples such as the Alamanni and Goths are gathering beyond them. Eastern Europe is home to Slavic, Baltic and Sarmatian peoples, and the far north to Finno-Ugric and Sámi hunters.","middle-east-south-asia":"Rome holds Anatolia, Syria and northern Mesopotamia after Severus sacked Ctesiphon in 197–198. The Parthian Empire, under Vologases V, is battered and divided, and the Persian prince Ardashir will overthrow it in 224. In India the Kushans under Vasudeva I hold the northwest and Mathura, the Satavahanas are in decline in the Deccan, and the Tamil kingdoms dominate the south; Himyar is the leading power in Yemen.","north-central-asia":"The Kushan Empire still controls Bactria, but the steppes are shifting. The Xianbei, who replaced the Xiongnu in Mongolia, have formed a loose confederation that raids China, while Saka, Kangju and other Iranian-speaking nomads live in Transoxiana. Siberia is home to scattered hunting and fishing peoples.","east-asia":"The Han dynasty is collapsing. After the Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184, warlords took control, and Emperor Xian (r. 189–220) is held by Cao Cao at Xu, who defeats Yuan Shao at Guandu in 200. In Korea, Goguryeo under King Sansang is the strongest kingdom, alongside Baekje, Silla and Gaya, while in Japan the shaman-queen Himiko of Yamatai leads a federation of chiefdoms.","southeast-asia":"Funan has become the main trading kingdom of mainland Southeast Asia, its ports visited by Indian, Chinese and even Roman-era merchants. Northern Vietnam remains a Chinese-ruled province, while in central Vietnam the Cham people are on the verge of founding the kingdom of Linyi (c. 192). Austronesian farming and seafaring peoples live across the islands.","northern-north-america":"Paleo-Inuit Dorset hunters occupy the Canadian Arctic and Greenland, while cultures such as Ipiutak hunt sea mammals along the Alaskan coast. Subarctic forest hunters follow caribou and moose across Canada, and Pacific Northwest peoples build large plank-house villages.","southern-north-america":"Teotihuacan dominates central Mexico, its avenues and pyramids home to perhaps 100,000 people. Maya cities such as Tikal and Calakmul are growing, and the Zapotecs rule from Monte Albán in Oaxaca. In the eastern woodlands the Hopewell culture continues its mound-building and long-distance trade, and early Ancestral Puebloan (Basketmaker) farmers live in the Southwest.","northern-south-america":"The Moche state rules the river valleys of Peru's north coast, making superb pottery and gold work, while the Nazca culture flourishes on the south coast. Tiwanaku is growing on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon and Orinoco basins are home to many farming and foraging peoples.","southern-cone":"There are no states in the Southern Cone. Foragers hunt guanaco and rhea on the pampas and in Patagonia, maritime peoples live in the far south, and village farmers cultivate maize and potatoes in the Andean valleys of Chile and northwest Argentina.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent in diverse societies tied to their country through song, story and seasonal movement. New Guinea highlanders farm intensively, and Polynesians in Tonga and Samoa are developing their distinct culture. The remote islands of eastern Polynesia, Hawaii and New Zealand remain uninhabited."},"powers":[{"name":"Roman Empire","map":"Roman Empire","ruler":"Septimius Severus","capital":"Rome","extent":"From Britain and Spain to Egypt and northern Mesopotamia","clio":"Roman Empire"},{"name":"Han Dynasty","map":"Han","ruler":"Emperor Xian (real power with Cao Cao and other warlords)","capital":"Xu (Xuchang)","extent":"Nominally all of China, but split among rival warlords","clio":"Han Dynasty"},{"name":"Parthian Empire","map":"Parthian Empire","ruler":"Vologases V","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Mesopotamia and Iran, weakened by Roman invasion","clio":"Parthian Empire"},{"name":"Kushan Empire","map":null,"ruler":"Vasudeva I","capital":"Mathura and Purushapura (Peshawar)","extent":"Bactria, Afghanistan and northwestern India","clio":"Kushan Empire"},{"name":"Satavahana Dynasty","map":"Satavahanihara","ruler":"Late Satavahana kings","capital":"Pratishthana (Paithan)","extent":"The Deccan, now shrinking","clio":"Satavahana Dynasty"},{"name":"Goguryeo","map":"Koguryo","ruler":"King Sansang","capital":"Gungnae (Ji'an)","extent":"Northern Korea and southern Manchuria","clio":"Goguryeo"},{"name":"Kingdom of Axum","map":"Axum","ruler":"Aksumite kings (names uncertain)","capital":"Axum","extent":"Northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, trading across the Red Sea","clio":"Kingdom of Axum"},{"name":"Teotihuacan","map":"Teotihuacan","ruler":"Unknown (no named rulers survive)","capital":"Teotihuacan","extent":"Central Mexico, with trade and influence reaching the Maya lands","clio":"Teotihuacan"}],"events":[{"year":166,"text":"Antonine Plague begins ravaging the Roman Empire"},{"year":184,"text":"Yellow Turban Rebellion erupts in China"},{"year":193,"text":"Year of the Five Emperors; Septimius Severus takes power"},{"year":198,"text":"Severus sacks the Parthian capital Ctesiphon"},{"year":200,"text":"Cao Cao defeats Yuan Shao at the Battle of Guandu"},{"year":208,"text":"Battle of Red Cliffs halts Cao Cao's advance south"},{"year":212,"text":"Caracalla grants Roman citizenship to all free men"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Septimius Severus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Guandu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guandu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sansang of Goguryeo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sansang_of_Goguryeo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Teotihuacan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.C.2, The Satavahana-Saka-Kusana age, c. A.D. 1-300","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Satavahana-Saka-Kusana_age_c._A.D._1-300.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"year":300,"title":"Rome of Four Emperors","age":"Late Antiquity","overview":"By 300 CE the Roman Empire has survived a half-century of civil wars, invasions and economic chaos. Emperor Diocletian has saved it by splitting power among four rulers, the Tetrarchy: two senior emperors, Diocletian in the East and Maximian in the West, and two juniors, Galerius and Constantius. The old Parthian state has been replaced by the aggressive Sasanian Persians, though they have just lost a war to Rome. In China, the Western Jin dynasty reunited the country in 280, but it is now tearing itself apart in the War of the Eight Princes, and nomadic peoples settled inside China are about to rise. In northern India the Gupta family is building a small kingdom that will soon become a great empire. Christianity is still a persecuted minority religion in Rome, but Armenia is about to become the first Christian kingdom. In the Americas, Teotihuacan dominates Mexico and Maya Classic civilization is flowering in the lowland jungles.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Iron-working Bantu-speaking farmers are now settled across much of eastern and southern Africa, growing sorghum and millet and herding cattle. Khoisan foragers and herders live in the Kalahari and the far south. Madagascar is still essentially uninhabited, though Austronesian sailors may be starting to visit.","northern-africa":"Egypt and the North African coast are Roman provinces reorganized under Diocletian. The Kingdom of Axum is now a major power, minting its own gold coins and trading across the Red Sea, while Meroe is in decline. In West Africa the Soninke kingdom of Ghana (Wagadu) may be taking shape on the edge of the Sahara, as camels begin to make desert crossings easier.","europe":"The Roman Empire is governed by the Tetrarchy: Maximian rules Italy, Africa and Spain from Milan, Constantius Chlorus holds Gaul and Britain from Trier, and Galerius guards the Balkans. Frankish, Alamannic and Gothic peoples press on the Rhine and Danube, while the Goths have settled north of the Black Sea. Christians face the Great Persecution, which begins in 303.","middle-east-south-asia":"Diocletian personally rules the eastern provinces from Nicomedia, and his Caesar Galerius defeated the Sasanian king Narseh in 298, forcing the Peace of Nisibis (299). The Sasanian Persian Empire rules Iran and Mesopotamia from Ctesiphon. Armenia, under Tiridates III, will adopt Christianity, traditionally in 301 (many scholars prefer c. 314). In India the Gupta family, under Ghatotkacha, holds a small kingdom in Magadha, while the Kushans have been reduced to vassals of Persia in the northwest.","north-central-asia":"The Sasanians have taken over the former Kushan lands of Bactria, ruling them through Kushano-Sasanian princes. Iranian-speaking nomads and Xianbei groups move across the steppe, and the Xiongnu-descended peoples settled in northern China are restless. Siberia remains a land of scattered hunters, fishers and reindeer herders.","east-asia":"The Western Jin dynasty, under the weak Emperor Hui (r. 290–307), rules a reunited China from Luoyang but is collapsing in the War of the Eight Princes (291–306). In 304 the Xiongnu chief Liu Yuan will found the Han Zhao state, beginning the era of the Sixteen Kingdoms in the north. Goguryeo, under King Micheon, is expanding in Korea alongside Baekje and Silla, and Japan has entered the Kofun period of giant keyhole-shaped tombs.","southeast-asia":"Funan controls the Mekong delta and the trade route across the Malay Peninsula, adopting Indian ideas of kingship and religion. Linyi, the early Cham kingdom, rules central Vietnam, while the north is still a Chinese province. Indian influence is spreading to trading ports across the islands.","northern-north-america":"Dorset hunters live in the eastern Arctic, and Alaskan coastal peoples hunt whales and walrus. The subarctic forests are home to bands of caribou and moose hunters, and Pacific Northwest peoples live in large, settled fishing villages.","southern-north-america":"Teotihuacan is at its height, the largest city in the Americas, with influence reaching the Maya region. The Maya Classic period has begun, with cities like Tikal raising carved stone monuments to their kings, while Monte Albán rules Oaxaca. North of Mexico, Hopewell mound-building is declining and Basketmaker farmers grow maize in the Southwest.","northern-south-america":"The Moche and Nazca cultures flourish on the coasts of Peru, and Tiwanaku is expanding as a religious and trading centre near Lake Titicaca. Peoples of the Amazon farm manioc and build settlements along the great rivers.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers range across the pampas and Patagonia, and fishing peoples live in the southern channels. Farming villages exist in northwest Argentina and northern Chile, some trading with the growing Tiwanaku world.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent, with Tasmanians long separated by Bass Strait. Farming societies flourish in New Guinea, and Polynesians in Tonga and Samoa are on the eve of their great voyages east."},"powers":[{"name":"Roman Empire (Eastern Tetrarchy)","map":"Rome (Diocletianus)","ruler":"Diocletian (senior emperor), with Caesar Galerius","capital":"Nicomedia","extent":"Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt and, through Galerius, the Balkans","clio":"Roman Empire"},{"name":"Roman Empire (Western Tetrarchy)","map":"Rome (Maximian)","ruler":"Maximian, with Caesar Constantius Chlorus","capital":"Milan (Mediolanum)","extent":"Italy, Africa and Spain; Constantius holds Gaul and Britain from Trier","clio":"Roman Empire"},{"name":"Western Jin Dynasty","map":"Jin","ruler":"Emperor Hui","capital":"Luoyang","extent":"All of China, but torn by civil war among imperial princes","clio":"Western Jin"},{"name":"Sasanian Empire","map":"Parthian Empire","ruler":"Narseh","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Iran, Mesopotamia and the former Kushan lands of Bactria","clio":"Sasanian Empire"},{"name":"Gupta Kingdom","map":"Gupta Empire","ruler":"Ghatotkacha (c. 280–319)","capital":"Pataliputra","extent":"A small kingdom in Magadha (Bihar), soon to expand","clio":null},{"name":"Kingdom of Axum","map":"Axum","ruler":"Aksumite kings (names uncertain)","capital":"Axum","extent":"Ethiopia, Eritrea and Red Sea trade routes","clio":"Kingdom of Axum"},{"name":"Kingdom of Armenia","map":"Armenia","ruler":"Tiridates III","capital":"Vagharshapat","extent":"The Armenian highlands between Rome and Persia","clio":"Kingdom of Armenia"},{"name":"Goguryeo","map":"Koguryo","ruler":"King Micheon","capital":"Gungnae (Ji'an)","extent":"Northern Korea and southern Manchuria","clio":"Goguryeo"}],"events":[{"year":224,"text":"Ardashir I overthrows the Parthians and founds the Sasanian Empire"},{"year":260,"text":"Persia's Shapur I captures the Roman emperor Valerian"},{"year":280,"text":"Western Jin reunites China"},{"year":284,"text":"Diocletian becomes Roman emperor"},{"year":291,"text":"War of the Eight Princes begins in China"},{"year":293,"text":"Diocletian creates the Tetrarchy"},{"year":299,"text":"Peace of Nisibis after Rome defeats Persia"},{"year":301,"text":"Armenia adopts Christianity (traditional date; possibly c. 314)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tetrarchy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrarchy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor Hui of Jin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Hui_of_Jin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Christianization of Armenia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianization_of_Armenia"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.D, The Gupta-Vakataka Age, c. A.D. 300-500","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Gupta-Vakataka_Age_c._A.D._300-500.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. III: The Classical Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/classicalage03bhar"}]},{"year":400,"title":"Rome Divided, Huns Advancing","age":"Late Antiquity","overview":"In 400 CE the Roman Empire is permanently split. Since 395 it has been ruled by two brothers: Honorius in the West, guided by the general Stilicho, and Arcadius in the East from Constantinople. Christianity is now the official religion. But the Huns, horse archers from the eastern steppe, have driven the Goths across the Danube, and Alaric's Visigoths are loose inside the empire; within ten years they will sack Rome itself. Persia is at peace under the tolerant Sasanian king Yazdegerd I. India is enjoying a golden age under the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II, admired by the Chinese pilgrim Faxian, who sets out for India in 399. China is divided between the Eastern Jin in the south and the Sixteen Kingdoms in the north, where the Tuoba Northern Wei are rising. In Korea, Gwanggaeto the Great is building Goguryeo into a regional power, and in the Americas Teotihuacan has recently installed its influence over the Maya city of Tikal.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking farmers, with iron tools and cattle, now live across much of central, eastern and southern Africa, reaching the eastern coast of South Africa. Khoisan peoples continue to forage and herd in the Kalahari and the Cape. Austronesian sailors from Southeast Asia may be beginning to reach Madagascar.","northern-africa":"North Africa from Morocco to Libya belongs to the Western Roman Empire, while Egypt belongs to the East. Axum, which adopted Christianity under King Ezana in the 330s, is the leading power of the Horn, and the old Kushite kingdom of Meroe has collapsed, leaving the Nubian peoples who will form Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia. In West Africa, the early kingdom of Ghana (Wagadu) is likely taking shape.","europe":"The Western Roman Empire under Honorius (r. 395–423) holds Italy, Gaul, Spain and Britain, but relies on Germanic soldiers and the general Stilicho; the Visigoths under Alaric are already threatening Italy. The Eastern Roman Empire of Arcadius holds the Balkans and Greece. The Huns, under leaders such as Uldin, dominate the plains north of the Danube, ruling over Goths, Alans and Gepids, while Franks, Alamanni and Burgundians wait along the Rhine.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Eastern Roman Empire holds Anatolia, Syria and Egypt, while the Sasanian Persian Empire under Yazdegerd I (r. 399–420) holds Mesopotamia and Iran; the two have recently divided Armenia between them. In Arabia, the kingdom of Himyar dominates Yemen. Northern India is united under the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II (c. 375–415), a time of great Sanskrit literature, science and art, while the Vakatakas, his allies by marriage, rule the Deccan.","north-central-asia":"The Huns have moved west towards Europe, and new nomadic powers are forming in the east. The Rouran (Ruanruan) dominate Mongolia and the eastern steppe, where their leader Shelun takes the title khagan in 402. Hunnic groups such as the Kidarites are moving into Bactria, and Siberia remains home to scattered forest and tundra peoples.","east-asia":"China is split. The Eastern Jin dynasty under Emperor An (r. 396–419) rules the south from Jiankang (Nanjing), while the north is divided among the Sixteen Kingdoms, where the Tuoba Northern Wei, under Emperor Daowu, is rising from its capital at Pingcheng. Goguryeo under King Gwanggaeto the Great (r. 391–413) is conquering territory in Manchuria and Korea, fighting Baekje and its Japanese allies, and Japan's Yamato rulers are building huge kofun tombs.","southeast-asia":"Funan is the leading power of mainland Southeast Asia, controlling sea trade between India and China. The Cham kingdom of Linyi rules central Vietnam, and Indian-style kingdoms are appearing in Java and Borneo, where the earliest Sanskrit inscriptions of Indonesia (at Kutai) date from around this time.","northern-north-america":"Dorset Paleo-Inuit hunt seals and walrus across the eastern Arctic, and coastal peoples of Alaska hunt whales. Subarctic hunting bands live in the boreal forest, and the Pacific Northwest supports rich fishing societies.","southern-north-america":"Teotihuacan is at the peak of its power, and in 378 a Teotihuacan warlord, Siyaj K'ak', arrived at Tikal and installed a new dynasty, spreading central Mexican influence through the Maya world. Monte Albán rules the Zapotec lands of Oaxaca. In the eastern woodlands the Hopewell tradition is fading, while farmers in the Southwest grow maize and squash.","northern-south-america":"The Moche are at their height on Peru's north coast, building great adobe pyramids such as the Huaca del Sol. Nazca continues on the south coast, and Tiwanaku is expanding its influence around Lake Titicaca. Farming peoples flourish along the Amazon, including the mound-building Marajoara culture at its mouth.","southern-cone":"The pampas and Patagonia are home to mobile hunting peoples, and maritime foragers live in the southern archipelagos. Farming villages in northwest Argentina and northern Chile trade with Tiwanaku through llama caravans.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live in diverse societies across the continent. New Guinea is home to many farming and trading peoples, and Polynesians in Tonga and Samoa are developing seafaring skills that will later carry them to the most remote islands on Earth."},"powers":[{"name":"Eastern Roman Empire","map":"Eastern Roman Empire","ruler":"Arcadius","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"The Balkans, Greece, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt","clio":"Eastern Roman Empire"},{"name":"Western Roman Empire","map":"Western Roman Empire","ruler":"Honorius (real power with the general Stilicho)","capital":"Milan, moving to Ravenna in 402","extent":"Italy, Gaul, Spain, Britain and North Africa","clio":"Western Roman Empire"},{"name":"Gupta Empire","map":"Gupta Empire","ruler":"Chandragupta II","capital":"Pataliputra","extent":"Northern India from the Punjab to Bengal","clio":"Gupta Empire"},{"name":"Sasanian Persian Empire","map":"Persia","ruler":"Yazdegerd I","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Mesopotamia, Iran and eastern Armenia","clio":"Sasanian Empire"},{"name":"Eastern Jin Dynasty","map":"Jin","ruler":"Emperor An","capital":"Jiankang (Nanjing)","extent":"Southern China south of the Huai River","clio":null},{"name":"Rouran Khaganate","map":"Ruanruan","ruler":"Shelun","capital":"Mobile court in Mongolia","extent":"Mongolia and the eastern steppe","clio":null},{"name":"Hunnic Empire","map":"Hunnic Empire","ruler":"Uldin","capital":"Mobile court north of the Danube","extent":"The plains north of the Danube and Black Sea","clio":"Huns"},{"name":"Goguryeo","map":"Koguryo","ruler":"Gwanggaeto the Great","capital":"Gungnae (Ji'an)","extent":"Northern Korea and much of Manchuria","clio":"Goguryeo"},{"name":"Northern Wei","map":null,"ruler":"Emperor Daowu (Tuoba Gui)","capital":"Pingcheng (Datong)","extent":"Northern Shanxi and Hebei, expanding across north China","clio":"Northern Wei"}],"events":[{"year":376,"text":"Goths fleeing the Huns cross the Danube"},{"year":378,"text":"Goths destroy a Roman army at Adrianople"},{"year":378,"text":"Teotihuacan's Siyaj K'ak' arrives at Tikal"},{"year":380,"text":"Christianity becomes the Roman state religion"},{"year":395,"text":"Roman Empire permanently divided into East and West"},{"year":399,"text":"Chinese monk Faxian sets out for India"},{"year":406,"text":"Vandals, Alans and Suebi cross the Rhine"},{"year":410,"text":"Alaric's Visigoths sack Rome"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor An of Jin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_An_of_Jin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yazdegerd I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazdegerd_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gwanggaeto the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwanggaeto_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rouran Khaganate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouran_Khaganate"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.D, The Gupta-Vakataka Age, c. A.D. 300-500","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Gupta-Vakataka_Age_c._A.D._300-500.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. III: The Classical Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/classicalage03bhar"}]},{"year":500,"title":"Kingdoms After Rome","age":"Early Middle Ages","overview":"By 500 CE the Western Roman Empire is gone. Its last emperor was deposed in 476, and Germanic kings now rule its lands: Theodoric the Ostrogoth governs Italy from Ravenna, Clovis has united the Franks in Gaul, the Visigoths hold Spain and southern France, and the Vandals rule North Africa from Carthage. The Eastern Roman Empire, under Anastasius I, remains rich and powerful, facing a revived Sasanian Persia under Kavad I. Hunnic peoples, the Hephthalites and Alchon Huns, are battering Persia's east and breaking the Gupta Empire in India. China is still divided: the Northern Wei, Xianbei steppe rulers who have adopted Chinese ways, hold the north from their new capital Luoyang, while short-lived dynasties rule the south. In Mesoamerica, Teotihuacan is in its final century and the Maya city of Tikal and the Kaan (Snake) kingdom, later ruled from Calakmul, are locked in rivalry. Across the world most people still live as farmers in villages, and Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism are the great organized faiths.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking farming communities now stretch from the Great Lakes to the eastern coast of South Africa, making pottery, smelting iron and keeping cattle. Khoisan foragers and herders hold the Kalahari and the western Cape. Austronesian settlers from Borneo are beginning to settle Madagascar.","northern-africa":"The Vandal kingdom under Thrasamund rules the old Roman province of Africa from Carthage, while Berber kingdoms hold the Atlas and the Sahara's edge, and Egypt belongs to the Eastern Roman Empire. Christian Axum dominates the Horn and the Red Sea trade, and the Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia have formed on the Nile. In West Africa the kingdom of Ghana may already be taking shape, though its great trans-Saharan gold trade is not recorded until the 700s.","europe":"Germanic kingdoms have replaced Roman rule in the West: the Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great (r. 493–526) rule Italy, the Franks under Clovis I hold northern Gaul, the Visigoths under Alaric II rule southern Gaul and Spain, and the Burgundians hold the Rhône valley. Anglo-Saxons are settling eastern Britain, where Britons may have won a victory at Badon around this time. The Eastern Roman Empire under Anastasius I (r. 491–518) holds the Balkans, though Slavs and Bulgars are starting to raid.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Eastern Roman Empire holds Anatolia, Syria and Egypt, and the Sasanian Empire under Kavad I rules Mesopotamia and Iran; war between them breaks out in 502. Himyar, ruled by Jewish kings, controls Yemen. In India the Gupta Empire is breaking up under attacks by the Alchon Huns led by Toramana, while the Vakatakas rule the Deccan (where the Ajanta caves were painted in the later 5th century) and the Pallavas rule the southeast from Kanchipuram.","north-central-asia":"The Hephthalites, often called the White Huns, rule a large empire from Bactria to Sogdiana and even force Persia to pay tribute. The Rouran Khaganate under Nagai (r. 492–506) dominates Mongolia and the eastern steppe, with the Turks still their subjects in the Altai. Siberian peoples live by hunting, fishing and herding.","east-asia":"The Northern Wei dynasty under Emperor Xuanwu (r. 499–515) rules northern China, having moved its capital to Luoyang in 494 and adopted Chinese customs; work on the Buddhist caves at Longmen has begun. The south is ruled by the Southern Qi, which will be replaced by the Liang dynasty in 502. Korea is divided among Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla, and Japan's Yamato state is consolidating power over much of Honshu.","southeast-asia":"Funan, under King Jayavarman Kaundinya, still controls trade in the Mekong delta and the Gulf of Thailand, though Chenla to its north is growing. The Cham kingdom rules central Vietnam, Mon peoples are forming Dvaravati in Thailand, and Indianized kingdoms such as Tarumanagara in western Java are appearing in the islands.","northern-north-america":"Dorset hunters occupy the eastern Arctic, and Birnirk and related cultures live along the Alaskan coast. Subarctic hunting peoples live in the forests, and the Pacific Northwest supports complex fishing societies with chiefs and nobles.","southern-north-america":"Teotihuacan is in its last century of greatness before the burning of its centre around 550. The Maya Classic period is in full swing, with Tikal and the rising Kaan (Snake) dynasty, then based at Dzibanche and later at Calakmul, competing for dominance, and the Zapotecs still rule from Monte Albán. Woodland peoples farm and build mounds in the eastern forests, and Basketmaker farmers live in the Southwest.","northern-south-america":"The Moche are at their peak on Peru's north coast, the Nazca continue in the south, and Tiwanaku is a major power around Lake Titicaca. The Wari culture is forming in the central highlands. Many farming peoples live along the Amazon and in the Caribbean lowlands of Colombia and Venezuela.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers range across the pampas and Patagonia, and fishing and sea-mammal hunting peoples live in Tierra del Fuego. Farming villages in northwest Argentina, including the Aguada culture, and in northern Chile trade with Tiwanaku.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live in hundreds of societies across the continent. New Guinea farming and trading networks extend along the coasts, and Polynesians in Tonga and Samoa maintain island chiefdoms linked by canoe voyages."},"powers":[{"name":"Sasanian Persian Empire","map":"Sasanian Empire","ruler":"Kavad I","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Mesopotamia, Iran, the Caucasus and parts of Central Asia","clio":"Sasanian Empire"},{"name":"Eastern Roman Empire","map":"Eastern Roman Empire","ruler":"Anastasius I","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt","clio":"Eastern Roman Empire"},{"name":"Northern Wei","map":"Toba Wei","ruler":"Emperor Xuanwu","capital":"Luoyang","extent":"Northern China from the steppe edge to the Huai River","clio":"Northern Wei"},{"name":"Southern Qi","map":"Jin Empire","ruler":"Xiao Baojuan","capital":"Jiankang (Nanjing)","extent":"Southern China","clio":"Southern Qi"},{"name":"Gupta Empire","map":"Gupta Empire","ruler":"Late Gupta kings","capital":"Pataliputra","extent":"The Ganges plain, shrinking under Hunnic attacks","clio":"Gupta Empire"},{"name":"Ostrogothic Kingdom","map":"Ostrogoths","ruler":"Theodoric the Great","capital":"Ravenna","extent":"Italy, Sicily and the lands north of the Adriatic","clio":"Ostrogothic Kingdom"},{"name":"Visigothic Kingdom","map":"Visigoths","ruler":"Alaric II","capital":"Toulouse","extent":"Spain and southwestern Gaul","clio":"Visigothic Kingdom"},{"name":"Frankish Kingdom","map":"Franks","ruler":"Clovis I","capital":"Soissons, later Paris","extent":"Northern Gaul and the lower Rhine","clio":"(Kingdom of the Franks)"},{"name":"Rouran Khaganate","map":"Ruanruan","ruler":"Yujiulü Nagai","capital":"Mobile court in Mongolia","extent":"Mongolia and the eastern steppe","clio":"Rouran Khaganate"},{"name":"Kingdom of Axum","map":"Axum","ruler":"Aksumite kings (Kaleb rises c. 510)","capital":"Axum","extent":"Ethiopia, Eritrea and influence across the Red Sea","clio":"Kingdom of Axum"}],"events":[{"year":476,"text":"Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus, last Western emperor"},{"year":486,"text":"Clovis defeats the last Roman ruler in Gaul at Soissons"},{"year":493,"text":"Theodoric takes Ravenna and rules Italy"},{"year":494,"text":"Northern Wei moves its capital to Luoyang"},{"year":496,"text":"Clovis converts to Catholic Christianity (c. 496)"},{"year":502,"text":"Liang dynasty founded in southern China"},{"year":507,"text":"Franks defeat the Visigoths at Vouillé"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Northern Wei","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Wei"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rouran Khaganate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouran_Khaganate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kavad I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavad_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Theodoric the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoric_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Calakmul","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calakmul"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Teotihuacan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"},{"title":"Martin & Velásquez García (2016), Polities and Places: Tracing the Toponyms of the Snake Dynasty, PARI Journal 17(2)","url":"https://www.mesoweb.com/pari/journal/archive/PARI1702.pdf"},{"title":"Herrmann, Historical and Commercial Atlas of China (1935): The Southern Ch'i and the Northern Wei Dynasties, boundaries of 500 A.D.","url":"https://archive.org/details/kpbc.umk.pl.Kartografia_040_POWER_001_10_258359"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.D, The Gupta-Vakataka Age, c. A.D. 300-500","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Gupta-Vakataka_Age_c._A.D._300-500.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. III: The Classical Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/classicalage03bhar"}]},{"year":600,"title":"Sui China Reunited","age":"Early Middle Ages","overview":"Around 600 CE the world is dominated by a handful of great empires. China has just been reunited after nearly three centuries of division by the Sui dynasty, whose founder Emperor Wen governs from a vast new capital at Chang'an and is building canals and granaries. On the steppe, the Göktürks have created a huge Turkic empire stretching from Manchuria to the Black Sea, though it is splitting into eastern and western halves. The Eastern Roman Empire under Maurice and Sasanian Persia under Khosrow II are briefly at peace, but both are about to enter a devastating war. In Arabia, a merchant of Mecca named Muhammad is about thirty years old; within a decade he will begin preaching Islam. In Western Europe, Frankish and Visigothic kingdoms and Pope Gregory the Great shape a Christian world. In India, regional kingdoms like the Chalukyas and Pallavas have replaced the Guptas, and in the Andes the Wari and Tiwanaku states are expanding.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking farmers live across central, eastern and southern Africa, with chiefdoms growing in the Zambezi and Limpopo valleys. Khoisan herders and foragers live in the dry southwest. Madagascar is being settled by Austronesian people from Borneo, who will later mix with Bantu-speaking Africans.","northern-africa":"The Eastern Romans hold Egypt and the coast of Tunisia and Libya, reconquered from the Vandals in 533–534, while Berber kingdoms hold the interior of the Maghreb. The Christian Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia rule the middle Nile, and Axum, though declining, still dominates the Ethiopian highlands. In West Africa the kingdom of Ghana is probably emerging, though written records of its gold trade begin only in the 700s.","europe":"The Frankish kingdom is divided among Merovingian kings, Theudebert II in Austrasia, Theuderic II in Burgundy and Chlothar II in Neustria, with Queen Brunhild a powerful force. The Visigoths, now Catholic, rule Spain from Toledo, the Lombards under Agilulf hold much of Italy, and Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) has sent missionaries to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent. The Avars under their khagan Bayan rule the Danube plain, with Slavs pouring into the Balkans.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Eastern Roman Empire holds Anatolia, Syria and Palestine, while the Sasanians under Khosrow II (r. 590–628), restored to his throne with Roman help, rule Mesopotamia, Iran and Yemen. In the Hejaz, Mecca is a trading town of the Quraysh tribe where Muhammad lives. In India, Harsha will soon build an empire from Kanauj (606), while the Chalukyas under Mangalesha rule the western Deccan, the Pallavas rule the southeast from Kanchipuram, and Shashanka rules Bengal.","north-central-asia":"The Göktürk Khaganate, founded in 552, has split into eastern and western halves: the Western khagan Tardu rules from Transoxiana to the Caspian, controlling the Silk Road cities of Sogdiana. The Khazars and other Turkic peoples are rising north of the Caucasus. Siberia is home to forest hunters and reindeer herders.","east-asia":"Emperor Wen of Sui (r. 581–604) rules a reunified China from Daxing (Chang'an); his son Yang will build the Grand Canal and launch disastrous wars on Korea. The Eastern Turks under Yami Qaghan are Sui clients. In Korea, Goguryeo under King Yeongyang resists Chinese attacks, while Baekje and Silla compete in the south, and in Japan Empress Suiko and Prince Shotoku are importing Buddhism and Chinese-style government. In Tibet, Namri Songtsen is unifying the Yarlung valley chiefs.","southeast-asia":"Chenla, a Khmer kingdom, has overtaken Funan and controls much of Cambodia. The Mon kingdoms of Dvaravati rule central Thailand, the Pyu city-states rule central Burma, and Champa rules central Vietnam. In the islands, trading kingdoms in Sumatra and Java are preparing the ground for Srivijaya.","northern-north-america":"The Arctic is occupied by Dorset Paleo-Inuit hunters in the east and Birnirk whaling peoples in Alaska. Subarctic hunters live in the boreal forest, and the Pacific Northwest supports wealthy fishing societies.","southern-north-america":"Teotihuacan's centre has been burned and the city is in decline, leaving a power vacuum in central Mexico. The Maya cities are at the height of the Classic period, with the Snake (Kaan) dynasty, soon to rule from Calakmul, dominating rival Tikal and Palenque rising. In the American Southwest, Basketmaker farmers and Hohokam canal-builders flourish, and Late Woodland peoples farm the eastern woodlands.","northern-south-america":"Two great Andean states are expanding: Wari in the central highlands of Peru, building roads and administrative centres, and Tiwanaku around Lake Titicaca. The Moche of the north coast are in their final phase after severe climate disasters. Amazonian peoples, including the Marajoara, live in large settlements along the rivers.","southern-cone":"Hunting and gathering peoples range over the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego. In northwest Argentina the Aguada culture and in northern Chile oasis communities such as San Pedro de Atacama trade with Tiwanaku.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent, and New Guinea is home to hundreds of farming societies. Polynesians remain in western Polynesia, while the islands of eastern Polynesia, Hawaii, Rapa Nui and New Zealand are still unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Sui Dynasty","map":"Sui Empire","ruler":"Emperor Wen","capital":"Daxing (Chang'an)","extent":"All of China from the Great Wall to Vietnam","clio":"Sui Dynasty"},{"name":"Göktürk Khaganate","map":"Göktürks","ruler":"Tardu (Western khagan) and Yami Qaghan (Eastern, a Sui client)","capital":"Mobile courts in Mongolia and the Tian Shan","extent":"The steppes from Manchuria to the Caspian","clio":"Western Göktürks"},{"name":"Sasanian Persian Empire","map":"Sasanian Empire","ruler":"Khosrow II","capital":"Ctesiphon","extent":"Mesopotamia, Iran, the Caucasus and Yemen","clio":"Sasanian Empire"},{"name":"Eastern Roman Empire","map":"Eastern Roman Empire","ruler":"Maurice","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and parts of Italy and Spain","clio":"Eastern Roman Empire"},{"name":"Frankish Kingdom","map":"Frankish Kingdom","ruler":"Merovingian kings Chlothar II, Theudebert II and Theuderic II","capital":"Paris, Metz and Orléans","extent":"Gaul and western Germany","clio":"(Kingdom of the Franks)"},{"name":"Visigothic Kingdom","map":"Visigothic Kingdom","ruler":"Reccared I","capital":"Toledo","extent":"The Iberian Peninsula and Septimania","clio":"Visigothic Kingdom"},{"name":"Avar Khaganate","map":"Avars","ruler":"Bayan I","capital":"Pannonian plain","extent":"The Danube basin, ruling over Slavic peoples","clio":"Avar Khaganate"},{"name":"Chalukya Dynasty","map":"Chalukyas","ruler":"Mangalesha","capital":"Vatapi (Badami)","extent":"The western Deccan","clio":"Chalukya Dynasty"},{"name":"Goguryeo","map":"Koguryo","ruler":"King Yeongyang","capital":"Pyongyang","extent":"Northern Korea and southern Manchuria","clio":"Goguryeo"}],"events":[{"year":568,"text":"Lombards invade Italy"},{"year":570,"text":"Muhammad born in Mecca (c. 570)"},{"year":581,"text":"Sui dynasty founded"},{"year":589,"text":"Sui conquers the Chen and reunites China"},{"year":591,"text":"Khosrow II regains the Persian throne with Roman help"},{"year":597,"text":"Augustine's mission reaches Kent"},{"year":602,"text":"Emperor Maurice murdered; Roman-Persian war follows"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor Wen of Sui","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wen_of_Sui"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mangalesha","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalesha"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Calakmul","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calakmul"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.D, The age of Pusyabhuti and Calukyan ascendancy, c. A.D. 550-700","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_Pusyabhuti_and_Calukyan_ascendancy_c._A.D._550-700.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. III: The Classical Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/classicalage03bhar"}]},{"year":700,"title":"The Caliphate Expands","age":"Early Middle Ages","overview":"In 700 CE the map of western Eurasia has been transformed by the rise of Islam. Within seventy years of the Prophet Muhammad's death, Arab armies have destroyed the Sasanian Empire and taken Syria, Egypt and North Africa from the Byzantines. The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik rules from Damascus, has built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and has made Arabic the language of government; his armies have just captured Carthage and will soon cross into Spain and Central Asia. The Byzantine Empire, reduced to Anatolia, the Balkan coasts and southern Italy, has survived an Arab siege of Constantinople. In China the remarkable Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China as emperor in her own name, governs at the height of Tang power, while a new Tibetan Empire contests Central Asia. In Europe, Frankish mayors of the palace hold the real power, and in the Americas the Maya city of Tikal has just defeated its great rival Calakmul.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking farmers occupy most of eastern and southern Africa, with growing cattle-based chiefdoms in the Limpopo and Zambezi regions. Khoisan foragers and herders hold the Kalahari and the Cape. Madagascar is being settled by Austronesian and African peoples.","northern-africa":"Umayyad armies have conquered Egypt and Libya and captured Carthage in 698, though Berber resistance led by the queen Dihya (al-Kahina) is only now being crushed. The Christian kingdom of Makuria, which defeated Arab invaders and agreed the Baqt treaty in 652, rules Nubia alongside Alodia, while Axum is declining in the Ethiopian highlands. Ghana is the great gold-trading kingdom of West Africa.","europe":"The Frankish kingdom is nominally ruled by Merovingian kings such as Childebert III, but real power lies with Pepin of Herstal, mayor of the palace. The Visigothic kingdom of Spain, under Egica and his son Wittiza, will fall to Arab and Berber invaders in 711. The Lombards rule much of Italy, the Bulgars, now led by Tervel (r. c. 700–721), hold the state south of the Danube founded by his father Asparukh in 681, the Khazars dominate the Pontic steppe, and Anglo-Saxon kingdoms such as Mercia and Northumbria flourish in England.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) rules Arabia, the Levant, Iraq and Iran from Damascus, with the governor al-Hajjaj controlling the east. The Byzantine Empire holds Anatolia. In India, the Chalukyas of Badami under Vijayaditya rule the Deccan, the Pallavas under Narasimhavarman II build temples at Kanchipuram and Mamallapuram, and Raja Dahir rules Sind, which the Arabs will conquer in 711–712.","north-central-asia":"The Second Turkic Khaganate, revived in 682, dominates Mongolia under Qapaghan Khagan, while the Türgesh lead the western Turks. Arab armies in Khorasan are preparing to invade Transoxiana, which they will conquer under Qutayba ibn Muslim from 705. The Khazars rule the lower Volga steppe, and Siberia is home to hunting and herding peoples.","east-asia":"Wu Zetian (r. 690–705) rules China as emperor of her own Zhou dynasty, interrupting the Tang, from Luoyang; Chinese power reaches deep into Central Asia. The Tibetan Empire under Tridu Songtsen contests the Tarim Basin with China. Silla has unified most of Korea (668–676), while in the north Dae Joyeong has just founded Balhae (698), and Japan, under Emperor Monmu, is about to issue the Taiho Code (701) creating a Chinese-style state.","southeast-asia":"Srivijaya, based at Palembang in Sumatra, is emerging as the master of the Strait of Malacca trade after its expansion in the 680s. Chenla rules the Khmer lands but is splitting into rival halves, while Dvaravati, the Pyu city-states and Champa rule their regions, and northern Vietnam is the Tang Protectorate of Annam.","northern-north-america":"Dorset Paleo-Inuit hunters live across the eastern Arctic, and Birnirk whaling cultures, ancestors of the Thule, live along the Bering Strait. Subarctic hunting peoples occupy the boreal forest, and Pacific Northwest peoples live in wealthy cedar-plank villages.","southern-north-america":"In 695 Tikal, under Jasaw Chan K'awiil I, defeated Calakmul, and Maya cities such as Palenque, Copán and Tikal are at their artistic height. Teotihuacan is largely abandoned, and new centres such as Xochicalco and Cacaxtla are rising in central Mexico. Hohokam canal builders and Ancestral Puebloan farmers live in the Southwest, and Late Woodland peoples farm the east.","northern-south-america":"The Wari Empire rules much of highland and coastal Peru from its capital near Ayacucho, connected by roads and administrative centres. Tiwanaku dominates the Lake Titicaca basin, and the Moche have broken into smaller states. Peoples of the Amazon live in large villages, some surrounded by earthworks.","southern-cone":"The Southern Cone is home to hunter-gatherers on the pampas and in Patagonia, and canoe peoples in the far south. Farming villages in northwest Argentina and oasis towns in northern Chile are linked by llama caravans to Tiwanaku.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent in diverse societies. New Guinea farming peoples trade along the coasts, and Polynesians in Tonga and Samoa are on the eve of voyages that will settle eastern Polynesia."},"powers":[{"name":"Umayyad Caliphate","map":"Umayyad Caliphate","ruler":"Abd al-Malik","capital":"Damascus","extent":"From Tunisia across Egypt, Arabia and Iraq to Iran and Khorasan","clio":"Umayyad Caliphate"},{"name":"Tang (Wu Zhou) China","map":"Sui Empire","ruler":"Wu Zetian","capital":"Luoyang","extent":"China, with protectorates over the Tarim Basin and Annam","clio":"Tang Dynasty"},{"name":"Tibetan Empire","map":"Tufan Empire","ruler":"Tridu Songtsen","capital":"Lhasa region (Yarlung)","extent":"The Tibetan plateau and parts of the Tarim Basin","clio":"Tibetan Empire"},{"name":"Second Turkic Khaganate","map":"Göktürks","ruler":"Qapaghan Khagan","capital":"Ötüken (Orkhon valley)","extent":"Mongolia and the eastern steppe","clio":"Turks"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Eastern Roman Empire","ruler":"Tiberius III","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, Balkan coasts, Sicily, southern Italy and the Exarchate of Ravenna","clio":"Byzantine Empire"},{"name":"Khazar Khaganate","map":"Khazars","ruler":"Busir (c.)","capital":"Balanjar, later Atil","extent":"The lower Volga, North Caucasus and Pontic steppe","clio":"Khazaria"},{"name":"Frankish Kingdom","map":"Frankish Kingdom","ruler":"Childebert III (real power with Pepin of Herstal)","capital":"Paris and Metz","extent":"Gaul and western Germany","clio":"(Kingdom of the Franks)"},{"name":"Chalukyas of Badami","map":"Chalukyas","ruler":"Vijayaditya","capital":"Vatapi (Badami)","extent":"The Deccan plateau","clio":"Chalukya Dynasty"},{"name":"Unified Silla","map":"Silla","ruler":"King Hyoso","capital":"Gyeongju","extent":"Most of the Korean peninsula","clio":"Unified Silla"}],"events":[{"year":622,"text":"Muhammad's migration to Medina (the Hijra)"},{"year":651,"text":"Last Sasanian king dies; Persia falls to the Arabs"},{"year":661,"text":"Umayyad Caliphate founded"},{"year":674,"text":"Arabs begin a long siege of Constantinople (674–678)"},{"year":690,"text":"Wu Zetian proclaims herself emperor"},{"year":691,"text":"Dome of the Rock completed in Jerusalem"},{"year":698,"text":"Arabs capture Carthage; Balhae founded in Manchuria"},{"year":711,"text":"Arab and Berber armies invade Spain"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Malik_ibn_Marwan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Wu Zetian","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Zetian"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tervel of Bulgaria","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tervel_of_Bulgaria"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tridu Songtsen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tridu_Songtsen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Busir","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busir"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Calakmul","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calakmul"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Exarchate of Ravenna","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarchate_of_Ravenna"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.D, The age of Pusyabhuti and Calukyan ascendancy, c. A.D. 550-700","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_Pusyabhuti_and_Calukyan_ascendancy_c._A.D._550-700.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"year":800,"title":"Charlemagne Crowned","age":"Early Middle Ages","overview":"On Christmas Day 800, Pope Leo III crowns the Frankish king Charlemagne emperor of the Romans in St Peter's in Rome, reviving the imperial title in the West for the first time in over three centuries. Charlemagne's empire stretches from the Pyrenees to the Elbe and into Italy. Yet the greatest power of the age is the Abbasid Caliphate, ruled by Harun al-Rashid from Baghdad, a city of perhaps half a million people and a centre of trade, translation and science. In Constantinople, Empress Irene rules the Byzantine Empire as sole sovereign. Tang China is recovering from the catastrophic An Lushan Rebellion, while the Tibetan Empire and the Uyghur Khaganate dominate Central Asia. In India, the Rashtrakutas, Palas and Pratiharas fight for control of the north. Vikings have begun raiding the coasts of Britain, and on Java the Sailendra kings are building Borobudur. In the Americas, the Maya cities are nearing their collapse.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking farmers live across eastern and southern Africa, and cattle-keeping chiefdoms are growing in the Limpopo valley, forerunners of Mapungubwe. Swahili trading villages are appearing along the East African coast. Madagascar is home to Malagasy communities of Austronesian and African descent, and Khoisan peoples still occupy the far southwest.","northern-africa":"Egypt is an Abbasid province, and in 800 Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab founds the Aghlabid dynasty in Ifriqiya (Tunisia), ruling for the caliph; the Idrisids rule northern Morocco from Walila (Volubilis), where the boy Idris II is guided by regents. Christian Makuria and Alodia rule Nubia. In West Africa, Ghana is the great gold empire of the Soninke, and Kanem is forming near Lake Chad.","europe":"Charlemagne (king 768–814, emperor from 800) rules the Carolingian Empire from Aachen, having conquered the Saxons, the Lombards and the Avars. The Byzantine Empire is ruled by Empress Irene (r. 797–802) from Constantinople, while al-Hakam I rules the Emirate of Córdoba in Spain and the small Christian kingdom of Asturias holds out in the north. Offa's successor Coenwulf rules Mercia in England, Viking raids have begun since Lindisfarne in 793, and the Khazars and Bulgars dominate the east.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Abbasid Caliphate under Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) rules from Baghdad over Iraq, Iran, Arabia, Syria and Egypt. The Byzantines hold Anatolia, frequently raided by Abbasid armies. In India three powers struggle for the Ganges plain: the Rashtrakutas under Govinda III in the Deccan, the Palas under Dharmapala in Bengal and Bihar, and the Gurjara-Pratiharas under Nagabhata II in the west.","north-central-asia":"The Uyghur Khaganate, under Huaixin Khagan, rules Mongolia from its capital Ordu-Baliq and is an ally and creditor of Tang China. The Abbasids hold Transoxiana and its Silk Road cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, the Karluks rule the Tian Shan, and the Khazars and Volga Bulgars control the western steppe.","east-asia":"Tang China, under Emperor Dezong (r. 779–805), rules from Chang'an but has lost much power to regional military governors since the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763). The Tibetan Empire, whose throne passes to the boy king Tride Songtsen around this time, holds the Tarim Basin and Gansu. Silla rules Korea, Balhae rules Manchuria, and in Japan Emperor Kanmu has just moved the capital to Heian-kyō (Kyoto) in 794, beginning the Heian period.","southeast-asia":"Srivijaya controls the Strait of Malacca from Sumatra, and the Sailendra dynasty of central Java is building Borobudur, the world's largest Buddhist monument. In Cambodia, Jayavarman II will proclaim himself universal monarch in 802, founding the Khmer Empire. Champa, the Pyu, the Mon and the Nanzhao kingdom (in Yunnan) round out the region.","northern-north-america":"Dorset hunters occupy the eastern Arctic, while in Alaska whaling cultures are developing into the Thule, who will later spread east across the Arctic. Athabaskan, Algonquian and Beothuk peoples hunt in the subarctic forests, and Pacific Northwest peoples build plank houses and carve monumental art.","southern-north-america":"The Maya cities of the southern lowlands are at the end of their Classic peak; within a century most will be abandoned. Central Mexico is divided among cities like Xochicalco and Cacaxtla, and the Toltecs are beginning to rise. Ancestral Puebloans and the Mogollon and Hohokam peoples farm the Southwest, and in the Mississippi valley maize farming is spreading, setting the stage for Mississippian chiefdoms.","northern-south-america":"The Wari Empire dominates highland and coastal Peru, while Tiwanaku rules the Lake Titicaca basin. Tupi-speaking peoples are expanding along the Brazilian coast and the Amazon, and the Marajoara culture builds mounds at the mouth of the Amazon.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers occupy the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in the far south. Tiwanaku influence reaches oasis communities in northern Chile, such as San Pedro de Atacama, and farming peoples live in northwest Argentina and central Chile.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live in diverse societies across the continent. Papuan and Austronesian peoples farm and trade in New Guinea, and Polynesians in Tonga and Samoa are poised to settle eastern Polynesia, the start of the last great human migration."},"powers":[{"name":"Abbasid Caliphate","map":"Abbasid Caliphate","ruler":"Harun al-Rashid","capital":"Baghdad","extent":"From Tunisia to Central Asia","clio":"Abbasid Caliphate"},{"name":"Tang Dynasty","map":"Tang Empire","ruler":"Emperor Dezong","capital":"Chang'an","extent":"China proper, with much power held by regional governors","clio":"Tang Dynasty"},{"name":"Tibetan Empire","map":"Tibetan Empire","ruler":"Tride Songtsen (accession c. 800–804, dates uncertain)","capital":"Lhasa","extent":"The Tibetan plateau, the Tarim Basin and Gansu","clio":"Tibetan Empire"},{"name":"Carolingian Empire","map":"Carolingian Empire","ruler":"Charlemagne","capital":"Aachen","extent":"France, Germany, the Low Countries, northern Italy and Catalonia","clio":"(Carolingian Empire)"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Byzantine Empire","ruler":"Empress Irene","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, Greece, Balkan coasts, Sicily and southern Italy","clio":"Byzantine Empire"},{"name":"Uyghur Khaganate","map":"Uyghurs","ruler":"Huaixin Khagan","capital":"Ordu-Baliq","extent":"Mongolia and the eastern steppe","clio":"Uyghur Khaganate"},{"name":"Khazar Khaganate","map":"Khazars","ruler":"Khazar khagan and bek (names uncertain)","capital":"Atil","extent":"The Volga, the North Caucasus and the Pontic steppe","clio":"Khazaria"},{"name":"Rashtrakuta Dynasty","map":"Rashtrakuta state","ruler":"Govinda III","capital":"Mayurkhandi, later Manyakheta","extent":"The Deccan, with raids deep into northern India","clio":"Rashtrakuta Dynasty"},{"name":"Emirate of Córdoba","map":"Emirate of Córdoba","ruler":"al-Hakam I","capital":"Córdoba","extent":"Most of the Iberian Peninsula","clio":"Emirate of Córdoba"},{"name":"Srivijaya","map":"Srivijaya Empire","ruler":"Srivijayan maharajas, allied with Java's Sailendras","capital":"Palembang","extent":"Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and the Strait of Malacca","clio":"Srivijaya"}],"events":[{"year":750,"text":"Abbasids overthrow the Umayyads"},{"year":751,"text":"Battle of Talas between Abbasids and Tang"},{"year":755,"text":"An Lushan Rebellion devastates Tang China"},{"year":762,"text":"Baghdad founded as the Abbasid capital"},{"year":793,"text":"Vikings raid Lindisfarne"},{"year":794,"text":"Japan's capital moves to Heian-kyō (Kyoto)"},{"year":800,"text":"Charlemagne crowned emperor in Rome"},{"year":802,"text":"Jayavarman II founds the Khmer Empire"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Irene of Athens","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_of_Athens"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aghlabids","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghlabids"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fez, Morocco","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez,_Morocco"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nagabhata II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagabhata_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Uyghur Khaganate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_Khaganate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sadnalegs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadnalegs"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. IV.1, The age of the Gurjara-Pratiharas, Palas, and Rastrakutas, c. A.D. 700-975","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_the_Gurjara-Pratiharas_Palas_and_Rastrakutas_c._A.D._700-975.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IV: The Age of Imperial Kanauj (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialkan04bhar"}]},{"year":900,"title":"Empires Breaking Apart","age":"Early Middle Ages","overview":"Around 900 CE the great empires of the previous century are fragmenting. The Abbasid caliph still reigns in Baghdad, but real power in the Islamic world is passing to regional dynasties: the Samanids of Bukhara, who in 900 defeat the Saffarids, the Tulunids in Egypt, and the Aghlabids in Tunisia, whose lands the Fatimids will soon seize. Tang China is in its death throes and will fall in 907. Charlemagne's empire has split into East and West Francia, both under attack from Vikings, Magyars and Arab raiders. In the east, a new state, Kyivan Rus, has formed under the Viking-descended prince Oleg, and the Magyars are moving into the Hungarian plain. The Byzantine Empire under Leo VI is stable, and Bulgaria under Simeon I is its greatest rival. In Southeast Asia, Khmer kings are building Angkor. In Mesoamerica the Classic Maya cities of the south have been abandoned, while Chichen Itza rises in Yucatán.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Bantu-speaking farmers occupy most of southern and eastern Africa, and chiefdoms in the Limpopo valley grow rich trading ivory and gold to the coast. Swahili trading towns are developing along the East African shore. Madagascar has Malagasy farming communities, and Khoisan peoples live in the west and south.","northern-africa":"Egypt is ruled by the Tulunid dynasty, nominally under the Abbasids, who will reclaim it in 905. The Aghlabids rule Tunisia and Sicily, but will be overthrown by the Shi'a Fatimids in 909, while the Idrisid state in Morocco is fragmenting among Berber groups. Christian Makuria and Alodia rule Nubia, Ghana dominates the West African gold trade, Kanem grows near Lake Chad, and the bronze-casters of Igbo-Ukwu flourish in south-eastern Nigeria, east of the lower Niger.","europe":"The Carolingian Empire is divided: Louis the Child rules East Francia and Charles the Simple West Francia, while Vikings settle in England's Danelaw and raid France. Alfred the Great of Wessex died in 899, and his son Edward the Elder is reclaiming England. Oleg rules Kyivan Rus, Simeon I rules a powerful Bulgaria, the Magyars under Árpád are conquering the Carpathian basin and destroying Great Moravia, Leo VI the Wise rules Byzantium, and the Umayyad emir Abd Allah rules a troubled Córdoba.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tadid (r. 892–902) has restored some authority in Baghdad, but Iran is divided between the Samanids and the Saffarids, whose ruler Amr ibn al-Layth is captured by the Samanids in 900. The Byzantines hold Anatolia. In India, the Pratiharas under Mahendrapala I rule the Ganges plain from Kanauj, the Rashtrakutas under Krishna II rule the Deccan, the Palas hold Bengal, the Hindu Shahis rule Kabul and the Punjab, and the Cholas under Aditya I are rising in the Tamil south.","north-central-asia":"The Samanid Empire under Ismail ibn Ahmad rules Transoxiana and Khorasan from Bukhara, a brilliant Persian Muslim court. The Oghuz Turks roam the Aral steppe, the Karluks hold the Tian Shan, and the Pechenegs, Khazars and Volga Bulgars control the western steppe. The Uyghur Khaganate was destroyed by the Kyrgyz in 840, and Uyghurs now rule oasis kingdoms in Turfan and Gansu.","east-asia":"The Tang dynasty, under Emperor Zhaozong (r. 888–904), has been wrecked by the Huang Chao rebellion and will end in 907, opening the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. The Tibetan Empire collapsed in the 840s, and Tibet is fragmented. In Korea, Silla is splitting into the Later Three Kingdoms as Gyeon Hwon proclaims Later Baekje in 900; Balhae still rules Manchuria, the Khitans under Abaoji are rising in the north, and Japan is ruled by Emperor Daigo, who governs without a Fujiwara regent though Fujiwara no Tokihira leads his court.","southeast-asia":"The Khmer Empire under Yasovarman I (r. from 889) builds a new capital, Yasodharapura, at Angkor. Srivijaya dominates the Strait of Malacca, and the Mataram kingdom of Java has recently built the great Hindu temple of Prambanan. The Burmese kingdom of Pagan is emerging, and Champa rules central Vietnam.","northern-north-america":"Dorset Paleo-Inuit still hunt in the eastern Arctic, and the Thule culture is forming in Alaska. Between about 870 and 930 Norse settlers colonize Iceland, the gateway to Greenland and North America. Athabaskan, Algonquian and Beothuk peoples hunt in the subarctic forests.","southern-north-america":"The Classic Maya cities of the southern lowlands have collapsed, with the last dated monuments erected around 909, while Chichen Itza rises in northern Yucatán. In central Mexico, the Toltecs are building their capital at Tula. In the Southwest, Ancestral Puebloans are building the great houses of Chaco Canyon, and early Mississippian farming chiefdoms are forming along the Mississippi.","northern-south-america":"The Wari Empire is in decline in Peru, and Tiwanaku still dominates the Titicaca basin. The Sicán (Lambayeque) culture is rising on Peru's north coast, Tupi peoples are expanding along the Brazilian coast, and the Muisca and other chiefdoms live in the Colombian highlands.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers occupy the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego. Farming peoples in northwest Argentina and northern Chile trade with Tiwanaku, and Guarani-speaking farmers are expanding into Paraguay and southern Brazil.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent. In the Pacific, Polynesians in Samoa and Tonga will, within the next century or two, sail east to settle the Cook, Society and Marquesas Islands, the heart of eastern Polynesia."},"powers":[{"name":"Abbasid Caliphate","map":"Abbasid Caliphate","ruler":"al-Mu'tadid","capital":"Baghdad","extent":"Iraq, western Iran, Syria and Arabia; Egypt nominally","clio":"Abbasid Caliphate"},{"name":"Tang Dynasty","map":"Tang Empire","ruler":"Emperor Zhaozong","capital":"Chang'an","extent":"China, though controlled by warlords","clio":"Tang Dynasty"},{"name":"Samanid Empire","map":"Samanid Empire","ruler":"Ismail ibn Ahmad","capital":"Bukhara","extent":"Transoxiana, Khorasan and eastern Iran","clio":"Samanid Empire"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Byzantine Empire","ruler":"Leo VI the Wise","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, Greece and southern Italy","clio":"Byzantine Empire"},{"name":"Kyivan Rus","map":"Kyivan Rus","ruler":"Oleg","capital":"Kyiv","extent":"The river routes from Novgorod to Kyiv","clio":null},{"name":"First Bulgarian Empire","map":"Bulgars","ruler":"Simeon I","capital":"Preslav","extent":"The eastern Balkans from the Danube to Macedonia","clio":"First Bulgarian Empire"},{"name":"East Francia","map":"East Francia","ruler":"Louis the Child","capital":"Regensburg and Frankfurt","extent":"Germany from the Rhine to the Elbe","clio":"(Allegiance of East Franks to Carolingian Empire)"},{"name":"Gurjara-Pratihara Empire","map":"Gurjara Pratihara","ruler":"Mahendrapala I","capital":"Kanauj","extent":"The Ganges plain and Rajasthan","clio":"Gurjara-Pratihara Dynasty"},{"name":"Rashtrakuta Dynasty","map":"Rashtrakuta","ruler":"Krishna II","capital":"Manyakheta","extent":"The Deccan plateau","clio":"Rashtrakuta Dynasty"},{"name":"Khmer Empire","map":"Khmer Empire","ruler":"Yasovarman I","capital":"Yasodharapura (Angkor)","extent":"Cambodia and parts of Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam","clio":"Khmer Empire"}],"events":[{"year":843,"text":"Treaty of Verdun splits Charlemagne's empire"},{"year":875,"text":"Huang Chao rebellion begins in China (c. 875)"},{"year":882,"text":"Oleg takes Kyiv, forming Kyivan Rus"},{"year":893,"text":"Simeon I becomes ruler of Bulgaria"},{"year":895,"text":"Magyars begin their conquest of the Carpathian basin"},{"year":900,"text":"Samanids defeat the Saffarids near Balkh"},{"year":907,"text":"Tang dynasty falls"},{"year":909,"text":"Fatimid Caliphate proclaimed in North Africa"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Isma'il ibn Ahmad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isma%27il_ibn_Ahmad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aghlabids","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghlabids"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yasovarman I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasovarman_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gyeon Hwon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeon_Hwon"},{"title":"University of Hawaii: East Polynesia colonized faster and more recently than previously thought (Wilmshurst et al. 2011)","url":"https://manoa.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=4097"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor Daigo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Daigo"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. IV.1, The age of the Gurjara-Pratiharas, Palas, and Rastrakutas, c. A.D. 700-975","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_the_Gurjara-Pratiharas_Palas_and_Rastrakutas_c._A.D._700-975.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IV: The Age of Imperial Kanauj (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialkan04bhar"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"},{"title":"Wilmshurst et al. (2011), High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia, PNAS","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3033267/"}]},{"year":1000,"title":"The Millennium Turns","age":"High Middle Ages","overview":"In the year 1000, Song China, ruled by Emperor Zhenzong from the bustling city of Kaifeng, is the richest and most technologically advanced society on Earth, with printing, paper money on the way and a civil service chosen by examination. It faces powerful northern neighbours, the Khitan Liao. The Islamic world is split among three caliphs: the Abbasid in Baghdad, under the control of the Buyid emirs; the Fatimid al-Hakim in Cairo; and the Umayyad in Córdoba, where the general Almanzor holds power. Mahmud of Ghazni is launching his raids into India. The Byzantine Empire under Basil II is at its medieval peak. In Europe, new Christian kingdoms are being born: Poland, Hungary, and the Rus of Vladimir the Great, while Emperor Otto III dreams of reviving Rome. In South India the Chola king Rajaraja I is building an empire. Norse sailors have reached Greenland and are exploring North America, and in Mexico the Toltecs dominate from Tula.","regions":{"southern-africa":"In the Limpopo valley, chiefdoms such as K2 are growing rich on ivory and gold traded to the coast, and will soon give rise to Mapungubwe; early stone-walled settlement is beginning on the Zimbabwe plateau. Swahili towns such as Kilwa and Shanga trade with Arabia, Persia and India. Madagascar is home to Malagasy farming chiefdoms, and Khoisan peoples hold the southwest.","northern-africa":"The Fatimid Caliphate, under the unpredictable al-Hakim (r. 996–1021), rules Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz from Cairo, with the Zirids governing Tunisia for them. Christian Makuria and Alodia rule Nubia. In West Africa, the empire of Ghana is at its height, controlling the gold trade, while Gao, Takrur and Kanem are important trading kingdoms.","europe":"Otto III (r. 996–1002) rules the Holy Roman Empire and, in 1000, visits Gniezno to honour Poland's ruler Bolesław I the Brave, while Stephen I is crowned first king of Hungary (1000 or 1001). Vladimir the Great rules a newly Christian Kyivan Rus, Basil II rules a resurgent Byzantine Empire at war with Bulgaria, Robert II rules France, and Æthelred the Unready struggles against Danish raids in England. Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark wins the sea battle of Svolder against Norway's Olaf Tryggvason, and in Spain the Caliphate of Córdoba is at its peak under Almanzor, while Iceland adopts Christianity.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Buyid emirs, under Baha al-Dawla, rule Iraq and western Iran and control the Abbasid caliph al-Qadir in Baghdad, while the Fatimids hold Syria and the Byzantines Anatolia and parts of northern Syria. Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 998–1030) rules Afghanistan and eastern Iran and will defeat the Hindu Shahi king Jayapala in 1001. In India, the Chola king Rajaraja I (r. 985–1014) rules the Tamil south, the Western Chalukyas the Deccan, the Palas Bengal, and many Rajput kingdoms the north.","north-central-asia":"The Samanid Empire has just been destroyed (999) by the Karakhanids, a Turkic Muslim dynasty that now rules Transoxiana, and the Ghaznavids, who took Khorasan. The Kimek and Kipchak Turks dominate the western Siberian steppe, the Oghuz roam near the Aral Sea, and the Volga Bulgars and Pechenegs hold the western steppe. Siberia is home to hunting and reindeer-herding peoples.","east-asia":"The Song dynasty, founded in 960, rules China from Kaifeng under Emperor Zhenzong (r. 997–1022). The Khitan Liao dynasty, under Emperor Shengzong and his formidable mother the Empress Dowager Xiao, rules Manchuria, Mongolia and part of north China, and the Tanguts under Li Jiqian are building the future Western Xia state in the northwest. Goryeo rules Korea, and Heian Japan, under Emperor Ichijō and the all-powerful minister Fujiwara no Michinaga, is the world of Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji; Tibet is fragmented.","southeast-asia":"The Khmer Empire rules from Angkor, where Suryavarman I will soon take power (c. 1006). Srivijaya controls the Strait of Malacca and is at war with the Javanese kingdom of Mataram, which collapses in 1016. Đại Cồ Việt, independent from China since 938, is ruled by Lê Hoàn, and Champa, Pagan and the Mon kingdoms rule elsewhere in the region.","northern-north-america":"Norse settlers led by Erik the Red have colonized Greenland since 985, and around 1000 Leif Erikson reaches Vinland; a Norse camp at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland dates to this period. The Thule culture is taking shape in coastal Alaska; its rapid eastward migration, which will displace the Dorset, begins only around 1200. Athabaskan, Algonquian and Beothuk peoples hunt the forests.","southern-north-america":"The Toltecs dominate central Mexico from Tula, and Chichen Itza, with strong Toltec-style art, is the leading city of Yucatán. The Mixtecs and Zapotecs hold Oaxaca. In the Southwest, Chaco Canyon is the hub of the Ancestral Puebloan world, and the Mississippian culture is rising in the Mississippi valley, where Cahokia will soon grow into a city. In the Caribbean, Taino chiefdoms are forming.","northern-south-america":"The Wari Empire has collapsed and Tiwanaku is in decline, leaving the Andes divided among regional states. On the north coast of Peru the Sicán culture produces spectacular gold work, and the Chimú are beginning to build their kingdom. Tupi peoples live along the Brazilian coast, and chiefdoms flourish in the Amazon and the Colombian highlands.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers occupy the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples the southern channels. Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche ancestors in central Chile, and Guarani farmers in Paraguay and southern Brazil.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent. Polynesians are about to settle eastern Polynesia, beginning with the Society Islands (c. 1025–1120 by recent radiocarbon dating), while the Tu'i Tonga line of sacred kings is founded in Tonga (c. 950). New Zealand and Rapa Nui are still unsettled."},"powers":[{"name":"Song Dynasty","map":"Song Empire","ruler":"Emperor Zhenzong","capital":"Kaifeng","extent":"China proper, except the far north and northwest","clio":"Northern Song"},{"name":"Fatimid Caliphate","map":"Fatimid Caliphate","ruler":"al-Hakim","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt, Syria, the Hejaz and, through the Zirids, North Africa","clio":"Fatimid Caliphate"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Byzantine Empire","ruler":"Basil II","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, Greece, the eastern Balkans (western Bulgaria holds out until 1018), northern Syria and southern Italy","clio":"Byzantine Empire"},{"name":"Liao Dynasty","map":"Liao","ruler":"Emperor Shengzong (with Empress Dowager Xiao)","capital":"Shangjing","extent":"Manchuria, Mongolia and the far north of China","clio":"Liao Dynasty"},{"name":"Holy Roman Empire","map":"Holy Roman Empire","ruler":"Otto III","capital":"Aachen and Rome (no fixed capital)","extent":"Germany, northern Italy and the Low Countries","clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)"},{"name":"Kyivan Rus","map":"Kyivan Rus","ruler":"Vladimir the Great","capital":"Kyiv","extent":"From the Baltic to the Black Sea steppe","clio":null},{"name":"Ghaznavid Empire","map":"Ghaznavid Emirate","ruler":"Mahmud of Ghazni","capital":"Ghazni","extent":"Afghanistan, Khorasan and the Indus borderlands","clio":"Ghaznavid Empire"},{"name":"Buyid Emirate","map":"Buwayhid Emirates","ruler":"Baha al-Dawla","capital":"Baghdad and Shiraz","extent":"Iraq and western Iran","clio":"Buyid Dynasty"},{"name":"Chola Empire","map":"Chola Empire","ruler":"Rajaraja I","capital":"Thanjavur","extent":"Tamil Nadu, Kerala and northern Sri Lanka","clio":"Chola Empire"},{"name":"Caliphate of Córdoba","map":"Caliphate of Córdoba","ruler":"Hisham II (real power with Almanzor)","capital":"Córdoba","extent":"Most of Spain and Portugal and parts of Morocco","clio":"Caliphate of Córdoba"}],"events":[{"year":960,"text":"Song dynasty founded"},{"year":962,"text":"Otto I crowned emperor, founding the Holy Roman Empire"},{"year":985,"text":"Erik the Red founds the Norse colony in Greenland"},{"year":988,"text":"Vladimir of Kyiv converts to Christianity"},{"year":999,"text":"Samanid Empire falls to the Karakhanids"},{"year":1000,"text":"Stephen I crowned king of Hungary (1000 or 1001)"},{"year":1000,"text":"Leif Erikson reaches North America (c. 1000)"},{"year":1001,"text":"Mahmud of Ghazni defeats Jayapala at Peshawar"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Stephen I of Hungary","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_I_of_Hungary"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fujiwara no Michinaga","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujiwara_no_Michinaga"},{"title":"Wikipedia: L'Anse aux Meadows","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Thule people","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_people"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Great Zimbabwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe"},{"title":"University of Hawaii: East Polynesia colonized faster and more recently than previously thought (Wilmshurst et al. 2011)","url":"https://manoa.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=4097"},{"title":"Historical Climatology: What made the Thule move? (on Friesen & Arnold 2008)","url":"https://historicalclimatology.com/features/what-made-the-thule-move-climate-and-culture-in-the-high-arctic"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Basil II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_II"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. IV.2, The age of the Ghaznavids, Cahmanas, Later Calukyas, and Colas, c. 975-1200","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_the_Ghaznavids_Cahmanas_Later_Calukyas_and_Colas_c._975-1200.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. V: The Struggle for Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforempir05bhar"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"},{"title":"Wilmshurst et al. (2011), High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia, PNAS","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3033267/"}]},{"year":1100,"title":"Crusaders in Jerusalem","age":"High Middle Ages","overview":"In 1100 the First Crusade has just ended in triumph for the Latin Christians: Jerusalem fell in July 1099, and the crusaders have founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, whose first king, Baldwin I, is crowned this Christmas. Their success owes much to the divisions of the Muslim world, where the Seljuk Turks, who conquered Iran, Iraq and most of Anatolia in the 1000s, are fighting among themselves, and the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt is weakened. In the far west, the Berber Almoravids rule a vast empire from Senegal to Spain. The Byzantine Empire is recovering under Alexios I Komnenos. In China, the Song dynasty is entering the reign of the artistic Emperor Huizong, while the Liao and Western Xia hold the north. In India, the Cholas still rule the south, though Sri Lanka broke free in 1070. Cahokia on the Mississippi is the largest city north of Mexico, and Angkor in Cambodia is one of the largest cities in the world.","regions":{"southern-africa":"In the Limpopo valley, the town of K2 grows rich trading gold and ivory to the Indian Ocean; around 1220 its rulers will move onto Mapungubwe Hill, founding southern Africa's first state. On the coast, Swahili city-states such as Kilwa grow wealthy. Madagascar's Malagasy chiefdoms and Khoisan herders in the southwest complete the picture.","northern-africa":"The Almoravid dynasty under Yusuf ibn Tashfin (d. 1106) rules Morocco, western Algeria and Muslim Spain from Marrakesh, which it founded around 1070. The Fatimids, under the caliph al-Musta'li and his powerful vizier al-Afdal, still rule Egypt, while the Zirids and Hammadids rule Tunisia and eastern Algeria. Makuria rules Nubia, Ghana is declining after Almoravid pressure, and Kanem, whose Muslim king Hummay (c. 1075–1086) founded the Sayfawa dynasty, controls the Lake Chad region.","europe":"Henry IV (king from 1056, emperor 1084–1105) rules the Holy Roman Empire amid the Investiture Controversy with the papacy, Philip I rules France, and Henry I takes the English throne in August 1100. Alexios I Komnenos rules Byzantium, Alfonso VI of Castile and León, who took Toledo in 1085, leads the Christian advance in Spain, and the Normans hold Sicily and southern Italy. Kyivan Rus is divided among princes, with Sviatopolk II in Kyiv, while Hungary under Coloman and Poland under Władysław I Herman rule central Europe.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Great Seljuk Empire, torn by civil war between Sultan Barkiyaruq and his brother Muhammad Tapar, rules Iran and Iraq, while Kilij Arslan I's Sultanate of Rum holds central Anatolia. The crusaders have founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa. In India the Ghaznavids under Mas'ud III hold the Punjab, the Cholas under Kulottunga I rule the south, the Western Chalukyas under Vikramaditya VI the Deccan, and many Rajput dynasties the north.","north-central-asia":"The Karakhanids rule Transoxiana and Kashgar in two rival branches, and Khwarazm is governed by a dynasty of Seljuk vassals. The Cuman-Kipchak confederation dominates the vast western steppe from the Danube to the Irtysh, and the Volga Bulgars trade furs from the north. Siberia remains home to hunting and herding peoples.","east-asia":"The Song dynasty rules from Kaifeng under Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1126), a gifted painter and calligrapher. The Khitan Liao, under Emperor Daozong, rule the north, but the Jurchens in Manchuria are about to rise against them, and the Tangut Western Xia under Chongzong rule the northwest. Goryeo rules Korea, and in Japan Retired Emperor Shirakawa governs through the system of cloistered rule while samurai clans grow powerful; Mongol tribes are still divided on the steppe.","southeast-asia":"The Khmer Empire rules from Angkor, and Suryavarman II, who will take power in 1113, will build Angkor Wat. Pagan, under King Kyansittha, rules most of Burma, and Đại Việt under the Lý dynasty rules northern Vietnam. Srivijaya, weakened by a Chola naval raid in 1025, still trades through the Strait of Malacca, and the Kediri kingdom rules eastern Java.","northern-north-america":"The Thule people, ancestors of the Inuit, are perfecting their whaling way of life with dog sleds and skin boats in Alaska, while the Dorset still hold the Canadian Arctic. The Norse colony in Greenland is thriving. Athabaskan, Algonquian and Beothuk peoples live in the subarctic.","southern-north-america":"Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis, is at its peak, with perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 people and the giant earthen platform of Monks Mound. Chaco Canyon is the centre of the Ancestral Puebloan world, and the Hohokam farm the Arizona desert. In Mexico, the Toltecs rule from Tula, Chichen Itza dominates Yucatán, and in Oaxaca the Mixtec lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw is building a kingdom.","northern-south-america":"With Tiwanaku and Wari gone, the Andes are divided among regional peoples. The Chimú are building their capital Chan Chan on Peru's north coast, and the Sicán culture rules nearby. The Muisca live in the Colombian highlands, and Tupi peoples along the Brazilian coast.","southern-cone":"Hunter-gatherers roam the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego. Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche ancestors farm central Chile, and Guarani farmers live in Paraguay and southern Brazil.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent. Polynesians have recently settled the Society Islands and will soon spread to the Marquesas, Hawaii and beyond, and Tonga's Tu'i Tonga kings are building a maritime chiefdom. On Pohnpei in Micronesia, the Saudeleur dynasty is rising and will begin building the stone city of Nan Madol (c. 1180)."},"powers":[{"name":"Great Seljuk Empire","map":"Seljuk Empire","ruler":"Barkiyaruq (contested by Muhammad Tapar)","capital":"Isfahan","extent":"Iran, Iraq and Khorasan, with vassals in Syria","clio":"Great Seljuk Empire"},{"name":"Song Dynasty","map":"Song Empire","ruler":"Emperor Huizong","capital":"Kaifeng","extent":"China proper south of the Liao and Xia frontiers","clio":"Northern Song"},{"name":"Fatimid Caliphate","map":"Fatimid Caliphate","ruler":"al-Musta'li (real power with vizier al-Afdal)","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt and parts of the Levant coast","clio":"Fatimid Caliphate"},{"name":"Almoravid Empire","map":"Almoravid dynasty","ruler":"Yusuf ibn Tashfin","capital":"Marrakesh","extent":"Morocco, western Algeria, Mauritania and Muslim Spain","clio":"Almoravid Dynasty"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Byzantine Empire","ruler":"Alexios I Komnenos","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"The Balkans, Greece and western Anatolia","clio":"Byzantine Empire"},{"name":"Holy Roman Empire","map":"Holy Roman Empire","ruler":"Henry IV","capital":"No fixed capital","extent":"Germany, northern Italy, Burgundy and Bohemia","clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)"},{"name":"Liao Dynasty","map":"Liao","ruler":"Emperor Daozong","capital":"Shangjing","extent":"Manchuria, Mongolia and northern China","clio":"Liao Dynasty"},{"name":"Kyivan Rus","map":"Kievan Rus","ruler":"Sviatopolk II (Grand Prince of Kyiv)","capital":"Kyiv","extent":"From Novgorod to the steppe edge, divided among princes","clio":"Kievan Rus'"},{"name":"Kingdom of Jerusalem","map":null,"ruler":"Baldwin I (crowned Christmas 1100)","capital":"Jerusalem","extent":"Palestine and the southern Levant coast","clio":"Kingdom of Jerusalem"},{"name":"Chola Empire","map":"Cholas","ruler":"Kulottunga I","capital":"Gangaikonda Cholapuram","extent":"South India, with influence across the Bay of Bengal","clio":"Chola Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1054,"text":"Great Schism between Rome and Constantinople"},{"year":1066,"text":"Norman conquest of England"},{"year":1071,"text":"Seljuks defeat Byzantium at Manzikert"},{"year":1085,"text":"Castile captures Toledo"},{"year":1086,"text":"Almoravids defeat Castile at Sagrajas (Zallaqa)"},{"year":1095,"text":"Pope Urban II calls the First Crusade"},{"year":1099,"text":"Crusaders capture Jerusalem"},{"year":1100,"text":"Baldwin I crowned king of Jerusalem"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Baldwin I of Jerusalem","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_I_of_Jerusalem"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor Huizong of Song","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Huizong_of_Song"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV,_Holy_Roman_Emperor"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Mapungubwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mapungubwe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Suryavarman II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suryavarman_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nan Madol","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"},{"title":"Historical Climatology: What made the Thule move? (on Friesen & Arnold 2008)","url":"https://historicalclimatology.com/features/what-made-the-thule-move-climate-and-culture-in-the-high-arctic"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. IV.2, The age of the Ghaznavids, Cahmanas, Later Calukyas, and Colas, c. 975-1200","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_the_Ghaznavids_Cahmanas_Later_Calukyas_and_Colas_c._975-1200.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. V: The Struggle for Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforempir05bhar"},{"title":"Wilmshurst et al. (2011), High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia, PNAS","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3033267/"}]},{"year":1200,"title":"On the Eve of Genghis","age":"High Middle Ages","overview":"In 1200 the world does not yet know the name Genghis Khan, but on the Mongolian steppe a chief named Temüjin is defeating his rivals; in six years he will be proclaimed ruler of all the Mongols. China is divided between the Southern Song, a wealthy commercial empire ruling from Hangzhou, and the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the north. In the Islamic world, the Khwarazm-shah Muhammad II has just inherited a growing empire in Iran and Central Asia, the Ghurids are conquering northern India, and Saladin's brother al-Adil has made himself master of the Ayyubid lands in Egypt and Syria. Western Europe is booming: towns, trade, universities and Gothic cathedrals are spreading, and Pope Innocent III is the most powerful pope of the Middle Ages. A new crusade is being planned that will, in 1204, sack Christian Constantinople. In Cambodia, Jayavarman VII is building Angkor Thom, and in the Andes a small tribe called the Inca is settling near Cusco.","regions":{"southern-africa":"In the Limpopo valley, the rulers of K2 will move onto Mapungubwe Hill around 1220, founding a kingdom that lasts until about 1300, when power shifts north to Great Zimbabwe, whose stone enclosures are beginning to rise. Swahili city-states such as Kilwa control the gold trade along the East African coast. Malagasy chiefdoms rule Madagascar, and Khoisan herders and foragers hold the southwest.","northern-africa":"The Almohad Caliphate under Muhammad al-Nasir rules Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Muslim Spain from Marrakesh. The Ayyubid sultan al-Adil, brother of Saladin, takes control of Egypt in 1200, and Christian Makuria still rules Nubia. In Ethiopia the Zagwe king Lalibela is carving rock churches, while in West Africa the old empire of Ghana has collapsed, the Sosso king Sumanguru is rising, Kanem dominates Lake Chad, and Ife produces its famous bronze and terracotta heads.","europe":"The Holy Roman Empire is contested between Philip of Swabia and Otto IV, while Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) asserts papal power over kings. Philip II Augustus of France is about to seize Normandy from King John (r. 1199–1216), who rules the Angevin Empire of England and western France. The Byzantine Empire under Alexios III Angelos is weak, Rus is split into principalities such as Vladimir-Suzdal, Novgorod and Galicia-Volhynia, and in Spain the kingdoms of Castile, León, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal face the Almohads.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ayyubids rule Egypt, Syria and Yemen; crusaders hold a strip of coast around Acre; the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum rules central Anatolia; and Queen Tamar rules Georgia at its golden age. The Abbasid caliph al-Nasir has revived the caliphate's power in Iraq, and the Khwarazmian Empire is expanding across Iran. In India, the Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor, through his general Qutb al-Din Aibak, has conquered the Ganges plain since the Second Battle of Tarain (1192), while the Cholas, Hoysalas, Yadavas and other kingdoms rule the south.","north-central-asia":"The Khwarazmian Empire, under Muhammad II, who succeeds his father Tekish in 1200, rules Khwarazm and is expanding into Iran and Transoxiana. The Kara Khitai, a Khitan dynasty that fled the Jurchens, rule much of Central Asia from Balasagun. The Cumans (Kipchaks) dominate the western steppe, and the Volga Bulgars trade along the Volga.","east-asia":"The Southern Song dynasty rules southern China from Lin'an (Hangzhou) under Emperor Ningzong, while the Jurchen Jin dynasty, under Emperor Zhangzong, rules northern China from Zhongdu (Beijing). The Tangut Western Xia rules the northwest, and in Mongolia Temüjin is uniting the tribes. Korea's Goryeo kings are puppets of the military dictator Choe Chung-heon, and in Japan the Kamakura shogunate, founded by Minamoto no Yoritomo (d. 1199), now shares power with the imperial court in Kyoto.","southeast-asia":"The Khmer Empire is at its greatest extent under Jayavarman VII (r. 1181–c. 1218), who builds Angkor Thom and the Bayon and has conquered Champa. Pagan rules Burma under Narapatisithu and is filled with thousands of temples. Đại Việt is ruled by the Lý dynasty, Srivijaya is declining, and the Kediri kingdom rules eastern Java.","northern-north-america":"The Thule people are beginning a rapid migration east from Alaska and within a century will reach Greenland, where they meet the Norse settlers. The Dorset culture still holds the eastern Arctic, but not for long. Athabaskan, Algonquian, Innu and Beothuk peoples live in the subarctic forests.","southern-north-america":"Cahokia is past its peak, but Mississippian chiefdoms flourish across the Southeast. Chaco Canyon has been abandoned after a drought, and Ancestral Puebloans now build cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Tula has fallen (c. 1150), and central Mexico is divided among city-states as Chichimec peoples, including the Mexica (Aztecs), migrate south; in Yucatán, Mayapan is about to become the leading city.","northern-south-america":"The Chimú kingdom rules Peru's north coast from Chan Chan, the largest adobe city in the Americas. Following Tiwanaku's collapse, Aymara kingdoms rule the Titicaca basin, and the Inca, a small group led by legendary founder Manco Capac, are settling in the Cusco valley (c. 1200). The Muisca rule the Colombian highlands.","southern-cone":"Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche ancestors in central Chile, and Guarani farmers in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Hunter-gatherers roam the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego.","australasia":"Aboriginal Australians live across the continent. Polynesians are spreading rapidly from Tahiti and the Society Islands to Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) around this time, and the Tu'i Tonga rule a maritime chiefdom from Tonga. New Zealand will be settled within the next century."},"powers":[{"name":"Southern Song Dynasty","map":"Song Empire","ruler":"Emperor Ningzong","capital":"Lin'an (Hangzhou)","extent":"China south of the Huai River","clio":"Southern Song"},{"name":"Jin Dynasty","map":"Liao","ruler":"Emperor Zhangzong","capital":"Zhongdu (Beijing)","extent":"Manchuria and northern China","clio":"Great Jin"},{"name":"Kara Khitai","map":"Kara Khitai Khaganate","ruler":"Yelü Zhilugu","capital":"Balasagun","extent":"Central Asia from the Tarim Basin to Transoxiana","clio":"Kara-Khitans"},{"name":"Khwarazmian Empire","map":"Khwarazmian dynasty","ruler":"Muhammad II","capital":"Gurganj","extent":"Khwarazm and much of Iran","clio":null},{"name":"Ghurid Sultanate","map":"Ghaznavid Emirate","ruler":"Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad and Muhammad of Ghor","capital":"Firozkoh and Ghazni","extent":"Afghanistan and northern India","clio":"Ghurid Dynasty"},{"name":"Ayyubid Sultanate","map":"Fatimid Caliphate","ruler":"al-Adil I","capital":"Cairo and Damascus","extent":"Egypt, Syria, upper Mesopotamia and Yemen","clio":"Ayyubid Sultanate"},{"name":"Almohad Caliphate","map":"Almohad Caliphate","ruler":"Muhammad al-Nasir","capital":"Marrakesh","extent":"North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia, and Muslim Spain","clio":"Almohad Caliphate"},{"name":"Holy Roman Empire","map":"Holy Roman Empire","ruler":"Philip of Swabia (contested by Otto IV)","capital":"No fixed capital","extent":"Germany, northern Italy and Burgundy","clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)"},{"name":"Angevin Empire","map":"Angevin Empire","ruler":"King John","capital":"London and Rouen","extent":"England and western France from Normandy to Gascony","clio":"Angevin Empire"},{"name":"Temüjin's Mongols","map":"Mongol Empire","ruler":"Temüjin (future Genghis Khan)","capital":"Mobile camps in eastern Mongolia","extent":"Mongol tribes of eastern Mongolia, still being united","clio":null}],"events":[{"year":1187,"text":"Saladin defeats the crusaders at Hattin and takes Jerusalem"},{"year":1192,"text":"Muhammad of Ghor wins the Second Battle of Tarain"},{"year":1192,"text":"Minamoto no Yoritomo becomes shogun"},{"year":1198,"text":"Innocent III becomes pope"},{"year":1200,"text":"Muhammad II becomes Khwarazm-shah"},{"year":1204,"text":"Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople"},{"year":1206,"text":"Temüjin proclaimed Genghis Khan"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Muhammad II of Khwarazm","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_II_of_Khwarazm"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Al-Adil I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Adil_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Mapungubwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mapungubwe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Thule people","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_people"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mesa Verde National Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park"},{"title":"University of Hawaii: East Polynesia colonized faster and more recently than previously thought (Wilmshurst et al. 2011)","url":"https://manoa.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=4097"},{"title":"South African History Online: Mapungubwe","url":"https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/mapungubwe"},{"title":"The Canadian Encyclopedia: Dorset Culture","url":"https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/dorset-culture"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, Northern India in the time of the Ghurids and Mamluks, c. 1170-1290","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Northern_India_and_adjacent_areas_in_the_time_of_the_Ghurids_and_Mamluks_c._1170-1290.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. V: The Struggle for Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforempir05bhar"},{"title":"Wilmshurst et al. (2011), High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia, PNAS","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3033267/"}]},{"year":1279,"title":"Mongols Conquer China","age":"High Middle Ages","overview":"In 1279 the Mongol conquest of China is complete. At the naval battle of Yamen, the last Song loyalists are destroyed, and the boy emperor drowns with his minister. Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, now rules all of China as emperor of the Yuan dynasty from his new capital Dadu (Beijing). The Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history, has split into four great khanates: the Yuan in the east, the Golden Horde on the Russian steppe, the Ilkhanate in Iran, and the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, where Kaidu challenges Kublai. The Mongol advance has been stopped in Syria by the Mamluks of Egypt and in India by the Delhi Sultanate. Merchants like Marco Polo travel safely across Asia under Mongol protection. In Europe, kings like Edward I of England and Philip III of France are building stronger states, while the Byzantines have recovered Constantinople. In West Africa, the empire of Mali is rising.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Great Zimbabwe is becoming the capital of a powerful state on the Zimbabwe plateau, controlling gold exports through the Swahili coast. Kilwa is the richest Swahili city, ruled by a new Mahdali dynasty. Malagasy chiefdoms rule Madagascar, and Khoisan peoples live in the southwest.","northern-africa":"The Mamluk Sultanate rules Egypt and Syria, where Qalawun seizes the throne in late 1279. The Hafsids rule Tunisia, the Marinids under Abu Yusuf Yaqub rule Morocco, and the Zayyanids rule western Algeria. In Ethiopia, Yekuno Amlak has restored the Solomonic dynasty (1270), Makuria is under Mamluk pressure, Kanem rules Lake Chad, and in West Africa the Mali Empire, founded by Sundiata Keita, now controls the gold fields of the upper Niger.","europe":"Rudolf I of Habsburg rules the Holy Roman Empire after defeating Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1278, Philip III rules France, and Edward I of England is conquering Wales. Michael VIII Palaiologos rules the restored Byzantine Empire, threatened by Charles of Anjou, while Castile under Alfonso X the Wise and Aragon under Peter III lead Christian Spain and Denis becomes king of Portugal. The Golden Horde dominates the Rus principalities, which pay it tribute, the Teutonic Knights are conquering Prussia, and pagan Lithuania is growing.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ilkhanate under Abaqa (r. 1265–1282) rules Iran, Iraq and Anatolia, where the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum survives as a vassal, while the Mamluks hold Syria and Palestine against both the Mongols and the last crusader towns. The Rasulids rule Yemen. In India, the Delhi Sultanate under Ghiyas ud din Balban (r. 1266–1287) holds the north against Mongol raids, while the Pandyas, Hoysalas, Kakatiyas and Yadavas rule the south.","north-central-asia":"The Golden Horde, under Möngke Temür, rules the western steppe from Sarai on the Volga, with its eastern wing in Kazakhstan. The Chagatai Khanate, under Buqa Temür but dominated by Kaidu, an Ögedeid prince at war with Kublai, controls Transoxiana and the Tian Shan. Siberia is home to forest and tundra peoples.","east-asia":"Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294) has conquered the Southern Song: Lin'an surrendered in 1276 and the last resistance ends at Yamen in March 1279. The Yuan dynasty rules all of China, Mongolia and Tibet, where the Sakya lamas govern on Kublai's behalf, and Goryeo Korea is a Yuan vassal. Japan, under the Kamakura shogunate and the regent Hōjō Tokimune, repelled a Mongol invasion in 1274 and will face another in 1281.","southeast-asia":"Pagan, under King Narathihapate, is under attack by Mongol armies, and the Khmer Empire under Jayavarman VIII is still large but past its peak. In Thailand, Sukhothai is rising under Ram Khamhaeng (c. 1279–1298), and Đại Việt under the Trần dynasty has beaten back one Mongol invasion. Kertanegara of Singhasari is the most powerful king in Java, and Samudera Pasai in Sumatra is about to become one of the region's first Muslim kingdoms.","northern-north-america":"Thule Inuit have spread across the Arctic to Greenland, where the Norse colony still survives. Athabaskan, Algonquian, Innu and Beothuk peoples live in the subarctic forests, and complex fishing societies line the Pacific Northwest.","southern-north-america":"Mississippian chiefdoms such as Moundville and Etowah flourish in the Southeast, though Cahokia is declining. A severe drought (1276–1299) is driving the Ancestral Puebloans to abandon Mesa Verde. In central Mexico the Mexica are still a wandering people seeking a home, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs rule Oaxaca, and Mayapan leads a league of Maya cities in Yucatán.","northern-south-america":"The Chimú kingdom rules Peru's north coast from Chan Chan, and Aymara kingdoms such as the Colla and Lupaca hold the Titicaca basin. The Inca are a small kingdom in the Cusco valley. The Muisca rule the Colombian highlands, and Tupi peoples the Brazilian coast.","southern-cone":"Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche in central Chile, and Guarani in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Hunter-gatherers roam the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego.","australasia":"Polynesian voyagers have reached New Zealand (c. 1250–1300), the last major land mass on Earth to be settled, becoming the ancestors of the Māori. The Tu'i Tonga rule a maritime chiefdom, and Rapa Nui's people are beginning to carve moai. Aboriginal Australians live across the continent."},"powers":[{"name":"Yuan Dynasty (Great Khanate)","map":"Great Khanate","ruler":"Kublai Khan","capital":"Dadu (Beijing)","extent":"China, Mongolia, Manchuria and Tibet, with Korea as a vassal","clio":null},{"name":"Golden Horde","map":"Khanate of the Golden Horde","ruler":"Möngke Temür","capital":"Sarai","extent":"The steppe from the Danube to western Siberia, with the Rus principalities as tributaries","clio":null},{"name":"Ilkhanate","map":"Ilkhanate","ruler":"Abaqa","capital":"Tabriz","extent":"Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus and Anatolia","clio":null},{"name":"Chagatai Khanate","map":"Chagatai Khanate","ruler":"Buqa Temür (dominated by Kaidu)","capital":"Almaliq","extent":"Transoxiana and the Tian Shan","clio":null},{"name":"Mamluk Sultanate","map":"Mamluke Sultanate","ruler":"Qalawun (from late 1279)","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz","clio":"Mamluk Sultanate"},{"name":"Delhi Sultanate","map":"Sultanate of Delhi","ruler":"Ghiyas ud din Balban","capital":"Delhi","extent":"Northern India from the Punjab to Bengal","clio":"(Delhi Sultanate)"},{"name":"Mali Empire","map":"Mali","ruler":"Keita dynasty (Sundiata's successors)","capital":"Niani (c.)","extent":"The upper Niger and Senegal basins","clio":"Mali Empire"},{"name":"Holy Roman Empire","map":"Holy Roman Empire","ruler":"Rudolf I of Habsburg","capital":"No fixed capital","extent":"Germany, Austria, Bohemia and northern Italy","clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Philip III","capital":"Paris","extent":"Most of France, except English Gascony and Brittany","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Byzantine Empire","ruler":"Michael VIII Palaiologos","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Western Anatolia, Thrace, Macedonia and parts of Greece","clio":"Byzantine Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1258,"text":"Mongols sack Baghdad, ending the Abbasid Caliphate"},{"year":1260,"text":"Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut"},{"year":1261,"text":"Byzantines recover Constantinople"},{"year":1271,"text":"Kublai proclaims the Yuan dynasty"},{"year":1274,"text":"First Mongol invasion of Japan"},{"year":1276,"text":"Song capital Lin'an surrenders to the Mongols"},{"year":1279,"text":"Battle of Yamen ends the Song dynasty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Yamen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yamen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qalawun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qalawun"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mesa Verde National Park","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_Verde_National_Park"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, Northern India in the time of the Ghurids and Mamluks, c. 1170-1290","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Northern_India_and_adjacent_areas_in_the_time_of_the_Ghurids_and_Mamluks_c._1170-1290.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VI: The Delhi Sultanate (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/delhisultanate00bhar"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"}]},{"year":1300,"title":"The Mongol Peace","age":"High Middle Ages","overview":"In 1300 the Mongol khanates span most of Asia and eastern Europe, and the Pax Mongolica lets merchants, missionaries and ideas travel from China to the Mediterranean. Kublai Khan's grandson Temür rules Yuan China; Ghazan, who has converted to Islam, rules the Ilkhanate in Iran; Toqta rules the Golden Horde; and Duwa and Kaidu control Central Asia. Marco Polo, captured in a war between Venice and Genoa, has just dictated his famous account of Asia. In India, Alauddin Khalji has beaten back Mongol invasions and is building the Delhi Sultanate into an empire. The Mamluks rule Egypt and Syria and have expelled the last crusaders from Acre (1291). In western Anatolia, a minor Turkish chieftain named Osman has founded a small state that will become the Ottoman Empire. Europe is at its medieval peak of population, and Pope Boniface VIII proclaims the first Jubilee in Rome, but famine and plague lie ahead.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Great Zimbabwe is the capital of a wealthy state on the Zimbabwe plateau, with great stone walls built without mortar, and it exports gold through the Swahili coast. Kilwa is the leading Swahili city-state. Madagascar has Malagasy kingdoms emerging, and Khoisan peoples live in the southwest.","northern-africa":"The Mamluk Sultanate rules Egypt and Syria under the young al-Nasir Muhammad, while the Marinids rule Morocco and are besieging the Zayyanid capital Tlemcen, and the Hafsids rule Tunisia. The Solomonic dynasty rules Ethiopia, Makuria is declining under Mamluk pressure, and Kanem controls Lake Chad. The Mali Empire, ruled by the Keita dynasty, is one of the largest states in Africa, and Mansa Musa will come to power around 1312.","europe":"Philip IV the Fair rules France and is about to clash with Pope Boniface VIII, who proclaims the Jubilee of 1300. Edward I of England is at war with Scotland, Albert I of Habsburg rules the Holy Roman Empire, and Wenceslaus II of Bohemia becomes king of Poland. The Byzantine Empire of Andronikos II is shrinking, the Golden Horde dominates the Rus principalities, including the small but growing principality of Moscow under Daniel, and Lithuania under Vytenis is expanding.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ilkhanate under Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) rules Iran and Iraq, and has just defeated the Mamluks at Wadi al-Khaznadar (1299) and briefly taken Damascus. Anatolia is fragmenting into Turkish beyliks, among them that of Osman in Bithynia. In India, Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296–1316) rules the Delhi Sultanate and is about to conquer Rajasthan and raid the Deccan, while the Pandyas, Hoysalas, Kakatiyas and Yadavas still rule the south.","north-central-asia":"The Golden Horde under Toqta rules the western steppe from Sarai, having just defeated his rival Nogai. Central Asia is controlled by the Chagatai Khan Duwa and the Ögedeid Kaidu, who are at war with the Yuan; Kaidu will die in 1301. Siberia is home to forest and tundra peoples.","east-asia":"The Yuan dynasty rules China, Mongolia and Tibet under Temür Khan (Emperor Chengzong, r. 1294–1307), from Dadu (Beijing). Goryeo Korea is a Yuan vassal whose kings marry Mongol princesses. Japan, under the Kamakura shogunate and the Hōjō regents, survived Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281 thanks to its defences and the storms later called kamikaze.","southeast-asia":"The kingdom of Majapahit, founded in 1293 by Raden Wijaya after expelling a Mongol fleet, is rising in Java. Pagan's empire has collapsed after Mongol invasions, and Burma is divided; in Thailand, Sukhothai and the new kingdom of Lan Na (Chiang Mai, founded 1296) are powerful. The Khmer Empire under Indravarman III is still wealthy, as the Chinese visitor Zhou Daguan recorded in 1296–97, and Đại Việt under the Trần dynasty has defeated three Mongol invasions.","northern-north-america":"Thule Inuit occupy the Arctic from Alaska to Greenland, where the Norse colony survives but faces a cooling climate. Athabaskan, Algonquian, Innu and Beothuk peoples live in the subarctic forests.","southern-north-america":"Mississippian chiefdoms such as Moundville, Etowah and Spiro dominate the Southeast, while Cahokia is in decline. Ancestral Puebloans have left the Four Corners and are moving to the Rio Grande and Hopi mesas. In central Mexico, the Mexica are living under the rule of Culhuacan, and will found Tenochtitlan in 1325; Mayapan leads Yucatán, and the Mixtecs and Zapotecs rule Oaxaca.","northern-south-america":"The Chimú kingdom rules Peru's north coast, Aymara kingdoms rule the Titicaca basin, and the Inca are still a local power around Cusco. The Muisca rule the Colombian highlands, and Tupi and Arawak peoples live along the coasts and rivers.","southern-cone":"Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche in central Chile, and Guarani in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Hunter-gatherers roam the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego.","australasia":"Māori ancestors are settling New Zealand, hunting the giant moa. The Tu'i Tonga rule a maritime chiefdom, the Saudeleur dynasty rules Pohnpei from Nan Madol, and Rapa Nui islanders are carving moai. Aboriginal Australians live across the continent."},"powers":[{"name":"Yuan Dynasty (Great Khanate)","map":"Great Khanate","ruler":"Temür Khan (Emperor Chengzong)","capital":"Dadu (Beijing)","extent":"China, Mongolia, Manchuria and Tibet","clio":"Yuan Dynasty"},{"name":"Golden Horde","map":"Khanate of the Golden Horde","ruler":"Toqta","capital":"Sarai","extent":"The western steppe from the Danube to western Siberia","clio":"Golden Horde"},{"name":"Ilkhanate","map":"Ilkhanate","ruler":"Ghazan","capital":"Tabriz","extent":"Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia","clio":"Ilkhanate"},{"name":"Chagatai Khanate","map":"Chagatai Khanate","ruler":"Duwa (allied with Kaidu)","capital":"Almaliq","extent":"Transoxiana and the Tian Shan","clio":"Chagatai Khanate"},{"name":"Delhi Sultanate","map":"Sultanate of Delhi","ruler":"Alauddin Khalji","capital":"Delhi","extent":"Northern India, expanding into Gujarat and Rajasthan","clio":"(Delhi Sultanate)"},{"name":"Mamluk Sultanate","map":"Mamluke Sultanate","ruler":"al-Nasir Muhammad","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz","clio":"Mamluk Sultanate"},{"name":"Mali Empire","map":"Mali","ruler":"Keita dynasty (names uncertain at this date)","capital":"Niani (c.)","extent":"The upper Niger and Senegal basins","clio":"Mali Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Philip IV the Fair","capital":"Paris","extent":"Most of modern France","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Holy Roman Empire","map":"Holy Roman Empire","ruler":"Albert I of Habsburg","capital":"No fixed capital","extent":"Germany, Austria, Bohemia and northern Italy","clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)"},{"name":"Byzantine Empire","map":"Byzantine Empire","ruler":"Andronikos II Palaiologos","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Thrace, Macedonia, parts of Greece and shrinking lands in western Anatolia","clio":"Byzantine Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1291,"text":"Mamluks capture Acre, ending the crusader states"},{"year":1293,"text":"Majapahit founded in Java"},{"year":1295,"text":"Ilkhan Ghazan converts to Islam"},{"year":1297,"text":"William Wallace wins at Stirling Bridge"},{"year":1299,"text":"Osman founds the Ottoman state (traditional date)"},{"year":1299,"text":"Alauddin Khalji repels a Mongol army at Kili"},{"year":1300,"text":"Pope Boniface VIII proclaims the first Jubilee"},{"year":1302,"text":"Osman defeats the Byzantines at Bapheus"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ghazan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghazan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alauddin Khalji","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alauddin_Khalji"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nan Madol","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, South Asia in the time of the Khaljis and Tughluqs, c. 1290-1390","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/South_Asia_in_the_time_of_the_Khaljis_and_Tughluqs_c._1290-1390.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VI: The Delhi Sultanate (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/delhisultanate00bhar"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"}]},{"year":1400,"title":"Timur's Storm","age":"Late Middle Ages","overview":"In 1400 the conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) is the terror of Asia. From his capital Samarkand he has rebuilt a Mongol-style empire across Iran and Central Asia, sacked Delhi in 1398, and is now invading Syria; in 1402 he will crush the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I at Ankara. The Black Death, which struck in the 1340s, has killed perhaps a third of the population of Europe and the Middle East, and societies are still recovering. Mongol rule in China ended in 1368 with the founding of the Ming dynasty, now gripped by civil war between the young Jianwen Emperor and his uncle, the future Yongle Emperor. The Ottomans have conquered most of the Balkans and surround Constantinople. In Europe, the Hundred Years' War between England and France is paused, and the Church is split between rival popes. New powers are rising elsewhere: Vijayanagara in South India, Joseon in Korea, Ayutthaya in Thailand, and the Aztecs, still a minor people, in Mexico.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Great Zimbabwe is at the height of its power, though it will decline in the next half-century as power shifts to Mutapa in the north. The Kingdom of Kongo is being founded (c. 1390s) south of the Congo River, and Kilwa and other Swahili city-states trade gold and ivory across the Indian Ocean. Malagasy kingdoms rule Madagascar.","northern-africa":"The Mamluk Sultanate rules Egypt and Syria under al-Nasir Faraj, who is about to lose Damascus to Timur. The Hafsids rule Tunisia and the Marinids Morocco, and Ethiopia under Dawit I is a strong Christian kingdom. In West Africa the Mali Empire is still vast but weakening, Songhay at Gao is gaining independence, the Sayfawa kings have moved from Kanem to Bornu, and Benin and Ife are flourishing forest kingdoms.","europe":"Margaret I rules Denmark, Norway and Sweden through the Kalmar Union (1397), and Poland and Lithuania are united under Władysław II Jagiełło. Henry IV has just seized the English throne from Richard II, Charles VI rules France despite bouts of madness, and the Holy Roman Empire deposes Wenceslaus and elects Rupert in 1400. The Ottoman Empire under Bayezid I rules most of the Balkans, the Byzantine Empire is reduced to Constantinople and a few territories, Vasily I rules Moscow, and the Golden Horde still demands tribute from the Rus.","middle-east-south-asia":"Timur's empire covers Iran, Iraq and the Caucasus, and he is invading Syria in 1400–1401, while the Ottomans hold western and central Anatolia and Turkmen confederations such as the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu control eastern Anatolia. In India, the Delhi Sultanate under Nasir-ud-din Mahmud Shah Tughluq has been shattered by Timur's sack of Delhi, and provinces such as Jaunpur and Gujarat are breaking away. In the south, the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire under Harihara II and the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate compete for the Deccan.","north-central-asia":"Timur rules Transoxiana from Samarkand, which he is filling with magnificent mosques and palaces. The Golden Horde, reunited by Tokhtamysh but shattered by Timur's invasions in the 1390s, is ruled by Khan Shadi Beg under the warlord Edigu, who defeated the Lithuanians at the Vorskla River in 1399. Moghulistan, the eastern remnant of the Chagatai Khanate, holds the Tian Shan, and Oirat Mongols are rising in the west of Mongolia.","east-asia":"The Ming dynasty rules China from Nanjing under the Jianwen Emperor (r. 1398–1402), but his uncle Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, has rebelled and will seize the throne in 1402 as the Yongle Emperor. The Northern Yuan Mongols hold Mongolia, and Tibet is ruled by the Phagmodrupa dynasty. In Korea the new Joseon dynasty, founded in 1392, sees Taejong take the throne in 1400, and Japan is under the Ashikaga shoguns, with the retired shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu holding real power.","southeast-asia":"Ayutthaya, founded in 1351, is now the leading Thai kingdom, and the Khmer capital Angkor is weakened by its attacks. Majapahit, under Wikramawardhana, still claims much of the Indonesian archipelago, and Malacca is being founded (c. 1400) by Parameswara, a prince from Sumatra. In Burma, Ava and Hanthawaddy are fighting the Forty Years' War, and in Vietnam Hồ Quý Ly overthrows the Trần dynasty in 1400.","northern-north-america":"Thule Inuit live across the Arctic from Alaska to Greenland. The Norse Greenland colony is dying out in a cooling climate; its last written record is a wedding in 1408. Athabaskan, Algonquian, Innu and Beothuk peoples live in the subarctic, and Iroquoian farmers build palisaded villages around the Great Lakes.","southern-north-america":"In the Valley of Mexico, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, under Huitzilihuitl, are vassals of the powerful Tepanec kingdom of Azcapotzalco. The Purépecha (Tarascan) state rules western Mexico, the Mixtecs and Zapotecs hold Oaxaca, and Mayapan still leads Yucatán. Cahokia has been abandoned, but Mississippian chiefdoms remain in the Southeast, and Pueblo peoples live along the Rio Grande.","northern-south-america":"The Chimú kingdom rules over 1,000 km of Peru's coast, the Aymara kingdoms hold the Titicaca basin, and the Inca, under Viracocha Inca, are expanding from Cusco, though their great conquests begin under Pachacuti from 1438. The Muisca rule the Colombian highlands, and Tupi and Arawak peoples live along the coasts and rivers.","southern-cone":"Diaguita farmers live in northwest Argentina, Mapuche in central Chile, and Guarani in Paraguay and southern Brazil. Hunter-gatherers roam the pampas and Patagonia, and canoe peoples live in Tierra del Fuego; the Inca will reach Chile and Argentina within a century.","australasia":"Māori tribes have settled across New Zealand. The Tu'i Tonga maritime chiefdom is at its peak, Rapa Nui islanders are carving and raising moai, and Hawaii has complex chiefdoms. Aboriginal Australians live across the continent, as they have for millennia."},"powers":[{"name":"Ming Dynasty","map":"Great Khanate","ruler":"Jianwen Emperor","capital":"Nanjing","extent":"China proper, from Manchuria's edge to Yunnan","clio":"Ming Dynasty"},{"name":"Timurid Empire","map":"Timurid Empire","ruler":"Timur","capital":"Samarkand","extent":"Transoxiana, Iran, Iraq and the Caucasus, with raids into India and Syria","clio":"Timurid Empire"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Bayezid I","capital":"Bursa and Edirne","extent":"Western and central Anatolia and most of the Balkans","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Golden Horde","map":"White Horde","ruler":"Shadi Beg (real power with Edigu)","capital":"Sarai","extent":"The western steppe, with the Rus principalities as tributaries","clio":"Golden Horde"},{"name":"Delhi Sultanate","map":"Sultanate of Delhi","ruler":"Nasir-ud-din Mahmud Shah Tughluq","capital":"Delhi","extent":"Northern India, shattered after Timur's sack","clio":"(Delhi Sultanate)"},{"name":"Kalmar Union","map":"Kalmar Union","ruler":"Margaret I (with Eric of Pomerania)","capital":"No fixed capital (the royal court travelled)","extent":"Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland","clio":null},{"name":"Poland-Lithuania","map":"Poland-Lithuania","ruler":"Władysław II Jagiełło (with Grand Duke Vytautas)","capital":"Kraków and Vilnius","extent":"From the Baltic to the Black Sea steppe","clio":"Kingdom of Poland"},{"name":"Mamluk Sultanate","map":"Mamluke Sultanate","ruler":"al-Nasir Faraj","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz","clio":"Mamluk Sultanate"},{"name":"Mali Empire","map":"Mali","ruler":"Keita dynasty (names uncertain at this date)","capital":"Niani (c.)","extent":"The western Sahel from the Atlantic to the Niger bend","clio":"Mali Empire"},{"name":"Vijayanagara Empire","map":null,"ruler":"Harihara II","capital":"Vijayanagara (Hampi)","extent":"Most of South India below the Krishna River","clio":"Vijayanagara Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1347,"text":"Black Death reaches Europe"},{"year":1368,"text":"Ming dynasty founded; Yuan expelled from China"},{"year":1370,"text":"Timur proclaimed ruler at Balkh, making Samarkand his capital"},{"year":1392,"text":"Joseon dynasty founded in Korea"},{"year":1396,"text":"Ottomans defeat a crusade at Nicopolis"},{"year":1397,"text":"Kalmar Union unites the Scandinavian kingdoms"},{"year":1398,"text":"Timur sacks Delhi"},{"year":1402,"text":"Timur defeats Bayezid I at Ankara"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Timur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jianwen Emperor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianwen_Emperor"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Edigu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edigu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shadi Beg","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadi_Beg"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kongo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Copenhagen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bayezid I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayezid_I"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, Political disintegration in Northern South Asia, c. 1390-1450","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Political_disintegration_in_Northern_South_Asia_c._1390-1450.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VI: The Delhi Sultanate (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/delhisultanate00bhar"}]},{"year":1492,"title":"Worlds About to Collide","age":"Late Middle Ages / Age of Discovery","overview":"In 1492 the world's hemispheres still knew nothing of each other. In the Americas the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Inca Empire were at their height, ruling millions from Tenochtitlan and Cusco. Across Eurasia the great powers were Ming China, the richest and most populous state on Earth, the Ottoman Empire, which had held Constantinople since 1453, and the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. In January, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain conquered Granada, ending nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia, and soon expelled Spain's Jews. In October, Christopher Columbus, sailing for Castile, reached the Bahamas, and within decades disease, conquest and trade would bind the continents together. Portugal was racing for a sea route to India around Africa. Most people everywhere were farmers living in villages, and most of the world's land was still held by peoples organised in clans, chiefdoms and small kingdoms rather than empires.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Most of Africa south of the equator was home to Bantu-speaking farming and cattle-herding kingdoms and chiefdoms, with Khoisan herders and foragers in the far south-west. The Kingdom of Kongo, under Nzinga a Nkuwu, had just welcomed Portuguese envoys and priests, and the king was baptised as Joao I in 1491. On the Zambezi plateau the Mutapa (Mwenemutapa) kingdom controlled the gold trade once run from Great Zimbabwe, while Swahili city-states such as Kilwa traded across the Indian Ocean. Madagascar was divided among several kingdoms, among them the early Merina in the highlands.","northern-africa":"Egypt and Syria were ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate under Sultan Qaitbay. The Maghreb was split between the Wattasid sultans of Morocco, the Zayyanids of Tlemcen and the Hafsids of Tunis. In West Africa the Songhai Empire had overtaken Mali; its great conqueror Sunni Ali died late in 1492, and Askia Muhammad seized power the next year. Kanem-Bornu ruled around Lake Chad, Benin and Oyo flourished in the forest belt, and Christian Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Eskender.","europe":"Spain was being forged by the union of Castile and Aragon under Isabella and Ferdinand, while Portugal under Joao II led Atlantic exploration. France was ruled by Charles VIII, England by Henry VII after the Wars of the Roses, and the Holy Roman Empire by the ageing Frederick III with his son Maximilian. Ivan III had made Moscow the leading Russian state and thrown off Tatar overlordship in 1480; Poland-Lithuania passed to Casimir IV's sons after his death in 1492. Italy was a patchwork of rich city-states, and the Ottomans held the Balkans up to the Danube.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire under Bayezid II held Anatolia and the Balkans, while the Mamluks ruled the Levant and the holy cities of Arabia. Iran and Iraq belonged to the Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep Turkmen), weakened by succession quarrels, and Herat in Afghanistan was the glittering capital of the last major Timurid ruler, Sultan Husayn Bayqara. In India, Sikandar Lodi ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the north, Bengal and Gujarat were independent sultanates, the Bahmani Sultanate of the Deccan was breaking apart, and the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire dominated the south.","north-central-asia":"The western steppe was held by the successor khanates of the Golden Horde: the Crimean, Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and the dwindling Great Horde. Further east the Kazakh Khanate under Burunduk Khan and Uzbek clans led by Muhammad Shaybani contested the steppe north of the Syr Darya, while Moghulistan (the eastern Chagatai lands) survived around Tashkent and the Tarim Basin. The Khanate of Sibir ruled along the Irtysh, and the forests of Siberia belonged to many small hunting and reindeer-herding peoples.","east-asia":"Ming China under the Hongzhi Emperor, ruling from Beijing, was stable and prosperous and had turned away from the great ocean voyages of Zheng He. Korea was ruled by King Seongjong of the Joseon dynasty. Japan was sliding into the Sengoku (Warring States) period: the Ashikaga shoguns in Kyoto had lost real power to regional lords after the Onin War. On the steppe, Dayan Khan was reuniting the eastern Mongols, while Oirat tribes held the west, and Tibet was dominated by the Rinpungpa princes.","southeast-asia":"The Sultanate of Malacca under Mahmud Shah controlled the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and was the region's richest port and a centre of Islam. Ayutthaya, under King Ramathibodi II from 1491, was the leading power in what is now Thailand, while Dai Viet under Le Thanh Tong had recently crushed Champa. Cambodia had moved its capital away from Angkor, Burma was divided among Ava, Toungoo and the Mon kingdom of Hanthawaddy, and on Java the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom was fading as Muslim port states such as Demak rose.","northern-north-america":"Canada, Alaska and the Arctic were home only to Indigenous peoples: Inuit and Thule-descended hunters across the Arctic, Dene and Cree in the subarctic forests, and Innu, Haudenosaunee and other peoples in the east. The Norse settlements in Greenland had died out decades earlier. No European had yet returned to these shores since the Norse, though fishermen from Bristol may already have been working the Grand Banks.","southern-north-america":"The Aztec Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, led by the emperor Ahuitzotl, ruled central Mexico and collected tribute from hundreds of towns; its rivals included the Purepecha (Tarascan) state and independent Tlaxcala. Maya city-states persisted in Yucatan and Guatemala. To the north, Mississippian chiefdoms, Pueblo towns and many other nations filled what is now the United States. In October 1492 Columbus landed in the Bahamas and then visited Cuba and Hispaniola, home to the Taino.","northern-south-america":"The Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu) was the largest state in the Americas, stretching along the Andes from Ecuador to central Chile; Topa Inca Yupanqui, its great conqueror, was near the end of his reign and would soon be succeeded by Huayna Capac. Beyond the mountains, the Amazon basin and Brazil's coast were home to many Tupi, Arawak, Carib and other peoples living in villages and chiefdoms. The Muisca confederation ruled the highlands of what is now Colombia.","southern-cone":"The Inca frontier reached the Maule River in central Chile, beyond which the Mapuche remained independent. The pampas and Patagonia belonged to hunting peoples such as the Tehuelche and Charrua, and Guarani farmers lived in the forests of Paraguay and southern Brazil. No Europeans had yet reached these lands.","australasia":"Australia was home to hundreds of Aboriginal nations who had lived there for tens of thousands of years. Papuan farmers cultivated the highlands of New Guinea, and Maori iwi (tribes) had settled New Zealand about two centuries earlier. In the Pacific, the Tu'i Tonga maritime chiefdom held sway over Tonga and neighbouring islands, and Hawaii was divided among rival chiefs."},"powers":[{"name":"Ming China","map":"Ming Empire","ruler":"Hongzhi Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China proper from the Great Wall to Yunnan and Guangdong","clio":"Ming Dynasty"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Bayezid II","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"Anatolia and the Balkans up to the Danube, with the Crimean Khanate as a vassal","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Inca Empire","map":"Quechua","ruler":"Topa Inca Yupanqui","capital":"Cusco","extent":"The Andes from Ecuador to central Chile","clio":"Inca Empire"},{"name":"Mamluk Sultanate","map":"Mamluke Sultanate","ruler":"Qaitbay","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt, Syria, Palestine and the Hejaz with Mecca and Medina","clio":"Mamluk Sultanate"},{"name":"Crown of Castile and Aragon (Spain)","map":"Castille","ruler":"Isabella I and Ferdinand II","capital":"Toledo / Valladolid (court travelled)","extent":"Most of the Iberian peninsula, plus Sicily, Sardinia and most of the Canary Islands","clio":"Crown of Castile"},{"name":"Grand Duchy of Moscow","map":"Grand Duchy of Moscow","ruler":"Ivan III","capital":"Moscow","extent":"North-western Russia from Novgorod to the Urals' western foothills","clio":"Grand Principality of Moscow"},{"name":"Aztec Triple Alliance","map":"Mexihcah (Triple Alliance)","ruler":"Ahuitzotl","capital":"Tenochtitlan","extent":"Central and southern Mexico from the Gulf coast to the Pacific","clio":"Aztec Triple Alliance"},{"name":"Timurid Emirates","map":"Timurid Emirates","ruler":"Sultan Husayn Bayqara","capital":"Herat","extent":"Khorasan and Afghanistan, with rival Timurid princes in Transoxiana","clio":"Timurid Empire"},{"name":"Delhi Sultanate (Lodi dynasty)","map":"Sultanate of Delhi","ruler":"Sikandar Lodi","capital":"Delhi","extent":"Punjab and the upper Ganges plain","clio":"(Delhi Sultanate)"},{"name":"Vijayanagara Empire","map":"Vijayanagara","ruler":"Narasimha Raya II, with regent Tuluva Narasa Nayaka","capital":"Vijayanagara (Hampi)","extent":"Southern India south of the Krishna River","clio":"Vijayanagara Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1453,"text":"The Ottomans capture Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire"},{"year":1480,"text":"Ivan III of Moscow ends Tatar overlordship after the Great Stand on the Ugra River"},{"year":1488,"text":"Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope for Portugal"},{"year":1491,"text":"King Nzinga a Nkuwu of Kongo is baptised as Joao I"},{"year":1492,"text":"Granada falls to Ferdinand and Isabella; Spain expels its Jews"},{"year":1492,"text":"Christopher Columbus reaches the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Mamluk sultans","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mamluk_sultans"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Narasimha Raya II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narasimha_Raya_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Conquest of the Canary Islands","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Canary_Islands"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of emperors of Ethiopia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emperors_of_Ethiopia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Kazakh khans","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kazakh_khans"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of rulers of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rulers_of_Kongo"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, South Asia in the time of the Lodis, 1451-1526","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/South_Asia_in_the_time_of_the_Lodis_1451-1526.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"year":1500,"title":"Sea Roads Open","age":"Age of Discovery","overview":"By 1500 the oceans had become highways. Vasco da Gama had reached India in 1498, opening a direct Portuguese sea route to the spice markets, and in April 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral, bound for India, touched the coast of Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. Spain was settling Hispaniola, where Taino communities were already collapsing under forced labour and disease. Yet the great empires of the age were still elsewhere: Ming China, the Ottoman Empire, the Inca and Aztec empires at their peak, and a ring of Islamic states from Morocco to Bengal. In Iran a teenage Sufi leader, Ismail, was gathering followers and would soon found the Safavid dynasty; in Central Asia, Muhammad Shaybani's Uzbeks were driving out the last Timurids, including a young prince named Babur. Printing presses had spread across Europe, carrying news of the new lands. For most people, life still revolved around harvests, faith and local lords.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Kingdom of Kongo, ruled by Joao I (Nzinga a Nkuwu), was the leading power of west-central Africa and in close contact with Portugal. The Mutapa state controlled the gold-bearing Zimbabwe plateau, and Swahili city-states such as Kilwa and Mombasa dominated the east coast, though Portuguese fleets had begun to bully them. Most of the interior was home to Bantu-speaking chiefdoms, with Khoisan peoples in the south-west and several kingdoms on Madagascar.","northern-africa":"Songhai, under Askia Muhammad I since 1493, was the largest state in West Africa, ruling the Niger bend from Gao and controlling Timbuktu. Egypt and Syria remained under the Mamluks, unsettled by a quick succession of sultans after Qaitbay's death in 1496. The Wattasids ruled Morocco while Portugal seized footholds on its coast; the Zayyanids and Hafsids held Algeria and Tunisia. Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Na'od, and Kanem-Bornu, Benin and Oyo were strong regional kingdoms.","europe":"Isabella and Ferdinand ruled a united Spain, and Manuel I's Portugal was growing rich on African gold and Asian spices. Louis XII of France had just seized Milan, renewing the Italian Wars begun in 1494. Henry VII ruled England, Maximilian I ruled the Holy Roman Empire as King of the Romans (emperor-elect from 1508), and Vladislaus II was king of both Bohemia and Hungary. Ivan III of Moscow was at war with Lithuania, the Kalmar Union under King Hans tied Denmark, Norway and Sweden together uneasily, and the Ottomans were fighting Venice at sea.","middle-east-south-asia":"Bayezid II's Ottoman Empire was taking Venetian ports in Greece, while the Mamluks held the Levant and western Arabia. The Aq Qoyunlu state in Iran had split between rival princes, giving the young Ismail of Ardabil his chance; he would take Tabriz in 1501. Herat remained the Timurid cultural capital under Husayn Bayqara. In India, Sikandar Lodi ruled the Delhi Sultanate, Alauddin Husain Shah ruled Bengal, Mahmud Begada ruled Gujarat, the Deccan was splitting into the five sultanates that succeeded the Bahmanis, and Vijayanagara dominated the south; Portuguese ships had begun visiting Calicut.","north-central-asia":"Muhammad Shaybani's Uzbeks captured Samarkand from the Timurids in 1500, beginning the Shaybanid khanate in Transoxiana. The Kazakh Khanate under Burunduk Khan held the steppe to the north. The Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal under Mengli I Giray, was about to destroy the Great Horde (1502), while the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and Sibir held the Volga and western Siberia.","east-asia":"The Hongzhi Emperor ruled a peaceful and well-governed Ming China from Beijing. Korea was under King Yeonsangun, whose tyrannical reign would end in a coup in 1506. Japan's Sengoku era was under way, with warlords fighting across the islands while the Ashikaga shogun Yoshizumi held little power. Dayan Khan had largely reunited the Mongols north of the Great Wall.","southeast-asia":"Malacca, under Sultan Mahmud Shah, remained the hub of Asian sea trade and a magnet for Portuguese ambitions. Ayutthaya under Ramathibodi II and Dai Viet under the Le dynasty were the strongest mainland kingdoms, Cambodia and Lan Xang held the Mekong lands, and Burma remained divided. On Java, Muslim coastal sultanates led by Demak were replacing Majapahit, and Islam was spreading through Sumatra and the Moluccas.","northern-north-america":"John Cabot had sailed for England to Newfoundland in 1497, and in 1500 and 1501 the Portuguese Gaspar Corte-Real explored Greenland and Newfoundland or Labrador. Otherwise the north belonged entirely to Indigenous nations: Inuit across the Arctic, Dene and Cree in the boreal forests, and Innu, Mi'kmaq and Haudenosaunee peoples in the east.","southern-north-america":"The Aztec Empire under Ahuitzotl was at its greatest extent, reaching the Guatemalan border. Maya city-states held Yucatan, and the Purepecha ruled western Mexico. Spain's only real colony was Hispaniola, where Columbus was arrested in 1500 for misrule and shipped home in chains. North of Mexico, Pueblo, Mississippian and many other peoples lived independently.","northern-south-america":"Huayna Capac ruled the Inca Empire at its peak, pushing its northern frontier into what is now Ecuador and southern Colombia. Spanish explorers were charting the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, and in April 1500 Cabral landed in Brazil and claimed it for Portugal under the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). Inland, the Amazon was home to many Indigenous peoples.","southern-cone":"The Inca held northern and central Chile and north-western Argentina, with the independent Mapuche to the south. The pampas, Patagonia and the Uruguay river lands belonged to hunter-gatherers such as the Tehuelche and Charrua, while Guarani farmers lived in Paraguay and southern Brazil. No Europeans had yet arrived.","australasia":"Aboriginal nations occupied all of Australia, Papuan farming societies the New Guinea highlands, and Maori iwi New Zealand. Tonga's Tu'i Tonga line remained the leading Polynesian chiefdom, while Hawaii and Tahiti were ruled by competing chiefs. No outsiders had yet reached these islands."},"powers":[{"name":"Ming China","map":"Ming Chinese Empire","ruler":"Hongzhi Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China proper from the Great Wall to the South China Sea","clio":"Ming Dynasty"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Bayezid II","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"Anatolia and the Balkans, with vassals in Crimea and Wallachia","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Inca Empire","map":"Inca Empire","ruler":"Huayna Capac","capital":"Cusco","extent":"About 4,000 km of the Andes from southern Colombia to central Chile","clio":"Inca Empire"},{"name":"Mamluk Sultanate","map":"Mamluke Sultanate","ruler":"Al-Ashraf Janbalat (r. 1500-01)","capital":"Cairo","extent":"Egypt, Syria, Palestine and the Hejaz","clio":"Mamluk Sultanate"},{"name":"Spain (Castile and Aragon)","map":"Castille","ruler":"Isabella I and Ferdinand II","capital":"Toledo / Granada (court travelled)","extent":"Most of Iberia, southern Italy's islands, the Canaries and Hispaniola","clio":null},{"name":"Portugal","map":"Portugal","ruler":"Manuel I","capital":"Lisbon","extent":"Portugal with forts in Morocco, West Africa and a new sea route to India; claim to Brazil","clio":"Kingdom of Portugal"},{"name":"Grand Duchy of Moscow","map":"Grand Duchy of Moscow","ruler":"Ivan III","capital":"Moscow","extent":"Northern Russia from the Baltic hinterland to the Urals","clio":"Grand Principality of Moscow"},{"name":"Aztec Empire","map":"Aztec Empire","ruler":"Ahuitzotl","capital":"Tenochtitlan","extent":"Central and southern Mexico to the Guatemalan border","clio":"Aztec Triple Alliance"},{"name":"Delhi Sultanate (Lodi dynasty)","map":"Sultanate of Delhi","ruler":"Sikandar Lodi","capital":"Delhi","extent":"Punjab and the Ganges plain to the borders of Bengal","clio":"(Delhi Sultanate)"},{"name":"Vijayanagara Empire","map":"Vijayanagara","ruler":"Narasimha Raya II, with regent Tuluva Narasa Nayaka","capital":"Vijayanagara (Hampi)","extent":"Most of southern India","clio":"Vijayanagara Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1494,"text":"Treaty of Tordesillas divides the newly found lands between Spain and Portugal"},{"year":1494,"text":"Charles VIII of France invades Italy, starting the Italian Wars"},{"year":1497,"text":"John Cabot reaches Newfoundland for England"},{"year":1498,"text":"Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut in India by sea"},{"year":1500,"text":"Muhammad Shaybani's Uzbeks take Samarkand from the Timurids"},{"year":1500,"text":"Pedro Alvares Cabral lands in Brazil and claims it for Portugal"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Mamluk sultans","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mamluk_sultans"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Italian Wars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gaspar Corte-Real","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_Corte-Real"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of emperors of Ethiopia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emperors_of_Ethiopia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of shoguns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shoguns"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Narasimha Raya II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narasimha_Raya_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, South Asia in the time of the Lodis, 1451-1526","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/South_Asia_in_the_time_of_the_Lodis_1451-1526.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"year":1530,"title":"Conquerors and Reformers","age":"Early Modern Period","overview":"Within one generation the map had been redrawn. Hernan Cortes had destroyed the Aztec Empire in 1521, and Spain now ruled central Mexico; Francisco Pizarro was preparing to sail against the Inca, who were tearing themselves apart in a civil war between the brothers Huascar and Atahualpa. Magellan's expedition had sailed around the world. Charles V, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1530, ruled Spain, the Netherlands, much of Italy and a growing American empire, while his great rival Suleiman the Magnificent had pushed the Ottoman Empire to the gates of Vienna in 1529. The Protestant Reformation, begun by Martin Luther in 1517, was splitting Western Christianity. In the east, new Muslim dynasties had risen: the Safavids in Iran, who made Shia Islam the state religion, and the Mughals, founded by Babur after his victory at Panipat in 1526. Babur died at the end of 1530, leaving a fragile empire to his son Humayun.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Afonso I, a devout Christian king, ruled Kongo and corresponded with the kings of Portugal, but Portuguese slave traders were already destabilising his realm. The Mutapa kingdom still controlled the Zimbabwe plateau's gold, now sold largely through Portuguese Sofala, and the Portuguese had sacked Kilwa and Mombasa and dominated the Swahili coast. The Luba kingdom may already have been taking shape in the southern Congo savanna, and Madagascar remained divided among local kingdoms.","northern-africa":"The Ottomans had conquered Egypt in 1517, and the corsair Hayreddin Barbarossa had made Algiers an Ottoman base, capturing its Spanish island fort in 1529. Morocco was ruled weakly by the Wattasid Ahmad, while the Saadi sharifs rose in the south; the Hafsids clung to Tunis. Songhai, now under Askia Musa after his father Askia Muhammad was deposed, remained West Africa's greatest empire. In the Horn, Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim (Ahmad Gragn) of Adal had begun a devastating invasion of Christian Ethiopia under Emperor Lebna Dengel.","europe":"Charles V ruled Spain, the Low Countries, Naples and Sicily, controlled Milan through its Sforza duke, and was crowned emperor by the pope at Bologna in 1530, while his brother Ferdinand held Austria and Bohemia and claimed Hungary against the Ottoman-backed John Zapolya. Francis I ruled France, Henry VIII of England was seeking to annul his marriage, which would soon break England from Rome, and Gustav Vasa had made Sweden independent of Denmark. Lutheran princes presented the Augsburg Confession in 1530. Vasily III ruled Muscovy and Sigismund I Poland-Lithuania.","middle-east-south-asia":"Suleiman the Magnificent's Ottoman Empire stretched from Hungary to Egypt and Arabia's holy cities and would take Baghdad in 1534. Shah Tahmasp I ruled the Safavid Empire in Iran from Tabriz. Babur, a Timurid prince from Central Asia, had founded the Mughal Empire across northern India after defeating Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat (1526) and the Rajputs at Khanwa (1527); he died in December 1530 and Humayun succeeded him. Bahadur Shah ruled Gujarat, the Deccan sultanates divided the plateau, Achyuta Deva Raya had just succeeded Krishnadevaraya in Vijayanagara, and Portugal ruled Goa and Hormuz.","north-central-asia":"The Shaybanid Uzbeks ruled Transoxiana from Samarkand and Bukhara, nominally under Kuchkunji Khan with real power held by Shaybani's nephew Ubaydullah, while a separate Uzbek dynasty held Khiva. The Kazakh Khanate dominated the open steppe and the Nogai Horde the lands between the Volga and the Urals. The khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimea and Sibir held the western steppe and Siberian forest edge.","east-asia":"The Jiajing Emperor ruled Ming China, which faced Mongol raids in the north and pirate attacks along the coast. Joseon Korea was ruled by King Jungjong. Japan was deep in the Sengoku period, with daimyo warlords such as the Hojo, Takeda and Mori fighting while Emperor Go-Nara and the Ashikaga shogun held little power. Tibet was divided among rival princes and monastic schools.","southeast-asia":"The Portuguese had captured Malacca in 1511; its sultans regrouped as the Sultanate of Johor, while Aceh rose in northern Sumatra. Tabinshwehti became king of Toungoo in 1530 and would soon reunite Burma. In Dai Viet, Mac Dang Dung had usurped the Le throne in 1527, Ayutthaya remained the strongest Thai state, and on Java the Sultanate of Demak under Trenggana was the leading power. Portugal and Spain disputed the Spice Islands until the Treaty of Zaragoza (1529) gave them to Portugal.","northern-north-america":"European fishermen from France, Portugal, Spain and England worked the Grand Banks off Newfoundland each summer, but no colonies existed. Giovanni da Verrazzano had sailed the coast for France in 1524, and Jacques Cartier's voyages up the St Lawrence would begin in 1534. The land remained in the hands of Inuit, Dene, Cree, Innu, Mi'kmaq, Haudenosaunee and other nations.","southern-north-america":"Spain ruled the former Aztec heartland as New Spain, governed from Mexico City (built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan) by a royal audiencia; the brutal Nuno de Guzman was conquering western Mexico, and a viceroyalty would be created in 1535. Smallpox had already killed a large share of Mexico's population. Spain also held Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, where the Taino had been almost wiped out. Narvaez's Florida expedition had been lost in 1528, and survivors including Cabeza de Vaca were wandering across Texas.","northern-south-america":"The Inca Empire was split by civil war between Huascar in Cusco and Atahualpa in Quito, after their father Huayna Capac died around 1527, probably of smallpox that had spread ahead of the Europeans. Pizarro had won a royal licence to conquer Peru and was readying his expedition in Panama. Spaniards were settling the Caribbean coast of Colombia and Venezuela, and Portugal began organising Brazil, sending Martim Afonso de Sousa's expedition in 1530.","southern-cone":"Sebastian Cabot had explored the Rio de la Plata and Parana rivers in 1527 to 1529, but no permanent European settlement yet existed. The Inca still nominally held northern Chile and north-western Argentina, with the Mapuche independent to the south and Guarani, Charrua and Tehuelche peoples elsewhere.","australasia":"Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand remained untouched by outsiders, home to Aboriginal nations, Papuan farmers and Maori iwi. Magellan's fleet had crossed the Pacific in 1520 to 1521 without sighting most of its islands. In Polynesia, the Tu'i Tonga line remained paramount, and Hawaii's islands were ruled by rival chiefs."},"powers":[{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Suleiman I the Magnificent","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"From Hungary and the Balkans through Anatolia to Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz, with Algiers as a vassal","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Ming China","map":"Ming Chinese Empire","ruler":"Jiajing Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China proper from the Great Wall to the South China Sea","clio":"Ming Dynasty"},{"name":"Spain (Habsburg)","map":"Spain","ruler":"Charles I (Emperor Charles V)","capital":"Valladolid / Toledo (court travelled)","extent":"Spain, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, the Low Countries via Charles, the Caribbean and New Spain","clio":"Kingdom of Spain"},{"name":"Safavid Empire","map":"Safavid Empire","ruler":"Tahmasp I","capital":"Tabriz","extent":"Iran, Iraq (until 1534) and the southern Caucasus","clio":"Safavid Dynasty"},{"name":"Mughal Empire","map":"Mughal Empire","ruler":"Babur (d. Dec 1530), then Humayun","capital":"Agra","extent":"Kabul, Punjab and the Ganges plain to Bihar","clio":"Mughal Empire"},{"name":"Inca Empire","map":"Inca Empire","ruler":"Huascar and Atahualpa (in civil war)","capital":"Cusco (Huascar) / Quito (Atahualpa)","extent":"The Andes from southern Colombia to central Chile","clio":"Inca Empire"},{"name":"Holy Roman Empire","map":"Holy Roman Empire","ruler":"Charles V, with Ferdinand of Austria","capital":"No fixed capital (Vienna for Ferdinand's Austrian lands)","extent":"Germany, Austria, Bohemia and the Low Countries","clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)"},{"name":"Portugal","map":"Portugal","ruler":"Joao III","capital":"Lisbon","extent":"Portugal, Brazil's coast, and forts from West Africa to Goa, Hormuz, Malacca and the Moluccas","clio":"Kingdom of Portugal"},{"name":"Grand Duchy of Moscow","map":"Tsardom of Muscovy","ruler":"Vasily III","capital":"Moscow","extent":"Russia from Smolensk to the Urals and the White Sea","clio":null},{"name":"Vijayanagara Empire","map":"Vijayanagara","ruler":"Achyuta Deva Raya","capital":"Vijayanagara (Hampi)","extent":"Southern India south of the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers","clio":"Vijayanagara Empire"}],"events":[{"year":1517,"text":"Martin Luther's 95 Theses begin the Protestant Reformation; the Ottomans conquer Egypt"},{"year":1521,"text":"Cortes and his Indigenous allies capture Tenochtitlan, ending the Aztec Empire"},{"year":1522,"text":"Survivors of Magellan's expedition complete the first circumnavigation"},{"year":1526,"text":"Babur defeats Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat; the Ottomans crush Hungary at Mohacs"},{"year":1527,"text":"Imperial troops sack Rome; the Inca civil war begins soon after Huayna Capac's death"},{"year":1529,"text":"Suleiman besieges Vienna but fails to take it"},{"year":1530,"text":"Charles V is crowned emperor at Bologna; Babur dies and Humayun succeeds him"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Francesco II Sforza","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_II_Sforza"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kuchkunji Khan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchkunji_Khan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Toungoo dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toungoo_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Luba Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luba_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Lunda","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Lunda"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of rulers of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rulers_of_Kongo"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VI.A, Northern South Asia in the period of Babur, Humayun, and Sher Shah, 1526-1555","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Northern_South_Asia_in_the_period_of_Babur_Humayun_and_Sher_Shah_1526-1555.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VII: The Mughul Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/mughulempire00bhar"}]},{"year":1600,"title":"Gunpowder Empires","age":"Early Modern Period","overview":"In 1600 the world was dominated by vast land empires armed with cannon and muskets: Ming China, the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran under Shah Abbas the Great, and the Mughal Empire of Akbar, which ruled well over 100 million people. Spain, joined with Portugal since 1580, held the first empire on which the sun never set, stretching from Mexico and Peru to the Philippines, and Spanish silver from Potosi flowed across the globe to China. But challengers were appearing: the Dutch were fighting for independence, and on the last day of 1600 Queen Elizabeth I chartered the English East India Company. In Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu's victory at Sekigahara in October 1600 ended a century of civil war. Russia was about to fall into its Time of Troubles. Worldwide, new crops from the Americas such as maize, potatoes and chili peppers were spreading, while the Atlantic slave trade was growing steadily.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Kongo, under Alvaro II, remained a Christian kingdom allied with Portugal, but Portuguese Angola, centred on Luanda (founded 1576), was waging slave-raiding wars against the kingdom of Ndongo. On the Zimbabwe plateau the Mutapa ruler Gatsi Rusere depended increasingly on Portuguese support, and Portugal held Mozambique and Fort Jesus at Mombasa (1593). The Luba and Lunda kingdoms grew in the interior, and Madagascar was divided among kingdoms including the Merina.","northern-africa":"Morocco's Saadi sultan Ahmad al-Mansur had destroyed the Songhai Empire at the Battle of Tondibi in 1591 and ruled Timbuktu through Moroccan pashas. The Ottomans held Egypt and, through regencies, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Kanem-Bornu was the strongest state around Lake Chad, the Hausa city-states and Oyo were growing, the Funj Sultanate ruled from Sennar on the Nile, and Ethiopia was ruled by the young Emperor Yaqob after Sarsa Dengel's death in 1597.","europe":"Philip III had just succeeded Philip II as king of Spain and Portugal. Elizabeth I ruled England and Henry IV, who ended the French Wars of Religion with the Edict of Nantes (1598), ruled France. The Dutch Republic under Maurice of Nassau was still fighting Spain, Emperor Rudolf II ruled the Holy Roman Empire from Prague, and Sigismund III Vasa ruled Poland-Lithuania while his uncle Charles held power in Sweden. Boris Godunov ruled Muscovy, and the Ottomans and Habsburgs were locked in the Long Turkish War in Hungary.","middle-east-south-asia":"Mehmed III ruled the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans to Iraq and Arabia, though it faced revolts in Anatolia. Shah Abbas I had reformed the Safavid army and moved his capital to Isfahan in 1598. Akbar's Mughal Empire stretched from Kabul and Kashmir to Bengal and was pushing into the Deccan, capturing Ahmadnagar in 1600. The southern sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda, the weakened Vijayanagara kings and Portuguese Goa shared the south.","north-central-asia":"Russian Cossacks had conquered the Khanate of Sibir, defeating its last khan, Kuchum, in 1598, and Russian forts were pushing east across Siberia. The Kazakh Khanate under Esim Khan dominated the steppe, the Nogai Horde roamed between the Volga and the Urals, and Bukhara had just passed from the Shaybanids to the Janid (Ashtarkhanid) dynasty, with Khiva independent to the west.","east-asia":"The Wanli Emperor reigned over Ming China, though he had largely stopped attending to government and the costly war in Korea had drained the treasury. In Manchuria, Nurhaci was uniting the Jurchen tribes. Korea's King Seonjo was rebuilding after Japan's invasions of 1592 to 1598. In Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had died in 1598, and Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated his rivals at Sekigahara in 1600, setting the stage for the Tokugawa shogunate.","southeast-asia":"King Naresuan had restored Ayutthaya's independence from Burma and made it the leading mainland power, while Burma's Toungoo empire had collapsed and was being rebuilt by Nyaungyan Min at Ava. Vietnam was ruled in name by the Le emperors but split between the Trinh lords in the north and the Nguyen lords in the south. Aceh, Banten, Johor and the rising Javanese kingdom of Mataram competed with Portuguese Malacca, Spain ruled the Philippines from Manila, and the first Dutch fleets had arrived.","northern-north-america":"France was reviving its interest in the St Lawrence: in 1600 Pierre de Chauvin set up a fur-trading post at Tadoussac, and Samuel de Champlain would found Quebec in 1608. Basque, French and English fishermen visited Newfoundland every summer. The vast interior remained under Indigenous nations such as the Cree, Innu, Haudenosaunee, Wendat (Huron) and Inuit.","southern-north-america":"Spain ruled New Spain, from Central America to northern Mexico, under Viceroy Gaspar de Zuniga, Count of Monterrey, and Juan de Onate had just claimed New Mexico (1598). Spain also held Florida's St Augustine and the main Caribbean islands, which were raided by English, French and Dutch privateers. England's Roanoke colony had vanished, and Jamestown would not be founded until 1607; the rest of North America belonged to Indigenous nations such as the Powhatan, Haudenosaunee, Creek, Pueblo and Apache.","northern-south-america":"The Viceroyalty of Peru, ruled from Lima, governed nearly all of Spanish South America; the silver mines of Potosi, worked by forced Indigenous labour, made it one of the richest places on Earth. Spaniards also ruled New Granada (Colombia) and Venezuela. Portuguese Brazil, now under the Spanish crown, was the world's leading sugar producer, worked increasingly by enslaved Africans. The Amazon interior remained largely Indigenous.","southern-cone":"Spain held Chile, Paraguay (from Asuncion) and the Rio de la Plata, where Buenos Aires had been refounded in 1580. In 1598 the Mapuche destroyed a Spanish army at Curalaba and went on to wipe out the Spanish towns south of the Biobio River, which became a lasting frontier. The pampas and Patagonia remained in the hands of Indigenous peoples.","australasia":"Spanish navigators had visited the Solomon Islands (1568) and Marquesas (1595), but Australia was still unknown to Europeans; the Dutchman Willem Janszoon would reach it in 1606. Aboriginal nations held Australia, Papuan peoples New Guinea and Maori iwi New Zealand, while Tonga's Tu'i Tonga line remained the main Polynesian power."},"powers":[{"name":"Ming China","map":"Ming Chinese Empire","ruler":"Wanli Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China proper, with influence over Korea and a tributary network across Asia","clio":"Ming Dynasty"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Mehmed III","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"From Hungary and the Balkans to Iraq, Egypt, Arabia's coasts and North Africa","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Mughal Empire","map":"Mughal Empire","ruler":"Akbar","capital":"Agra","extent":"Northern India from Kabul and Kashmir to Bengal, pushing into the Deccan","clio":"Mughal Empire"},{"name":"Spanish Empire (with Portugal)","map":"Spain","ruler":"Philip III","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain and Portugal, much of Italy, the southern Netherlands, the Americas from Mexico to Chile, Brazil, the Philippines and Portugal's Asian forts","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"Safavid Empire","map":"Safavid Empire","ruler":"Abbas I the Great","capital":"Isfahan","extent":"Iran and western Afghanistan; Tabriz and the southern Caucasus, ceded to the Ottomans in 1590, are retaken from 1603","clio":"Safavid Dynasty"},{"name":"Tsardom of Russia","map":"Tsardom of Muscovy","ruler":"Boris Godunov","capital":"Moscow","extent":"European Russia from the White Sea to the Caspian, and western Siberia","clio":"Tsardom of Russia"},{"name":"Japan","map":"Japan (Warring States)","ruler":"Tokugawa Ieyasu (de facto, after Sekigahara)","capital":"Kyoto (imperial) / Edo (Tokugawa base)","extent":"Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu","clio":"Warring States Japan"},{"name":"Kingdom of England","map":"England and Ireland","ruler":"Elizabeth I","capital":"London","extent":"England, Wales and Ireland (then in rebellion)","clio":"(Kingdom of England)"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Henry IV","capital":"Paris","extent":"France, newly at peace after the Wars of Religion","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Saadi Morocco","map":"Watassid Morocco","ruler":"Ahmad al-Mansur","capital":"Marrakesh","extent":"Morocco and, through pashas at Timbuktu, the former Songhai lands on the Niger","clio":"Saadi Sultanate"}],"events":[{"year":1571,"text":"Spain founds Manila; a Holy League fleet defeats the Ottomans at Lepanto"},{"year":1580,"text":"Philip II of Spain becomes king of Portugal, uniting the two empires"},{"year":1588,"text":"The Spanish Armada fails against England"},{"year":1591,"text":"Moroccan troops destroy the Songhai Empire at Tondibi"},{"year":1592,"text":"Japan invades Korea; the war lasts until 1598"},{"year":1598,"text":"Edict of Nantes in France; Shah Abbas moves the Safavid capital to Isfahan"},{"year":1600,"text":"Tokugawa Ieyasu wins at Sekigahara; the English East India Company is chartered"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mughal Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Apache","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Comanche","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Mutapa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mutapa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Kazakh khans","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kazakh_khans"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Toungoo dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toungoo_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Constantinople (1590)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Constantinople_(1590)"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VI.A, The Mughal Empire, c. 1605","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Mughal_Empire_c._1605.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VII: The Mughul Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/mughulempire00bhar"}]},{"year":1650,"title":"Crisis and New Dynasties","age":"Early Modern Period","overview":"The mid-17th century was an age of war, rebellion and cold weather, often called the General Crisis. In China the Ming dynasty had fallen in 1644 and the Manchu Qing were conquering the country, while Ming loyalists fought on in the south. Europe had just ended the Thirty Years' War with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which confirmed the independence of the Dutch Republic and Switzerland and left Germany devastated. England had beheaded King Charles I in 1649 and become a republic under Parliament and Oliver Cromwell. France was torn by the Fronde revolts during the boyhood of Louis XIV. The Dutch were now the world's leading traders, running a spice empire from Batavia on Java. Russia had reached the Pacific, and the Mughal Empire under Shah Jahan was at its most magnificent, with the Taj Mahal nearing completion. Across the Atlantic, enslaved Africans were being shipped in growing numbers to Caribbean and Brazilian sugar plantations.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Queen Nzinga ruled the kingdom of Ndongo-Matamba and had resisted the Portuguese for decades, allying with the Dutch, who held Luanda from 1641 until Portugal retook it in 1648. Kongo under Garcia II was a strong but troubled Christian kingdom. Portugal dominated the Mutapa state and held Mozambique, and the Dutch East India Company would found Cape Town in 1652. Inland, the Luba and Lunda kingdoms were expanding.","northern-africa":"Morocco was fragmented after the decline of the Saadis, with the Dila'i religious lodge controlling Fez and the Alaouite family rising in the Tafilalt. The Ottomans held Egypt and the regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, which lived largely by corsair raiding. Kanem-Bornu, the Hausa states and Oyo were strong in the west, the Funj ruled Sennar, and Emperor Fasilides ruled Ethiopia from his new capital Gondar after expelling the Jesuits.","europe":"After the Peace of Westphalia, Emperor Ferdinand III's Holy Roman Empire was a loose union of hundreds of states, while Queen Christina's Sweden held much of the Baltic coast. England was a republic ruled by the Rump Parliament and Cromwell, who was crushing Ireland and invading Scotland. France was ruled by young Louis XIV and Cardinal Mazarin, Philip IV's Spain was in decline after Portugal regained independence in 1640 under Joao IV, and Poland-Lithuania under John II Casimir faced the great Cossack revolt of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Tsar Alexis ruled Russia.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire, under the child sultan Mehmed IV, was troubled by palace intrigue and a long war with Venice over Crete. Shah Abbas II ruled Safavid Iran and recaptured Kandahar from the Mughals in 1649. Shah Jahan's Mughal Empire ruled most of the subcontinent from his new city of Shahjahanabad (Delhi), though Bijapur and Golconda remained independent in the Deccan. In 1650 the Omani imam Sultan bin Saif drove the Portuguese out of Muscat, and the Dutch were taking Portugal's forts in Ceylon.","north-central-asia":"Russian explorers had crossed all of Siberia, founding Okhotsk on the Pacific coast in 1647; Semyon Dezhnev sailed round Asia's north-eastern tip in 1648 and Yerofey Khabarov was campaigning along the Amur. The Dzungar (Oirat) confederation was rising in the east, the Kazakh Khanate under Zhangir Khan held the central steppe, Kalmyks had moved onto the lower Volga, and Janid khans ruled Bukhara while the historian-khan Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur ruled Khiva.","east-asia":"The Qing dynasty, ruling from Beijing under the boy Shunzhi Emperor and his regent Dorgon, controlled most of northern and central China, while Southern Ming claimants and the sea lord Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) held parts of the south. Korea's King Hyojong, once a hostage of the Manchus, ruled Joseon. In Japan the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu had closed the country to most foreign contact, allowing only Dutch and Chinese traders at Nagasaki. The Fifth Dalai Lama, backed by the Mongol Gushi Khan, now ruled Tibet.","southeast-asia":"The Dutch East India Company (VOC) ruled Batavia and the Moluccas, had taken Malacca from Portugal in 1641 and held a colony on Taiwan. Mataram under Amangkurat I was the main kingdom on Java, Aceh was ruled by Sultana Taj ul-Alam, and Makassar was a rising trading power. Ayutthaya under King Prasat Thong and the Toungoo kingdom of Burma were the main mainland states, while the Trinh and Nguyen lords fought over Vietnam and Spain ruled the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"New France had small settlements at Quebec, Trois-Rivieres and Montreal, built on the fur trade with Indigenous allies. In 1649 the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) destroyed the Wendat (Huron) confederacy, France's main trading partners. Newfoundland had seasonal English and French fishing stations. Most of the north, from Labrador to Alaska, belonged to Cree, Innu, Dene, Inuit and other nations.","southern-north-america":"England had colonies in Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts Bay and other New England settlements, and on Barbados and other Caribbean islands; the Dutch held New Netherland around New Amsterdam under Peter Stuyvesant. Spain ruled New Spain, Florida, Cuba and Hispaniola. Elsewhere, powerful Indigenous nations such as the Haudenosaunee, Creek, Apache and Pueblo peoples held most of the continent.","northern-south-america":"Spain's Viceroyalty of Peru ruled the Andes and Pacific coast from Lima. Portuguese settlers in Brazil were fighting to expel the Dutch, who had held the sugar-rich north-east around Recife since 1630 and would be driven out in 1654. Dutch, English and French settlers clung to the Guiana coast. Brazilian slave-raiding bands, the bandeirantes, pushed deep into the interior.","southern-cone":"Spain held central Chile, Paraguay and the Rio de la Plata, but the Mapuche kept their independence south of the Biobio River, recognised at the Parliament of Quilin in 1641. Jesuit missions organised tens of thousands of Guarani in the reductions of Paraguay, defending them against bandeirante raiders. The pampas and Patagonia remained Indigenous lands.","australasia":"Dutch navigators had charted the western and northern coasts of Australia, calling it New Holland, and in 1642 Abel Tasman reached Tasmania and New Zealand, where Maori warriors repelled his landing. No Europeans had settled. Aboriginal nations, Papuan peoples, Maori iwi and Pacific islanders such as the Tongans and Hawaiians lived as before."},"powers":[{"name":"Qing Empire","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"Shunzhi Emperor (regent Dorgon)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"Manchuria and most of northern and central China, still conquering the south","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Tsardom of Russia","map":"Tsardom of Muscovy","ruler":"Alexis I","capital":"Moscow","extent":"From the Baltic hinterland across Siberia to the Pacific at Okhotsk","clio":"Tsardom of Russia"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Mehmed IV","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"From Hungary to Iraq, Arabia, Egypt and North Africa","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Mughal Empire","map":"Mughal Empire","ruler":"Shah Jahan","capital":"Shahjahanabad (Delhi)","extent":"Most of the Indian subcontinent from Kabul to Bengal and the northern Deccan","clio":"Mughal Empire"},{"name":"Spanish Empire","map":"Spain","ruler":"Philip IV","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain, southern Italy, the southern Netherlands, the Americas from Mexico to Chile, and the Philippines","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"Dutch Republic","map":"Dutch Republic","ruler":"Stadtholder William II (d. Nov 1650); States General","capital":"The Hague / Amsterdam","extent":"The northern Netherlands plus VOC holdings in Java, the Moluccas, Malacca, Ceylon's coast and Taiwan, New Netherland and north-east Brazil","clio":"(Dutch Republic)"},{"name":"Safavid Empire","map":"Safavid Empire","ruler":"Abbas II","capital":"Isfahan","extent":"Iran, the southern Caucasus and western Afghanistan with Kandahar","clio":"Safavid Dynasty"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Louis XIV (regency of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France, plus New France on the St Lawrence and some Caribbean islands","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Swedish Empire","map":"Sweden","ruler":"Queen Christina","capital":"Stockholm","extent":"Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Livonia and footholds in northern Germany","clio":"Swedish Empire"},{"name":"Tokugawa Japan","map":"Tokugawa shogunate","ruler":"Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu","capital":"Edo (shogun) / Kyoto (emperor)","extent":"The Japanese islands except Hokkaido's Ainu north","clio":"Tokugawa Shogunate"}],"events":[{"year":1618,"text":"The Thirty Years' War begins in Bohemia"},{"year":1619,"text":"The Dutch East India Company founds Batavia on Java"},{"year":1641,"text":"The Dutch capture Malacca from Portugal"},{"year":1644,"text":"Beijing falls to rebels and then the Manchus; the Qing dynasty takes power"},{"year":1648,"text":"Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War; Khmelnytsky's Cossack revolt begins"},{"year":1649,"text":"Charles I of England is executed; the Iroquois destroy the Huron confederacy"},{"year":1650,"text":"Oman expels the Portuguese from Muscat"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Comanche","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yerofey Khabarov","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerofey_Khabarov"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sultanate of Aceh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Aceh"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of shoguns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shoguns"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of rulers of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rulers_of_Kongo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mataram Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mataram_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Powhatan Confederacy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powhatan_Confederacy"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VI.A.3, The reigns of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzib, 1605-1707","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_reigns_of_Jahangir_Shah_Jahan_and_Aurangzib_1605-1707.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VII: The Mughul Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/mughulempire00bhar"}]},{"year":1700,"title":"Sun Kings and Sultans","age":"Early Modern Period","overview":"In 1700 three emperors ruled more people than all of Europe combined: the Kangxi Emperor of Qing China, who had completed the conquest of China and fixed the Russian border at Nerchinsk, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, whose empire had reached its greatest size but was exhausted by endless war against the Marathas, and the Ottoman sultan, who had just been forced to give up Hungary at the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). In Europe Louis XIV of France dominated from Versailles. On 1 November 1700 the childless Charles II of Spain died, leaving his empire to Louis's grandson Philip and triggering the War of the Spanish Succession. In the north, Peter the Great of Russia, Denmark and Saxony-Poland attacked Sweden, beginning the Great Northern War. Britain and France were competing in North America and India, and gold had just been discovered in Brazil. The Atlantic slave trade was now carrying tens of thousands of Africans each year.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Dutch East India Company's Cape Colony, under Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel, was expanding inland at the expense of the Khoikhoi. Kongo was still split by the civil war that began in 1665, which Pedro IV would end in 1709, and Portugal ruled Angola and Mozambique. On the Zimbabwe plateau the Rozvi kingdom of the Changamire dynasty had pushed the Portuguese out, while the Luba and Lunda kingdoms flourished in the interior. In 1698 Oman captured Fort Jesus at Mombasa, ending Portuguese power on most of the Swahili coast.","northern-africa":"Sultan Moulay Ismail ruled a strong, reunited Morocco from Meknes. The Ottomans held Egypt, where Mamluk-descended beys had real power, and Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli were nearly independent. In West Africa, Osei Tutu was forging the Asante kingdom around Kumasi, Dahomey and Oyo were growing on the slave trade, and Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa states traded across the Sahara. Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Iyasu I from Gondar, and the Funj ruled Sennar.","europe":"Louis XIV's France was Europe's strongest state, and Spain passed from Charles II to Louis's grandson Philip V in November 1700. William III ruled England, Scotland and Ireland and led the Dutch Republic, and Emperor Leopold I had won Hungary from the Ottomans. In the Great Northern War, which began in 1700, the young Charles XII of Sweden crushed Peter the Great's Russian army at Narva in November. Augustus II ruled Poland-Lithuania and Saxony, and Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg was about to crown himself King in Prussia (1701).","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire under Mustafa II had lost Hungary and Transylvania at Karlowitz but still held the Balkans, Anatolia, Iraq and Arabia's coasts. Safavid Iran under Shah Sultan Husayn was weak and poorly governed. Aurangzeb's Mughal Empire covered nearly all of the subcontinent after conquering Bijapur (1686) and Golconda (1687), but the emperor was bogged down fighting the Marathas, led after Rajaram's death in 1700 by his widow Tarabai. The English, Dutch and French East India Companies traded from coastal forts such as Madras, Bombay and Calcutta.","north-central-asia":"Russia held all of Siberia to the Pacific and had agreed its border with China at Nerchinsk (1689). The Dzungar Khanate under Tsewang Rabtan controlled the eastern steppe and the Tarim Basin, the Kazakh Khanate under Tauke Khan held the central steppe, and the Kalmyks lived on the Volga under Russian protection. Bukhara and Khiva remained independent Uzbek khanates.","east-asia":"The Kangxi Emperor ruled a powerful Qing China, having crushed the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (1681), annexed Taiwan (1683) and defeated the Dzungar leader Galdan, bringing the eastern (Khalkha) Mongols under Qing rule. Korea was ruled by King Sukjong. Japan, under the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, enjoyed the peaceful, prosperous Genroku era behind its closed borders. Tibet was ruled in the name of the Dalai Lama.","southeast-asia":"The Dutch VOC dominated the spice trade from Batavia and was gaining control over Java's Mataram kingdom by intervening in its revolts and succession disputes. Ayutthaya was ruled by King Phetracha, who had expelled French influence in 1688. Burma's Toungoo dynasty under Sanay Min was in decline, the Trinh lords governed northern Vietnam and the Nguyen lords the south, and Spain ruled the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"The English Hudson's Bay Company, chartered in 1670, traded for furs around Hudson Bay in the vast territory it called Rupert's Land, and competed with New France, whose towns lined the St Lawrence. French and English colonists and their Indigenous allies fought repeated frontier wars, and the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 would bring a truce with the Haudenosaunee. Inuit, Cree, Dene and other nations held the far north and west.","southern-north-america":"England had a chain of colonies from Massachusetts to Carolina, including Pennsylvania (1681) and New York, taken from the Dutch in 1664. France had explored the Mississippi and founded Louisiana in 1699. Spain ruled New Spain, Florida and Cuba, had reconquered New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and had briefly planted missions in east Texas (1690 to 1693). In the Caribbean, England held Jamaica and France had won western Hispaniola (Saint-Domingue) in 1697.","northern-south-america":"The Viceroyalty of Peru governed Spanish South America from Lima, with Potosi's silver output now declining. In Portuguese Brazil, the discovery of gold in Minas Gerais in the 1690s set off a huge gold rush, while sugar plantations in the north-east depended on enslaved Africans; the runaway-slave kingdom of Palmares had been destroyed in 1694. The Dutch, English and French held small colonies in the Guianas.","southern-cone":"Spain ruled Chile, Paraguay and the Rio de la Plata, but Portugal had planted the rival outpost of Colonia do Sacramento across the river from Buenos Aires in 1680. Jesuit reductions organised the Guarani, and the Mapuche held the land south of the Biobio. The pampas and Patagonia remained under Indigenous peoples who had adopted the horse.","australasia":"The Dutch had mapped much of Australia's western, northern and southern coasts, and the English buccaneer William Dampier visited Western Australia in 1699, but none settled. Aboriginal nations held the continent, Papuan peoples New Guinea and Maori iwi New Zealand. In Polynesia, Tonga's paramount chiefs and the rival chiefs of Hawaii and Tahiti ruled without European contact."},"powers":[{"name":"Mughal Empire","map":"Mughal Empire","ruler":"Aurangzeb","capital":"Delhi (Aurangzeb campaigning in the Deccan)","extent":"Almost the whole Indian subcontinent from Kabul deep into the south, short of the southern tip","clio":"Mughal Empire"},{"name":"Qing Empire","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"Kangxi Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China, Manchuria, Taiwan and Outer Mongolia","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Mustafa II","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Arabia's coasts and North Africa","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Tsardom of Russia","map":"Tsardom of Muscovy","ruler":"Peter I the Great","capital":"Moscow","extent":"From Ukraine east of the Dnieper across Siberia to the Pacific","clio":"Tsardom of Russia"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Louis XIV","capital":"Paris / Versailles","extent":"France, New France, Louisiana, Saint-Domingue and trading posts in India","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Spanish Empire","map":"Spain","ruler":"Charles II (d. 1 Nov 1700), then Philip V","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain, southern Italy, the southern Netherlands, most of the Americas from Mexico to Chile, and the Philippines","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"Habsburg Monarchy","map":"Austrian Empire","ruler":"Leopold I (also Holy Roman Emperor)","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Austria, Bohemia and newly reconquered Hungary and Transylvania","clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)"},{"name":"England (with Scotland and Ireland)","map":"England and Ireland","ruler":"William III","capital":"London","extent":"The British Isles, North American colonies from New England to Carolina, Jamaica and East India Company forts","clio":"(Kingdom of England)"},{"name":"Swedish Empire","map":"Sweden","ruler":"Charles XII","capital":"Stockholm","extent":"Sweden, Finland and the eastern Baltic coast, with lands in northern Germany","clio":"Swedish Empire"},{"name":"Safavid Empire","map":"Safavid Empire","ruler":"Sultan Husayn","capital":"Isfahan","extent":"Iran, the southern Caucasus and western Afghanistan","clio":"Safavid Dynasty"}],"events":[{"year":1683,"text":"The Ottoman siege of Vienna is broken; the Qing annex Taiwan"},{"year":1687,"text":"Aurangzeb conquers Golconda, bringing the Mughal Empire to its height"},{"year":1688,"text":"The Glorious Revolution in England puts William III and Mary II on the throne"},{"year":1689,"text":"Treaty of Nerchinsk fixes the border between Russia and Qing China"},{"year":1699,"text":"Treaty of Karlowitz: the Ottomans cede Hungary to Austria; the French found Louisiana"},{"year":1700,"text":"The Great Northern War begins; Charles XII wins at Narva"},{"year":1700,"text":"Charles II of Spain dies, leaving his throne to Philip of Anjou"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kongo Civil War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongo_Civil_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish missions in Texas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_Texas"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mataram Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mataram_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Mutapa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mutapa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mughal Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of monarchs of Thailand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Thailand"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VI.A.3, The reigns of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzib, 1605-1707","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_reigns_of_Jahangir_Shah_Jahan_and_Aurangzib_1605-1707.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/historyofaurangz02sarkuoft"}]},{"year":1715,"title":"Peace of Utrecht","age":"Early Modern Period","overview":"The world of 1715 was taking stock after a great war. The War of the Spanish Succession had ended with the treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastatt (1714): Philip V kept Spain and its American empire, Austria took Spain's lands in Italy and the Netherlands, and Great Britain, formed by the union of England and Scotland in 1707, gained Gibraltar, Minorca, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Hudson Bay, along with the right to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America. Louis XIV died in September 1715 after 72 years on the throne, leaving France to his five-year-old great-grandson. Peter the Great had defeated Sweden at Poltava in 1709 and built St Petersburg as Russia's new capital. In India, the Mughal Empire was weakening fast after Aurangzeb's death in 1707, while the Marathas grew stronger. Qing China under the Kangxi Emperor was peaceful and populous, and Tokugawa Japan remained closed.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Dutch Cape Colony was spreading inland, and a smallpox epidemic in 1713 devastated the Khoikhoi. Portugal held Angola and the Mozambique coast, while the Rozvi kingdom ruled the Zimbabwe plateau and the Lunda and Luba kingdoms the southern Congo basin. Oman's Ya'rubid imams controlled the Swahili coast from Mombasa to Zanzibar. In Madagascar, Sakalava kingdoms dominated the west coast, and pirates had used the island as a base.","northern-africa":"Moulay Ismail still ruled Morocco from Meknes. Egypt was an Ottoman province governed in practice by rival Mamluk beys. Algiers was run by its deys, Tunis by the new Husainid dynasty (1705) and Tripoli by the Karamanli dynasty (1711). In West Africa, Asante under Osei Tutu, Dahomey and Oyo were the leading powers, Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa states held the central Sahel, and Ethiopia, under Emperor Yostos, was losing central authority.","europe":"George I of Hanover became king of Great Britain in 1714 and faced a Jacobite rising in 1715. Louis XV succeeded Louis XIV in France with Philip of Orleans as regent. Philip V ruled Spain, Emperor Charles VI ruled Austria with its new lands in Italy and the southern Netherlands, and Victor Amadeus II of Savoy had become king of Sicily. Peter the Great was winning the Great Northern War against Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick William I ruled Prussia and Augustus II Poland-Lithuania.","middle-east-south-asia":"Ahmed III's Ottoman Empire retook the Peloponnese (Morea) from Venice in 1715. Safavid Iran under Shah Sultan Husayn was crumbling, with Afghan Ghilzai rebels independent in Kandahar since 1709. The Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar reigned at Delhi but depended on the powerful Sayyid brothers; the Marathas under Shahu and his new Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath were expanding, and the Sikh leader Banda Singh Bahadur was captured in 1715. European companies held trading towns such as Madras, Bombay, Calcutta and Pondicherry.","north-central-asia":"Russia ruled Siberia and was pushing south toward the Kazakh steppe and Central Asia, sending expeditions up the Irtysh. The Dzungar Khanate under Tsewang Rabtan was at its strongest, raiding the Kazakhs, whose khan Tauke died around 1715. The Kalmyks held the lower Volga, and the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara and Khiva ruled the oases of Transoxiana.","east-asia":"The Kangxi Emperor's Qing China was at peace and growing rapidly in population, though Qing armies were preparing to confront the Dzungars, who would invade Tibet in 1717. Korea was ruled by King Sukjong. Japan's shogun was the child Tokugawa Ietsugu, guided by the Confucian scholar Arai Hakuseki, and trade remained restricted to Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki.","southeast-asia":"The Dutch VOC controlled the Moluccas and much of Java's coast, propping up the Mataram ruler Pakubuwono I. Ayutthaya under King Thai Sa remained a major rice and trading kingdom, Burma's Toungoo dynasty under Taninganway was weak, and Vietnam stayed divided between the Trinh lords and the Nguyen lords, who were expanding into the Mekong delta. Spain ruled the Philippines from Manila.","northern-north-america":"Under the Treaty of Utrecht, France gave Britain Newfoundland, Acadia (Nova Scotia) and its claims to Hudson Bay, where the Hudson's Bay Company traded across Rupert's Land. France kept the St Lawrence valley, Cape Breton Island, where it would build Louisbourg, and the Great Lakes fur trade. Most of the north and west remained Indigenous territory.","southern-north-america":"Britain's colonies stretched from New England to Carolina, where the Yamasee War of 1715 nearly destroyed the colony. France held Louisiana along the Mississippi and Gulf coast and would found New Orleans in 1718. Spain ruled New Spain, Florida and Cuba and was building missions in Texas. In the Caribbean, Britain held Jamaica and Barbados, France held Saint-Domingue and Martinique, and the golden age of piracy, soon to include Blackbeard, was beginning.","northern-south-america":"The Viceroyalty of Peru still governed all Spanish South America from Lima; a separate Viceroyalty of New Granada would be created in 1717. Portuguese Brazil was booming on Minas Gerais gold, drawing settlers and enslaved Africans inland. The Dutch held Suriname, and the French and British held smaller stretches of the Guiana coast.","southern-cone":"By the Treaty of Utrecht between Spain and Portugal (1715), Spain returned Colonia do Sacramento to Portugal, keeping the Rio de la Plata contested. Spain ruled Chile, Paraguay and Buenos Aires, Jesuit missions organised the Guarani, and the Mapuche kept their independence south of the Biobio. Mounted Indigenous peoples controlled the pampas and Patagonia.","australasia":"No Europeans had settled Australia, New Guinea or the Pacific islands. Aboriginal nations, Papuan societies and Maori iwi lived independently, and in Polynesia Tonga's chiefly lines and the rival chiefs of Hawaii and Tahiti ruled their islands. The Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen would reach Easter Island in 1722."},"powers":[{"name":"Qing Empire","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"Kangxi Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China, Manchuria, Mongolia and Taiwan","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Russian Tsardom","map":"Tsardom of Muscovy","ruler":"Peter I the Great","capital":"St Petersburg","extent":"From the Baltic coast (newly won from Sweden) across Siberia to the Pacific","clio":"Tsardom of Russia"},{"name":"Mughal Empire","map":"Mughal Empire","ruler":"Farrukhsiyar","capital":"Delhi","extent":"Most of the subcontinent in name, though Maratha, Sikh and Rajput power was growing","clio":"Mughal Empire"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Ahmed III","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, the Arab lands and North Africa","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Great Britain","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"George I","capital":"London","extent":"Great Britain and Ireland, North American colonies, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Hudson Bay, Gibraltar, Minorca, Caribbean islands and East India Company posts","clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Louis XIV (d. Sept 1715), then Louis XV with regent Philip of Orleans","capital":"Paris / Versailles","extent":"France, New France, Louisiana, Caribbean islands and Indian trading posts","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Spanish Empire","map":"Spain","ruler":"Philip V","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain, the Americas from Mexico and Florida to Chile, and the Philippines","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"Habsburg Monarchy","map":"Austrian Empire","ruler":"Charles VI (also Holy Roman Emperor)","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, the southern Netherlands, Milan, Naples and Sardinia","clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)"},{"name":"Safavid Empire","map":"Safavid Empire","ruler":"Sultan Husayn","capital":"Isfahan","extent":"Iran and the southern Caucasus, losing control of Afghanistan","clio":"Safavid Dynasty"},{"name":"Portuguese Empire","map":"Viceroyalty of Brazil","ruler":"Joao V","capital":"Lisbon (Brazil governed from Salvador)","extent":"Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Goa, Macau and Timor","clio":"(Portuguese Empire)"}],"events":[{"year":1701,"text":"The War of the Spanish Succession begins"},{"year":1707,"text":"England and Scotland unite as Great Britain; Aurangzeb dies"},{"year":1709,"text":"Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden at Poltava"},{"year":1713,"text":"Treaty of Utrecht ends the war and redraws colonial maps"},{"year":1714,"text":"George I of Hanover becomes king of Great Britain"},{"year":1715,"text":"Louis XIV dies; the Jacobite rising in Britain; the Yamasee War in Carolina"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Blackbeard","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish missions in Texas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_missions_in_Texas"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Osei Tutu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osei_Tutu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of emperors of Ethiopia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emperors_of_Ethiopia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of shoguns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shoguns"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mataram Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mataram_Sultanate"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, Mughal disintegration and the rise of regional powers, 1707-1766","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Mughal_disintegration_and_the_rise_of_regional_powers_1707-1766.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VIII: The Maratha Supremacy (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/marathasupremacy08bhar"}]},{"year":1783,"title":"A New Nation Is Born","age":"Age of Revolutions","overview":"In September 1783 the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War and recognised the independence of the United States, a republic stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Britain lost thirteen colonies but kept Canada and was building a new empire in India, where the East India Company ruled Bengal. France and Spain, which had helped the Americans, gained little and were sinking into debt; France's financial crisis would lead to revolution in 1789. Catherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783, and Russia was now the largest country on Earth, though Qing China under the Qianlong Emperor ruled more people and had reached its greatest size. Ideas of the Enlightenment about rights and reason were spreading, steam engines were beginning to power British mills, and the Montgolfier brothers flew the first hot-air balloons. Yet the Atlantic slave trade was at its peak, carrying around 80,000 Africans a year to the Americas.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Dutch Cape Colony had expanded east to the Fish River, where colonists fought the Xhosa in the first frontier war (1779 to 1781). Portugal held Angola and Mozambique and drew enslaved people from the interior through the Lunda and Luba kingdoms. Among the Nguni peoples of the south-east, chiefdoms such as the Mthethwa and Ndwandwe were growing, while the small Zulu clan was not yet powerful. The Omani Busaidi rulers held Zanzibar and claimed the Swahili coast, though their Mazrui governors in Mombasa acted almost independently, and in Madagascar the Merina highlands, still divided, would be united by Andrianampoinimerina from about 1785.","northern-africa":"Sultan Mohammed III ruled Morocco and in 1777 had been among the first to recognise the United States. Egypt was an Ottoman province dominated by the Mamluk beys Murad and Ibrahim. Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli were autonomous Ottoman regencies whose corsairs threatened Mediterranean shipping. In West Africa, Asante, Dahomey, Oyo and the Bambara kingdom of Segu were major powers, the Funj Sultanate was in decline, and Ethiopia was split among regional warlords in the Era of the Princes.","europe":"George III ruled Great Britain, where William Pitt the Younger became prime minister in December 1783. Louis XVI ruled an indebted France, Charles III Spain and Maria I Portugal. Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, was pushing radical reforms in the Habsburg lands, Frederick the Great ruled Prussia, and Catherine II ruled Russia. Poland-Lithuania under Stanislaw August had lost a third of its territory in the First Partition (1772), Gustav III ruled Sweden, and Abdul Hamid I the Ottoman Empire.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire was weakened after its defeat by Russia in 1774. Iran was ruled by the Zand dynasty under Ali Murad Khan, with Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar rising in the north, and Timur Shah Durrani ruled Afghanistan. In Arabia, the Saudi emirate of Diriyah spread Wahhabi teaching across Najd. In India the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II was powerless in Delhi; the Maratha Confederacy, led by Nana Fadnavis for the boy Peshwa Madhavrao II, was the strongest Indian power; Tipu Sultan of Mysore was at war with the British; and the East India Company under Warren Hastings ruled Bengal and Bihar and held territory around Madras and Bombay.","north-central-asia":"Russia ruled Siberia and the northern Kazakh steppe, and its fur traders were moving into the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. Qing China had destroyed the Dzungar Khanate in the 1750s and ruled the conquered region, called Xinjiang (\"New Frontier\"), through a military governor at Ili. The Kazakh hordes were divided and partly under Russian protection, while the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara, Khiva and the rising Kokand ruled the Central Asian oases.","east-asia":"The Qianlong Emperor ruled Qing China at its greatest extent, including Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, with a population nearing 300 million. Korea was ruled by the reforming King Jeongjo. In Japan, the shogun Tokugawa Ieharu and his minister Tanuma Okitsugu faced the Tenmei famine, worsened by the eruption of Mount Asama in 1783.","southeast-asia":"Rama I had founded the Chakri dynasty and the new capital of Bangkok (the Rattanakosin Kingdom) in 1782, after Burma destroyed Ayutthaya in 1767. In Burma, King Bodawpaya of the Konbaung dynasty had just come to the throne. Vietnam was in turmoil as the Tay Son rebels drove out the Nguyen lords. The Dutch VOC controlled Java and the spice islands but was weakened by war with Britain, and Spain ruled the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"Britain ruled the Province of Quebec and Nova Scotia, which received tens of thousands of Loyalist refugees from the United States in 1783. The Hudson's Bay Company traded across Rupert's Land, competing with Montreal merchants who would form the North West Company. Denmark-Norway ruled Greenland, and Russian fur traders were reaching Alaska, where Inuit, Dene and other Indigenous peoples still held almost all the land.","southern-north-america":"The United States, governed by the Confederation Congress under the Articles of Confederation, now held the lands from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, between British Canada and Spanish Florida. Spain regained Florida in 1783 and held Louisiana west of the Mississippi, along with New Spain, which reached north to California and Texas, and Cuba. France kept Saint-Domingue, the world's richest sugar colony, and Britain held Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.","northern-south-america":"Spain ruled through the Viceroyalties of New Granada (Bogota) and Peru (Lima), and had recently put down two huge revolts: the Comuneros of New Granada (1781) and the Indigenous uprising led by Tupac Amaru II in Peru (1780 to 1781). Portuguese Brazil, governed by a viceroy in Rio de Janeiro, was producing gold, sugar and cotton with the labour of enslaved Africans. Britain, the Dutch and France held the Guianas.","southern-cone":"Spain had created the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata in 1776, ruled from Buenos Aires and including Paraguay, Uruguay and Upper Peru (Bolivia), and had taken Colonia do Sacramento from Portugal for good in 1777. Chile was a Spanish captaincy-general. The Jesuits had been expelled in 1767, and Mapuche and other Indigenous peoples still controlled southern Chile, the pampas and Patagonia.","australasia":"James Cook's voyages (1768 to 1779) had mapped New Zealand and eastern Australia, which Cook claimed for Britain in 1770, and Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779. Britain's First Fleet would found a penal colony at Sydney in 1788. Aboriginal nations, Papuan peoples and Maori iwi still held their lands, and in Hawaii the chief Kamehameha was beginning his rise to power."},"powers":[{"name":"Qing Empire","map":"Qing Empire","ruler":"Qianlong Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Russian Empire","map":"Russian Empire","ruler":"Catherine II the Great","capital":"St Petersburg","extent":"From the Baltic and newly annexed Crimea across Siberia to the Pacific and the Aleutians","clio":"Russian Empire"},{"name":"Great Britain","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"George III","capital":"London","extent":"The British Isles, Canada, Caribbean islands, Gibraltar and East India Company rule over Bengal and coastal India","clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain"},{"name":"Spanish Empire","map":"Spain","ruler":"Charles III","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain and four American viceroyalties from California and Louisiana to Patagonia, plus Florida, Cuba and the Philippines","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Louis XVI","capital":"Paris / Versailles","extent":"France, Saint-Domingue and other Caribbean islands, French Guiana, Senegal posts and Pondicherry","clio":"(Kingdom of France)"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Abdul Hamid I","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, the Arab lands and autonomous North African regencies","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"United States of America","map":"United States of America","ruler":"Confederation Congress (no single head of state)","capital":"Philadelphia, then Princeton and Annapolis","extent":"From the Atlantic to the Mississippi, between Canada and Florida","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Habsburg Monarchy","map":"Austrian Empire","ruler":"Joseph II (also Holy Roman Emperor)","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Lombardy","clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)"},{"name":"Maratha Confederacy","map":"Maratha Confederacy","ruler":"Peshwa Madhavrao II (minister Nana Fadnavis)","capital":"Pune","extent":"Western and central India, with influence over Delhi","clio":"Maratha Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of Prussia","map":"Prussia","ruler":"Frederick II the Great","capital":"Berlin / Potsdam","extent":"Brandenburg, Prussia, Silesia and West Prussia","clio":"Kingdom of Prussia"}],"events":[{"year":1767,"text":"Burma destroys Ayutthaya; Siam is reunited soon after"},{"year":1772,"text":"First Partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia and Austria"},{"year":1776,"text":"The American Declaration of Independence"},{"year":1780,"text":"Tupac Amaru II leads a great Indigenous revolt in Peru"},{"year":1781,"text":"British surrender at Yorktown"},{"year":1782,"text":"Rama I founds Bangkok and the Chakri dynasty"},{"year":1783,"text":"Treaty of Paris recognises US independence; Russia annexes Crimea"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Andrianampoinimerina","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrianampoinimerina"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Xinjiang under Qing rule","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_under_Qing_rule"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Population history of China","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_China"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zand dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zand_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bombay Presidency","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_Presidency"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Fleet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s (ed. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 1989)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general_history_africa_vi"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, The expansion of British power, 1766-1819","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_expansion_of_British_power_1766-1819.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VIII: The Maratha Supremacy (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/marathasupremacy08bhar"}]},{"year":1800,"title":"Age of Revolutions","age":"Age of Revolutions","overview":"In 1800 revolution was reshaping the Atlantic world. The French Revolution had toppled the monarchy, executed Louis XVI and spread war across Europe; Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul since his coup of November 1799, defeated Austria at Marengo in June 1800. In the Caribbean, enslaved people in Saint-Domingue had risen up in 1791 and, under Toussaint Louverture, now controlled the colony. The young United States held its first contested election, won by Thomas Jefferson, and moved its government to Washington. Britain, fighting France at sea, was industrialising rapidly and expanding its rule in India, where Tipu Sultan had fallen in 1799; the Act of Union with Ireland was passed to take effect on 1 January 1801. Qing China, now under the Jiaqing Emperor, was the world's most populous state but faced the White Lotus rebellion. Spain and Portugal still held most of Latin America, though independence movements were stirring.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Britain had seized the Dutch Cape Colony in 1795 to keep it from France, and fought the Xhosa on its eastern frontier. Portugal held Angola and Mozambique, both centres of the slave trade. Nguni chiefdoms in the south-east, including the Mthethwa, soon to be led by Dingiswayo, and the Ndwandwe, were consolidating, while the Zulu under Senzangakhona remained minor. Andrianampoinimerina was uniting the Merina kingdom in Madagascar, and Oman held Zanzibar and Kilwa, while its Mazrui governors in Mombasa were virtually independent.","northern-africa":"A French army had occupied Egypt since 1798; after Napoleon left, his successor Kleber was assassinated in June 1800, and British and Ottoman forces would expel the French in 1801. Sultan Sulayman ruled Morocco, and the Barbary regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli still took tribute from foreign shipping. In West Africa, Asante was at its height, Oyo was weakening, and Usman dan Fodio was preaching the reform that would launch the Sokoto jihad in 1804. Ethiopia remained divided in the Era of the Princes.","europe":"Napoleon ruled France as First Consul, and French armies controlled the Netherlands (the Batavian Republic), Switzerland and much of Italy as sister republics. George III ruled Great Britain, with William Pitt the Younger as prime minister. Francis II ruled Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, Paul I Russia, Frederick William III Prussia and Charles IV Spain. Poland had vanished, partitioned out of existence by Russia, Prussia and Austria in 1795, and Selim III was trying to modernise the Ottoman army.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire under Selim III was struggling with rebellious provincial governors and the French invasion of Egypt. Fath-Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty ruled Iran from Tehran, and Zaman Shah ruled the Durrani kingdom of Afghanistan. The Saudi emirate was spreading across Arabia. In India, Governor-General Richard Wellesley was rapidly expanding British East India Company power after defeating Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1799; the Maratha Confederacy under Peshwa Baji Rao II was divided after the death of Nana Fadnavis in 1800, the Nizam of Hyderabad was a British ally, and Ranjit Singh had taken Lahore in 1799 and was uniting the Sikhs.","north-central-asia":"Russia ruled all of Siberia, held the northern Kazakh steppe and had chartered the Russian-American Company in 1799 to run its Alaskan colonies. Qing China governed Xinjiang. The Kazakh hordes were divided, partly under Russian influence, and the Uzbek khanates of Bukhara (under the Manghit dynasty), Khiva and Kokand ruled the oases of Central Asia.","east-asia":"The Jiaqing Emperor had taken full power in Qing China on the death of his father Qianlong in 1799, purging the corrupt minister Heshen and fighting the White Lotus rebellion in central China. China's population had passed 300 million. In Korea, King Jeongjo died in 1800 and the boy Sunjo succeeded him. Japan, under the shogun Tokugawa Ienari, remained largely closed, though Russian ships had begun to appear in the north.","southeast-asia":"Rama I ruled Siam from Bangkok, and Bodawpaya ruled Burma's Konbaung kingdom from Amarapura. In Vietnam, Nguyen Anh, with some French help, was defeating the Tay Son and would unite the country in 1802. The Dutch East India Company had been dissolved at the end of 1799, its possessions taken over by the Dutch state, then a French satellite, while Britain seized several Dutch outposts. Spain ruled the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"Britain ruled Upper and Lower Canada (created in 1791), Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, while the Hudson's Bay Company and the rival North West Company competed for furs across the west. Denmark-Norway held Greenland and Russia's fur traders held coastal Alaska. Inuit, Cree, Dene and many other Indigenous nations still controlled most of the land.","southern-north-america":"John Adams was president of the United States, whose government moved to the new capital of Washington in 1800; Thomas Jefferson defeated him in that year's election, though his tie with Aaron Burr was settled by the House only in February 1801. Spain still ruled Louisiana but secretly promised to return it to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso (October 1800), and governed New Spain, Florida and Cuba. In Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture ruled the colony after the great slave revolt, while Britain held Jamaica and other sugar islands.","northern-south-america":"Spain governed New Granada from Bogota and Peru from Lima, and the scientist Alexander von Humboldt was exploring Venezuela and the Orinoco. Portuguese Brazil, ruled by a viceroy in Rio de Janeiro, was larger than Portugal many times over and relied on enslaved labour. The British had seized Dutch Suriname and Guiana during the wars, and France held Cayenne.","southern-cone":"Spain's Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, ruled from Buenos Aires, included Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Upper Peru, and Chile was a Spanish captaincy-general. Creole merchants resented Spanish trade limits, and within a decade independence movements would begin. The Mapuche still held the land south of the Biobio, and other Indigenous peoples controlled the southern pampas and Patagonia.","australasia":"The British colony of New South Wales, founded at Sydney in 1788, was spreading along the coast, and Philip Gidley King became governor in 1800; Aboriginal nations such as the Eora had suffered from smallpox and dispossession. Maori iwi held New Zealand, now visited by sealers, whalers and traders. In Hawaii, Kamehameha I had conquered most of the islands, and Tonga was entering a long civil war."},"powers":[{"name":"Great Britain","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"George III (prime minister William Pitt)","capital":"London","extent":"The British Isles, Canada, Caribbean islands, the Cape, New South Wales and East India Company rule over much of India","clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain"},{"name":"French Republic","map":"France","ruler":"Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul","capital":"Paris","extent":"France with Belgium and the Rhineland, sister republics in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy, an army in Egypt, and Caribbean colonies","clio":null},{"name":"Russian Empire","map":"Russian Empire","ruler":"Paul I","capital":"St Petersburg","extent":"From Lithuania and the Black Sea across Siberia to Alaska","clio":"Russian Empire"},{"name":"Qing Empire","map":"Qing Empire","ruler":"Jiaqing Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Spanish Empire","map":"Spain","ruler":"Charles IV (chief minister Manuel Godoy)","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain and the Americas from California, Louisiana and Florida to Patagonia, plus Cuba and the Philippines","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Selim III","capital":"Constantinople (Istanbul)","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, the Arab lands (Egypt under French occupation) and North Africa","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Habsburg Monarchy","map":"Austrian Empire","ruler":"Francis II (also Holy Roman Emperor)","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia and Venice","clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)"},{"name":"United States of America","map":"United States of America","ruler":"John Adams","capital":"Washington (from 1800; previously Philadelphia)","extent":"From the Atlantic to the Mississippi","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Maratha Confederacy","map":"Maratha Confederacy","ruler":"Peshwa Baji Rao II","capital":"Pune","extent":"Western and central India, with Scindia controlling Delhi and the Mughal emperor","clio":"Maratha Empire"},{"name":"Qajar Iran","map":"Persia","ruler":"Fath-Ali Shah","capital":"Tehran","extent":"Iran and the southern Caucasus","clio":"Qajar Dynasty"}],"events":[{"year":1789,"text":"The French Revolution begins with the storming of the Bastille"},{"year":1791,"text":"Enslaved people rise up in Saint-Domingue, beginning the Haitian Revolution"},{"year":1795,"text":"The Third Partition erases Poland; Britain seizes the Cape Colony"},{"year":1798,"text":"Napoleon invades Egypt"},{"year":1799,"text":"Tipu Sultan dies at Seringapatam; Napoleon seizes power in France; Ranjit Singh takes Lahore"},{"year":1800,"text":"Napoleon wins at Marengo; Washington becomes the US capital; Jefferson elected president"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Zaman Shah Durrani","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaman_Shah_Durrani"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mahmud Shah Durrani","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmud_Shah_Durrani"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alexander von Humboldt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dingiswayo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingiswayo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Xinjiang under Qing rule","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_under_Qing_rule"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of shoguns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shoguns"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s (ed. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 1989)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general_history_africa_vi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 1800 United States presidential election","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1800_United_States_presidential_election"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, The expansion of British power, 1766-1819","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_expansion_of_British_power_1766-1819.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VIII: The Maratha Supremacy (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/marathasupremacy08bhar"}]},{"year":1815,"title":"Waterloo and the Vienna Settlement","age":"Age of Revolutions","overview":"The world of 1815 is catching its breath after more than twenty years of revolutionary and Napoleonic war. Napoleon's final gamble ended at Waterloo in June, and he has been shipped to the remote island of St Helena. At the Congress of Vienna the victors, Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, have redrawn Europe's map to restore kings and keep France in check, aiming for a balance of power that will largely hold for a century. Britain emerges as the unrivalled master of the seas and is tightening its grip on India. Qing China, under the Jiaqing Emperor, is still the world's largest economy, but strains are showing. In the Americas, Spain's empire is crumbling as independence wars rage from Mexico to Argentina, while the young United States has just ended its war with Britain. In April the eruption of Tambora in Indonesia, the most powerful in recorded history, threw ash into the sky that will cause the 'Year Without a Summer' in 1816. Most people everywhere still live as farmers, but steam engines and factories are spreading through Britain.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Britain holds the Cape Colony, seized from the Dutch in 1806 and formally ceded in 1814, where Dutch-speaking farmers (Boers) and Xhosa clash on the eastern frontier. Among the Nguni to the east, Dingiswayo's Mthethwa confederacy dominates, and a young commander named Shaka is about to found the Zulu kingdom. Portugal clings to coastal Angola and Mozambique, Radama I is uniting Madagascar under the Merina kingdom, and the Omani sultan Said bin Sultan holds Zanzibar and claims the Swahili coast, though Mombasa resists him until 1837. Inland, kingdoms such as the Lozi, Lunda and Kazembe trade in ivory, copper and slaves.","northern-africa":"Egypt is ruled by Muhammad Ali, nominally an Ottoman governor but in practice an independent modernising strongman. Along the Barbary Coast, the Ottoman regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli live partly from piracy, which the United States punished in a brief war in 1815, while Sultan Mulay Slimane rules Morocco. In West Africa, Usman dan Fodio's jihad has created the vast Sokoto Caliphate (the 'Fulani Empire'), and the Asante kingdom under Osei Bonsu dominates the forest zone. Ethiopia is splintered in the 'Era of the Princes', with powerless emperors and feuding regional lords.","europe":"The Congress of Vienna restores Louis XVIII to the French throne and creates a German Confederation of 39 states led by Austria's Emperor Francis I and his minister Metternich. Prussia, under Frederick William III, gains the Rhineland; Tsar Alexander I of Russia takes most of Poland as its king; and a new United Kingdom of the Netherlands joins Holland and Belgium under William I. Britain, under the ailing George III and his son the Prince Regent, keeps Malta and other strategic islands. Italy is divided among Austria (Lombardy-Venetia), the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Papal States under Pius VII, and the restored Bourbon kingdom of Naples and Sicily.","middle-east-south-asia":"Sultan Mahmud II rules the Ottoman Empire from Constantinople, from the Balkans through Anatolia to Iraq and the Hejaz, though local strongmen act freely. Persia is ruled by Fath-Ali Shah of the Qajar dynasty, which has recently lost Georgia and much of the Caucasus to Russia. In central Arabia the first Saudi-Wahhabi state, under Abdullah bin Saud, is under attack from Egyptian armies sent by the Ottomans. In India the British East India Company, under Governor-General Lord Moira (Hastings), dominates through direct rule and princely alliances; the Mughal emperor Akbar II is a pensioner in Delhi, the Maratha Peshwa is on the verge of final defeat, and Ranjit Singh's Sikh kingdom rules the Punjab.","north-central-asia":"Russia rules all of Siberia to the Pacific and claims overlordship of the Kazakh hordes of the northern steppe. Further south, the Uzbek khanates of Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand rule the old Silk Road oases of Transoxiana. Qing China holds Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (later called Xinjiang), conquered in the 1750s, through garrisons and local Muslim nobles.","east-asia":"The Qing dynasty, under the Jiaqing Emperor, rules China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, the largest extent China has ever reached, but faces rebellions, corruption and a growing opium trade. Japan remains largely closed to the outside world under the Tokugawa shogun Ienari, with Emperor Kokaku a ceremonial figure in Kyoto. Korea's Joseon dynasty, under King Sunjo, is a loyal Qing tributary, and Tibet is ruled by Buddhist regents under Qing supervision.","southeast-asia":"Mainland Southeast Asia is dominated by three strong kingdoms: Siam under King Rama II (Rattanakosin dynasty, capital Bangkok), Burma under King Bodawpaya (Konbaung dynasty), and Vietnam, recently unified by Emperor Gia Long of the Nguyen dynasty. Cambodia is squeezed between Siam and Vietnam. Java is temporarily under British rule (Stamford Raffles) but will be returned to the Dutch in 1816; Spain rules the Philippines, and Britain holds Penang and Malacca. In April 1815 Mount Tambora on Sumbawa erupted, killing tens of thousands.","northern-north-america":"British North America consists of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, which have just survived American invasions in the War of 1812. The Hudson's Bay Company and its rival the North West Company control the fur trade across the vast interior of Rupert's Land. Russia's Russian-American Company runs Alaska from Sitka under Alexander Baranov, and Denmark holds Greenland. Most of the north is still the homeland of First Nations and Inuit peoples.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under President James Madison, has 18 states and stretches to the Rocky Mountains through the Louisiana Purchase; the War of 1812 ended with the Treaty of Ghent and Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans. Spain's Viceroyalty of New Spain, under Viceroy Felix Maria Calleja, has captured and executed the rebel priest Jose Maria Morelos, temporarily crushing Mexico's independence movement. Spain still holds Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida, Britain has Jamaica and many smaller islands, and Haiti is split between King Henri Christophe in the north and President Alexandre Petion in the south.","northern-south-america":"Brazil is the seat of the Portuguese monarchy, which fled Napoleon in 1807: Prince Regent Joao rules from Rio de Janeiro for his mother Queen Maria I, and in December 1815 Brazil was raised to a kingdom equal to Portugal. In the north, a Spanish army under Pablo Morillo is reconquering Venezuela and New Granada, while Simon Bolivar writes his famous 'Jamaica Letter' in exile. The Viceroyalty of Peru under Viceroy Abascal remains a royalist stronghold. Britain has taken the Dutch colonies of Demerara and Essequibo, while the Dutch keep Suriname.","southern-cone":"The United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, centred on Buenos Aires, have been self-governing since 1810 under juntas, triumvirates and, from 1814, Supreme Directors and will formally declare independence in 1816. Chile has been reconquered by Spanish royalists after the Battle of Rancagua (1814), while Jose de San Martin trains an army in Mendoza to cross the Andes. Paraguay is ruled by the reclusive dictator Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, and Jose Artigas leads the Banda Oriental (future Uruguay). The Pampas, Patagonia and southern Chile remain in the hands of Mapuche, Tehuelche and other Indigenous peoples.","australasia":"The British penal colony of New South Wales, under Governor Lachlan Macquarie, is growing beyond Sydney, with outposts in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania); the rest of Australia is the land of hundreds of Aboriginal nations. In New Zealand, Maori iwi remain fully independent, though missionaries and traders have arrived and muskets are fuelling intertribal wars. Kamehameha I rules a united Kingdom of Hawaii, and Papuan peoples occupy New Guinea, whose western coast the Dutch loosely claim."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","ruler":"George III (Prince Regent George; PM Lord Liverpool)","capital":"London","extent":"Britain and Ireland, Canada, much of India via the East India Company, the Cape, Ceylon, Caribbean islands, New South Wales, and command of the oceans","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"Russian Empire","map":"Russian Empire","ruler":"Alexander I","capital":"St Petersburg","extent":"Eastern Europe, most of Poland, Finland, the Caucasus, all of Siberia and Alaska","clio":"Russian Empire"},{"name":"Qing China","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"Jiaqing Emperor","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang; about 14.7 million km² at its height (Taagepera) and a third of humanity","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Austrian Empire","map":"Austrian Empire","ruler":"Francis I (chief minister Metternich)","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Galicia, Lombardy-Venetia and Dalmatia; leader of the German Confederation","clio":"Austrian Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of Prussia","map":"Prussia","ruler":"Frederick William III","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Northern Germany from the Rhineland to East Prussia, including part of Poland","clio":"Kingdom of Prussia"},{"name":"Kingdom of France","map":"France","ruler":"Louis XVIII (ousted by Napoleon's Hundred Days, March–July 1815)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France within roughly its 1790 borders, plus small Caribbean, African and Indian colonies","clio":"Bourbon Kingdom of France"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Mahmud II","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"The Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant, Iraq and the Hejaz, with nominal rule over Egypt and North Africa","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Spanish Empire","map":"Spain","ruler":"Ferdinand VII","capital":"Madrid","extent":"Spain plus a crumbling American empire from Mexico to Peru, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines","clio":"(Spanish Empire)"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President James Madison","capital":"Washington","extent":"18 states (all but Louisiana east of the Mississippi) plus the Louisiana Purchase lands west to the Rockies","clio":"United States of America"}],"events":[{"year":1812,"text":"Napoleon's invasion of Russia ends in catastrophe; the War of 1812 begins between Britain and the United States"},{"year":1814,"text":"Napoleon abdicates and is exiled to Elba; the Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812"},{"year":1815,"text":"Mount Tambora erupts in Indonesia, the largest eruption in recorded history"},{"year":1815,"text":"Congress of Vienna completes its settlement of Europe"},{"year":1815,"text":"Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo by Wellington and Blucher and exiled to St Helena"},{"year":1815,"text":"Spanish forces execute Mexican rebel leader Jose Maria Morelos"},{"year":1816,"text":"Argentina declares independence; the 'Year Without a Summer' brings famine to Europe and North America"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Hundred Days","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Louisiana","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera, Turchin et al. areas)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Said bin Sultan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_bin_Sultan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Director_of_the_United_Provinces_of_the_R%C3%ADo_de_la_Plata"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s (ed. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 1989)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general_history_africa_vi"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, The expansion of British power, 1766-1819","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_expansion_of_British_power_1766-1819.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IX: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part I (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/britishparamount09bhar"}]},{"year":1880,"title":"Steam, Rail and Empire","age":"Age of Imperialism","overview":"By 1880 railways, steamships and the telegraph have shrunk the world, and the industrial nations of Europe and North America are pulling far ahead of everyone else. Queen Victoria's Britain is the workshop of the world and the greatest empire, its rule in India now formalised in the British Raj. Germany, united in 1871 under Kaiser Wilhelm I and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, is the strongest land power in Europe, while France rebuilds as a republic after its defeat. Russia is pushing deep into Central Asia, and the United States, healed from its Civil War, is filling the continent with railways, farms and immigrants. Africa's interior is still largely self-governed, but explorers and traders are paving the way for a European 'Scramble for Africa' that will soon carve up the continent. In East Asia, Meiji Japan is modernising at breakneck speed, while Qing China struggles to reform. Wars rage in Afghanistan, South America and southern Africa, and electric light and the telephone are brand-new wonders.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Britain rules the Cape Colony and Natal, defeated the Zulu kingdom of Cetshwayo in 1879, and annexed the Boer republic of Transvaal in 1877; in December 1880 the Transvaal Boers rose in revolt, starting the First Boer War. The Orange Free State, under President Johannes Brand, remains independent. Portugal holds coastal Angola and Mozambique, Sultan Barghash rules Zanzibar and the Swahili coast, and in Madagascar the Merina monarchy rules under Queen Ranavalona II and her prime minister Rainilaiarivony. In the Congo basin, Henry Morton Stanley is setting up trading stations for King Leopold II of Belgium.","northern-africa":"Egypt, under Khedive Tewfik, is deep in debt and under Anglo-French financial control; it also rules the Sudan, where a religious leader will soon proclaim himself the Mahdi. France has ruled Algeria since 1830 and will make Tunisia a protectorate in 1881, while Sultan Hassan I keeps Morocco independent. Emperor Yohannes IV rules Ethiopia, and West Africa is still dominated by African states such as the Sokoto Caliphate, the Tukulor Empire of Ahmadu Tall and Samori Ture's growing Wassoulou empire. Britain holds the Gold Coast and Lagos, France holds Senegal, and Liberia is independent.","europe":"The Congress of Berlin (1878) has rearranged the Balkans: Romania, Serbia and Montenegro are fully independent, Bulgaria is autonomous, and Austria-Hungary occupies Bosnia. Kaiser Wilhelm I and Bismarck rule the German Empire and have just allied with Emperor Franz Joseph's Austria-Hungary (1879). Queen Victoria reigns in Britain, where Gladstone has just returned as prime minister; France is a republic under President Jules Grevy; and Tsar Alexander II rules Russia, where revolutionaries are hunting him. Italy, united under King Umberto I, and Spain, under Alfonso XII, are second-rank powers.","middle-east-south-asia":"Sultan Abdul Hamid II rules a shrunken Ottoman Empire after losing much of the Balkans to Russia, and Britain has taken Cyprus. Persia is ruled by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar. In the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the British were defeated at Maiwand but relieved Kandahar, and they recognised Abdur Rahman Khan as amir in 1880. Queen Victoria became Empress of India in 1877; the British Raj, under Viceroy Lord Ripon from June 1880, rules about three-fifths of the subcontinent directly and the rest through hundreds of princely states. In central Arabia the Rashidi emirs of Ha'il are the strongest power.","north-central-asia":"Russia has swept south into Central Asia, taking Tashkent (1865), Samarkand (1868) and the khanate of Kokand (1876), all governed as Russian Turkestan under Governor-General Konstantin von Kaufman. The emirate of Bukhara and the khanate of Khiva survive as Russian protectorates, and a campaign against the Turkmen is under way, culminating at Geok Tepe in January 1881. Siberia is ruled from St Petersburg and is a vast land of exiles, convicts and fur trappers, still awaiting its railway.","east-asia":"The Qing dynasty rules China under the child Guangxu Emperor, with the Empress Dowager Cixi holding real power; the 'Self-Strengthening' movement is building arsenals and steamships, and Zuo Zongtang has just reconquered Xinjiang. Meiji Japan is transforming itself into a modern state with railways, a conscript army and a new aristocracy, and annexed the Ryukyu Islands as Okinawa in 1879. Korea, under King Gojong, has been forced open by a Japanese treaty (1876), and Tibet is governed in the name of the young 13th Dalai Lama under loose Qing oversight.","southeast-asia":"Siam, under the reforming King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), remains independent. Britain rules Lower Burma, while King Thibaw rules Upper Burma from Mandalay; France holds Cochinchina in southern Vietnam and a protectorate over Cambodia, while the Nguyen emperor Tu Duc still rules the rest of Vietnam. The Dutch control much of the East Indies but are fighting a long war in Aceh; Spain rules the Philippines, Britain is extending control over the Malay states, and the Brooke family rules Sarawak as 'White Rajahs'.","northern-north-america":"The Dominion of Canada, formed in 1867 and led by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, now stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific after acquiring Rupert's Land and British Columbia; on 1 September 1880 Britain transferred its Arctic islands to Canada. The transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway is about to begin construction. Newfoundland remains a separate British colony, the United States has owned Alaska since 1867, and Denmark rules Greenland.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under President Rutherford B. Hayes, has 38 states; Reconstruction of the South ended in 1877, and James Garfield won the November 1880 election. Railways, mass immigration and the final wars against the Plains peoples are transforming the West. Mexico is entering the long era of Porfirio Diaz, whose ally Manuel Gonzalez took office as president in December 1880. Spain still rules Puerto Rico and Cuba, where a ten-year independence war ended in 1878.","northern-south-america":"Brazil is an empire under Emperor Pedro II, a constitutional monarchy built on coffee and still on slave labour. On the Pacific coast, the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) pits Chile against Peru and Bolivia; Chile has seized Bolivia's coastline and Peru's nitrate province of Tarapaca and is advancing on Lima. Colombia (then the United States of Colombia, including Panama) elected Rafael Nunez in 1880, and Antonio Guzman Blanco dominates Venezuela. Britain, the Netherlands and France hold the three Guianas.","southern-cone":"Argentina, under President Julio Argentino Roca from October 1880, has just carried out the main campaign of the 'Conquest of the Desert' that seized the Pampas and northern Patagonia from Indigenous peoples, and Buenos Aires has been made the federal capital. Chile, under President Anibal Pinto, is winning the War of the Pacific and is also pushing into Mapuche lands in the south. Paraguay is still devastated by its defeat in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870), and Uruguay is ruled by military-backed presidents.","australasia":"Australia is six separate self-governing British colonies, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, enriched by gold and wool; the bushranger Ned Kelly was captured and hanged in 1880. New Zealand is a British colony whose wars with the Maori ended in 1872, with large areas of Maori land confiscated. Fiji became a British colony in 1874, France annexed Tahiti in 1880, King Kalakaua rules Hawaii, and eastern New Guinea is still unclaimed by Europeans."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","ruler":"Victoria (PM Benjamin Disraeli, then William Gladstone from April)","capital":"London","extent":"About a sixth of the world's land: Britain, India, Canada, the Australian colonies, southern Africa and colonies on every continent","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"Russian Empire","map":"Russian Empire","ruler":"Alexander II","capital":"St Petersburg","extent":"From Poland and Finland across Siberia to the Pacific, and south into the Caucasus and Central Asia","clio":"Russian Empire"},{"name":"German Empire","map":"Germany","ruler":"Wilhelm I (Chancellor Otto von Bismarck)","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Unified Germany, including Alsace-Lorraine taken from France in 1871; no colonies yet","clio":"German Empire"},{"name":"French Third Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Jules Grevy","capital":"Paris","extent":"France, Algeria, Senegal, Cochinchina and Cambodia, plus Pacific and Caribbean islands","clio":"French Third Republic"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States of America","ruler":"President Rutherford B. Hayes","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"38 states and western territories from Atlantic to Pacific, plus Alaska","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Qing China","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"Guangxu Emperor (Empress Dowager Cixi in control)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Austria-Hungary","map":"Austria Hungary","ruler":"Franz Joseph I","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Croatia and Transylvania, plus occupied Bosnia","clio":"Austria-Hungary"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Abdul Hamid II","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, part of the Balkans, the Levant, Iraq, the Hejaz and Libya, with nominal rule over Egypt","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Empire of Japan","map":"Imperial Japan","ruler":"Emperor Meiji","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The Japanese islands, including newly annexed Hokkaido settlements and Okinawa","clio":"Empire of Japan"},{"name":"Kingdom of Italy","map":"Italy","ruler":"Umberto I","capital":"Rome","extent":"The newly unified Italian peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia","clio":"Kingdom of Italy"}],"events":[{"year":1869,"text":"Suez Canal opens; first US transcontinental railroad completed"},{"year":1871,"text":"German Empire proclaimed at Versailles after the defeat of France"},{"year":1877,"text":"Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India"},{"year":1878,"text":"Congress of Berlin redraws the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish War"},{"year":1879,"text":"Anglo-Zulu War; War of the Pacific begins; Edison demonstrates a practical light bulb"},{"year":1880,"text":"British defeated at Maiwand in the Second Anglo-Afghan War; Abdur Rahman becomes amir"},{"year":1880,"text":"Transvaal Boers revolt against Britain, starting the First Boer War"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1880","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1880"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 1880 United Kingdom general election","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1880_United_Kingdom_general_election"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Princely state","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princely_state"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Conquest of the Desert","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera, Turchin et al. areas)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ten Years' War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. I (1909), p. 449: area of British provinces and Native States (DSAL)","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/reference/gazetteer/query.py?object=479&bookid=DS405.1.I34_V01&display_type=page_display"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IX: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part I (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/britishparamount09bhar"}]},{"year":1900,"title":"Dawn of a New Century","age":"Age of Imperialism","overview":"In 1900 European empires are at their height and almost the whole of Africa has been divided among them in just twenty years. Britain still leads, but it is bogged down in a costly war against the Boer republics in South Africa, and rivals are rising fast. Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II is building a great navy, the United States has become a world power by seizing Spain's colonies, and Japan has defeated China and is eyeing Korea. In China, the anti-foreign Boxer uprising besieged the foreign legations in Beijing until an eight-nation army stormed the city in August. Paris celebrates the new century with a giant world's fair showing off electricity, moving pictures and the Metro. Industrial cities are booming, and millions of Europeans are emigrating to the Americas, while colonised peoples from Aceh to the Philippines resist foreign rule. Queen Victoria, now 81, is nearing the end of a reign of 63 years.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Second Boer War (1899-1902) is raging: British forces under Lord Roberts captured the Boer capitals Bloemfontein and Pretoria in 1900 and annexed the Orange Free State and Transvaal, but Boer commandos fight on as guerrillas. Rhodesia is run by Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company, the Congo Free State is the private property of King Leopold II and notorious for forced rubber labour, and Germany holds German South-West Africa and German East Africa. Portugal rules Angola and Mozambique, and France has made Madagascar a colony, exiling its last queen, Ranavalona III.","northern-africa":"The 'Scramble for Africa' is almost complete: France holds Algeria, Tunisia and a vast French West Africa, where it killed the warlord Rabih at Kousseri in April 1900, and Britain rules Egypt through Lord Cromer under Khedive Abbas II. The Sudan became an Anglo-Egyptian condominium after the British victory at Omdurman (1898), and Britain proclaimed a protectorate over Northern Nigeria in 1900. Only Ethiopia, whose Emperor Menelik II crushed Italy at Adwa in 1896, Liberia and Morocco under the young Sultan Abdelaziz remain independent. Italy holds Eritrea and part of Somalia, and the Ottomans still hold Libya.","europe":"Europe is divided into two camps: the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, and the Franco-Russian alliance, with Britain standing apart. Kaiser Wilhelm II passed a Second Naval Law in 1900 to challenge British sea power, Emperor Franz Joseph rules a restless multinational Austria-Hungary, and Tsar Nicholas II rules an autocratic Russia that is industrialising fast. In Italy King Umberto I was assassinated in July 1900 and succeeded by Victor Emmanuel III. France, under President Emile Loubet, hosts the Paris Exposition, and Sweden and Norway share King Oscar II.","middle-east-south-asia":"Sultan Abdul Hamid II rules the Ottoman Empire autocratically and began the Hejaz Railway in 1900 to link Damascus with Mecca. Persia is ruled by Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, Afghanistan by Abdur Rahman Khan, and Kuwait has accepted British protection (1899), while the exiled young Ibn Saud prepares to retake Riyadh from the Rashidis. In India, Viceroy Lord Curzon governs the British Raj for Queen Victoria; a devastating famine in 1899-1900 kills an estimated 1 to 4.5 million people, and the Indian National Congress is calling for more self-government.","north-central-asia":"All of Central Asia's steppe and oases are under Russian control: Russian Turkestan is ruled from Tashkent, while the emir of Bukhara and the khan of Khiva are Russian vassals. The Trans-Caspian and Trans-Siberian railways are bringing Russian settlers, soldiers and cotton merchants, and during the Boxer crisis of 1900 Russian troops occupied Manchuria. Siberia is being settled by Russian peasants along the new railway line.","east-asia":"The Boxer Rebellion swept northern China in 1900; after the siege of the Beijing legations, an Eight-Nation Alliance captured the capital in August, and Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi'an with the Guangxu Emperor. Foreign powers hold leased ports: Germany at Qingdao, Russia at Port Arthur, Britain at Weihaiwei and Hong Kong's New Territories, and France at Guangzhouwan. Meiji Japan, victorious over China in 1895, has taken Taiwan, while Korea, renamed the Korean Empire under Emperor Gojong, is contested between Japan and Russia. Tibet is governed by the 13th Dalai Lama.","southeast-asia":"The United States is fighting a bitter war against Filipino nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo after taking the Philippines from Spain in 1898. France rules French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) under Governor-General Paul Doumer, and Britain rules Burma as part of India and the Federated Malay States. The Dutch are still fighting in Aceh as they tighten control over the East Indies. Siam, under King Chulalongkorn, survives as an independent buffer between British and French territory.","northern-north-america":"Canada, led by its first French-Canadian prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier, is booming, with wheat farmers settling the Prairies and the Klondike gold rush having created the Yukon Territory (1898). Canadian volunteers are fighting for Britain in South Africa. Alaska, a US possession, is in the grip of the Nome gold rush, Newfoundland remains a separate British colony, and Denmark rules Greenland.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under President William McKinley, re-elected in November 1900 with Theodore Roosevelt as vice-president, has become an imperial power, taking Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines from Spain and annexing Hawaii. Cuba is under US military occupation until 1902. Mexico has been ruled for over two decades by the dictator Porfirio Diaz, who welcomes foreign investment in railways and mines while most Mexicans remain poor landless peasants.","northern-south-america":"Brazil has been a republic since Emperor Pedro II was overthrown in 1889 and is now governed by President Campos Sales; its Amazon rubber boom is at its peak. Colombia, which still includes Panama, is torn apart by the Thousand Days' War (1899-1902). Cipriano Castro has seized power in Venezuela, Eloy Alfaro leads a Liberal revolution in Ecuador, and Bolivia, having lost its coast to Chile, now governs from La Paz. Britain, the Netherlands and France hold the Guianas.","southern-cone":"Argentina, under President Julio Argentino Roca in his second term, is one of the world's richest countries thanks to beef and wheat exports and is absorbing millions of European immigrants. Chile, enriched by nitrate from the lands it won in the War of the Pacific, is governed by President Federico Errazuriz Echaurren, and its Andean border with Argentina is under British arbitration. Uruguay and Paraguay are smaller agrarian republics recovering from civil strife.","australasia":"Australia's six colonies have agreed to federate, and in July 1900 the British Parliament passed the act creating the Commonwealth of Australia, to begin on 1 January 1901. New Zealand, led by Premier Richard Seddon, is a pioneering democracy that gave women the vote in 1893. Hawaii has become a US territory, Samoa was split between Germany and the United States in 1899, and New Guinea is divided among the Dutch, Germans and British."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","ruler":"Victoria (PM Lord Salisbury)","capital":"London","extent":"About a fifth of the world's land and a quarter of its people","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"Russian Empire","map":"Russian Empire","ruler":"Nicholas II","capital":"St Petersburg","extent":"About 22 million km² from Poland to the Pacific, including Central Asia and occupied Manchuria","clio":"Russian Empire"},{"name":"German Empire","map":"Germany","ruler":"Wilhelm II (Chancellor Hohenlohe, then Bulow from October)","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Germany plus colonies in Africa (Togo, Kamerun, South-West and East Africa), New Guinea, Samoa and Qingdao","clio":"German Empire"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States of America","ruler":"President William McKinley","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"45 states plus Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"French Third Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Emile Loubet","capital":"Paris","extent":"Second-largest colonial empire: North and West Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and Pacific islands","clio":"French Third Republic"},{"name":"Qing China","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"Guangxu Emperor (Empress Dowager Cixi in control)","capital":"Beijing (court fled to Xi'an in 1900)","extent":"China, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, with foreign-leased ports along the coast","clio":"Qing Dynasty"},{"name":"Austria-Hungary","map":"Austria Hungary","ruler":"Franz Joseph I","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Central Europe from Bohemia to Transylvania, plus occupied Bosnia","clio":"Austria-Hungary"},{"name":"Empire of Japan","map":"Imperial Japan","ruler":"Emperor Meiji","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"Japan, Okinawa and Taiwan (taken from China in 1895)","clio":"Empire of Japan"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Abdul Hamid II","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, Macedonia and Thrace, the Levant, Iraq, the Hejaz and Libya","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of Italy","map":"Italy","ruler":"Victor Emmanuel III (from July 1900)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy plus Eritrea and Italian Somaliland","clio":"Kingdom of Italy"}],"events":[{"year":1884,"text":"Berlin Conference sets rules for the European partition of Africa"},{"year":1895,"text":"Japan defeats China and takes Taiwan"},{"year":1896,"text":"Ethiopia defeats Italy at the Battle of Adwa"},{"year":1898,"text":"Spanish-American War: the US occupies Cuba and takes Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines"},{"year":1899,"text":"Second Boer War begins in South Africa"},{"year":1900,"text":"Boxer Rebellion; foreign troops capture Beijing"},{"year":1900,"text":"Paris Exposition Universelle and the second modern Olympic Games"},{"year":1901,"text":"Commonwealth of Australia founded; Queen Victoria dies"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1900","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Indian famine of 1899–1900","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_famine_of_1899%E2%80%931900"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera, Turchin et al. areas)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Paris (1898)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1898)"},{"title":"Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. IV (1909): Administrative (DSAL)","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/reference/gazetteer/query.py?display_type=volume_display&volume=4"}]},{"year":1914,"title":"The World Goes to War","age":"Age of Imperialism","overview":"In 1914 European empires rule most of the planet, and an interconnected world economy of steamships, telegraphs and gold-standard trade seems unshakeable. Then, on 28 June, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, is assassinated in Sarajevo. Within six weeks the great alliances drag Europe into war: Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by the Ottoman Empire, against France, Russia and Britain, with the British Empire bringing in India, Canada, Australia and its other dominions. German armies sweep through Belgium but are stopped at the Marne, and by Christmas a line of trenches stretches from the Channel to Switzerland. Fighting spreads to Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific, where Japan seizes German possessions. Elsewhere, China has just become a republic, Mexico is in the middle of a revolution, and the Panama Canal opened in August. Few yet grasp that the war will destroy four empires and kill millions.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Union of South Africa, a British dominion since 1910 under Prime Minister Louis Botha, puts down a pro-German Boer rebellion and invades German South-West Africa. Belgium has ruled the Congo directly since taking it from King Leopold II in 1908, Britain holds the Rhodesias, Bechuanaland and Nyasaland, and Portugal rules Angola and Mozambique. In German East Africa, Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck defeats a British landing at Tanga in November 1914, beginning a four-year guerrilla campaign.","northern-africa":"Almost all of northern Africa is under European rule: France holds Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco (a protectorate since 1912), French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa, while Italy seized Libya from the Ottomans in 1911-1912. Britain declared Egypt a protectorate in December 1914, deposing Khedive Abbas II and installing Hussein Kamel as sultan, and it rules the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and a newly unified Nigeria. Only Ethiopia, under the uncrowned young ruler Lij Iyasu, and Liberia remain independent. Allied forces quickly overrun German Togoland and invade Kamerun.","europe":"Europe's monarchies, Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany, Emperor Franz Joseph's Austria-Hungary, Tsar Nicholas II's Russia and King George V's Britain, go to war in August alongside the French Republic under President Raymond Poincare. Germany's attack through neutral Belgium is halted at the Marne in September, while Russia is crushed at Tannenberg in East Prussia. Serbia, under King Peter I, resists Austrian invasion, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 have just pushed the Ottomans almost out of Europe and created Albania. Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia stay neutral for now.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire, nominally under Sultan Mehmed V but run by the Young Turk triumvirate of Enver, Talat and Djemal Pasha, enters the war on Germany's side in November 1914, and British-Indian troops land at Basra. Persia, under the young Ahmad Shah Qajar, is divided into Russian and British spheres of influence, and Afghanistan under Habibullah Khan stays neutral. The British Raj, under Viceroy Lord Hardinge with its new capital at Delhi, sends Indian soldiers to France and the Middle East. In Arabia, Ibn Saud has taken al-Hasa, and Sharif Hussein rules Mecca under the Ottomans.","north-central-asia":"Russian Turkestan, the steppe and Siberia are all part of the Russian Empire, with Bukhara (Emir Alim Khan) and Khiva as Russian protectorates; Tuva became a Russian protectorate in 1914. Outer Mongolia declared independence from China in 1911 under the Bogd Khan, a Buddhist leader, with Russian backing. Russian peasants are settling Siberia and the Kazakh steppe in large numbers, squeezing the nomads off their pastures.","east-asia":"The Qing dynasty fell in 1912, and the new Republic of China is dominated by President Yuan Shikai, who has dissolved parliament and driven Sun Yat-sen into exile. Tibet, under the 13th Dalai Lama, and Mongolia act as independent states. Japan, under Emperor Taisho, annexed Korea in 1910 and holds Taiwan; it joins the Allies in August 1914 and captures Germany's base at Qingdao in November.","southeast-asia":"Siam, under King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), is the only independent state; the rest is colonial. France rules Indochina, Britain rules Burma (part of India), Malaya and northern Borneo, and the Dutch govern the East Indies, where the Sarekat Islam movement is the first mass nationalist organisation. The United States rules the Philippines and has promised eventual self-government.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Prime Minister Robert Borden, is automatically at war when Britain declares war, and the first Canadian Expeditionary Force sails for Europe in October 1914. Newfoundland is a separate British dominion and also sends troops. Alaska became an organised US territory in 1912, and Denmark rules Greenland.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under President Woodrow Wilson, declares neutrality but sells food and munitions to the Allies. The Panama Canal, built by the US, opens on 15 August 1914. Mexico is in the middle of its Revolution: the dictator Victoriano Huerta was forced out in July after US troops occupied Veracruz, and the victorious revolutionaries, Carranza, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, are now turning on each other.","northern-south-america":"Brazil, now led by President Venceslau Bras (from November 1914), is the world's coffee giant but is hit by the collapse of the Amazon rubber boom. Juan Vicente Gomez rules Venezuela as dictator, and Colonel Oscar Benavides seized power in Peru in a February coup. Colombia, still bitter over the loss of Panama in 1903, elects Jose Vicente Concha. Britain, the Netherlands and France hold the Guianas.","southern-cone":"Argentina, governed by Victorino de la Plaza after President Saenz Pena's death in August, is among the ten richest countries in the world on the strength of its grain and beef exports. Chile, under Ramon Barros Luco, sees war arrive off its coast: a German squadron sinks two British cruisers at Coronel on 1 November and is destroyed off the Falklands on 8 December. Uruguay, under reforming President Jose Batlle y Ordonez, is building a pioneering welfare state.","australasia":"Australia, federated since 1901, changes government during the crisis as Andrew Fisher's Labor replaces Joseph Cook, and pledges support to Britain 'to our last man and our last shilling'. Australian troops seize German New Guinea, New Zealand (a dominion since 1907, under William Massey) takes German Samoa, and Japan occupies Germany's Micronesian islands. The first convoy of Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) troops sails for Egypt in November."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","ruler":"George V (PM H. H. Asquith)","capital":"London","extent":"About a quarter of the world's land and people, with dominions in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"German Empire","map":"German Empire","ruler":"Wilhelm II (Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg)","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Germany plus colonies in Africa (Togo, Kamerun, South-West and East Africa) and the Pacific","clio":"German Empire"},{"name":"Russian Empire","map":"Russian Empire","ruler":"Nicholas II","capital":"St Petersburg (renamed Petrograd in 1914)","extent":"About a sixth of the world's land, from Poland to the Pacific","clio":"Russian Empire"},{"name":"French Third Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Raymond Poincare (PM Rene Viviani from June)","capital":"Paris","extent":"Second-largest empire: France, North, West and Equatorial Africa, Madagascar and Indochina","clio":"French Third Republic"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Woodrow Wilson","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"48 states plus Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Austria-Hungary","map":"Austro-Hungarian Empire","ruler":"Franz Joseph I","capital":"Vienna","extent":"Central Europe from Bohemia and Galicia to Bosnia and Transylvania","clio":"Austria-Hungary"},{"name":"Empire of Japan","map":"Empire of Japan","ruler":"Emperor Taisho (PM Okuma Shigenobu from April)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"Japan, Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin and the Kwantung lease in Manchuria","clio":"Empire of Japan"},{"name":"Ottoman Empire","map":"Ottoman Empire","ruler":"Mehmed V (real power with Enver, Talat and Djemal Pasha)","capital":"Constantinople","extent":"Anatolia, eastern Thrace, the Levant, Iraq and the Hejaz","clio":"Ottoman Empire"},{"name":"Kingdom of Italy","map":"Kingdom of Italy","ruler":"Victor Emmanuel III (PM Antonio Salandra from March)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy plus Libya, Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and the Dodecanese","clio":"Kingdom of Italy"},{"name":"Republic of China","map":"Manchu Empire","ruler":"President Yuan Shikai","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China proper and Manchuria; Mongolia and Tibet have broken away","clio":"Republic of China"}],"events":[{"year":1910,"text":"Japan annexes Korea; Union of South Africa formed; Mexican Revolution begins"},{"year":1912,"text":"Qing dynasty abdicates; Republic of China founded"},{"year":1912,"text":"First Balkan War drives the Ottomans from most of Europe"},{"year":1914,"text":"Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo (28 June)"},{"year":1914,"text":"First World War begins; Germany invades Belgium and France"},{"year":1914,"text":"Panama Canal opens (15 August)"},{"year":1914,"text":"Battles of Tannenberg and the Marne; trench warfare sets in on the Western Front"},{"year":1914,"text":"Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers; Britain declares a protectorate over Egypt"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1914","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Lettow-Vorbeck"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Andrew Fisher","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fisher"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Italy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Italy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of France","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_France"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"year":1920,"title":"A Peace of Exhaustion","age":"Interwar Period","overview":"The First World War is over, but the world of 1920 is exhausted, grieving and unstable. Some 15 to 22 million soldiers and civilians died in the war and tens of millions more in the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Four empires, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman, have collapsed, and new states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia fill central Europe. The Treaty of Versailles came into force in January, blaming Germany and making it pay reparations, and the new League of Nations meets in Geneva, though the United States has refused to join. Russia is in the final stage of a brutal civil war that the Bolsheviks under Lenin are winning; their Red Army is stopped outside Warsaw in August. Britain and France, the victors, have taken Germany's colonies and the Ottoman Arab lands as League 'mandates', bringing the British Empire to its greatest size. Meanwhile nationalists from Ireland and Egypt to India and China are demanding independence, and in America women have just won the vote.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Former German colonies have been handed out as League of Nations mandates: South West Africa to South Africa, Tanganyika to Britain, and Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium. The Union of South Africa is led by Prime Minister Jan Smuts, Belgium rules the Congo, and the British South Africa Company still administers the Rhodesias. Kenya became a British Crown colony in 1920, and Portugal holds Angola and Mozambique.","northern-africa":"Egypt, still a British protectorate under Sultan Fuad I, was shaken by the 1919 revolution led by Saad Zaghloul and will win nominal independence in 1922. Germany's Kamerun and Togoland have been split between Britain and France, which also rules the Maghreb and huge federations in West and Equatorial Africa. Italy struggles against Senussi resistance in Libya. Ethiopia is ruled by Empress Zewditu, with her cousin Ras Tafari (the future Haile Selassie) as regent and heir.","europe":"The peace treaties have redrawn Europe: Germany, now the Weimar Republic under President Friedrich Ebert, lost territory and its army; Austria and Hungary are small separate states, and the Treaty of Trianon (June 1920) stripped Hungary of two-thirds of its land; Admiral Horthy rules Hungary as regent. New or restored states include Poland (Jozef Pilsudski), Czechoslovakia (President Tomas Masaryk), Yugoslavia, Finland and the Baltic states. The Poles defeat the Red Army at Warsaw in August 1920, the last White army is evacuated from Crimea in November, and Ireland is fighting its War of Independence against Britain.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Ottoman Empire is being dismantled: Sultan Mehmed VI signed the harsh Treaty of Sevres in August 1920 in Allied-occupied Constantinople, while Mustafa Kemal's rival nationalist government in Ankara fights on against Greek and Allied forces. At San Remo the Allies gave Britain mandates over Palestine and Mesopotamia (Iraq, where a major revolt breaks out) and France mandates over Syria and Lebanon; French troops crushed King Faisal's Arab kingdom in Damascus in July. Sharif Hussein is King of the Hejaz, Ibn Saud rules Nejd, Persia is under Ahmad Shah, and Afghanistan under Amir Amanullah Khan won full independence in 1919. In India, under Viceroy Lord Chelmsford, Gandhi launches the Non-Cooperation Movement after the 1919 Amritsar massacre.","north-central-asia":"The Red Army is conquering Central Asia: in 1920 the khan of Khiva and the emir of Bukhara were overthrown and replaced by Soviet-backed 'people's republics', while Muslim Basmachi rebels resist. White leader Admiral Kolchak was executed in Irkutsk in February, and Siberia falls to the Bolsheviks, who set up a buffer Far Eastern Republic while Japanese troops still occupy parts of the Russian Far East. A Kirghiz (Kazakh) autonomous republic is created on the steppe.","east-asia":"China has broken up into the Warlord Era: a weak government in Beijing under President Xu Shichang is fought over by northern militarist cliques, Zhang Zuolin rules Manchuria, and Sun Yat-sen leads a rival government in Guangzhou. The May Fourth Movement of 1919 sparked a wave of nationalism after the Versailles treaty gave Germany's Shandong rights to Japan. Japan, under Emperor Taisho and Prime Minister Hara Takashi, is a victor and a League Council member and rules Korea, where it brutally suppressed the March First independence movement of 1919. Tibet under the 13th Dalai Lama is de facto independent, while Chinese troops have reoccupied Mongolia.","southeast-asia":"Colonial rule continues unchanged: France governs Indochina, Britain rules Burma and Malaya, the Dutch rule the East Indies, where the Communist Party of Indonesia is founded in 1920, and the United States administers the Philippines under a mostly Filipino legislature. Siam, under King Vajiravudh, joined the Allies in 1917 and gained a seat at the League of Nations.","northern-north-america":"Canada, whose 60,000 war dead gave it a separate signature on the Versailles treaty, is led by Arthur Meighen from July 1920 after Robert Borden retired; the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 reflected postwar unrest. Newfoundland remains a separate dominion, Alaska a US territory, and Greenland a Danish colony.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under the ailing Woodrow Wilson, has rejected the Versailles treaty and the League; Prohibition began in January 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the vote in August, and Warren Harding won the November election promising a 'return to normalcy'. Mexico's Revolution winds down: President Carranza was overthrown and killed in May 1920, and Alvaro Obregon became president in December. US Marines occupy Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.","northern-south-america":"Brazil is governed by President Epitacio Pessoa under a republic dominated by coffee planters. Augusto Leguia has seized power in Peru, beginning an eleven-year rule, a July 1920 coup in Bolivia brings Bautista Saavedra to power, and Juan Vicente Gomez continues his dictatorship in Venezuela, where oil is starting to flow. Colombia is led by Marco Fidel Suarez.","southern-cone":"Argentina is governed by Hipolito Yrigoyen, its first president elected under universal male suffrage, and remains wealthy from exports, though strikes were violently repressed in 1919. Chile elects the reformer Arturo Alessandri in 1920 as its nitrate economy suffers from the invention of synthetic nitrates. Uruguay, under Baltasar Brum, is a stable democracy, and Paraguay is led by Manuel Gondra.","australasia":"Australia, under Prime Minister Billy Hughes, lost about 60,000 men in the war and now holds former German New Guinea as a League mandate. New Zealand, under William Massey, administers Western Samoa, Britain, Australia and New Zealand share Nauru, and Japan rules the former German islands of Micronesia as the South Seas Mandate. Hawaii is a US territory."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","ruler":"George V (PM David Lloyd George)","capital":"London","extent":"Its greatest ever size: about a quarter of the world's land, including new mandates in the Middle East and Africa","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Woodrow Wilson","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"48 states plus Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone; the world's largest economy","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"French Third Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Alexandre Millerand (from September)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France plus Alsace-Lorraine regained, a vast African empire, Indochina and mandates over Syria and Lebanon","clio":"French Third Republic"},{"name":"Soviet Russia","map":"USSR","ruler":"Vladimir Lenin (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars)","capital":"Moscow","extent":"Most of the former Russian Empire, minus Poland, Finland and the Baltic states; the USSR is formally created in 1922","clio":null},{"name":"Empire of Japan","map":"Empire of Japan","ruler":"Emperor Taisho (PM Hara Takashi)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"Japan, Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin, Kwantung, Shandong rights and the South Seas Mandate","clio":"Empire of Japan"},{"name":"Kingdom of Italy","map":"Italy","ruler":"Victor Emmanuel III (PM Giovanni Giolitti from June)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy plus South Tyrol and Trieste gained from Austria, Libya, Eritrea and Somaliland","clio":"Kingdom of Italy"},{"name":"Weimar Germany","map":"Germany","ruler":"President Friedrich Ebert","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Germany reduced by Versailles, having lost all colonies, Alsace-Lorraine and lands to Poland","clio":"Weimar Republic"},{"name":"Republic of China","map":"Chinese Warlords","ruler":"President Xu Shichang (Beijing government); rival Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou","capital":"Beijing","extent":"China proper, split among regional warlords","clio":"Kuomintang"}],"events":[{"year":1917,"text":"Russian Revolutions; the Bolsheviks seize power; the US enters the war"},{"year":1918,"text":"Armistice ends the First World War; influenza pandemic kills tens of millions"},{"year":1919,"text":"Treaty of Versailles signed; Amritsar massacre in India; May Fourth Movement in China"},{"year":1920,"text":"League of Nations founded; US Prohibition begins"},{"year":1920,"text":"San Remo conference assigns Middle East mandates to Britain and France"},{"year":1920,"text":"Poland defeats the Red Army at the Battle of Warsaw"},{"year":1920,"text":"Treaty of Sevres imposed on the Ottoman Empire; Turkish nationalists fight on from Ankara"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1920","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War I casualties","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Italy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Italy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of France","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_France"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera, Turchin et al. areas)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"year":1930,"title":"The Great Depression Begins","age":"Interwar Period","overview":"The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 has tipped the world into the Great Depression. In 1930 factories close, farm prices collapse and unemployment soars from Detroit to Berlin to Sydney; the US raises tariffs and world trade begins to shrink. Hard times strengthen extremists: in Germany's September election Hitler's Nazi party jumps from 12 to 107 seats, while Mussolini's Fascists already rule Italy. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin is forcing peasants onto collective farms and driving rapid industrialisation at terrible human cost. Military coups topple governments in Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Colonial empires still look solid, yet Gandhi's Salt March challenges British rule in India, and nationalist risings shake Vietnam and Burma. In China, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists have nominally unified the country but are fighting warlords and Communists. Radio, cinema with sound and cars are reshaping daily life in rich countries, while Uruguay hosts the first football World Cup.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Union of South Africa, under Prime Minister J. B. M. Hertzog, extends the vote to white women in 1930 while further restricting Black Africans. Southern Rhodesia is a self-governing British colony, Northern Rhodesia's Copperbelt is being opened up, and Britain also rules Tanganyika, Nyasaland and Bechuanaland. Belgium governs the Congo, and Portugal, where Antonio de Oliveira Salazar is rising to power, tightens control of Angola and Mozambique.","northern-africa":"Ras Tafari is crowned Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia in November 1930 after Empress Zewditu's death. Egypt is a kingdom under King Fuad I with British troops still guarding the Suez Canal, and the Sudan remains an Anglo-Egyptian condominium. France celebrates the centenary of its conquest of Algeria and rules Morocco, where Sultan Mohammed V reigns, and Tunisia. Italy, led in the field by General Rodolfo Graziani, is brutally crushing the Libyan resistance of Omar Mukhtar.","europe":"Europe is sliding into crisis: Germany's Chancellor Heinrich Bruning governs by emergency decree under President Hindenburg as the Nazis surge, while Mussolini rules Italy as Fascist dictator under King Victor Emmanuel III. Britain has a minority Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald, France is governed under President Gaston Doumergue, and in Spain the dictator Primo de Rivera resigned in January, with the monarchy about to fall in 1931. Dictators or strongmen also rule Poland (Pilsudski), Yugoslavia (King Alexander), Hungary (Horthy) and Portugal, and Allied troops left the German Rhineland in June 1930.","middle-east-south-asia":"Turkey is a secular republic led by Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk) from Ankara, and Iran is ruled by Reza Shah Pahlavi, both modernising rapidly. Iraq, under King Faisal I, signs a treaty with Britain in 1930 that will end the mandate in 1932; Britain also rules Palestine and Transjordan, and France holds Syria and Lebanon. Ibn Saud is King of the Hejaz and Nejd (renamed Saudi Arabia in 1932), and Nadir Shah rules Afghanistan. In India, Congress declares the goal of full independence, and Gandhi leads the Salt March in March-April 1930; Viceroy Lord Irwin jails tens of thousands, and the first Round Table Conference opens in London.","north-central-asia":"Soviet Central Asia has been divided into national republics, including the Uzbek, Turkmen and new Tajik Soviet republics and autonomous Kazakh and Kirghiz republics. Stalin's forced collectivisation is beginning a catastrophic famine among Kazakh nomads (1930-1933), and the Turkestan-Siberian Railway is completed in 1930. Mongolia is a Soviet-aligned People's Republic, and labour camps of the Gulag are spreading across Siberia.","east-asia":"Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government in Nanjing claims all of China after its Northern Expedition (1928), but in 1930 it fights the huge Central Plains War against rival warlords and launches its first campaign against Mao Zedong's Communists in their Jiangxi base area. Manchuria is held by the 'Young Marshal' Zhang Xueliang, coveted by Japan. Japan, under Emperor Hirohito (Showa era), is hit hard by the Depression; Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi is shot by a nationalist in November 1930. Korea and Taiwan are Japanese colonies, and Tibet is ruled by the 13th Dalai Lama.","southeast-asia":"Nationalist and communist challenges are growing: the Yen Bai mutiny shakes French Indochina in February 1930 and Ho Chi Minh founds the Indochinese Communist Party; in Burma the Saya San peasant rebellion erupts in December. The Dutch have jailed Indonesian nationalist leader Sukarno, and the US governs the Philippines amid demands for independence. Siam, under King Prajadhipok (Rama VII), is the last absolute monarchy in the region and will be overthrown in 1932.","northern-north-america":"Canada, battered by the Depression and a prairie drought, elects Conservative R. B. Bennett as prime minister in July 1930. Newfoundland is a separate British dominion and Alaska a US territory, while Norway and Denmark dispute ownership of East Greenland. The 1931 Statute of Westminster will soon make the dominions fully independent in law.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under President Herbert Hoover, plunges deeper into depression; the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of June 1930 sparks retaliation around the world. Mexico is ruled by figurehead presidents, Pascual Ortiz Rubio from 1930, under the 'Jefe Maximo' Plutarco Elias Calles and his new National Revolutionary Party. Rafael Trujillo seizes power in the Dominican Republic, Gerardo Machado rules Cuba as a dictator, and Augusto Sandino fights US Marines in Nicaragua.","northern-south-america":"The Revolution of 1930 brings Getulio Vargas to power in Brazil in November, ending the coffee planters' Old Republic. In Peru, Augusto Leguia is overthrown by Luis Sanchez Cerro in August, and Bolivia's President Hernando Siles is ousted in June. Colombia peacefully elects Liberal Enrique Olaya Herrera, and Juan Vicente Gomez still rules oil-rich Venezuela.","southern-cone":"On 6 September 1930 the Argentine army overthrows the elected Hipolito Yrigoyen and installs General Jose Felix Uriburu, Argentina's first modern military coup and the start of the 'Infamous Decade'. Chile is ruled by the strongman Carlos Ibanez del Campo as the nitrate and copper markets collapse. Uruguay celebrates the centenary of its constitution by hosting and winning the first FIFA World Cup, and Paraguay and Bolivia are edging toward war over the Chaco.","australasia":"Australia, under Labor Prime Minister James Scullin, is among the countries worst hit by the Depression, with unemployment heading toward 30 percent; the Sydney Harbour Bridge is under construction. New Zealand, led by George Forbes from May 1930, also suffers hard times, and its rule in Western Samoa faces the peaceful Mau independence movement. Australia administers Papua and the New Guinea mandate, and Japan rules Micronesia."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","ruler":"George V (PM Ramsay MacDonald)","capital":"London","extent":"About a quarter of the world's land, including India, the dominions, much of Africa and Middle East mandates","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Herbert Hoover","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"48 states plus Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and the Canal Zone; the largest economy, now in depression","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"French Third Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Gaston Doumergue","capital":"Paris","extent":"Second-largest empire: North, West and Equatorial Africa, Madagascar, Indochina, Syria and Lebanon","clio":"French Third Republic"},{"name":"Soviet Union","map":"White Russia","ruler":"Joseph Stalin (General Secretary)","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About a sixth of the world's land, from Ukraine and Belarus to the Pacific","clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"},{"name":"Empire of Japan","map":"Empire of Japan","ruler":"Emperor Hirohito (PM Hamaguchi Osachi)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"Japan, Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin, the Kwantung lease and the South Seas Mandate","clio":"Empire of Japan"},{"name":"Weimar Germany","map":"Germany","ruler":"President Paul von Hindenburg (Chancellor Hermann Muller, then Heinrich Bruning from March)","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Postwar Germany, with East Prussia separated by the Polish Corridor","clio":"Weimar Republic"},{"name":"Kingdom of Italy","map":"Italy","ruler":"Victor Emmanuel III (Benito Mussolini as dictator)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy plus Libya, Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and the Dodecanese","clio":"Kingdom of Italy"},{"name":"Republic of China","map":"Chinese Warlords","ruler":"Chiang Kai-shek (Nationalist government)","capital":"Nanjing","extent":"Nominally all of China, but regional warlords and Communists hold large areas","clio":"Republic of China"}],"events":[{"year":1922,"text":"Mussolini's March on Rome; Soviet Union formally established"},{"year":1923,"text":"Republic of Turkey proclaimed under Mustafa Kemal"},{"year":1928,"text":"Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition captures Beijing; Stalin's first Five-Year Plan"},{"year":1929,"text":"Wall Street Crash begins the Great Depression"},{"year":1930,"text":"Gandhi's Salt March challenges British rule in India"},{"year":1930,"text":"Nazi party wins 107 seats in Germany's Reichstag election"},{"year":1930,"text":"Military coups in Argentina and Brazil; Haile Selassie crowned in Ethiopia; first World Cup in Uruguay"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1930","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Heinrich Brüning","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Br%C3%BCning"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rodolfo Graziani","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolfo_Graziani"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiangxi%E2%80%93Fujian_Soviet"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First encirclement campaign against the Jiangxi Soviet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_encirclement_campaign_against_the_Jiangxi_Soviet"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"year":1938,"title":"The Road to War","age":"Interwar Period","overview":"By 1938 the peace settlement of 1919 is falling apart and the world is drifting toward another great war. Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany since 1933, has rearmed the country, absorbed Austria in March, and at the Munich conference in September won the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia as Britain and France chose 'appeasement' over war. In November, the Kristallnacht pogrom shows the violence of Nazi persecution of Jews. Mussolini's Italy has conquered Ethiopia, and General Franco, backed by both dictators, is winning Spain's civil war. In Asia, Japan has been at full-scale war with China since 1937, capturing Nanjing, Wuhan and Canton and forcing Chiang Kai-shek's government deep inland. Stalin's Great Purge is killing hundreds of thousands in the Soviet Union. The democracies, Britain, France and the United States, are still recovering from the Depression and reluctant to fight. Across Asia and Africa, colonial rule continues, but nationalist movements grow stronger.","regions":{"southern-africa":"South Africa is governed by J. B. M. Hertzog's United Party, with Jan Smuts as deputy, and the 1938 centenary of the Great Trek inflames Afrikaner nationalism. Britain rules the Rhodesias, Bechuanaland, Nyasaland and the Tanganyika mandate, which Nazi Germany demands back, while Belgium holds the Congo. Angola and Mozambique are ruled by Salazar's authoritarian Estado Novo in Portugal, and Madagascar is French.","northern-africa":"Italy conquered Ethiopia in 1935-1936 with poison gas and joined it with Eritrea and Somaliland as Italian East Africa, ruled from Addis Ababa by the Duke of Aosta, while Haile Selassie lives in exile in England. Italy also rules Libya under Governor Italo Balbo. Egypt, under young King Farouk, gained more independence by the 1936 treaty, though British forces guard Suez, and France rules Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and the great African federations. Spanish Morocco was the base from which Franco launched his rebellion.","europe":"Hitler's Germany annexed Austria (the Anschluss) in March 1938, and the Munich Agreement of 30 September, signed by Chamberlain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler, handed it Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland; Poland and Hungary then grabbed slices of Czechoslovakia too. Spain's civil war (1936-1939) rages, with Franco's Nationalists defeating the Republic at the Ebro. Britain (King George VI, PM Neville Chamberlain) and France (PM Edouard Daladier from April) begin rearming, while Stalin's purges devastate the Soviet officer corps.","middle-east-south-asia":"Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, dies in November 1938 and is succeeded by Ismet Inonu. Reza Shah rules Iran, King Ghazi reigns in Iraq, and in Saudi Arabia, under King Ibn Saud, American engineers strike oil at Dammam in March 1938. Palestine is torn by the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) against British rule and Jewish immigration, and France holds Syria and Lebanon. In India, under Viceroy Lord Linlithgow, Congress governs most provinces after the 1937 elections, and Zahir Shah rules Afghanistan.","north-central-asia":"Soviet Central Asia now consists of five union republics, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kirghiz and Tajik, whose local Communist leaders are being executed in Stalin's purges. The Gulag camps of Siberia and Kolyma hold over a million prisoners, and Soviet and Japanese forces clash at Lake Khasan in the summer of 1938. Mongolia is a Soviet satellite dominated by the strongman Khorloogiin Choibalsan, and Xinjiang's warlord Sheng Shicai depends on Soviet support.","east-asia":"The Second Sino-Japanese War has raged since July 1937: after the Nanjing Massacre, Japan captures Xuzhou, Wuhan and Canton in 1938, and Chiang Kai-shek moves his government to Chongqing, even breaching the Yellow River dikes to slow the enemy. Mao Zedong's Communists, based at Yan'an, are in an uneasy united front with the Nationalists. Japan, under Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, rules Korea, Taiwan and the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Qing emperor Puyi. Tibet is governed by a regent while the newly found 14th Dalai Lama is a small child.","southeast-asia":"The Philippines has been a self-governing Commonwealth under President Manuel Quezon since 1935, with independence promised for 1946. Burma was separated from India in 1937, Britain opened its great naval base at Singapore in February 1938, France rules Indochina, and the Dutch rule the East Indies. In Siam (renamed Thailand in 1939), the nationalist military strongman Plaek Phibunsongkhram becomes prime minister in December 1938 under the boy-king Ananda Mahidol.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, supports appeasement but begins modest rearmament. Newfoundland, bankrupt in the Depression, has given up self-government to a British-appointed Commission (1934). Alaska is a US territory, and Greenland a Danish colony after an international court confirmed Danish sovereignty in 1933.","southern-north-america":"The United States, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is still fighting the Depression with the New Deal and remains officially neutral, though Roosevelt warns about the dictators. In Mexico, President Lazaro Cardenas nationalises the foreign oil companies on 18 March 1938, creating PEMEX. Strongmen rule much of the Caribbean and Central America, including Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Fulgencio Batista behind the scenes in Cuba.","northern-south-america":"Getulio Vargas rules Brazil as dictator under his Estado Novo (New State) of 1937 and crushes a fascist Integralist putsch in May 1938. Bolivia, defeated by Paraguay in the Chaco War, is led by the military reformer German Busch, Peru by General Oscar Benavides, and Colombia elects Eduardo Santos. Venezuela is moving toward democracy under Eleazar Lopez Contreras after Gomez's death.","southern-cone":"Argentina is ruled by Roberto Ortiz, elected by fraud in the 'Infamous Decade', and Chile elects Pedro Aguirre Cerda of the Popular Front in October 1938. The Chaco Peace Treaty of July 1938 awards Paraguay most of the disputed Gran Chaco after its victory over Bolivia. Uruguay is led by Alfredo Baldomir from June 1938.","australasia":"Australia, under Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, marks 150 years since British settlement, and Aboriginal activists hold a 'Day of Mourning' on 26 January 1938. New Zealand's Labour government under Michael Joseph Savage passes a pioneering Social Security Act. Australia rules Papua and the New Guinea mandate, and Japan has closed its mandated islands in Micronesia to outsiders, fuelling suspicion that it is fortifying them."},"powers":[{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"George VI (PM Neville Chamberlain)","capital":"London","extent":"About a quarter of the world's land, including India, the dominions, much of Africa and Middle East mandates","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Franklin D. Roosevelt","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"48 states plus Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippine Commonwealth and the Canal Zone","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Nazi Germany","map":"Germany","ruler":"Adolf Hitler (Fuhrer)","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Germany enlarged by Austria (March 1938) and the Sudetenland (October 1938)","clio":"Nazi Germany"},{"name":"Soviet Union","map":"USSR","ruler":"Joseph Stalin","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About a sixth of the world's land, from Ukraine to the Pacific","clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"},{"name":"Empire of Japan","map":"Empire of Japan","ruler":"Emperor Hirohito (PM Konoe Fumimaro)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"Japan, Korea, Taiwan, southern Sakhalin, the South Seas Mandate, puppet Manchukuo and occupied eastern China","clio":"Empire of Japan"},{"name":"French Third Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Albert Lebrun (PM Edouard Daladier from April)","capital":"Paris","extent":"Second-largest empire: North, West and Equatorial Africa, Madagascar, Indochina, Syria and Lebanon","clio":"French Third Republic"},{"name":"Fascist Italy","map":"Italy","ruler":"Victor Emmanuel III (Benito Mussolini as dictator)","capital":"Rome","extent":"Italy, Libya, Italian East Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somaliland) and the Dodecanese","clio":"Kingdom of Italy"},{"name":"Republic of China","map":"Chinese warlords","ruler":"Chiang Kai-shek (Nationalist government)","capital":"Chongqing (wartime; Nanjing fell in 1937)","extent":"Western and southern China; the east coast and great cities are under Japanese occupation","clio":"Republic of China"}],"events":[{"year":1933,"text":"Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany"},{"year":1935,"text":"Italy invades Ethiopia"},{"year":1936,"text":"Spanish Civil War begins; Germany remilitarises the Rhineland; Rome-Berlin Axis formed"},{"year":1937,"text":"Japan launches full-scale war on China; Nanjing Massacre"},{"year":1938,"text":"Germany annexes Austria (Anschluss)"},{"year":1938,"text":"Mexico nationalises its oil industry"},{"year":1938,"text":"Munich Agreement gives the Sudetenland to Germany"},{"year":1938,"text":"Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1938","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938"},{"title":"Wikipedia: South Seas Mandate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Seas_Mandate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Khorloogiin Choibalsan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khorloogiin_Choibalsan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of France","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_France"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Japan"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"year":1945,"title":"Victory, Ruin and the Atom","age":"Second World War","overview":"1945 is the year the Second World War ends, the deadliest conflict in history, which killed an estimated 60 to 85 million people, including six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Germany surrendered in May after Hitler's suicide in the ruins of Berlin, and Japan surrendered in August after American atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria. Two superpowers emerge: the United States, the richest country on Earth and sole owner of the atomic bomb, and the Soviet Union, whose Red Army now occupies Eastern Europe. At Yalta and Potsdam the victors divided Germany and Austria into occupation zones, and in San Francisco fifty nations founded the United Nations. Britain and France are victorious but bankrupt, and their empires are starting to crack: Indonesia and Vietnam declare independence, India is heading toward freedom, and China slides back into civil war. Much of Europe and East Asia lies in rubble, with millions of refugees on the move.","regions":{"southern-africa":"South Africa's Prime Minister Jan Smuts helps draft the United Nations Charter, while his country keeps the mandate of South West Africa and its system of racial segregation. Uranium from the Belgian Congo's Shinkolobwe mine supplied the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb. Britain rules the Rhodesias, Tanganyika, Nyasaland and Kenya, Portugal still holds Angola and Mozambique, and Madagascar is under Free French rule after Britain seized it from Vichy France in 1942.","northern-africa":"Haile Selassie was restored to Ethiopia's throne in 1941 after British and Ethiopian forces drove out the Italians. Italy's former colonies of Libya, Eritrea and Somalia are under British (and, in Libya's Fezzan, French) military administration. Egypt, under King Farouk, hosts the founding of the Arab League in March 1945. In French Algeria, protests on VE Day at Setif lead to a massacre of thousands of Algerians, and France also rules Morocco, Tunisia and West and Equatorial Africa.","europe":"Nazi Germany surrendered on 7-8 May 1945; Germany and Austria are divided into American, British, French and Soviet zones, with Berlin and Vienna also split, and Germany's lands east of the Oder-Neisse line handed to Poland, except northern East Prussia, which the Soviet Union annexed and, in northern East Prussia, the Soviet Union. The Red Army occupies Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, where Communist-dominated governments are being installed, while Tito's partisans rule Yugoslavia. Britain elects Clement Attlee's Labour government in July, replacing Winston Churchill, and France is led by Charles de Gaulle's Provisional Government. Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal, neutral in the war, remain dictatorships.","middle-east-south-asia":"India is still ruled by Britain under Viceroy Lord Wavell, but independence is clearly coming, and the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah demands a separate Pakistan. Iran, under the young Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, remains occupied by British and Soviet troops, and a Soviet-backed separatist movement emerges in Azerbaijan. Syria and Lebanon are winning independence from France, Britain holds the Palestine mandate amid rising Jewish-Arab conflict, and Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia met President Roosevelt in February, beginning the US-Saudi oil partnership. Turkey, under Ismet Inonu, joined the Allies only in February 1945.","north-central-asia":"Soviet Central Asia and Siberia were transformed by the war, receiving evacuated factories and entire peoples deported by Stalin, such as Volga Germans, Chechens and Crimean Tatars, many of them sent to Kazakhstan. The USSR annexed Tuva in 1944. Mongolia, under Choibalsan, votes for independence in an October 1945 plebiscite that China soon recognises, and in Xinjiang a Soviet-backed East Turkestan Republic controls the Ili region.","east-asia":"Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945 and formally on 2 September; Emperor Hirohito remains, but the country is occupied by the Americans under General Douglas MacArthur. Korea, freed from Japanese rule, is divided at the 38th parallel into a Soviet-occupied north and an American-occupied south, and Taiwan is handed back to China. Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao Zedong's Communists hold peace talks in Chongqing, but both race to seize Japanese-held territory, and civil war is about to resume. Tibet is governed by a regent for the young 14th Dalai Lama.","southeast-asia":"Japan's occupation of Southeast Asia has shattered European prestige. Sukarno proclaims Indonesia's independence on 17 August and Ho Chi Minh proclaims the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September, while the last Vietnamese emperor, Bao Dai, abdicates; British and Indian troops arrive to restore Dutch and French rule and fight Indonesian nationalists at Surabaya. The Philippines, liberated in the bloody Battle of Manila, is led by President Sergio Osmena toward independence in 1946. Britain retakes Burma and Malaya, and Thailand, under King Ananda Mahidol, escapes punishment for its alliance with Japan.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Prime Minister Mackenzie King, ends the war as a major military and industrial power; in September a Soviet cipher clerk, Igor Gouzenko, defects in Ottawa, exposing Soviet spy rings in an early warning of the Cold War. Newfoundland is still run by a British commission and will join Canada in 1949. Alaska, linked by the new Alaska Highway, is a US territory, and Greenland hosts US bases while Denmark was under German occupation.","southern-north-america":"Franklin Roosevelt died in April 1945, and President Harry S. Truman led the United States to victory, ordering the atomic bombings after the first test in New Mexico in July. The US emerges with half the world's industrial output. Mexico, under Manuel Avila Camacho, sent an air squadron to fight in the Philippines, Guatemala's democratic 'revolution' of 1944 brings Juan Jose Arevalo to the presidency, and Trujillo still rules the Dominican Republic.","northern-south-america":"Brazil, the only Latin American country to send combat troops to Europe, sees the army depose Getulio Vargas in October 1945, and General Eurico Gaspar Dutra is elected president in December. In Venezuela, an October coup brings Romulo Betancourt's Democratic Action party to power. Peru elects Jose Luis Bustamante y Rivero, and Colombia is led by Alberto Lleras Camargo from August 1945.","southern-cone":"Argentina, under a military government with General Edelmiro Farrell as president, declared war on the Axis only in March 1945; Colonel Juan Peron, the powerful labour minister, was arrested in October but freed after a mass workers' rally on 17 October, launching Peronism. Chile, under Juan Antonio Rios, celebrates poet Gabriela Mistral, Latin America's first Nobel Prize winner in literature. Uruguay is led by Juan Jose de Amezaga and Paraguay by the dictator Higinio Morinigo.","australasia":"Australia's wartime Prime Minister John Curtin died in July 1945 and was succeeded by Ben Chifley; Australian troops ended the war fighting in New Guinea and Borneo. New Zealand is led by Peter Fraser. The Pacific islands, from the Solomons to Iwo Jima and Okinawa, have been bloody battlefields, and Japan's former Micronesian mandate is now held by the United States."},"powers":[{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Harry S. Truman","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"48 states plus Alaska, Hawaii and Pacific bases; occupies Japan, southern Korea and zones of Germany and Austria; sole atomic power","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Soviet Union","map":"USSR","ruler":"Joseph Stalin","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About a sixth of the world's land, enlarged by the Baltic states and eastern Poland, with the Red Army occupying Eastern Europe, northern Korea and Manchuria","clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"},{"name":"British Empire","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"George VI (PM Clement Attlee from July; Winston Churchill before)","capital":"London","extent":"Still about a quarter of the world's land, including India, much of Africa and the Middle East, but nearly bankrupt","clio":"(British Empire)"},{"name":"Republic of China","map":"China","ruler":"Chiang Kai-shek (Nationalist government)","capital":"Chongqing (returning to Nanjing)","extent":"China and newly returned Taiwan, with Communists controlling much of the north","clio":"Republic of China"},{"name":"French Republic","map":"France","ruler":"Charles de Gaulle (head of the Provisional Government)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France and its empire in Africa and Indochina, plus an occupation zone in Germany","clio":null},{"name":"Occupied Japan","map":"Japan (USA)","ruler":"Emperor Hirohito, under US occupation (General Douglas MacArthur)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The four main Japanese islands; all overseas territories lost","clio":"Empire of Japan"}],"events":[{"year":1939,"text":"Germany invades Poland; the Second World War begins"},{"year":1941,"text":"Germany invades the Soviet Union; Japan attacks Pearl Harbor"},{"year":1945,"text":"Yalta Conference (February); Roosevelt dies (April)"},{"year":1945,"text":"Hitler's suicide and Germany's surrender (May)"},{"year":1945,"text":"United Nations Charter signed in San Francisco (June)"},{"year":1945,"text":"Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders (August)"},{"year":1945,"text":"Indonesia and Vietnam declare independence; Korea divided"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: World War II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War II casualties","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 1945","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Oder–Neisse line","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oder%E2%80%93Neisse_line"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sétif and Guelma massacre","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre"},{"title":"Brookings: 75 years after a historic meeting on the USS Quincy","url":"https://www.brookings.edu/articles/75-years-after-a-historic-meeting-on-the-uss-quincy-us-saudi-relations-are-in-need-of-a-true-re-think/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Potsdam Agreement","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"year":1960,"title":"The Year of Africa","age":"Cold War and Decolonization","overview":"In 1960 the world is split by the Cold War between the American-led West and the Soviet-led Communist bloc, each armed with hydrogen bombs and racing into space. In May, the Soviets shoot down an American U-2 spy plane, wrecking a summit in Paris. Meanwhile the European empires are rapidly dissolving: seventeen African countries, including Nigeria, Congo and most of French Africa, win independence in what is called the 'Year of Africa'. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of a 'wind of change' blowing through the continent. The newly independent Congo immediately plunges into crisis. China, under Mao Zedong, is suffering a catastrophic famine caused by the Great Leap Forward and is breaking with the Soviet Union. Western Europe and Japan are booming, Cuba's revolutionary Fidel Castro is turning toward Moscow, and in November John F. Kennedy is elected US president. Television, jet airliners and consumer goods are spreading across rich countries.","regions":{"southern-africa":"The Belgian Congo became independent on 30 June 1960 under President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, but within weeks the army mutinied, Katanga seceded under Moise Tshombe, UN troops arrived, and Colonel Joseph Mobutu seized power in September. Madagascar gained independence under Philibert Tsiranana. In South Africa, police killed 69 protesters at Sharpeville in March, and Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd's apartheid government wins a referendum to become a republic. Britain still rules the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Kenya and Tanganyika, and Salazar's Portugal holds Angola and Mozambique.","northern-africa":"Most of French West and Equatorial Africa becomes independent in 1960, including Senegal (Leopold Senghor), Mali (Modibo Keita), Ivory Coast (Felix Houphouet-Boigny), Niger and Chad, along with French-run Cameroon, while Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, becomes independent from Britain on 1 October under Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and Somalia unites in July. Algeria is still fighting a brutal independence war against France. Gamal Abdel Nasser leads Egypt, joined with Syria as the United Arab Republic, and begins the Aswan High Dam; Kwame Nkrumah makes Ghana a republic, and Emperor Haile Selassie survives a coup attempt in Ethiopia in December.","europe":"Europe is divided by the Iron Curtain: West Germany under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer is in NATO and booming, while Walter Ulbricht's East Germany, in the Warsaw Pact, is losing citizens through Berlin, a flow the Berlin Wall will stop in 1961. The six-nation European Economic Community is rivalled by the new European Free Trade Association. Charles de Gaulle leads France's Fifth Republic, which tests its first atomic bomb in the Algerian Sahara; Elizabeth II reigns in Britain, Khrushchev rules the Soviet Union, and Cyprus becomes independent in August. Franco and Salazar still rule Spain and Portugal.","middle-east-south-asia":"India is led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, and signs the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, which is ruled by General Ayub Khan. Ceylon elects Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world's first female prime minister. A military coup in May overthrows Turkey's government, Abd al-Karim Qasim rules revolutionary Iraq, and the Shah rules Iran; in September, oil-producing states found OPEC in Baghdad. David Ben-Gurion leads Israel, whose agents capture Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.","north-central-asia":"Soviet Central Asia is home to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, from which Sputnik was launched in 1957 and Yuri Gagarin will fly in 1961, and Khrushchev's Virgin Lands campaign has ploughed up millions of hectares of Kazakh steppe for wheat. The Semipalatinsk site hosts Soviet nuclear tests, and giant dams are being built in Siberia. Mongolia, under Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal, stays firmly in the Soviet camp as Moscow withdraws its advisers from China in July 1960.","east-asia":"The People's Republic of China, under Chairman Mao Zedong, with Liu Shaoqi as head of state and Zhou Enlai as premier, is in the depths of a famine caused by the Great Leap Forward that will kill tens of millions. The Sino-Soviet split breaks into the open, and Tibet has been under direct Chinese control since the 1959 uprising sent the Dalai Lama into exile in India. In Japan, mass protests against the US security treaty force Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke to resign, and Ikeda Hayato begins a plan to double incomes. South Korea's April Revolution topples Syngman Rhee, Kim Il-sung rules North Korea, and Chiang Kai-shek rules Taiwan.","southeast-asia":"Vietnam is divided between Ho Chi Minh's Communist North and Ngo Dinh Diem's US-backed South, where the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) is founded in December 1960; neighbouring Laos is torn by a coup and civil war. Indonesia's Sukarno rules under 'Guided Democracy' and demands Dutch-held West New Guinea. Malaya, under Tunku Abdul Rahman, ends its long Communist Emergency, Singapore is self-governing under Lee Kuan Yew, Prince Sihanouk leads Cambodia, and Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat rules Thailand under King Bhumibol.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, is a NATO and NORAD ally of the United States, with radar lines across the Arctic to watch for Soviet bombers. In Quebec, Jean Lesage's election in June 1960 begins the 'Quiet Revolution'. Alaska became the 49th US state in 1959, and Greenland, now a county of Denmark, hosts the large US air base at Thule.","southern-north-america":"President Dwight D. Eisenhower's America is the world's richest society; Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959, and in November 1960 John F. Kennedy narrowly defeats Richard Nixon. Black students' sit-ins in Greensboro energise the civil rights movement. Fidel Castro's Cuba nationalises American property and turns to the Soviet Union, and the US imposes a trade embargo in October. Mexico is governed by Adolfo Lopez Mateos of the long-ruling PRI, and dictators such as Trujillo and the Somoza family still rule parts of the Caribbean and Central America.","northern-south-america":"Brazil inaugurates its futuristic new capital, Brasilia, on 21 April 1960 under President Juscelino Kubitschek, and Janio Quadros wins the October election. Venezuela, under the democrat Romulo Betancourt, co-founds OPEC. Colombia is governed by Alberto Lleras Camargo under the National Front power-sharing deal, Victor Paz Estenssoro returns to power in Bolivia, and the Guianas remain under British, Dutch and French rule.","southern-cone":"On 22 May 1960 the Valdivia earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded (magnitude 9.5), devastates southern Chile, governed by President Jorge Alessandri. Argentina is led by Arturo Frondizi, with Peron in exile and his movement banned, and Israeli agents abduct Eichmann from Buenos Aires in May. Paraguay is ruled by the dictator Alfredo Stroessner, and Uruguay by a collective National Council of Government; the Treaty of Montevideo creates a Latin American free-trade association.","australasia":"Australia, under the long-serving Prime Minister Robert Menzies, is a close US ally and still keeps its 'White Australia' immigration policy; it governs Papua and New Guinea. New Zealand elects Keith Holyoake as prime minister in November 1960, and Western Samoa is preparing for independence in 1962. Hawaii has just become a US state, and the Dutch still hold West New Guinea."},"powers":[{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Dwight D. Eisenhower","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"50 states, leading NATO and a worldwide network of alliances and bases; the world's largest economy","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Soviet Union","map":"USSR","ruler":"Nikita Khrushchev (First Secretary and Premier)","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About a sixth of the world's land, dominating Eastern Europe through the Warsaw Pact","clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"},{"name":"People's Republic of China","map":"China","ruler":"Mao Zedong (CCP Chairman; Liu Shaoqi head of state, Zhou Enlai premier)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"Mainland China including Tibet and Xinjiang; about 650 million people","clio":"People's Republic of China"},{"name":"United Kingdom","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"Elizabeth II (PM Harold Macmillan)","capital":"London","extent":"Britain plus a shrinking empire in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, and leader of the Commonwealth","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"French Fifth Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Charles de Gaulle","capital":"Paris","extent":"France and Algeria (at war), plus overseas territories; most African colonies freed in 1960","clio":"French Fifth Republic"},{"name":"West Germany","map":"West Germany","ruler":"Chancellor Konrad Adenauer","capital":"Bonn","extent":"Western two-thirds of divided Germany; Europe's economic powerhouse","clio":"Federal Republic of Germany"},{"name":"India","map":"India","ruler":"PM Jawaharlal Nehru (President Rajendra Prasad)","capital":"New Delhi","extent":"Most of the Indian subcontinent; world's largest democracy and a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement","clio":"Republic of India"},{"name":"Japan","map":"Japan","ruler":"Emperor Hirohito (PM Kishi Nobusuke, then Ikeda Hayato from July)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The Japanese islands (Okinawa still under US rule); a fast-growing economy","clio":"Japan"}],"events":[{"year":1949,"text":"NATO founded; Communists win the Chinese Civil War"},{"year":1957,"text":"Soviet Union launches Sputnik; Ghana becomes independent"},{"year":1959,"text":"Cuban Revolution brings Fidel Castro to power"},{"year":1960,"text":"Sharpeville massacre in South Africa (March)"},{"year":1960,"text":"U-2 incident wrecks the Paris summit (May); Valdivia earthquake in Chile"},{"year":1960,"text":"Seventeen African states gain independence; Congo Crisis begins"},{"year":1960,"text":"OPEC founded in Baghdad (September)"},{"year":1960,"text":"John F. Kennedy elected US president (November)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1960","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Year of Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Japan"}]},{"year":1994,"title":"After the Cold War","age":"Post-Cold War Era","overview":"The Cold War is over: the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 into fifteen independent states, and the United States stands as the world's only superpower. Hopes run high for a new era of democracy and open markets. Nelson Mandela becomes South Africa's first Black president after the country's first all-race elections, the Channel Tunnel links Britain and France, the North American Free Trade Agreement takes effect, and Israel signs peace with Jordan as Palestinian self-rule begins. Yet 1994 is also a year of horror: in Rwanda, extremists murder an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi along with moderate Hutu, in about a hundred days, while war rages in Bosnia and Russia invades breakaway Chechnya in December. China's economy is booming under market reforms, India is liberalising, and the internet and mobile phones are starting to spread. Boris Yeltsin's Russia struggles with economic collapse, and North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung dies in July.","regions":{"southern-africa":"South Africa's first democratic elections on 27 April 1994 end apartheid, and Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as president on 10 May. In Rwanda, a genocide from April to July kills an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people before Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front takes power, sending a million Hutu refugees into Zaire, still ruled by Mobutu Sese Seko. Mozambique holds its first multiparty elections after its civil war, Malawi votes out its dictator Hastings Banda, and Angola's government and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA sign the Lusaka Protocol. Robert Mugabe rules Zimbabwe and Sam Nujoma leads newly independent Namibia.","northern-africa":"Algeria is in a savage civil war between the military government of Liamine Zeroual and Islamist insurgents. Egypt is ruled by Hosni Mubarak, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi is under UN sanctions, and Sudan's Islamist military regime under Omar al-Bashir hosts Osama bin Laden. Somalia has collapsed into clan warfare after the failed UN and US intervention, Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia in 1993, and Nigeria is ruled by the dictator Sani Abacha. Civil wars ravage Liberia and Sierra Leone.","europe":"Europe is reuniting after the Cold War: Germany has been one country since 1990, the European Union was created by the Maastricht Treaty (1993), Austria, Finland and Sweden vote to join, and the last Russian troops leave Germany, Estonia and Latvia in August 1994. The Channel Tunnel opens in May. But Yugoslavia's breakup has brought war to Bosnia, where Sarajevo is under siege, and Russia, under President Boris Yeltsin, invades Chechnya in December. Helmut Kohl leads Germany, Francois Mitterrand France, John Major Britain, and the IRA declares a ceasefire in Northern Ireland.","middle-east-south-asia":"The Oslo peace process brings Palestinian self-rule to Gaza and Jericho, Yasser Arafat returns from exile, and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin signs a peace treaty with Jordan's King Hussein in October. Saddam Hussein's Iraq is under heavy UN sanctions, Iran is led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Rafsanjani, and Yemen fights a short civil war. Afghanistan is torn by warring mujahideen factions, and the Taliban movement emerges in Kandahar late in 1994. India, under P. V. Narasimha Rao, is opening its economy, and Benazir Bhutto is prime minister of Pakistan.","north-central-asia":"Five Central Asian republics have been independent since 1991, mostly ruled by former Soviet Communist bosses: Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan, and Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan, while Tajikistan is in civil war under Emomali Rahmonov. Kazakhstan has agreed to hand its Soviet nuclear warheads back to Russia and leases the Baikonur Cosmodrome to Russia. Siberia remains part of Russia, and Mongolia has been a democracy since 1990.","east-asia":"China, under President Jiang Zemin with Deng Xiaoping still the paramount elder, is booming after market reforms, and construction of the Three Gorges Dam begins in December. Hong Kong (British until 1997) and Macau (Portuguese until 1999) await handover to China, and Taiwan is democratising under Lee Teng-hui. North Korea's Kim Il-sung dies in July and is succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il, whose government signs a nuclear freeze deal (the Agreed Framework) with the US in October. Japan, under Emperor Akihito, has three prime ministers in 1994 as its economic bubble deflates, while South Korea is led by Kim Young-sam.","southeast-asia":"The US lifts its trade embargo on Vietnam in February, as Vietnam pursues market reforms under Communist rule. Cambodia, after UN-run elections in 1993, is again a kingdom under Norodom Sihanouk, though the Khmer Rouge still fight on. Indonesia is ruled by Suharto, who occupies East Timor, and Myanmar's military junta keeps democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. Mahathir Mohamad's Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Fidel Ramos's Philippines are fast-growing 'tiger' economies.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Prime Minister Jean Chretien, joins the North American Free Trade Agreement on 1 January 1994, and Quebec elects a separatist government under Jacques Parizeau, setting up a 1995 independence referendum. An agreement to create the Inuit territory of Nunavut (1999) has been signed. Greenland governs itself under Danish home rule, and Alaska is a US state.","southern-north-america":"Bill Clinton's America is the sole superpower and enjoying an economic boom, but Republicans win Congress in the November 1994 midterms. NAFTA takes effect on 1 January, the same day the Zapatista rebels rise up in Chiapas, Mexico; presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated, Ernesto Zedillo is elected, and a peso crisis strikes in December. A US-led force restores Haiti's elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in October, and thousands of Cubans flee Castro's island on rafts.","northern-south-america":"Brazil introduces the real currency to tame hyperinflation and elects its architect, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, as president, and wins the football World Cup. Alberto Fujimori rules Peru with strong powers after his 1992 'self-coup' and the capture of the Shining Path's leader. Colombia elects Ernesto Samper amid the power of drug cartels, and Venezuela is led by the veteran Rafael Caldera.","southern-cone":"Democracy has returned across the region: Argentina, under Carlos Menem, keeps its peso pegged to the dollar and reforms its constitution, but suffers the deadly AMIA bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in July. Chile is led by Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, though former dictator Augusto Pinochet still commands the army. Paraguay has its first civilian president in decades, Juan Carlos Wasmosy, and the Mercosur trade bloc agrees a customs union in December.","australasia":"Australia, under Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, debates becoming a republic and has recognised Aboriginal land rights in its Native Title Act (1993). New Zealand is led by Jim Bolger, and Papua New Guinea struggles with a separatist war on Bougainville. Palau becomes independent in October 1994, ending the last UN trust territory, and France has paused its nuclear tests in French Polynesia, which it will resume in 1995."},"powers":[{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Bill Clinton","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"50 states; the only superpower, with about a quarter of world economic output","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"Russian Federation","map":"Russia","ruler":"President Boris Yeltsin","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About 17 million km², the world's largest country, from the Baltic to the Pacific","clio":"(Russian Federation)"},{"name":"People's Republic of China","map":"China","ruler":"President Jiang Zemin (Premier Li Peng; Deng Xiaoping paramount elder)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"About 9.6 million km² and 1.2 billion people; the fastest-growing major economy","clio":"People's Republic of China"},{"name":"Japan","map":"Japan","ruler":"Emperor Akihito (PMs Hosokawa Morihiro and Hata Tsutomu, then Murayama Tomiichi from June)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The Japanese islands; the world's second-largest economy","clio":"Japan"},{"name":"Germany","map":"Germany","ruler":"Chancellor Helmut Kohl","capital":"Berlin (government still in Bonn)","extent":"Reunified Germany, Europe's largest economy","clio":"Federated Republic of Germany"},{"name":"United Kingdom","clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"Elizabeth II (PM John Major)","capital":"London","extent":"Britain and Northern Ireland plus small overseas territories, including Hong Kong until 1997"},{"name":"France","clio":"French Fifth Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Francois Mitterrand (PM Edouard Balladur)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France plus overseas departments and territories in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific"},{"name":"India","map":"India","ruler":"PM P. V. Narasimha Rao","capital":"New Delhi","extent":"Most of the Indian subcontinent; about 920 million people","clio":"Republic of India"}],"events":[{"year":1989,"text":"Berlin Wall falls; Tiananmen Square crackdown in China"},{"year":1991,"text":"Gulf War; the Soviet Union dissolves"},{"year":1993,"text":"European Union created; Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO"},{"year":1994,"text":"NAFTA takes effect; Zapatista uprising in Mexico"},{"year":1994,"text":"Rwandan genocide (April-July)"},{"year":1994,"text":"Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa; Channel Tunnel opens"},{"year":1994,"text":"Kim Il-sung dies; Israel-Jordan peace treaty signed"},{"year":1994,"text":"Russia invades Chechnya (December)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1994","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rwandan genocide","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide"},{"title":"The Conversation: France's final nuclear tests in the South Pacific, 30 years on","url":"https://theconversation.com/frances-final-nuclear-tests-in-the-south-pacific-30-years-on-256439"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Agreed Framework","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kazakhstan and weapons of mass destruction","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Japan"},{"title":"ERR News: Thirty years since the last Russian forces left Estonia","url":"https://news.err.ee/1609437929/thirty-years-since-the-last-russian-forces-left-estonia"}]},{"year":2000,"title":"Into a New Millennium","age":"Age of Globalization","overview":"The world greets the year 2000 with fireworks and relief that the feared 'Y2K' computer bug caused little trouble. Globalisation is the word of the moment: trade, travel and the internet are knitting economies together, though the dot-com stock bubble bursts in March. The United States is the unchallenged superpower, but its November presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore ends in a disputed Florida recount settled by the Supreme Court. Vladimir Putin becomes president of Russia, pledging to restore order, and wages a second war in Chechnya. China is booming and preparing to join the World Trade Organization, and Europe has launched the euro. Democracy spreads, as Mexico's ruling party loses power after 71 years and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic is ousted, but the Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapses into a new uprising. Wars continue in Congo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, AIDS is ravaging Africa, and the world's population has just passed six billion.","regions":{"southern-africa":"Thabo Mbeki has succeeded Nelson Mandela as South Africa's president, while Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe backs violent seizures of white-owned farms after losing a referendum in February. The Second Congo War (1998-2003) draws in armies from half a dozen nations against Laurent-Desire Kabila's government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (still labelled Zaire on this map). Angola's civil war continues, devastating floods strike Mozambique, and Paul Kagame becomes president of Rwanda. HIV/AIDS is killing millions across the region.","northern-africa":"Ethiopia and Eritrea end a bloody border war with the Algiers Agreement in December. British troops intervene to save Sierra Leone's government from rebels in May. Nigeria has returned to civilian rule under Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal sees its first peaceful change of party in power with Abdoulaye Wade, and Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika works to end the civil war. Hosni Mubarak rules Egypt, Gaddafi rules Libya, King Mohammed VI has succeeded his father in Morocco, and Sudan's al-Bashir regime fights a long war in the south.","europe":"The European Union of 15 members launched the euro currency in 1999 and in December 2000 agrees the Treaty of Nice to prepare for expansion into Eastern Europe. In October, mass protests overthrow Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, while Kosovo is under UN administration. Vladimir Putin becomes president of Russia, captures Grozny in the Second Chechen War, and faces criticism over the Kursk submarine disaster. Germany's government, under Gerhard Schroder, has moved to Berlin, Tony Blair leads Britain and Jacques Chirac France.","middle-east-south-asia":"Peace talks at Camp David collapse in July, and the Second Intifada erupts in September, while Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon in May. Syria's Hafez al-Assad dies and is succeeded by his son Bashar; al-Qaeda bombs the USS Cole in Aden in October; and Saddam Hussein's Iraq remains under sanctions. The Taliban control most of Afghanistan, sheltering Osama bin Laden. India, under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, passes a billion people, and General Pervez Musharraf rules Pakistan after a 1999 coup; both are now nuclear-armed.","north-central-asia":"Central Asia's authoritarian presidents are entrenched: Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, Karimov in Uzbekistan, Niyazov (who has made himself president for life) in Turkmenistan, Akayev in Kyrgyzstan, and Rahmonov in Tajikistan after the civil war. Kazakhstan's oil boom is under way, with the giant Kashagan field discovered in 2000. Russia's Siberian oil and gas fund Putin's state, and Mongolia elects Nambaryn Enkhbayar as prime minister in July 2000.","east-asia":"China, under Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, has regained Hong Kong (1997) and Macau (1999) and is close to joining the World Trade Organization. In Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian's election ends half a century of Kuomintang rule. South Korea's Kim Dae-jung meets North Korea's Kim Jong-il in the first inter-Korean summit in June and wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Japan, under Emperor Akihito and Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro, is mired in economic stagnation.","southeast-asia":"East Timor, after voting for independence from Indonesia in 1999, is under UN administration and will become independent in 2002. Indonesia, democratic since Suharto's fall in 1998, is led by President Abdurrahman Wahid, and the Philippines' President Joseph Estrada is impeached in November and put on trial before the Senate in December. All ten Southeast Asian nations are now in ASEAN; Vietnam is visited by President Clinton in November, and Myanmar remains under military rule.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Jean Chretien, re-elected in November 2000, is prosperous and closely tied to the US economy; former prime minister Pierre Trudeau dies in September. The Inuit territory of Nunavut was created in 1999. Greenland has home rule under Denmark, and Alaska is a US state.","southern-north-america":"Bill Clinton's last year in office is marked by economic prosperity, but the dot-com crash begins in March, and the November election between George W. Bush and Al Gore is decided by the Supreme Court in December. In Mexico, Vicente Fox of the National Action Party wins in July, ending 71 years of PRI rule. Panama took full control of its canal on 31 December 1999, and Fidel Castro still rules Cuba.","northern-south-america":"Hugo Chavez, re-elected in 2000 under a new constitution, is reshaping Venezuela with his 'Bolivarian Revolution'. Colombia, under Andres Pastrana, launches Plan Colombia with US aid against drug cartels and FARC guerrillas. In Peru, President Alberto Fujimori flees to Japan amid a corruption scandal and resigns by fax in November; Ecuador adopts the US dollar, a plan announced just before a January coup; and Brazil, under Fernando Henrique Cardoso, marks 500 years since the arrival of the Portuguese.","southern-cone":"Argentina, under Fernando de la Rua, is sliding into the recession that will explode into crisis in 2001. Chile elects socialist Ricardo Lagos, and former dictator Augusto Pinochet returns home after 16 months of detention in Britain. Uruguay is led by Jorge Batlle and Paraguay by Luis Gonzalez Macchi, and the Mercosur trade bloc links the region's economies.","australasia":"Sydney hosts the 2000 Olympic Games, and Australia, under Prime Minister John Howard, sees hundreds of thousands march for reconciliation with Aboriginal Australians after voters rejected becoming a republic in 1999. New Zealand is led by Helen Clark. Coups strike Fiji, where George Speight holds the government hostage in May, and the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea works toward peace on Bougainville."},"powers":[{"name":"United States","map":"United States","ruler":"President Bill Clinton (George W. Bush elected in November)","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"50 states; the sole superpower, with about 30 percent of world economic output","clio":"United States of America"},{"name":"People's Republic of China","map":"China","ruler":"President Jiang Zemin (Premier Zhu Rongji)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"About 9.6 million km² and 1.27 billion people, now including Hong Kong and Macau","clio":"People's Republic of China"},{"name":"Russian Federation","map":"Russia","ruler":"President Vladimir Putin (acting from 31 December 1999, elected March 2000)","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About 17 million km², the world's largest country","clio":"(Russian Federation)"},{"name":"Japan","map":"Japan","ruler":"Emperor Akihito (PM Mori Yoshiro from April)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The Japanese islands; the world's second-largest economy","clio":"Japan"},{"name":"Germany","map":"Germany","ruler":"Chancellor Gerhard Schroder","capital":"Berlin","extent":"Reunified Germany; the largest economy in the European Union","clio":"Federated Republic of Germany"},{"name":"United Kingdom","clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain","map":"United Kingdom","ruler":"Elizabeth II (PM Tony Blair)","capital":"London","extent":"Britain and Northern Ireland plus small overseas territories"},{"name":"France","clio":"French Fifth Republic","map":"France","ruler":"President Jacques Chirac (PM Lionel Jospin)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France plus overseas departments and territories"},{"name":"India","map":"India","ruler":"PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee (President K. R. Narayanan)","capital":"New Delhi","extent":"Most of the Indian subcontinent; population passes one billion","clio":"Republic of India"}],"events":[{"year":1997,"text":"Hong Kong returned to China; Asian financial crisis"},{"year":1999,"text":"Euro launched; NATO bombs Yugoslavia over Kosovo; East Timor votes for independence"},{"year":2000,"text":"Y2K passes quietly; dot-com bubble bursts (March)"},{"year":2000,"text":"Vladimir Putin elected president of Russia (March)"},{"year":2000,"text":"First inter-Korean summit (June); Vicente Fox ends PRI rule in Mexico (July)"},{"year":2000,"text":"Sydney Olympics; Second Intifada begins (September)"},{"year":2000,"text":"Milosevic overthrown in Serbia (October)"},{"year":2000,"text":"US presidential election decided by the Supreme Court (December)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 2000","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Day of Six Billion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Six_Billion"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Impeachment of Joseph Estrada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Joseph_Estrada"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet%27s_arrest_and_trial"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 2000 Ecuadorian coup d'état","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Ecuadorian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat"}]},{"year":2008,"title":"The Great Crash","age":"Age of Globalization","overview":"In 2008 the world suffers its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. A boom in risky American home loans turns to bust, and on 15 September the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt, freezing credit around the globe. Governments spend vast sums rescuing banks, stock markets crash, and the world slides into a deep downturn soon called the Great Recession. Earlier in the year, soaring food prices set off protests and riots in dozens of poorer countries, and oil peaks at about $147 a barrel in July before collapsing to near $30 by December. The crisis hastens a shift in global power: in November the leaders of the G20, which includes China, India and Brazil, meet for the first time to steer the world economy. The United States, still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan after the attacks of 11 September 2001, elects Barack Obama as its first African American president. China hosts a spectacular Olympic Games in Beijing, Russia fights a short war with Georgia, Kosovo declares independence, a cyclone devastates Myanmar, an earthquake kills some 69,000 people in China, and in November gunmen attack Mumbai.","regions":{"southern-africa":"South Africa's ruling ANC forces President Thabo Mbeki to resign in September, and Kgalema Motlanthe takes over until the 2009 election. Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed into hyperinflation; after a disputed election in March, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulls out of a violent June run-off, leaving Robert Mugabe in power until a power-sharing deal is signed in September. In Kenya, violence after the disputed December 2007 election kills over a thousand people before Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga agree to share power. In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, ruled by Joseph Kabila, Laurent Nkunda's rebels push towards the city of Goma late in the year.","northern-africa":"In Sudan, where the Darfur conflict has driven millions from their homes, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor asks in July for an arrest warrant against President Omar al-Bashir. Somalia's weak transitional government depends on Ethiopian troops against the Islamist al-Shabaab insurgency, while pirates off the Somali coast attack over a hundred ships during the year. Soaring food prices bring protests and riots to Egypt, ruled by Hosni Mubarak, and to Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Senegal and other countries. Military coups topple the governments of Mauritania in August and Guinea in December, the day after the death of its long-time ruler Lansana Conte. Muammar Gaddafi's Libya has restored full relations with the United States, and Umaru Yar'Adua is Nigeria's president.","europe":"Europe is hit hard by the crisis: Britain nationalises the bank Northern Rock in February and pours billions into its other banks in October, and in October all three of Iceland's big banks collapse, wrecking its economy. Kosovo declares independence from Serbia in February; it is recognised by many Western countries but not by Serbia or Russia. In August, Russia and Georgia fight a five-day war over South Ossetia, after which Russia recognises South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. Dmitry Medvedev becomes Russia's president in May, with Vladimir Putin as his prime minister. Angela Merkel leads Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy France, Gordon Brown Britain, and Silvio Berlusconi returns to power in Italy.","middle-east-south-asia":"Violence in Iraq is falling after the 2007 US troop 'surge', and in November the two governments agree that US forces will leave by the end of 2011, while the Taliban insurgency grows against Hamid Karzai's government in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf resigns in August and Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, becomes president. In November, ten gunmen from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba attack Mumbai, killing 166 people and straining relations between India, led by Manmohan Singh, and Pakistan. Nepal abolishes its 240-year-old monarchy in May, Bhutan holds its first general election, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faces UN sanctions over its nuclear programme, and on 27 December Israel launches a major offensive against Hamas in Gaza.","north-central-asia":"Central Asia's oil and gas states ride high energy prices until the autumn crash: Nursultan Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow's Turkmenistan, which he has ruled since Saparmurat Niyazov's death in 2006, and Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan. Kurmanbek Bakiyev rules Kyrgyzstan and Emomali Rahmon Tajikistan. In Mongolia, riots break out in July over alleged fraud in parliamentary elections. Siberia's oil and gas fund a resurgent Russia, but the oil price falls by about three-quarters between July and December.","east-asia":"China, under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, has a turbulent year: protests against Chinese rule in Tibet in March are put down, and the Sichuan earthquake in May kills some 69,000 people. But the Beijing Olympic Games in August showcase China's rise, its astronauts make their first spacewalk in September, and as exports slump it announces a 4-trillion-yuan stimulus plan in November. In Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou is elected president and opens direct flights to the mainland. South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak, faces huge protests over US beef imports, North Korea's Kim Jong-il is reported to have suffered a stroke, and Japan, under Emperor Akihito, changes prime minister from Fukuda Yasuo to Aso Taro in September.","southeast-asia":"Cyclone Nargis strikes Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta in May, killing at least 138,000 people, while the ruling generals at first restrict foreign aid and push through a new constitution in a referendum. Thailand is in turmoil: anti-government protesters occupy Government House and in late November shut Bangkok's airports, until a court dissolves the ruling party and Abhisit Vejjajiva becomes prime minister in December. Indonesia, led by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, sees its former dictator Suharto die in January. Malaysia's ruling coalition loses its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time since 1969, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo leads the Philippines.","northern-north-america":"Canada's Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologises in June for the residential schools that took Indigenous children from their families, and wins a second minority government in October. As the recession bites, opposition parties plan to bring him down, and in December he has Parliament suspended to avoid a confidence vote. In November, about three-quarters of Greenland's voters approve greater self-government within the Danish realm, to take effect in June 2009.","southern-north-america":"The US housing bubble bursts: the investment bank Bear Stearns is rescued in March, the government takes over the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September, Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt on 15 September, and Congress approves a $700 billion bank rescue in October. In November, Democrat Barack Obama defeats John McCain to succeed George W. Bush. Mexico's President Felipe Calderon is waging war on the drug cartels, and more than 5,000 people are murdered in 2008 as violence escalates. Fidel Castro hands Cuba's presidency to his brother Raul in February, and Haiti is shaken by food riots.","northern-south-america":"Brazil, under Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, is riding a commodity boom, and huge oil fields have been found deep beneath its seabed. In March, Colombian forces under President Alvaro Uribe kill the FARC commander Raul Reyes in a raid inside Ecuador, and Ecuador and Venezuela move troops to the border; in July, Colombia frees the hostage Ingrid Betancourt and 14 others in a daring rescue. Ecuador's voters approve a new constitution backed by President Rafael Correa, Bolivia's Evo Morales faces violent protests in the eastern departments demanding autonomy, and Hugo Chavez rules Venezuela. In May, South American leaders found the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).","southern-cone":"Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in office since December 2007, faces months of farmers' strikes and road blockades after raising export taxes on soybeans in March. In Paraguay, the former bishop Fernando Lugo wins the April election, ending 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party. Michelle Bachelet is Chile's first woman president, and Tabare Vazquez is president of Uruguay.","australasia":"Australia's new Labor prime minister, Kevin Rudd, makes a formal national apology on 13 February to the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children taken from their families. New Zealand elects John Key's National Party in November, ending Helen Clark's nine years in power. Fiji remains under the military government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, who seized power in a 2006 coup, and Michael Somare leads Papua New Guinea."},"powers":[{"name":"United States","map":null,"clio":"United States of America","ruler":"President George W. Bush (Barack Obama elected in November)","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"50 states; the largest economy, with roughly a quarter of world output, now in deep recession"},{"name":"People's Republic of China","map":null,"clio":"People's Republic of China","ruler":"President Hu Jintao (Premier Wen Jiabao)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"About 9.6 million km² and over 1.3 billion people; the fastest-growing major economy"},{"name":"Russian Federation","map":null,"clio":"(Russian Federation)","ruler":"President Vladimir Putin, then Dmitry Medvedev from May (with Putin as prime minister)","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About 17 million km², the world's largest country"},{"name":"Japan","map":null,"clio":"Japan","ruler":"Emperor Akihito (PM Fukuda Yasuo, then Aso Taro from September)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The Japanese islands; the world's second-largest economy"},{"name":"Germany","map":null,"clio":"Federated Republic of Germany","ruler":"Chancellor Angela Merkel","capital":"Berlin","extent":"The largest economy in the 27-member European Union"},{"name":"United Kingdom","map":null,"clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain","ruler":"Elizabeth II (PM Gordon Brown)","capital":"London","extent":"Britain and Northern Ireland plus small overseas territories"},{"name":"France","map":null,"clio":"French Fifth Republic","ruler":"President Nicolas Sarkozy (PM Francois Fillon)","capital":"Paris","extent":"France plus overseas departments and territories"},{"name":"India","map":null,"clio":"Republic of India","ruler":"PM Manmohan Singh (President Pratibha Patil)","capital":"New Delhi","extent":"Most of the Indian subcontinent; over 1.1 billion people"}],"events":[{"year":2001,"text":"September 11 attacks; US-led invasion of Afghanistan"},{"year":2003,"text":"US-led invasion of Iraq"},{"year":2004,"text":"Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (December)"},{"year":2008,"text":"Kosovo declares independence (February)"},{"year":2008,"text":"Cyclone Nargis strikes Myanmar; Sichuan earthquake in China (May)"},{"year":2008,"text":"Beijing Olympics; Russia-Georgia war (August)"},{"year":2008,"text":"Lehman Brothers collapses; global financial crisis (September)"},{"year":2008,"text":"Barack Obama elected US president; Mumbai attacks (November)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 2008","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Financial crisis of 2007–2008","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 2007–2008 world food price crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_world_food_price_crisis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Price of oil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_oil"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Russo-Georgian War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 2008 Mumbai attacks","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 2008 Sichuan earthquake","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cyclone Nargis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Nargis"}]},{"year":2020,"title":"Pandemic and War","age":"Age of Globalization","overview":"A new coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, spreads around the world in early 2020. The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March; billions of people live under lockdowns, borders close, and the world economy suffers its worst recession since the Second World War. Vaccines developed at record speed are first given in December 2020. More than 7 million deaths are officially reported, and the WHO estimates that almost 15 million more people than usual died in 2020 and 2021 alone. The years to 2024 bring further shocks. The Taliban retake Afghanistan in 2021. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 starts the largest war in Europe since 1945 and drives up energy and food prices worldwide. A Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 is followed by a devastating war in Gaza, and in December 2024 Syria's Bashar al-Assad is overthrown. The world's population passes eight billion in November 2022, and India overtakes China as the most populous country in 2023. Artificial-intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT (2022) spread fast, rivalry between the United States and China sharpens, and 2024 is the warmest year on record.","regions":{"southern-africa":"South Africa, under Cyril Ramaphosa, imposes one of the world's strictest lockdowns, and its scientists detect the Beta variant of the virus in 2020 and help identify Omicron in 2021. In 2024 the ANC loses the parliamentary majority it has held since 1994 and forms a coalition government. In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the M23 rebels, which UN experts say are backed by Rwanda, launch a new offensive in 2022, and an Islamist insurgency in northern Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province draws in Rwandan troops in 2021. Samia Suluhu Hassan becomes Tanzania's first woman president after John Magufuli's death in 2021, and Kenya elects William Ruto in 2022.","northern-africa":"In November 2020 war breaks out between Ethiopia's government, led by Abiy Ahmed, and the leaders of its Tigray region; by some estimates hundreds of thousands die before a peace deal is signed in Pretoria in November 2022. Sudan's transition after Omar al-Bashir's fall is ended by a coup in 2021, and in April 2023 war erupts between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, driving over ten million people from their homes. A wave of military coups sweeps the Sahel, in Mali (2020 and 2021), Guinea (2021), Burkina Faso (twice in 2022) and Niger (2023); the juntas of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger send French troops home and form the Alliance of Sahel States. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi rules Egypt, Tunisia's President Kais Saied suspends parliament in 2021, and in September 2023 an earthquake kills nearly 3,000 people in Morocco and floods devastate Derna in Libya.","europe":"Italy is Europe's first coronavirus hotspot, and lockdowns spread across the continent; in July 2020 EU leaders agree a €750 billion recovery fund. Britain leaves the European Union on 31 January 2020. On 24 February 2022 Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine; Ukrainian forces under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drive the invaders back from Kyiv, but fighting grinds on in the east and south, and millions of Ukrainians flee abroad. Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) join NATO. In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko crushes mass protests after a disputed 2020 election, and Azerbaijan regains much of Nagorno-Karabakh in a 2020 war and the rest in 2023, when almost all its Armenian population flees. Olaf Scholz succeeds Angela Merkel in Germany in 2021, Emmanuel Macron leads France, Britain has four prime ministers from Boris Johnson to Keir Starmer, and Queen Elizabeth II dies in September 2022.","middle-east-south-asia":"India, under Narendra Modi, suffers a devastating wave of the Delta variant in 2021, clashes with Chinese troops in the Galwan valley in 2020, lands a probe near the Moon's south pole in 2023, and in 2024 returns Modi for a third term at the head of a coalition. As US troops withdraw, the Taliban take Kabul on 15 August 2021. Floods put huge areas of Pakistan under water in 2022, economic collapse forces Sri Lanka's president from office the same year, and Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina resigns and flees in August 2024 after student-led protests. In 2020 the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain establish relations with Israel. On 7 October 2023 a Hamas-led attack kills about 1,200 people in Israel and takes some 250 hostages; Israel's offensive in Gaza kills more than 40,000 Palestinians by late 2024, according to Gaza's health ministry, and fighting spreads to Lebanon and the Red Sea. Mass protests follow the death of Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody in 2022, an earthquake kills more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria in February 2023, and Syria's Bashar al-Assad is overthrown in December 2024.","north-central-asia":"In Kyrgyzstan, protests after a disputed election in October 2020 bring Sadyr Japarov to power. In January 2022, deadly unrest in Kazakhstan leads President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to call in troops from a Russian-led alliance and to remove his predecessor Nursultan Nazarbayev from his remaining post. Turkmenistan's Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow hands the presidency to his son Serdar in 2022, Shavkat Mirziyoyev leads Uzbekistan, and Emomali Rahmon's Tajikistan fights deadly border clashes with Kyrgyzstan in 2021 and 2022. When Russia orders a military call-up in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russian men leave the country, many crossing into Kazakhstan.","east-asia":"China, under Xi Jinping, seals off Wuhan and then pursues a 'zero-COVID' policy of mass testing and lockdowns until it is abruptly dropped in December 2022, after rare street protests. A national security law imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 ends its protest movement, and Xi begins a third term as Communist Party leader in 2022. Taiwan, led by Tsai Ing-wen and from 2024 by Lai Ching-te, faces large Chinese military exercises. Japan, under Emperor Naruhito, holds the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021; Prime Minister Abe Shinzo resigns in 2020 and is assassinated in 2022. North Korea's Kim Jong Un seals his borders and steps up missile tests, and in December 2024 South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly declares martial law and is impeached.","southeast-asia":"In Myanmar the army seizes power on 1 February 2021 and detains Aung San Suu Kyi; its crackdown on protests turns into a civil war in which armed resistance groups make large gains from late 2023. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator, is elected president of the Philippines in 2022, succeeding Rodrigo Duterte. Indonesia's Joko Widodo, who begins building a new capital, Nusantara, on Borneo, is followed by Prabowo Subianto, elected in 2024. Thailand sees youth-led protests in 2020, and Anwar Ibrahim becomes Malaysia's prime minister in 2022 after years of political turmoil.","northern-north-america":"Canada, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is shaken in 2021 by the discovery of possible unmarked graves at former residential schools for Indigenous children. Truckers protesting vaccine rules blockade Ottawa and border crossings in early 2022, and in 2023 wildfires burn a larger area than in any season on record. Greenland, self-governing within Denmark, draws growing interest as melting Arctic ice opens sea routes and access to minerals, and its 2021 election is fought over a planned rare-earth and uranium mine.","southern-north-america":"The United States records more than a million COVID-19 deaths, the most of any country. The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 sparks nationwide protests, Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November 2020, and Trump's supporters storm the US Capitol on 6 January 2021; in November 2024 Trump is elected again. Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president in 2024. Haiti's President Jovenel Moise is assassinated in 2021, and armed gangs take over much of Port-au-Prince, while El Salvador's Nayib Bukele jails tens of thousands in a sweeping crackdown on gangs from 2022.","northern-south-america":"Brazil, under Jair Bolsonaro, records some 700,000 COVID-19 deaths, and Peru reports the world's highest death rate. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva returns as Brazil's president in January 2023, a week before Bolsonaro's supporters storm government buildings in Brasilia. Peru's President Pedro Castillo is removed and arrested in December 2022 after trying to dissolve Congress. Nearly eight million Venezuelans have left their country, and Nicolas Maduro claims victory in a disputed July 2024 election. Colombia elects its first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, in 2022, Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa declares war on drug gangs in January 2024, and an oil boom makes Guyana one of the world's fastest-growing economies.","southern-cone":"Argentina, battered by the pandemic and by inflation approaching 200 percent a year, elects the libertarian outsider Javier Milei, who takes office in December 2023 promising to slash the state; Argentina also wins the 2022 football World Cup. In Chile, Gabriel Boric is elected president in 2021 after mass protests, but voters reject two proposed new constitutions, in 2022 and 2023. Paraguay elects Santiago Pena in 2023, Uruguay elects Yamandu Orsi in November 2024, and in 2024 the worst floods in its history devastate Brazil's southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.","australasia":"Australia and New Zealand close their borders and keep COVID-19 deaths low through 2020 and 2021. New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern wins a landslide in 2020 and steps down in 2023, and Christopher Luxon becomes prime minister later that year. Under the AUKUS pact (2021), Australia is to gain nuclear-powered submarines with American and British help; Anthony Albanese becomes prime minister in 2022, and Australians reject an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in a 2023 referendum. The Hunga Tonga undersea volcano erupts with enormous force in January 2022, and deadly unrest breaks out in New Caledonia in 2024 over voting rules."},"powers":[{"name":"United States","map":null,"clio":"United States of America","ruler":"President Donald Trump (Joe Biden from January 2021)","capital":"Washington, D.C.","extent":"50 states; the largest economy and military power"},{"name":"People's Republic of China","map":null,"clio":"People's Republic of China","ruler":"President Xi Jinping (Premier Li Keqiang; Li Qiang from 2023)","capital":"Beijing","extent":"About 9.6 million km² and 1.4 billion people; the second-largest economy and largest manufacturer"},{"name":"India","map":null,"clio":"Republic of India","ruler":"PM Narendra Modi (President Ram Nath Kovind; Droupadi Murmu from 2022)","capital":"New Delhi","extent":"Most of the Indian subcontinent; about 1.4 billion people, the most populous country from 2023"},{"name":"Russian Federation","map":null,"clio":"(Russian Federation)","ruler":"President Vladimir Putin (PM Mikhail Mishustin from January)","capital":"Moscow","extent":"About 17 million km², the world's largest country; from 2022 it also occupies parts of southern and eastern Ukraine"},{"name":"Japan","map":null,"clio":"Japan","ruler":"Emperor Naruhito (PM Abe Shinzo, then Suga Yoshihide from September)","capital":"Tokyo","extent":"The Japanese islands; the world's third-largest economy"},{"name":"Germany","map":null,"clio":"Federated Republic of Germany","ruler":"Chancellor Angela Merkel (Olaf Scholz from December 2021)","capital":"Berlin","extent":"The largest economy in the European Union, which shrinks to 27 members as Britain leaves"},{"name":"United Kingdom","map":null,"clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain","ruler":"Elizabeth II (PM Boris Johnson); Charles III from September 2022","capital":"London","extent":"Britain and Northern Ireland plus small overseas territories; outside the EU from 31 January 2020"},{"name":"Brazil","map":null,"clio":"Republic of Brazil","ruler":"President Jair Bolsonaro (Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from January 2023)","capital":"Brasilia","extent":"About 8.5 million km², half of South America, and some 210 million people"}],"events":[{"year":2011,"text":"Arab Spring uprisings; civil war begins in Syria"},{"year":2014,"text":"Russia annexes Crimea; Islamic State seizes large parts of Iraq and Syria"},{"year":2020,"text":"Britain leaves the EU (January); WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic (March)"},{"year":2021,"text":"Military coup in Myanmar (February); Taliban retake Kabul (August)"},{"year":2022,"text":"Russia launches a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (February)"},{"year":2022,"text":"World population reaches eight billion (November)"},{"year":2023,"text":"India becomes the most populous country; Hamas-led attack on Israel and war in Gaza (October)"},{"year":2024,"text":"Warmest year on record; Assad overthrown in Syria (December)"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 2020","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020"},{"title":"Wikipedia: COVID-19 pandemic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic"},{"title":"Wikipedia: COVID-19 recession","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_recession"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Russian invasion of Ukraine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gaza war","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_war"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Day of Eight Billion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Eight_Billion"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of the Assad regime","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Assad_regime"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sudanese civil war (2023–present)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023%E2%80%93present)"},{"title":"WMO: WMO confirms 2024 as warmest year on record at about 1.55°C above pre-industrial level","url":"https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/wmo-confirms-2024-warmest-year-record-about-155degc-above-pre-industrial-level"}]}],"empires":[{"id":"ancient-egypt","name":"Ancient Egypt","aliases":["Egypt"],"clio":["Early Dynastic Period of Egypt","Old Kingdom of Egypt","Lower Egypt","Upper Egypt","Middle Kingdom of Egypt","Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt","Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt","Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt","New Kingdom of Egypt","Twenty-second Dynasty of Egypt","Twenty-third Dynasty of Egypt","Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt","Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt","Ankhwennefer"],"region":"northern-africa","start":-3100,"end":-30,"capital":"Memphis; later Thebes, Amarna, Pi-Ramesses and Sais","peak":{"year":-1450,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Under Thutmose III, from Nubia's Fourth Cataract to the Euphrates; c. 1.0M km² c. 1450 BCE (Taagepera 1978); c. 1.0M km² c. 1450 BCE (Taagepera 1978); Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006) date the same figure c. 1300 BCE"},"rulers":[{"name":"Narmer","reign":"c. 3100 BCE","note":"Traditionally credited with uniting Upper and Lower Egypt"},{"name":"Khufu","reign":"c. 2589 – 2566 BCE","note":"Built the Great Pyramid of Giza"},{"name":"Hatshepsut","reign":"c. 1479 – 1458 BCE","note":"Female pharaoh famed for trade expeditions and temple building"},{"name":"Thutmose III","reign":"c. 1479 – 1425 BCE","note":"Warrior pharaoh who carried the empire to its greatest extent"},{"name":"Akhenaten","reign":"c. 1353 – 1336 BCE","note":"Tried to replace the old gods with worship of the sun disc Aten"},{"name":"Ramesses II","reign":"c. 1279 – 1213 BCE","note":"Fought the Hittites at Kadesh and built Abu Simbel"},{"name":"Cleopatra VII","reign":"51 – 30 BCE","note":"Last ruler of independent Egypt (Ptolemaic dynasty)"}],"summary":"Around 3100 BCE the farming chiefdoms along the Nile were united into a single kingdom, traditionally by Narmer. The river's yearly flood fed a dense population ruled by a god-king, the pharaoh, through scribes, priests and provincial governors. Historians divide its long history into the Old Kingdom, when the great pyramids were built, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom, when warrior pharaohs built an empire stretching from Nubia into Syria. Periods of division and foreign rule, by Libyans, Kushites, Assyrians and Persians, alternated with revivals. After Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BCE Egypt was ruled by the Greek Ptolemies, and its independence ended when Cleopatra VII died and Rome annexed the country in 30 BCE.","legacy":"Egypt gave the world monumental stone architecture, one of the first writing systems and a 365-day calendar, and its pyramids and mummies still fascinate people everywhere.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: ancient Egypt","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/ancient-Egypt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ancient Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hatshepsut","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ramesses II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. I part 2 (1971)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-1-part-2"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nectanebo II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nectanebo_II"}]},{"id":"sumer","name":"Sumerian city-states","aliases":["Ur"],"clio":["Sumerian City-States"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-3500,"end":-2004,"capital":"No single capital; leading cities included Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Kish and Nippur","peak":{"year":-2050,"areaKm2":100000,"note":"Third Dynasty of Ur under Shulgi, ruling Mesopotamia and parts of western Iran; Taagepera (1978) puts the Neo-Sumerian state at only c. 0.1M km², so 250,000 km² assumes the tributary periphery; c. 0.1M km² (Taagepera 1978)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Gilgamesh of Uruk","reign":"c. 2700 BCE","note":"Semi-legendary king, hero of the oldest epic poems"},{"name":"Eannatum of Lagash","reign":"c. 2450 BCE","note":"Conqueror commemorated on the Stele of the Vultures"},{"name":"Lugalzagesi of Uruk","reign":"c. 2350 BCE","note":"United much of Sumer before losing it to Sargon of Akkad"},{"name":"Gudea of Lagash","reign":"c. 2140 BCE","note":"Temple-building ruler known from many statues"},{"name":"Ur-Nammu","reign":"c. 2112 – 2095 BCE","note":"Founded the Third Dynasty of Ur and issued the oldest surviving law code"},{"name":"Shulgi","reign":"c. 2094 – 2047 BCE","note":"Built a centralised bureaucratic state"}],"summary":"Sumer, in the marshy south of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), was home to the world's first cities. Between about 3500 and 3000 BCE towns such as Uruk grew into cities of tens of thousands, organised around temples that managed irrigation, grain and trade. To keep records, Sumerian scribes invented cuneiform writing on clay tablets around 3200 BCE. Sumer was never one country: a dozen rival city-states, each with its own patron god and king, fought over water and fields. Sargon of Akkad conquered them around 2334 BCE, but after Akkad's fall the Third Dynasty of Ur reunited the region and built a centralised state with a vast bureaucracy. Ur fell to Elamite invaders in 2004 BCE, and Sumerian gradually died out as a spoken language.","legacy":"Sumer pioneered writing, early wheeled vehicles, the base-sixty counting behind our hours and minutes, and the first stories of Gilgamesh.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Sumer","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Sumer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sumer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Third Dynasty of Ur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Dynasty_of_Ur"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shulgi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shulgi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"akkadian-empire","name":"Akkadian Empire","aliases":[],"clio":["Akkadian Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-2334,"end":-2154,"capital":"Akkad (Agade), whose site has not yet been found","peak":{"year":-2250,"areaKm2":800000,"note":"Under Naram-Sin, from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and the Anatolian foothills; c. 0.8M km² (Taagepera 1978), though directly ruled land was smaller; c. 0.8M km² c. 2250 BCE (Taagepera 1978)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sargon of Akkad","reign":"c. 2334 – 2279 BCE","note":"Founder; conquered the Sumerian city-states"},{"name":"Rimush","reign":"c. 2278 – 2270 BCE","note":"Crushed widespread revolts"},{"name":"Manishtushu","reign":"c. 2269 – 2255 BCE","note":"Campaigned across the Persian Gulf"},{"name":"Naram-Sin","reign":"c. 2254 – 2218 BCE","note":"Called himself king of the four quarters and a god"},{"name":"Shar-kali-sharri","reign":"c. 2217 – 2193 BCE","note":"Last strong king before the collapse"}],"summary":"Often called the world's first empire, Akkad was founded by Sargon, a man of humble origins who rose to serve the king of Kish and then seized power around 2334 BCE. Sargon conquered the quarrelling Sumerian city-states and campaigned as far as Syria and western Iran, uniting speakers of Sumerian and the Semitic Akkadian language under one ruler. He installed loyal governors, standardised weights and measures, and made Akkadian a language of administration. His grandson Naram-Sin pushed the borders further and was the first Mesopotamian king to call himself a god. Revolts, pressure from the Gutian mountain peoples and possibly a severe drought broke the empire apart, and by about 2154 BCE it had collapsed.","legacy":"Akkad set the model of a multi-ethnic empire run from one capital, and Akkadian became the diplomatic language of the Near East for over a thousand years.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Akkad","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Akkad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Akkadian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Naram-Sin of Akkad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naram-Sin_of_Akkad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"babylonia","name":"Babylonia","aliases":["Babylonia"],"clio":["Babylonia","Neo-Babylonian Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-1894,"end":-539,"capital":"Babylon","peak":{"year":-562,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar II, from the Gulf to the borders of Egypt; c. 0.5M km² (Taagepera 1978); c. 0.5M km² c. 562 BCE (Taagepera 1978)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hammurabi","reign":"c. 1792 – 1750 BCE","note":"Unified southern Mesopotamia and issued his famous law code"},{"name":"Nebuchadnezzar I","reign":"c. 1121 – 1100 BCE","note":"Defeated Elam and recovered the statue of Marduk"},{"name":"Nabopolassar","reign":"626 – 605 BCE","note":"Freed Babylon from Assyria and helped destroy it"},{"name":"Nebuchadnezzar II","reign":"605 – 562 BCE","note":"Built the Ishtar Gate and captured Jerusalem"},{"name":"Nabonidus","reign":"556 – 539 BCE","note":"Last king, defeated by Cyrus the Great"}],"summary":"Babylon was a small town until an Amorite dynasty made it a capital around 1894 BCE. Its sixth king, Hammurabi, conquered all of southern Mesopotamia and is remembered for his law code carved on a stone pillar. Over the next thousand years Babylon was ruled by Kassites, native kings and, for long stretches, the Assyrians, yet it remained the region's religious and cultural heart, famous for its scholars and astronomers. In 626 BCE Nabopolassar, traditionally called a Chaldean, threw off Assyrian rule and, allied with the Medes, destroyed Assyria. His son Nebuchadnezzar II built a Neo-Babylonian empire, rebuilt Babylon with the Ishtar Gate and captured Jerusalem in 587 BCE. Cyrus the Great of Persia took the city without a fight in 539 BCE.","legacy":"Babylonian law, mathematics and astronomy, including the division of the circle into 360 degrees, shaped later Persian, Greek and Jewish thought.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Babylonia","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Babylonia"},{"title":"Britannica: Nebuchadrezzar I","url":"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nebuchadrezzar-I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Babylonia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Neo-Babylonian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Babylonian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nebuchadnezzar I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. III part 2 (1991)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-3-part-2"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nabopolassar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabopolassar"}]},{"id":"assyria","name":"Assyria","aliases":["Assyria"],"clio":["Assyria","Neo-Assyrian Empire","Assyrian Egypt"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-2025,"end":-609,"capital":"Assur; later Nimrud, Dur-Sharrukin and Nineveh","peak":{"year":-670,"areaKm2":1400000,"note":"Under Esarhaddon, from Egypt to western Iran; c. 1.4M km² c. 670 BCE (Taagepera 1978); c. 1.4M km² c. 670 BCE (Taagepera 1978; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Shamshi-Adad I","reign":"c. 1808 – 1776 BCE","note":"Built the first large Assyrian kingdom"},{"name":"Ashur-uballit I","reign":"c. 1365 – 1330 BCE","note":"Made Assyria a great power of the Late Bronze Age"},{"name":"Tiglath-Pileser III","reign":"745 – 727 BCE","note":"Reformed the army and provinces, launching the imperial age"},{"name":"Sennacherib","reign":"705 – 681 BCE","note":"Made Nineveh a magnificent capital"},{"name":"Esarhaddon","reign":"681 – 669 BCE","note":"Conquered Egypt"},{"name":"Ashurbanipal","reign":"669 – c. 631 BCE","note":"Last great king; built the library of Nineveh"}],"summary":"Assyria grew from the trading city of Assur on the upper Tigris, whose merchants ran caravans into Anatolia soon after 2000 BCE. After centuries as a regional kingdom it became a great power, and from the 9th century BCE its kings built the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Neo-Assyrian state had a professional standing army, iron weapons, siege engines and a road and messenger system, and it ruled through provinces under appointed governors. Rebellious peoples were deported en masse to break resistance. At its height Assyria controlled Mesopotamia, the Levant and, briefly, Egypt. Civil war after Ashurbanipal weakened it, and a coalition of Babylonians and Medes sacked Nineveh in 612 BCE; the last Assyrian army was defeated in 609 BCE.","legacy":"Assyria invented much of the machinery of imperial rule later copied by Persia, and Ashurbanipal's library preserved thousands of cuneiform texts, including the Epic of Gilgamesh.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Assyria","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Assyria"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Assyria","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyria"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Neo-Assyrian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Assyrian_Empire"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. III part 2 (1991)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-3-part-2"}]},{"id":"hittite-empire","name":"Hittite Empire","aliases":["Hittites"],"clio":["Hittites","Neo-Hittite states"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-1650,"end":-1180,"capital":"Hattusa","peak":{"year":-1250,"areaKm2":450000,"note":"Under Suppiluliuma I and his successors, from central Anatolia to Syria; c. 0.45M km² c. 1250-1220 BCE (Taagepera 1978); c. 0.45M km² c. 1250 – 1220 BCE (Taagepera 1978)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hattusili I","reign":"c. 1650 – 1620 BCE","note":"Founder of the Old Kingdom at Hattusa"},{"name":"Mursili I","reign":"c. 1620 – 1590 BCE","note":"Sacked Babylon in 1595 BCE"},{"name":"Suppiluliuma I","reign":"c. 1350 – 1322 BCE","note":"Destroyed the Mitanni and took Syria"},{"name":"Muwatalli II","reign":"c. 1295 – 1272 BCE","note":"Fought Ramesses II at Kadesh"},{"name":"Hattusili III","reign":"c. 1267 – 1237 BCE","note":"Signed the peace treaty with Egypt"},{"name":"Suppiluliuma II","reign":"c. 1207 – 1178 BCE","note":"Last known Hittite king"}],"summary":"The Hittites, speakers of the oldest recorded Indo-European language, built a kingdom in central Anatolia (modern Turkey) around 1650 BCE with its capital at Hattusa. An early king, Mursili I, raided as far as Babylon and sacked it in 1595 BCE. After a period of weakness, Suppiluliuma I made the Hittites a great power in the 14th century BCE, defeating the Mitanni and taking control of Syria, where he set up his sons as vassal kings. The Hittites were famed for their chariots and diplomacy, and after the Battle of Kadesh against Egypt they signed one of the earliest known peace treaties. Around 1180 BCE, amid the wider Bronze Age collapse, Hattusa was abandoned and the empire broke into small Syro-Hittite kingdoms.","legacy":"The Hittite-Egyptian treaty is a landmark of international diplomacy, and the Hittite archives revealed a lost civilisation known before only from brief mentions in the Bible and in Egyptian records.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Hittite","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hittite"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hittites","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittites"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Šuppiluliuma II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0uppiluliuma_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"indus-valley-civilisation","name":"Indus Valley Civilisation","aliases":["Indus valley civilization"],"clio":["Indus Valley Civilization"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-3300,"end":-1300,"capital":"No known capital; major cities included Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Rakhigarhi, Ganweriwala and Dholavira","peak":{"year":-2300,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Mature Harappan phase, across modern Pakistan and north-west India; the cultural zone is put at c. 1.2M km², while Taagepera (1978) estimated c. 0.3M km² c. 1800 BCE for any political unit"},"rulers":[{"name":"No rulers known","reign":"c. 2600 – 1900 BCE","note":"The Indus script is undeciphered and no royal names, palaces or tombs have been found"}],"summary":"The Indus or Harappan civilisation flourished along the Indus river and its neighbours in what is now Pakistan and north-west India. Farming villages grew into planned cities after about 2600 BCE, the Mature Harappan phase. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were laid out on grids, with baked-brick houses, covered drains, possible granaries and, at Mohenjo-daro, a Great Bath, and standard weights and seals were used across an area larger than Egypt and Mesopotamia combined. Indus merchants traded with Mesopotamia by sea. Strikingly, no palaces, royal tombs or images of kings have been found, and the Indus script remains undeciphered, so we do not know how the cities were governed. After about 1900 BCE the cities were gradually abandoned, probably because of climate change and shifting rivers, and people dispersed into smaller villages.","legacy":"The Indus cities set early standards in urban planning and sanitation, and many scholars trace continuities between Harappan crafts and later South Asian culture.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Indus civilization","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indus-civilization"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Indus Valley Civilisation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sumer (Indus area comparison)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. I: The Vedic Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/vedicage00bhar"}]},{"id":"minoan-civilisation","name":"Minoan civilisation","aliases":["Minoan"],"clio":["Minoan civilization"],"region":"europe","start":-3100,"end":-1100,"capital":"Knossos (leading palace on Crete)","peak":{"year":-1600,"areaKm2":15000,"note":"Neopalatial period: Crete plus Aegean islands such as Thera"},"rulers":[{"name":"Rulers of Knossos (names unknown)","reign":"c. 1900 – 1450 BCE","note":"Linear A is undeciphered; the name Minos comes from later Greek legend"},{"name":"Mycenaean Greek rulers at Knossos","reign":"c. 1450 – 1375 BCE","note":"Greek-speaking overlords who kept records in Linear B"}],"summary":"The Minoans, named by the archaeologist Arthur Evans after the legendary King Minos, created Europe's first advanced civilisation on the island of Crete. From about 1900 BCE they built large palace complexes at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Zakros, which acted as centres for religion, storage and craft production. Minoan ships traded across the eastern Mediterranean with Egypt and the Levant, and their colourful frescoes show bull-leaping, processions and sea life. They wrote in a script called Linear A, which is still undeciphered, so their rulers' names and language are unknown. After widespread destruction around 1450 BCE, possibly linked to earthquakes and the aftermath of the Thera eruption, Crete came under Mycenaean Greek control, and Minoan culture faded by about 1100 BCE.","legacy":"Minoan art, architecture and seafaring strongly influenced Mycenaean Greece and inspired the Greek myths of the Minotaur and the labyrinth.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Minoan civilization","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Minoan-civilization"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Minoan civilization","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization"}]},{"id":"greek-city-states","name":"Greek city-states","aliases":["Greek city-states","Greek colonies"],"clio":["Greek City-States","Greek Colonies"],"region":"europe","start":-800,"end":-146,"capital":"No single capital; leading poleis included Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and Syracuse","peak":{"year":-500,"areaKm2":250000,"note":"Mainland Greece, the Aegean and colonies from Spain to the Black Sea"},"rulers":[{"name":"Solon of Athens","reign":"archon 594 BCE","note":"Lawgiver who reformed Athenian society"},{"name":"Cleisthenes of Athens","reign":"c. 508 BCE","note":"Founded Athenian democracy"},{"name":"Leonidas I of Sparta","reign":"c. 489 – 480 BCE","note":"Died holding the pass at Thermopylae"},{"name":"Pericles of Athens","reign":"c. 461 – 429 BCE","note":"Leading statesman of Athens' golden age"},{"name":"Epaminondas of Thebes","reign":"d. 362 BCE","note":"Broke Spartan power at Leuctra in 371 BCE"}],"summary":"After the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces, Greek communities slowly revived, and by about 800 BCE hundreds of independent city-states, or poleis, had emerged. Each polis was a city with its surrounding farmland, governed by kings, aristocrats, tyrants or citizen assemblies. Greeks founded colonies around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, from Marseille to Crimea. Athens developed the first democracy, while Sparta became a militarised state. Briefly united, the Greeks defeated the invading Persians at Marathon, Salamis and Plataea between 490 and 479 BCE. Rivalry between Athens and Sparta then led to the long Peloponnesian War. Weakened by constant conflict, the city-states fell under Macedonian domination after 338 BCE, and Rome took control of mainland Greece in 146 BCE.","legacy":"Greek philosophy, democracy, drama, history writing, mathematics and the Olympic Games lie at the foundations of Western civilisation.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: polis","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/polis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Polis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ancient Greece","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Leonidas I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_I"}]},{"id":"macedonian-empire","name":"Kingdom of Macedon and Empire of Alexander","aliases":["Empire of Alexander","Kingdom of Kassander","Macedon and Hellenic League"],"clio":["(Macedonian Empire)","Macedonian Empire","Antigonid Dynasty","Antigonid Macedonia"],"region":"europe","start":-700,"end":-168,"capital":"Aigai, then Pella; Alexander's court moved with his army and he intended Babylon as capital","peak":{"year":-323,"areaKm2":5200000,"note":"At Alexander's death, from Greece and Egypt to the Indus; c. 5.2M km² (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Philip II","reign":"359 – 336 BCE","note":"Built the Macedonian army and mastered Greece"},{"name":"Alexander III the Great","reign":"336 – 323 BCE","note":"Conquered the Persian Empire"},{"name":"Perdiccas (regent)","reign":"323 – 321 BCE","note":"Regent for Alexander's heirs after his death"},{"name":"Cassander","reign":"c. 305 – 297 BCE","note":"Successor general who ruled Macedon and Greece"},{"name":"Antigonus II Gonatas","reign":"277 – 239 BCE","note":"Established the Antigonid dynasty in Macedon"},{"name":"Perseus","reign":"179 – 168 BCE","note":"Last king, defeated by Rome at Pydna"}],"summary":"Macedon was a kingdom in northern Greece that emerged in the 7th century BCE (later legend dated its founding to about 808 BCE); it was seen by many southern Greeks as half-barbarian. Philip II transformed it after 359 BCE, creating a professional army built around the long-speared phalanx and heavy cavalry, and in 338 BCE he defeated Athens and Thebes, making Macedon master of Greece. His son Alexander the Great invaded the Persian Empire in 334 BCE, won at the Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, took Egypt, Babylon and Persepolis, and marched to the Indus. When he died in Babylon in 323 BCE, aged 32, he left no adult heir; his generals fought over the empire and carved it into rival kingdoms. Macedon itself, ruled from 277 BCE by the Antigonids, was conquered by Rome after the Battle of Pydna in 168 BCE.","legacy":"Alexander's conquests spread Greek language and culture from Egypt to Afghanistan, opening the Hellenistic age.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Macedonia-ancient-kingdom-Europe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Macedonia (ancient kingdom)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Perdiccas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdiccas"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera/Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"seleucid-empire","name":"Seleucid Empire","aliases":["Seleucid Kingdom"],"clio":["Seleucid Empire","(Allegiance of Seleucid Empire to Roman Republic)"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-312,"end":-64,"capital":"Seleucia on the Tigris, then Antioch","peak":{"year":-301,"areaKm2":3900000,"note":"Under Seleucus I, from Anatolia to the borders of India; c. 3.9M km² (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Seleucus I Nicator","reign":"305 – 281 BCE","note":"Founder; seized Babylon in 312 BCE"},{"name":"Antiochus I Soter","reign":"281 – 261 BCE","note":"Defended the empire against Celtic invaders"},{"name":"Antiochus III the Great","reign":"223 – 187 BCE","note":"Restored the empire but was defeated by Rome"},{"name":"Antiochus IV Epiphanes","reign":"175 – 164 BCE","note":"His policies in Judea provoked the Maccabean revolt"},{"name":"Antiochus XIII Asiaticus","reign":"69 – 64 BCE","note":"Deposed when Pompey made Syria a Roman province"}],"summary":"The Seleucid Empire was the largest of the kingdoms formed from Alexander's conquests. Seleucus, one of Alexander's officers, seized Babylon in 312 BCE, the date from which the dynasty counted its years, and won most of the Asian provinces at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE. The Seleucids ruled a vast mix of peoples through Greek-style cities, governors and a Macedonian army, founding new towns such as Antioch. The empire was too large to hold: India was ceded to Chandragupta Maurya, Bactria broke away, and the Parthians took Iran. Antiochus III briefly restored its power but was defeated by Rome in 190 BCE. Later kings lost Mesopotamia to Parthia and quarrelled among themselves until Pompey annexed the remnant in Syria for Rome in 64 BCE.","legacy":"The Seleucids spread Greek cities and culture across western Asia, and their attempt to Hellenise Judea provoked the Maccabean revolt remembered at Hanukkah.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Seleucid Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Seleucid-Empire"},{"title":"Britannica: Antiochus III the Great","url":"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antiochus-III-the-Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_Empire"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera/Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"ptolemaic-kingdom","name":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","aliases":["Ptolemaic Kingdom"],"clio":["Ptolemaic Kingdom"],"region":"northern-africa","start":-305,"end":-30,"capital":"Alexandria","peak":{"year":-240,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Under Ptolemy III: Egypt, Cyrenaica, Cyprus, the southern Levant and Aegean outposts; c. 1.0M km² (Taagepera 1979); c. 1.0M km² (Taagepera 1979, for c. 301 BCE); c. 1.0M km² (Taagepera 1979, dated c. 301 BCE)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ptolemy I Soter","reign":"305 – 282 BCE","note":"Alexander's general and founder of the dynasty"},{"name":"Ptolemy II Philadelphus","reign":"284 – 246 BCE","note":"Expanded the Library and Museum of Alexandria"},{"name":"Ptolemy III Euergetes","reign":"246 – 222 BCE","note":"Led the kingdom to its greatest extent"},{"name":"Ptolemy V Epiphanes","reign":"204 – 180 BCE","note":"His decree is inscribed on the Rosetta Stone"},{"name":"Cleopatra VII","reign":"51 – 30 BCE","note":"Last Ptolemaic ruler, ally of Caesar and Mark Antony"}],"summary":"When Alexander's empire broke up, his general Ptolemy took Egypt, declared himself king in 305 BCE and founded the last dynasty of pharaohs. The Ptolemies were Macedonian Greeks who ruled from Alexandria, a new Greek city on the coast, while presenting themselves to Egyptians as traditional pharaohs and building temples to Egyptian gods. Egypt's grain made them rich, and they fought repeated wars with the Seleucids over Syria. Alexandria became the intellectual capital of the Greek world, with its Great Library, Museum and Lighthouse. From the 2nd century BCE dynastic feuds and revolts weakened the kingdom, which survived increasingly as a Roman client. Cleopatra VII allied with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, but after Antony's defeat at Actium she took her own life and Rome annexed Egypt in 30 BCE.","legacy":"Ptolemaic Alexandria preserved and advanced Greek science and scholarship, and the Rosetta Stone, a Ptolemaic decree, later unlocked Egyptian hieroglyphs.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Ptolemaic dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ptolemaic-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemaic Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemy II Philadelphus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_II_Philadelphus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"carthaginian-empire","name":"Carthaginian Empire","aliases":["Carthaginian Empire","Carthage"],"clio":["Carthage"],"region":"northern-africa","start":-814,"end":-146,"capital":"Carthage (near modern Tunis)","peak":{"year":-220,"areaKm2":300000,"note":"After the Barcid conquests in Spain: coastal North Africa, southern and eastern Spain and the Balearics; c. 0.3M km² (Taagepera 1979); Taagepera (1979) gives c. 0.3M km² for c. 220 BCE, when Barcid Spain had replaced the lost islands; c. 0.3M km² (Taagepera 1979, dated c. 220 BCE)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Dido (Elissa)","reign":"c. 814 BCE","note":"Legendary founding queen from Tyre"},{"name":"Magonid dynasty","reign":"c. 550 – 370 BCE","note":"Leading family that built Carthage's overseas power"},{"name":"Hamilcar Barca","reign":"general c. 247 – 228 BCE","note":"Commander in Sicily, then conqueror of southern Spain"},{"name":"Hasdrubal the Fair","reign":"general 228 – 221 BCE","note":"Founded Carthago Nova (Cartagena) in Spain"},{"name":"Hannibal Barca","reign":"general 221 – 202 BCE; suffete 196 BCE","note":"Crossed the Alps and won at Cannae"}],"summary":"Carthage was founded on the coast of modern Tunisia by Phoenician settlers from Tyre, traditionally in 814 BCE. It grew into the leading Phoenician city in the west, building a commercial empire of trading posts and colonies across North Africa, southern Spain, Sardinia and western Sicily. Carthage was a republic run by wealthy merchant families, with two elected chief magistrates called suffetes and a council of elders, and it relied on a powerful navy and mercenary armies. Rivalry with Rome led to three Punic Wars. Carthage lost Sicily in the first, and in the second Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants and crushed Roman armies, but he was finally defeated at Zama in 202 BCE. In 146 BCE Rome besieged and destroyed the city.","legacy":"Carthage spread Phoenician seafaring and the alphabet across the western Mediterranean, and Hannibal remains one of history's most studied generals.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Carthage","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Carthage-ancient-city-Tunisia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ancient Carthage","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Magonids","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magonids"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-kush","name":"Kingdom of Kush","aliases":["Kerma","Kush","Meroe"],"clio":["Kingdom of Kush"],"region":"northern-africa","start":-2500,"end":350,"capital":"Kerma; later Napata, then Meroë","peak":{"year":-700,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"25th Dynasty, ruling all of Egypt as well as Nubia; c. 0.5M km² c. 715 BCE (Taagepera 1978)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Piye","reign":"c. 744 – 714 BCE","note":"Conquered Egypt"},{"name":"Shabaka","reign":"c. 705 – 690 BCE","note":"Ruled Egypt and Nubia as pharaoh"},{"name":"Taharqa","reign":"690 – 664 BCE","note":"Greatest Kushite pharaoh, driven from Egypt by Assyria"},{"name":"Aspelta","reign":"c. 600 – 580 BCE","note":"Ruled as the centre of power shifted toward Meroë"},{"name":"Amanirenas","reign":"c. 40 – 10 BCE","note":"Warrior queen (kandake) who fought Rome to a peace"},{"name":"Natakamani and Amanitore","reign":"1st century CE","note":"Co-rulers and great temple builders"}],"summary":"Nubia, the land along the Nile south of Egypt, was home to Africa's earliest kingdom outside Egypt. The Kerma culture built a powerful state from about 2500 BCE, which Egypt's New Kingdom conquered around 1500 BCE. As Egyptian control waned, a new Kushite kingdom arose at Napata, and in the 8th century BCE its kings Piye and Shabaka conquered Egypt, ruling it as the 25th Dynasty until the Assyrians drove them out around 664 BCE. The capital later moved south to Meroë, a centre of iron-smelting and trade in gold, ivory and ebony between Africa and the Mediterranean. Kushite rulers, including powerful queens called kandakes, built more pyramids than Egypt. Meroë declined in the 4th century CE and seems to have already collapsed when Aksum's armies raided the region around 350.","legacy":"Kush shows that a great African civilisation flourished alongside Egypt, and its Meroitic script, still only partly understood, is one of Africa's oldest writing systems.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Shabaka","url":"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shabaka"},{"title":"Britannica: Piye","url":"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Piye"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Kush","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shabaka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabaka"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Taharqa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taharqa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa (ed. G. Mokhtar, 1981)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-2"},{"title":"Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed., vol. III part 2 (1991)","url":"https://archive.org/details/the-cambridge-ancient-history-vol.-3-part-2"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-aksum","name":"Kingdom of Aksum","aliases":["Axum"],"clio":["Kingdom of Axum"],"region":"northern-africa","start":100,"end":940,"capital":"Aksum; main port at Adulis","peak":{"year":350,"areaKm2":1250000,"note":"Under Ezana: northern Ethiopia, Eritrea and campaigns into Nubia; Kaleb later ruled Yemen across the Red Sea c. 525; c. 1.25M km² c. 350 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Zoskales","reign":"c. 100 CE","note":"Early king mentioned by Greek traders"},{"name":"Ezana","reign":"c. 330 – 360s","note":"First Christian king; campaigned against Meroë"},{"name":"Kaleb","reign":"c. 514 – 540","note":"Conquered the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen"},{"name":"Ashama (the Najashi)","reign":"early 7th century","note":"Sheltered early Muslim refugees from Mecca"}],"summary":"Aksum rose in the highlands of what are now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the 1st century CE, growing rich from Red Sea trade through its port of Adulis, which linked the Roman world with Arabia and India. Aksumite kings controlled trade in ivory, gold and incense, minted their own gold, silver and bronze coins, and raised giant carved stone stelae over royal tombs. Around 340 King Ezana converted to Christianity, making Aksum one of the first Christian states. In the 6th century King Kaleb sent armies across the Red Sea to rule Yemen. The rise of Islam, and Persian and then Arab control of the sea routes, cut Aksum's trade, and by the 10th century the kingdom had faded as power shifted south.","legacy":"Aksum founded the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Ge'ez script still used in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and its towering stelae remain national symbols.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Aksum","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Aksum-ancient-kingdom-Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Aksum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ezana of Axum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezana_of_Axum"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. II: Ancient Civilizations of Africa (ed. G. Mokhtar, 1981)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-2"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979, 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"ghana-empire","name":"Ghana Empire (Wagadu)","aliases":["Empire of Ghana","Ghana"],"clio":["Ghana Empire"],"region":"northern-africa","start":300,"end":1200,"capital":"Koumbi Saleh (probable)","peak":{"year":1050,"areaKm2":350000,"note":"Controlling the gold trade between the Senegal and Niger rivers"},"rulers":[{"name":"Kaya Maghan Cissé","reign":"date unknown (tradition; Delafosse placed him in the late 8th century)","note":"Remembered in Soninke tradition as an early king"},{"name":"Basi","reign":"until 1063","note":"King described by the Andalusian geographer al-Bakri"},{"name":"Tunka Manin","reign":"from 1063","note":"Nephew of Basi, whose splendid court al-Bakri recorded"}],"summary":"The Ghana Empire, known to its Soninke people as Wagadu, grew up in the Sahel between the Senegal and Niger rivers, in today's southern Mauritania and western Mali; it lay far from modern Ghana. From perhaps the 4th century its kings controlled the trade of West African gold northward across the Sahara in exchange for salt, copper and cloth, carried by camel caravans, and Arab writers called it the land of gold. The king ruled through tributary chiefs and taxed every load of goods crossing his realm. In the 11th century the Almoravid movement from the Sahara put pressure on Ghana and spread Islam. Weakened by drought, shifting trade routes and rebellious vassals, Ghana was overrun by the Sosso and then absorbed into Mali in the 13th century.","legacy":"Ghana was the first of the great West African trading empires, and modern Ghana took its name in 1957 to honour it.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Ghana (empire)","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Ghana-historical-West-African-empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ghana Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tunka Manin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunka_Manin"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"}]},{"id":"mali-empire","name":"Mali Empire","aliases":["Mali"],"clio":["Mali Empire"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1235,"end":1670,"capital":"Niani (probable), among other royal towns","peak":{"year":1350,"areaKm2":1100000,"note":"Under Mansa Musa and Mansa Suleyman, from the Atlantic coast to beyond Timbuktu and Gao; c. 1.1M km² (Taagepera 1997, for c. 1380); c. 1.1M km² c. 1380 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006); some estimates reach 1.3M km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sundiata Keita","reign":"c. 1235 – 1255","note":"Founder, hero of the Epic of Sundiata"},{"name":"Mansa Uli","reign":"c. 1255 – 1270","note":"Son of Sundiata; expanded the empire and made the pilgrimage to Mecca"},{"name":"Mansa Musa","reign":"c. 1312 – 1337","note":"Famous for his lavish pilgrimage of 1324"},{"name":"Mansa Suleyman","reign":"c. 1341 – 1360","note":"Ruled at the empire's height, visited by Ibn Battuta"}],"summary":"The Mali Empire was founded by Sundiata Keita, the hero of a famous oral epic, who defeated the Sosso king Sumanguru at the Battle of Kirina around 1235. Mali's Mandinka rulers, called mansas, absorbed the old Ghana lands and expanded to control the gold fields of Bambuk and Bure and the trading cities of the Niger bend. Provinces and allied kingdoms paid tribute, and Islam spread among the ruling classes and merchants. Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, during which he gave away so much gold that he lowered its value in Cairo, made Mali famous as far as Europe, and Timbuktu became a centre of Islamic learning. From the 15th century succession disputes, Tuareg raids and the rise of Songhai stripped away its provinces, leaving a small Mandinka kingdom by the 17th century.","legacy":"Mali made Timbuktu a legendary city of scholarship and trade, and the Epic of Sundiata is still performed by West African griots.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Mali (empire)","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Mali-historical-empire-Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mali Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mansa Musa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. IV: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century (ed. D. T. Niane, 1984)","url":"https://archive.org/details/unesco_general_history_africa_iv"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979, 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"kanem-bornu","name":"Kanem-Bornu Empire","aliases":["Kanem","Kanem-Bornu"],"clio":["Empire of Kanem","Bornu Empire"],"region":"northern-africa","start":700,"end":1893,"capital":"Njimi in Kanem; from c. 1470 Ngazargamu in Bornu; later Kukawa","peak":{"year":1590,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"Under Idris Alooma, around Lake Chad and north toward the Fezzan"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hummay (Umme Jilmi)","reign":"c. 1075 – 1086","note":"First Muslim king of the Sayfawa dynasty"},{"name":"Dunama Dabbalemi","reign":"c. 1210 – 1248","note":"Expanded Kanem far into the Sahara"},{"name":"Ali Gaji","reign":"c. 1465 – 1497","note":"Founded the new capital Ngazargamu in Bornu"},{"name":"Idris Alooma","reign":"c. 1571 – 1603","note":"Used firearms to bring Bornu to its height"},{"name":"Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi","reign":"1809 – 1837","note":"Scholar-warrior who saved Bornu from the Fulani jihad and founded a new ruling line"}],"summary":"Kanem arose around the 8th century among nomadic and farming peoples north-east of Lake Chad, at the southern end of a trans-Saharan trade route to Libya. Its kings of the Sayfawa dynasty, who reigned for about a thousand years, adopted Islam in the late 11th century and grew rich trading horses, salt and slaves. In the 13th century Dunama Dabbalemi expanded Kanem far into the Sahara. Civil wars and attacks by the Bulala people in the 14th century forced the dynasty to move west of Lake Chad to Bornu, where a new capital, Ngazargamu, was founded. Bornu reached its height under Idris Alooma in the late 16th century, using firearms and Turkish musketeers. It survived into the 19th century until the warlord Rabih az-Zubayr conquered it in 1893.","legacy":"Kanem-Bornu was one of the longest-lasting states in world history and a major channel for Islam and Saharan trade in central Africa.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Kanem-Bornu","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Kanem-Bornu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kanem–Bornu Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanem%E2%80%93Bornu_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Idris Alooma","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idris_Alooma"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hummay","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummay"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century (ed. M. El Fasi & I. Hrbek, 1988)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-3"}]},{"id":"great-zimbabwe","name":"Kingdom of Zimbabwe (Great Zimbabwe)","aliases":["Great Zimbabwe"],"clio":[],"region":"southern-africa","start":1220,"end":1450,"capital":"Great Zimbabwe","peak":{"year":1350,"areaKm2":50000,"note":"Core of the Zimbabwe plateau; the state centred on Great Zimbabwe probably covered c. 50,000 km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Shona-speaking kings (names unknown)","reign":"c. 1220 – 1450","note":"No written records survive; rulers are known only through archaeology"},{"name":"Nyatsimba Mutota","reign":"c. 1430","note":"Remembered in tradition as a prince who left to found the successor Mutapa state"}],"summary":"Great Zimbabwe was the capital of a Shona-speaking kingdom on the southern African plateau, in the country now named after it. It grew after the earlier state of Mapungubwe in the 13th century, prospering by controlling gold mined on the plateau and large cattle herds, and trading through Swahili ports such as Sofala and Kilwa, which brought glass beads, Persian pottery and Chinese porcelain. Its rulers built immense dry-stone walls without mortar, including the Great Enclosure, with walls up to 11 metres high; at its height the city may have housed up to 10,000 people, though older estimates reach 18,000. In the 15th century the site was largely abandoned, perhaps because of overgrazing, exhausted resources and a shift of the gold trade northward, where the Mutapa and Torwa states took over.","legacy":"Great Zimbabwe is the largest ancient stone complex in southern Africa; it disproved colonial claims that Africans could not have built it, and the modern nation took its name.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Great Zimbabwe","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Great-Zimbabwe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Great Zimbabwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Great_Zimbabwe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nyatsimba Mutota","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyatsimba_Mutota"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-kongo","name":"Kingdom of Kongo","aliases":["Congo"],"clio":["Kingdom of Kongo"],"region":"southern-africa","start":1390,"end":1914,"capital":"Mbanza Kongo (called São Salvador from the 16th century)","peak":{"year":1550,"areaKm2":130000,"note":"Kongo's core provinces in northern Angola and western DR Congo, plus tributaries; about 129,400 km² by 1623"},"rulers":[{"name":"Lukeni lua Nimi","reign":"c. 1390","note":"Traditional founder"},{"name":"Nzinga a Nkuwu (João I)","reign":"c. 1470 – 1509","note":"Baptised by the Portuguese in 1491"},{"name":"Afonso I (Mvemba a Nzinga)","reign":"1509 – 1542","note":"Made Christianity the state religion"},{"name":"Garcia II","reign":"1641 – 1660","note":"Allied with the Dutch against Portugal"},{"name":"António I","reign":"1660 – 1665","note":"Killed fighting the Portuguese at Mbwila"}],"summary":"Kongo was founded around 1390, traditionally by Lukeni lua Nimi, who conquered lands south of the lower Congo river in what is now northern Angola and western Congo. The king, or manikongo, ruled from Mbanza Kongo through appointed provincial governors, collected tribute in cloth and the shell money called nzimbu, and controlled a well-organised state. In 1483 Portuguese ships arrived, and King Nzinga a Nkuwu was baptised in 1491. His son Afonso I made Christianity the state religion and corresponded with the Portuguese and papal courts, but the growing Atlantic slave trade destabilised the kingdom. After defeat by the Portuguese at Mbwila in 1665, Kongo fell into decades of civil war. It survived as a weakened kingdom until Portugal absorbed it into colonial Angola, ending its last autonomy in 1914.","legacy":"Kongo was a major Christian African kingdom, and its people and culture, carried across the Atlantic by the slave trade, deeply shaped the Afro-Caribbean and African American world.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Kongo","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Kongo-historical-kingdom-Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kongo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Afonso I of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afonso_I_of_Kongo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: António I of Kongo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_I_of_Kongo"}]},{"id":"ethiopian-empire","name":"Ethiopian Empire (Solomonic dynasty)","aliases":["Ethiopia"],"clio":["Ethiopian Empire"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1270,"end":1974,"capital":"Moving royal camps; later Gondar (from 1636) and Addis Ababa (from 1886)","peak":{"year":1900,"areaKm2":1100000,"note":"After Menelik II's expansion, roughly the borders of modern Ethiopia"},"rulers":[{"name":"Yekuno Amlak","reign":"1270 – 1285","note":"Founder of the Solomonic dynasty"},{"name":"Amda Seyon I","reign":"1314 – 1344","note":"Expanded the realm against Muslim neighbours"},{"name":"Zara Yaqob","reign":"1434 – 1468","note":"Strengthened the Church and royal power"},{"name":"Fasilides","reign":"1632 – 1667","note":"Founded Gondar as a fixed capital"},{"name":"Tewodros II","reign":"1855 – 1868","note":"Reunified the empire after the Era of the Princes"},{"name":"Menelik II","reign":"1889 – 1913","note":"Defeated Italy at Adwa in 1896"},{"name":"Haile Selassie","reign":"1930 – 1974","note":"Last emperor"}],"summary":"In 1270 Yekuno Amlak overthrew the Zagwe dynasty and founded the Solomonic dynasty, claiming descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, a story later told in the Kebra Nagast. Its Christian emperors ruled the Ethiopian highlands from moving royal camps, and Amda Seyon and Zara Yaqob expanded the realm and strengthened the Orthodox Church. In the 16th century the Adal sultanate under Ahmad Gragn nearly destroyed the empire until Portuguese help arrived. Gondar became a fixed capital in the 1630s, but from 1769 the emperors lost power to regional lords. Tewodros II and Yohannes IV reunited the country, and Menelik II expanded it south and defeated Italy at Adwa in 1896. Apart from Italian occupation in 1936 to 1941, it stayed independent until Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1974.","legacy":"Ethiopia was the only African state to defeat a European colonial army and keep its independence through the Scramble for Africa, making it a symbol of African freedom.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Ethiopia","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Ethiopia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ethiopian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yekuno Amlak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yekuno_Amlak"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Menelik II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menelik_II"}]},{"id":"fatimid-caliphate","name":"Fatimid Caliphate","aliases":["Fatimid Caliphate"],"clio":["Fatimid Caliphate"],"region":"northern-africa","start":909,"end":1171,"capital":"Raqqada and Mahdia in Tunisia, then Cairo (from 973)","peak":{"year":1000,"areaKm2":4100000,"note":"North Africa, Egypt, Sicily, the Levant and the Hejaz; Taagepera (1997) gives a larger c. 4.1M km² for 969, counting Saharan hinterlands; Taagepera (1997) and Turchin et al. (2006) give c. 4.1M km² for 969, counting nominal Saharan lands; c. 4.1M km² c. 969, including Saharan hinterlands (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah","reign":"909 – 934","note":"Founder, proclaimed caliph in Tunisia"},{"name":"al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah","reign":"953 – 975","note":"Conquered Egypt and moved to Cairo"},{"name":"al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah","reign":"996 – 1021","note":"Eccentric caliph who founded the House of Knowledge"},{"name":"al-Mustansir","reign":"1036 – 1094","note":"Longest reign of any caliph; saw famine and decline"},{"name":"al-Adid","reign":"1160 – 1171","note":"Last caliph; Saladin ended the dynasty"}],"summary":"The Fatimids were an Ismaili Shia dynasty claiming descent from the Prophet's daughter Fatima. Supported by Kutama Berber tribesmen, Abdallah al-Mahdi proclaimed himself caliph in Tunisia in 909, challenging the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad. In 969 his descendant al-Mu'izz conquered Egypt, where his general founded Cairo, which became the new capital. At their height the Fatimids ruled North Africa, Egypt, Sicily, Syria, Palestine and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, growing rich from Red Sea and Mediterranean trade. They founded al-Azhar, one of the world's oldest universities. From the late 11th century the dynasty was weakened by military rivalries, famine, the loss of North Africa and Syria, and the Crusades. Saladin, their vizier, abolished the caliphate in 1171.","legacy":"Fatimid Cairo, with al-Azhar and its great mosques and gates, became one of the leading cities of the Islamic world.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Fatimid dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fatimid-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fatimid Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid_Caliphate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Al-Mustansir Billah","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mustansir_Billah"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979, 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"almohad-caliphate","name":"Almohad Caliphate","aliases":["Almohad Caliphate"],"clio":["Almohad Caliphate"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1121,"end":1269,"capital":"Tinmel, then Marrakesh; Seville in al-Andalus","peak":{"year":1170,"areaKm2":2300000,"note":"From the Atlantic to Tripolitania, plus southern Spain; c. 2.0–2.3M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin et al. 2006); c. 2.3M km² c. 1150 (Taagepera 1997); c. 2.0M km² c. 1200 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ibn Tumart","reign":"c. 1121 – 1130","note":"Religious founder, proclaimed the Mahdi"},{"name":"Abd al-Mu'min","reign":"1130 – 1163","note":"First caliph; conquered the Maghreb and al-Andalus"},{"name":"Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur","reign":"1184 – 1199","note":"Won at Alarcos and built the Giralda"},{"name":"Muhammad al-Nasir","reign":"1199 – 1213","note":"Defeated at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212"},{"name":"Idris al-Wathiq","reign":"1266 – 1269","note":"Last caliph, overthrown by the Marinids"}],"summary":"The Almohad movement began with Ibn Tumart, a Berber religious reformer from the Atlas Mountains who in 1121 proclaimed himself the Mahdi and preached a strict doctrine of God's absolute oneness. His successor Abd al-Mu'min took the title of caliph, overthrew the Almoravids, captured Marrakesh in 1147 and went on to unite all of North Africa from Morocco to Tripoli, as well as Muslim Spain. The Almohads were great builders, raising the Koutoubia mosque in Marrakesh and the Giralda in Seville, and their court patronised philosophers such as Averroes. Their crushing defeat by the Christian Spanish kingdoms at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 began a rapid decline; provinces broke away to the Hafsids, Zayyanids and Marinids, who took Marrakesh in 1269.","legacy":"The Almohads produced some of the finest Moorish architecture and fostered the philosophy of Averroes, which later shaped European scholasticism.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Almohads","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Almohads"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Almohad Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almohad_Caliphate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abd al-Mu'min","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Mu'min"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"}]},{"id":"mamluk-sultanate","name":"Mamluk Sultanate","aliases":["Mamluke Sultanate"],"clio":["Mamluk Sultanate"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1250,"end":1517,"capital":"Cairo","peak":{"year":1300,"areaKm2":2100000,"note":"Egypt, Syria, Palestine and the Hejaz; c. 2.1M km² (Taagepera 1997); c. 2.1M km² (Taagepera 1997, c. 1300; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006, c. 1400)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Shajar al-Durr","reign":"1250","note":"Widow of the last Ayyubid sultan, briefly sultana"},{"name":"Qutuz","reign":"1259 – 1260","note":"Defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut"},{"name":"Baybars I","reign":"1260 – 1277","note":"Built the Mamluk state and fought the Crusaders"},{"name":"Qalawun","reign":"1279 – 1290","note":"Founded the longest-lasting Mamluk dynasty"},{"name":"al-Nasir Muhammad","reign":"1293 – 1341 (with interruptions)","note":"Ruled at the sultanate's height"},{"name":"Qansuh al-Ghawri","reign":"1501 – 1516","note":"Killed fighting the Ottomans at Marj Dabiq"},{"name":"Tuman Bay II","reign":"1516 – 1517","note":"Last sultan, hanged by the Ottomans"}],"summary":"Mamluks were slave soldiers, mostly Turkic and later Circassian boys bought from the steppes and trained as elite cavalry. In 1250 the mamluks of Egypt's Ayyubid sultan seized power, founding a state ruled by former slaves. In 1260 their army under Qutuz and Baybars defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut in Palestine, halting the Mongol advance, and over the following decades they expelled the last Crusaders, taking Acre in 1291. The Mamluks ruled Egypt, Syria and the holy cities of Arabia, sheltered a figurehead Abbasid caliph in Cairo, and grew rich from the spice trade between India and Europe. Sultans rarely founded lasting dynasties, as rival mamluk factions competed for power. Plague, Portuguese competition in the Indian Ocean and Ottoman firearms ended the sultanate in 1517.","legacy":"The Mamluks saved Egypt and Syria from the Mongols, and their mosques, madrasas and tombs make Cairo one of the great treasuries of Islamic architecture.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Mamluk dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mamluk-dynasty-Egypt-Syria"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mamluk Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Al-Nasir Muhammad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nasir_Muhammad"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979, 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"roman-republic","name":"Roman Republic","aliases":["Rome","Roman Republic"],"clio":["Roman Republic","Roman Kingdom"],"region":"europe","start":-509,"end":-27,"capital":"Rome","peak":{"year":-50,"areaKm2":1950000,"note":"After Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul; c. 1.95M km² c. 50 BCE (Taagepera 1979)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Lucius Junius Brutus","reign":"consul 509 BCE","note":"Traditional founder of the Republic"},{"name":"Scipio Africanus","reign":"consul 205 and 194 BCE","note":"Defeated Hannibal at Zama"},{"name":"Gaius Marius","reign":"seven consulships, 107 – 86 BCE","note":"Reformed the army into a professional force"},{"name":"Lucius Cornelius Sulla","reign":"dictator 82 – 79 BCE","note":"First general to march his army on Rome"},{"name":"Pompey the Great","reign":"consul 70, 55 and 52 BCE","note":"Conquered much of the eastern Mediterranean"},{"name":"Julius Caesar","reign":"dictator 49 – 44 BCE","note":"Conquered Gaul; assassinated in 44 BCE"}],"summary":"According to tradition, the Romans expelled their last king in 509 BCE and set up a republic, governed by two consuls elected each year, a Senate of aristocrats and popular assemblies. From its base in central Italy, Rome gradually conquered its neighbours, binding defeated Italian peoples to it as allies who supplied soldiers. Victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars made Rome master of the western Mediterranean, and by 146 BCE it also controlled Greece. Conquest brought great wealth but also inequality and political violence, as generals such as Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Julius Caesar used their loyal armies to seize power. Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE led to more civil wars, which ended when his heir Octavian defeated Mark Antony and became Augustus in 27 BCE.","legacy":"The Roman Republic's senate, elected magistrates, checks and balances and idea of citizenship strongly influenced modern republics, including the United States.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Roman Republic","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Republic"},{"title":"Britannica: Sulla","url":"https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sulla"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Roman Republic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic"}]},{"id":"roman-empire","name":"Roman Empire","aliases":["Roman Empire","Rome (Diocletianus)","Rome (Maximian)","Rome (Constantinus)","Rome (Galerius)","Western Roman Empire"],"clio":["Roman Empire","Western Roman Empire","(Alliance between Western Roman Empire and Visigothic Kingdom)"],"region":"europe","start":-27,"end":476,"capital":"Rome; from 330 also Constantinople, and later Milan and Ravenna in the West","peak":{"year":117,"areaKm2":5000000,"note":"Under Trajan, from Britain to Mesopotamia; c. 5.0M km² c. 117 (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Augustus","reign":"27 BCE – 14 CE","note":"First emperor"},{"name":"Trajan","reign":"98 – 117","note":"Brought the empire to its greatest extent"},{"name":"Hadrian","reign":"117 – 138","note":"Consolidated the frontiers, built Hadrian's Wall"},{"name":"Marcus Aurelius","reign":"161 – 180","note":"Philosopher-emperor who fought on the Danube"},{"name":"Diocletian","reign":"284 – 305","note":"Divided rule among four co-emperors (the Tetrarchy)"},{"name":"Constantine I","reign":"306 – 337","note":"Embraced Christianity and founded Constantinople"},{"name":"Theodosius I","reign":"379 – 395","note":"Last emperor to rule both halves"},{"name":"Romulus Augustulus","reign":"475 – 476","note":"Last western emperor, deposed by Odoacer"}],"summary":"After a century of civil war, Octavian, Julius Caesar's heir, became Rome's first emperor as Augustus in 27 BCE, keeping the forms of the Republic while holding real power. The two centuries that followed, the Pax Romana, brought peace and prosperity to an empire that ringed the Mediterranean, linked by roads, a professional army, Roman law and Latin and Greek culture; in 212 almost all free inhabitants became citizens. The 3rd century brought invasions, plague and a rapid turnover of emperors. Diocletian reorganised the empire under several co-rulers, and Constantine embraced Christianity and founded Constantinople. After 395 the empire was permanently divided into eastern and western halves. The West, weakened by Germanic migrations and lost revenue, ended when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476.","legacy":"Rome's law, Latin language, roads, cities and adoption of Christianity form the backbone of European civilisation.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Roman Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Trajan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera/Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"byzantine-empire","name":"Byzantine Empire","aliases":["Eastern Roman Empire","Byzantine Empire"],"clio":["Eastern Roman Empire","Byzantine Empire","(Alliance between Byzantine Empire and Khazaria)"],"region":"europe","start":395,"end":1453,"capital":"Constantinople","peak":{"year":555,"areaKm2":2700000,"note":"Under Justinian I, after reconquering Italy, North Africa and southern Spain; c. 2.7M km² c. 555 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006); Taagepera (1979) gives c. 2.8M km² c. 450"},"rulers":[{"name":"Justinian I","reign":"527 – 565","note":"Reconquered the West, codified Roman law, built Hagia Sophia"},{"name":"Heraclius","reign":"610 – 641","note":"Defeated Persia but lost Syria and Egypt to the Arabs"},{"name":"Basil II","reign":"976 – 1025","note":"Conquered Bulgaria; the empire's medieval height"},{"name":"Alexios I Komnenos","reign":"1081 – 1118","note":"Restored the empire and called for western help, sparking the First Crusade"},{"name":"Michael VIII Palaiologos","reign":"1259 – 1282","note":"Recaptured Constantinople in 1261"},{"name":"Constantine XI Palaiologos","reign":"1449 – 1453","note":"Last emperor, killed when the city fell"}],"summary":"The Byzantine Empire is the name historians give to the eastern half of the Roman Empire, which survived for nearly a thousand years after the West fell; its people always called themselves Romans. Ruled from Constantinople by emperors seen as God's representatives on earth, it was Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian. Justinian I reconquered Italy and North Africa and codified Roman law, but in the 7th century the Arab conquests took Syria, Egypt and Africa. The empire recovered under the Macedonian dynasty, reaching a new height under Basil II, but after defeat by the Seljuks at Manzikert in 1071 it lost most of Anatolia. Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204. Restored in 1261 but much reduced, it fell to the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II in 1453.","legacy":"Byzantium preserved Greek and Roman learning, shaped Orthodox Christianity and the Slavic world, and built masterpieces such as Hagia Sophia.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Byzantine Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Byzantine-Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Byzantine Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Basil II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_II"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"hunnic-empire","name":"Hunnic Empire","aliases":["Hunnic Empire"],"clio":["Hunnic Empire","Huns"],"region":"europe","start":370,"end":469,"capital":"Royal camp on the Hungarian plain","peak":{"year":450,"areaKm2":4000000,"note":"Under Attila, from the Rhine to the steppes north of the Black Sea; c. 4.0M km² in 441 (Taagepera 1979); c. 4.0M km² c. 441 (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Uldin","reign":"c. 400 – 412","note":"First Hunnic leader known by name in Roman sources"},{"name":"Rugila","reign":"c. 420s – 434","note":"United the Huns and extracted Roman tribute"},{"name":"Bleda","reign":"434 – c. 445","note":"Co-ruler with his brother Attila"},{"name":"Attila","reign":"434 – 453","note":"Invaded the Balkans, Gaul and Italy"},{"name":"Dengizich","reign":"d. 469","note":"Son of Attila and last Hunnic ruler, killed fighting Rome"}],"summary":"The Huns were nomadic horse-archers from the Eurasian steppe whose arrival north of the Black Sea around 370 drove the Goths and other peoples into the Roman Empire, setting off the great migrations. By the early 5th century they had settled on the Hungarian plain and built a loose empire over many subject peoples, including Germanic tribes, held together by plunder and Roman tribute payments. Under the brothers Bleda and Attila, and then Attila alone, the Huns ravaged the Balkans, extracted huge sums of gold from Constantinople, and invaded Gaul in 451 and Italy in 452. After Attila's sudden death in 453 his sons quarrelled, subject peoples rebelled and won at the Battle of Nedao in 454, and the empire disintegrated; its last leader, Dengizich, was killed in 469.","legacy":"The Huns hastened the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and Attila became a lasting European byword for a fearsome conqueror.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Hun","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hun-people"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Huns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Attila","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera/Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"frankish-kingdom","name":"Frankish Kingdom (Merovingian)","aliases":["Franks","Frankish Kingdom","Neustria"],"clio":["(Merovingian Empire)","Merovingian Empire","(Kingdom of the Franks)","Kingdom of the Franks","Salian Franks","Ripuarian Franks"],"region":"europe","start":481,"end":751,"capital":"Tournai, then Paris, with other royal seats at Soissons, Orléans and Metz","peak":{"year":630,"areaKm2":600000,"note":"Gaul and much of western Germany under Dagobert I"},"rulers":[{"name":"Clovis I","reign":"481 – 511","note":"United the Franks and converted to Catholic Christianity"},{"name":"Chlothar I","reign":"511 – 561","note":"Briefly reunited the divided kingdom"},{"name":"Dagobert I","reign":"629 – 639","note":"Last strong Merovingian king"},{"name":"Charles Martel","reign":"mayor of the palace 718 – 741","note":"Real ruler; defeated an Arab army near Poitiers in 732"},{"name":"Childeric III","reign":"743 – 751","note":"Last Merovingian king, deposed by Pepin the Short"}],"summary":"The Franks were a group of Germanic peoples living along the lower Rhine who served as Roman allies. Clovis I of the Merovingian family united them, defeated the last Roman ruler in Gaul in 486 and the Visigoths in 507, and converted to Catholic Christianity, winning the support of the Gallo-Roman bishops and nobility. Frankish custom divided the kingdom among a king's sons, so it was repeatedly split into sub-kingdoms such as Neustria, Austrasia and Burgundy, then reunited. From the late 7th century the Merovingian kings became figureheads, while real power passed to the mayors of the palace. One of these, Charles Martel, defeated an Arab army near Poitiers in 732, and his son Pepin the Short deposed the last Merovingian king in 751.","legacy":"The Merovingian kingdom laid the foundations of France and Germany and made the Franks the leading Catholic power in western Europe.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Merovingian dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Merovingian-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Francia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Merovingian dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dagobert I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagobert_I"}]},{"id":"carolingian-empire","name":"Carolingian Empire","aliases":["Carolingian Empire","East Francia","West Francia"],"clio":["(Carolingian Empire)","Carolingian Empire","West Franks","East Franks","Middle Franks","(Allegiance of East Franks to Carolingian Empire)"],"region":"europe","start":800,"end":888,"capital":"Aachen","peak":{"year":814,"areaKm2":1200000,"note":"At Charlemagne's death, from the Pyrenees to the Elbe and central Italy; c. 1.2M km² c. 814 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Pepin the Short","reign":"751 – 768","note":"First Carolingian king of the Franks"},{"name":"Charlemagne","reign":"768 – 814 (emperor from 800)","note":"Conquered much of Europe; crowned emperor by the pope"},{"name":"Louis the Pious","reign":"814 – 840","note":"His sons' quarrels split the empire"},{"name":"Lothair I","reign":"840 – 855","note":"Emperor and ruler of Middle Francia"},{"name":"Charles the Bald","reign":"843 – 877","note":"King of West Francia, later emperor"},{"name":"Charles the Fat","reign":"881 – 887","note":"Briefly reunited the empire before being deposed"}],"summary":"The Carolingians were the Frankish family who replaced the Merovingian kings in 751. Pepin the Short's son Charlemagne spent most of his reign at war, conquering the Lombard kingdom in Italy, the Saxons, Bavaria and the Avars, until he ruled most of western and central Europe. On Christmas Day 800 Pope Leo III crowned him emperor of the Romans, reviving the imperial title in the West. Charlemagne governed through counts and travelling royal envoys and sponsored a revival of learning, the Carolingian Renaissance. After his son Louis the Pious died, civil war led to the Treaty of Verdun in 843, which split the empire into West, Middle and East Francia. Briefly reunited under Charles the Fat, it broke apart for good when he was deposed in 887 and died in 888.","legacy":"West and East Francia became the cores of France and Germany, and Carolingian scribes preserved much classical Latin literature in a clear script that inspired modern lowercase letters.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Carolingian dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Carolingian-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Carolingian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Charles the Fat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_the_Fat"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera/Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"holy-roman-empire","name":"Holy Roman Empire","aliases":["Holy Roman Empire"],"clio":["(Holy Roman Empire)","Holy Roman Empire","Holy Roman Empire Minor States","(Personal union of Holy Roman Empire with Kingdom of Sicily)"],"region":"europe","start":962,"end":1806,"capital":"No fixed capital; Aachen for coronations, later Prague and Vienna as imperial seats","peak":{"year":1050,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Under the Salian emperors: Germany, northern Italy, Burgundy and Bohemia; c. 1.0M km² c. 1050 (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Otto I the Great","reign":"962 – 973","note":"First emperor, crowned in Rome"},{"name":"Frederick I Barbarossa","reign":"1155 – 1190","note":"Fought the Italian cities and the papacy; died on crusade"},{"name":"Frederick II","reign":"1220 – 1250","note":"Brilliant ruler of Germany and Sicily, enemy of the popes"},{"name":"Charles IV","reign":"1355 – 1378","note":"Issued the Golden Bull fixing imperial elections"},{"name":"Charles V","reign":"1519 – 1556","note":"Habsburg ruler of a vast domain during the Reformation"},{"name":"Francis II","reign":"1792 – 1806","note":"Last emperor; dissolved the empire"}],"summary":"In 962 the German king Otto I was crowned emperor by the pope in Rome, renewing Charlemagne's imperial title. The resulting empire, called Holy Roman from the 12th century, joined the German lands with northern Italy and Burgundy, and later Bohemia. Its emperors were elected by leading princes, a system fixed by the Golden Bull of 1356. Emperors clashed with the papacy over control of the Church and with Italian cities over taxes, and real power steadily passed to hundreds of princes, bishops and free cities. From 1438 the Habsburgs held the title almost continuously, and Charles V ruled a vast domain, but the Reformation and the Thirty Years War left the empire a loose federation. Napoleon's victories led Francis II to dissolve it in 1806.","legacy":"The empire's layered, federal style of government shaped Germany, Austria and central Europe, though Voltaire quipped it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Holy Roman Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Holy-Roman-Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Holy Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Otto the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-france","name":"Kingdom of France","aliases":["Kingdom of France","France"],"clio":["(Kingdom of France)","Kingdom of France"],"region":"europe","start":987,"end":1792,"capital":"Paris; Versailles 1682 – 1789","peak":{"year":1789,"areaKm2":530000,"note":"Roughly modern mainland France plus Corsica"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hugh Capet","reign":"987 – 996","note":"Founder of the Capetian dynasty"},{"name":"Philip II Augustus","reign":"1180 – 1223","note":"Took Normandy and other lands from the English kings"},{"name":"Louis IX (Saint Louis)","reign":"1226 – 1270","note":"Crusader king, later canonised"},{"name":"Charles VII","reign":"1422 – 1461","note":"With Joan of Arc's help, won the Hundred Years War"},{"name":"Henry IV","reign":"1589 – 1610","note":"First Bourbon king; ended the Wars of Religion"},{"name":"Louis XIV","reign":"1643 – 1715","note":"The Sun King, model of absolute monarchy"},{"name":"Louis XVI","reign":"1774 – 1792","note":"Last king before the Revolution; executed in 1793"}],"summary":"When the last Carolingian king of West Francia died in 987, the nobles elected Hugh Capet, whose family directly ruled only a small region around Paris. Over the next three centuries the Capetian kings steadily extended royal power over the great dukes and counts, and Philip II Augustus took Normandy and other lands from the English Angevin kings. The Hundred Years War with England, from 1337, nearly broke the kingdom until Joan of Arc helped revive the cause of Charles VII and the English were expelled by 1453. Under the Bourbon dynasty France became Europe's leading power, and Louis XIV ruled as an absolute monarch from Versailles. Debt, inequality and Enlightenment ideas fuelled the Revolution of 1789, and the monarchy was abolished in 1792.","legacy":"The French monarchy built one of Europe's first centralised nation-states, and its overthrow launched the age of modern revolutions.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Capetian dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Capetian-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of France","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_France"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Louis XVI","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-england","name":"Kingdom of England","aliases":["England","English territory","Angevin Empire","England and Ireland"],"clio":["(Kingdom of England)","Kingdom of England","Norman England","Angevin Empire"],"region":"europe","start":927,"end":1707,"capital":"Winchester, then London","peak":{"year":1180,"areaKm2":380000,"note":"Henry II's Angevin lands, from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees"},"rulers":[{"name":"Æthelstan","reign":"927 – 939","note":"First king of all England"},{"name":"William I the Conqueror","reign":"1066 – 1087","note":"Norman conqueror of England"},{"name":"Henry II","reign":"1154 – 1189","note":"Ruled the Angevin realm and reformed English law"},{"name":"Edward I","reign":"1272 – 1307","note":"Conquered Wales and developed Parliament"},{"name":"Edward III","reign":"1327 – 1377","note":"Began the Hundred Years War"},{"name":"Henry VIII","reign":"1509 – 1547","note":"Broke with the Roman Church"},{"name":"Elizabeth I","reign":"1558 – 1603","note":"Defeated the Spanish Armada"},{"name":"Anne","reign":"1702 – 1707","note":"Last monarch of England alone; then of Great Britain"}],"summary":"The Kingdom of England was created when Æthelstan of Wessex, building on his grandfather Alfred the Great's resistance to the Vikings, brought all the English kingdoms under his rule in 927. After conquest by the Danish king Cnut in 1016 and William of Normandy in 1066, England was tied to French lands, and under Henry II it formed the core of the Angevin realm stretching to the Pyrenees. Kings shared power with barons, as in Magna Carta of 1215, and from the 13th century with Parliament. England fought the Hundred Years War against France, lost its French territories and endured the Wars of the Roses. The Tudors broke with Rome and ruled Ireland as a kingdom. In 1707 England united with Scotland to form Great Britain.","legacy":"Medieval England developed the common law, Magna Carta and Parliament, institutions later spread worldwide by the British Empire.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: England","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/England"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of England","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_England"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Æthelstan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelstan"}]},{"id":"kievan-rus","name":"Kievan Rus'","aliases":["Kievan Rus","Kyivan Rus","Rus' Khaganate","Principality of Kyiv"],"clio":["Kievan Rus'","Rus'","Principality of Kiev"],"region":"europe","start":882,"end":1240,"capital":"Kyiv","peak":{"year":1050,"areaKm2":2100000,"note":"Under Yaroslav the Wise, from the Baltic to the Black Sea steppe; Taagepera (1997) gives a larger c. 2.1M km² for c. 1000; c. 2.1M km² c. 1000 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006); other estimates c. 1.3M km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Oleg","reign":"c. 879 – 912","note":"Took Kyiv in 882 and made it his capital"},{"name":"Olga","reign":"regent 945 – c. 957","note":"First ruler of Rus to be baptised"},{"name":"Sviatoslav I","reign":"c. 945 – 972","note":"Destroyed the Khazar Khaganate"},{"name":"Vladimir the Great","reign":"980 – 1015","note":"Converted Rus to Orthodox Christianity in 988"},{"name":"Yaroslav the Wise","reign":"1019 – 1054","note":"Lawgiver and builder of St Sophia's Cathedral"},{"name":"Vladimir Monomakh","reign":"1113 – 1125","note":"Last prince to hold the realm together"}],"summary":"Kievan Rus grew from settlements of Scandinavian traders and warriors, known as the Rus or Varangians, along the river routes linking the Baltic to the Black Sea and Byzantium. According to the Primary Chronicle, Oleg of Novgorod seized Kyiv in 882 and made it his capital, ruling over East Slavic, Finnic and Baltic peoples. The Rurikid princes collected tribute in furs and slaves and traded with Constantinople, which they also raided. In 988 Vladimir the Great accepted Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium, and his son Yaroslav the Wise issued a law code and built St Sophia's Cathedral. After 1054 the realm fragmented into rival principalities ruled by branches of the dynasty. The Mongol invasion destroyed it, and Kyiv was sacked in 1240.","legacy":"Kievan Rus is claimed as the shared cradle of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, and gave them Orthodox Christianity and the Cyrillic literary tradition.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Kyivan Rus","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kyivan-Rus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kievan Rus'","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus'"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Olga of Kiev","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_of_Kiev"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera/Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"bulgarian-empire","name":"Bulgarian Empire","aliases":["Bulgars","Danube Bulgars","Bulgar Khanate"],"clio":["First Bulgarian Empire","Second Bulgarian Empire","Old Great Bulgaria"],"region":"europe","start":681,"end":1396,"capital":"Pliska, then Preslav and Ohrid; Tarnovo in the Second Empire","peak":{"year":920,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"Under Simeon I, across most of the Balkans"},"rulers":[{"name":"Asparukh","reign":"681 – 700","note":"Founder of the Danube Bulgar state"},{"name":"Krum","reign":"c. 803 – 814","note":"Defeated and killed Emperor Nikephoros I"},{"name":"Boris I","reign":"852 – 889","note":"Adopted Christianity in 864"},{"name":"Simeon I the Great","reign":"893 – 927","note":"Took the title tsar; Bulgaria's golden age"},{"name":"Samuel","reign":"997 – 1014","note":"Resisted Basil II from Ohrid"},{"name":"Ivan Asen II","reign":"1218 – 1241","note":"Height of the Second Bulgarian Empire"},{"name":"Ivan Shishman","reign":"1371 – 1395","note":"Last tsar at Tarnovo, conquered by the Ottomans"}],"summary":"The Bulgars were a Turkic people from the steppes north of the Black Sea. In 681, after defeating a Byzantine army, their khan Asparukh founded a state south of the Danube, where the Bulgars merged with the Slavic population. Khan Krum defeated and killed a Byzantine emperor in 811, and Boris I adopted Christianity in 864, after which Bulgarian scholars developed the Cyrillic alphabet. Under Simeon I, who took the title tsar, Bulgaria dominated the Balkans and rivalled Byzantium. Basil II conquered it by 1018 after decades of war. A revolt in 1185 founded the Second Bulgarian Empire with its capital at Tarnovo, which flourished under Ivan Asen II but later fragmented. The Ottomans took Tarnovo in 1393 and the last stronghold, Vidin, in 1396.","legacy":"Medieval Bulgaria spread Slavonic literacy and the Cyrillic alphabet, now used by some 250 million people.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: First Bulgarian Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/First-Bulgarian-empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Bulgarian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bulgarian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Second Bulgarian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bulgarian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Krum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krum"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-hungary","name":"Kingdom of Hungary","aliases":["Magyars","Hungary","Kingdom of Hungary","Imperial Hungary"],"clio":["Kingdom of Hungary","Principality of Hungary","Magyars"],"region":"europe","start":1000,"end":1918,"capital":"Esztergom and Székesfehérvár, then Buda; Pozsony (Bratislava) 1536 – 1783","peak":{"year":1910,"areaKm2":325000,"note":"Lands of the Hungarian Crown, including Croatia-Slavonia, within Austria-Hungary"},"rulers":[{"name":"Árpád","reign":"grand prince c. 895 – 907","note":"Led the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin"},{"name":"Stephen I","reign":"1000 – 1038","note":"First king; converted Hungary to Christianity"},{"name":"Béla IV","reign":"1235 – 1270","note":"Rebuilt the kingdom after the Mongol invasion"},{"name":"Louis I the Great","reign":"1342 – 1382","note":"Also king of Poland; height of medieval power"},{"name":"Matthias Corvinus","reign":"1458 – 1490","note":"Renaissance king who took Vienna"},{"name":"Louis II","reign":"1516 – 1526","note":"Killed fighting the Ottomans at Mohács"},{"name":"Franz Joseph I","reign":"1867 – 1916","note":"Crowned king of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy"}],"summary":"The Magyars, horse-riding nomads speaking a Finno-Ugric language, crossed the Carpathians around 895 under Grand Prince Árpád and settled the Danube basin, raiding deep into Europe until their defeat at Lechfeld in 955. Árpád's descendant Stephen converted to Latin Christianity and was crowned king in 1000, founding a kingdom organised into counties around royal castles. Hungary joined with Croatia in 1102, survived the devastating Mongol invasion of 1241, and under the Angevin king Louis the Great and the Renaissance ruler Matthias Corvinus became a great power of central Europe. After the Ottomans killed King Louis II at Mohács in 1526 the kingdom was split; the Habsburgs inherited the crown and later reconquered the whole country. Hungary gained equal status within Austria-Hungary in 1867, until the monarchy collapsed in 1918.","legacy":"Hungary preserved a distinct Magyar language and identity in the heart of Europe and served for centuries as Christendom's frontier against the Ottomans.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Hungary: History","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Hungary/History"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Hungary","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Hungary"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Stephen I of Hungary","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_I_of_Hungary"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Franz Joseph I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-poland","name":"Kingdom of Poland","aliases":["Poland","Poland-Lithuania"],"clio":["(Kingdom of Poland)","Kingdom of Poland","(Polish-Lithuania Kingdom)","(Duchies of Poland)","Duchies of Poland"],"region":"europe","start":1025,"end":1569,"capital":"Gniezno, then Kraków","peak":{"year":1490,"areaKm2":1100000,"note":"Jagiellonian Poland together with Lithuania in personal union; Poland-Lithuania c. 1.1M km² c. 1480 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Mieszko I","reign":"duke c. 960 – 992","note":"Accepted Christianity in 966"},{"name":"Bolesław I the Brave","reign":"992 – 1025","note":"Crowned first king of Poland in 1025"},{"name":"Casimir III the Great","reign":"1333 – 1370","note":"Rebuilt the kingdom and founded Kraków University"},{"name":"Jadwiga","reign":"1384 – 1399","note":"Queen whose marriage to Jogaila united Poland and Lithuania"},{"name":"Władysław II Jagiełło","reign":"1386 – 1434","note":"Defeated the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald"},{"name":"Sigismund II Augustus","reign":"1548 – 1572","note":"Created the Commonwealth by the Union of Lublin"}],"summary":"Poland emerged under the Piast dynasty, whose duke Mieszko I accepted Christianity in 966; his son Bolesław the Brave was crowned the first king in 1025. After 1138 the realm split into duchies for nearly two centuries and suffered Mongol raids, until Władysław the Short reunited it and his son Casimir the Great rebuilt it, founding the University of Kraków and welcoming Jewish settlers. In 1386 Queen Jadwiga married Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, creating a personal union under the Jagiellonian dynasty. The union crushed the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald in 1410 and became one of the largest states in Europe. Power gradually shifted to the nobility through the Sejm, and in 1569 the Union of Lublin turned the partnership into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.","legacy":"Medieval Poland anchored Latin Christianity in east-central Europe and pioneered a parliamentary noble democracy that later produced Europe's first modern written constitution in 1791.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Piast dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Piast-dynasty"},{"title":"Britannica: Jagiellon dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jagiellon-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Poland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Poland"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"}]},{"id":"grand-duchy-of-lithuania","name":"Grand Duchy of Lithuania","aliases":["Lithuania"],"clio":["Grand Duchy of Lithuania"],"region":"europe","start":1236,"end":1795,"capital":"Vilnius","peak":{"year":1430,"areaKm2":930000,"note":"Under Vytautas, from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea"},"rulers":[{"name":"Mindaugas","reign":"c. 1236 – 1263","note":"Unified Lithuania; crowned king in 1253"},{"name":"Gediminas","reign":"c. 1316 – 1341","note":"Made Vilnius his capital and expanded into Rus lands"},{"name":"Algirdas","reign":"1345 – 1377","note":"Pushed the borders toward the Black Sea"},{"name":"Jogaila","reign":"1377 – 1381, 1382 – 1392","note":"Became king of Poland and Christianised Lithuania"},{"name":"Vytautas the Great","reign":"1392 – 1430","note":"Ruled Lithuania at its greatest extent"}],"summary":"Lithuania was the last pagan state in Europe. Facing the crusading Teutonic Knights, Baltic tribes united under Mindaugas in the 1230s; he was briefly crowned a Christian king in 1253. Gediminas made Vilnius his capital in the early 14th century, and he and his son Algirdas expanded south-east into the lands of the former Kievan Rus, weakened by the Mongols, so that most of the grand duchy's subjects were Orthodox Slavs. In 1386 Grand Duke Jogaila became king of Poland and accepted Catholic baptism for Lithuania. His cousin Vytautas ruled Lithuania at its greatest extent, stretching to the Black Sea. Union with Poland deepened into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, which was partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria by 1795.","legacy":"Lithuania built one of medieval Europe's largest states, and its multi-faith, multilingual tradition shaped modern Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Lithuania: History","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Lithuania/History"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Grand Duchy of Lithuania","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gediminas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gediminas"}]},{"id":"republic-of-venice","name":"Republic of Venice","aliases":["Venice"],"clio":["Republic of Venice"],"region":"europe","start":697,"end":1797,"capital":"Venice","peak":{"year":1490,"areaKm2":60000,"note":"Mainland territories in north-east Italy plus Dalmatia, Crete, Cyprus and Aegean islands"},"rulers":[{"name":"Paolo Lucio Anafesto","reign":"697 – 717 (traditional)","note":"Traditional first doge"},{"name":"Pietro II Orseolo","reign":"991 – 1009","note":"Secured the Adriatic and Dalmatian coast"},{"name":"Enrico Dandolo","reign":"1192 – 1205","note":"Diverted the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople"},{"name":"Francesco Foscari","reign":"1423 – 1457","note":"Built Venice's mainland empire"},{"name":"Ludovico Manin","reign":"1789 – 1797","note":"Last doge, abdicated before Napoleon"}],"summary":"Venice was founded by people fleeing barbarian invasions to the islands of a lagoon at the head of the Adriatic. Traditionally its first doge, or duke, was elected in 697, and the city gradually broke free from Byzantine rule. Venice grew rich as the middleman between Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, trading spices, silk and slaves. Its merchant aristocracy governed through an elected doge, a Great Council and the powerful Council of Ten, a system that proved remarkably stable. In 1204 Doge Enrico Dandolo diverted the Fourth Crusade to sack Constantinople, giving Venice a chain of colonies including Crete. Venice later conquered a mainland empire in northern Italy, but Ottoman wars and new ocean trade routes eroded its power, and Napoleon ended the republic in 1797.","legacy":"Venice was a model of republican government and commerce, and its art, architecture and canals made it one of the world's most celebrated cities.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Venice: History","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Venice/History"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Republic of Venice","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Venice"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Enrico Dandolo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Dandolo"}]},{"id":"grand-duchy-of-moscow","name":"Grand Duchy of Moscow (Muscovy)","aliases":["Grand Duchy of Moscow"],"clio":["Grand Principality of Moscow"],"region":"europe","start":1263,"end":1547,"capital":"Moscow","peak":{"year":1533,"areaKm2":2800000,"note":"At the death of Vasili III, after absorbing Novgorod, Tver and Pskov; already c. 2.5M km² by 1505"},"rulers":[{"name":"Daniel of Moscow","reign":"c. 1263 – 1303","note":"First prince of Moscow"},{"name":"Ivan I Kalita","reign":"1325 – 1340","note":"Won the title of grand prince from the Golden Horde"},{"name":"Dmitry Donskoy","reign":"1359 – 1389","note":"Defeated a Mongol army at Kulikovo in 1380"},{"name":"Ivan III the Great","reign":"1462 – 1505","note":"Annexed Novgorod and ended tribute to the Horde"},{"name":"Vasili III","reign":"1505 – 1533","note":"Completed the gathering of the Russian lands"},{"name":"Ivan IV","reign":"1533 – 1547 (as grand prince)","note":"Crowned tsar in 1547"}],"summary":"Moscow was a minor town when Daniel, youngest son of Alexander Nevsky, received it around 1263. Its princes rose by serving the Mongol Golden Horde as tax collectors; Ivan I gained the title of grand prince and persuaded the head of the Russian Church to settle in Moscow. Dmitry Donskoy defeated a Mongol army at Kulikovo in 1380, showing the Horde could be beaten. Ivan III annexed the rich republic of Novgorod in 1478, ended tribute to the Horde after the stand on the Ugra river in 1480, married a Byzantine princess and adopted the double-headed eagle. His son Vasili III completed the gathering of the Russian lands. In 1547 Ivan IV was crowned tsar, turning the grand duchy into the Tsardom of Russia.","legacy":"Muscovy was the nucleus of the Russian state, which grew into the largest country in the world.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Grand Principality of Moscow","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Grand-Principality-of-Moscow"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Grand Principality of Moscow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Principality_of_Moscow"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ivan I of Moscow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_I_of_Moscow"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Vasili III of Russia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_III_of_Russia"}]},{"id":"caliphate-of-cordoba","name":"Umayyad Emirate and Caliphate of Córdoba","aliases":["Emirate of Córdoba","Caliphate of Córdoba"],"clio":["Emirate of Córdoba","Caliphate of Córdoba"],"region":"europe","start":756,"end":1031,"capital":"Córdoba (with the palace-city of Madinat al-Zahra)","peak":{"year":1000,"areaKm2":600000,"note":"Most of the Iberian Peninsula plus parts of North Africa under al-Mansur; c. 0.6M km² c. 1000 (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Abd al-Rahman I","reign":"756 – 788","note":"Umayyad refugee who founded the emirate"},{"name":"Abd al-Rahman II","reign":"822 – 852","note":"Patron of culture and builder"},{"name":"Abd al-Rahman III","reign":"912 – 961","note":"Declared himself caliph in 929"},{"name":"al-Hakam II","reign":"961 – 976","note":"Scholar-caliph with a famous library"},{"name":"al-Mansur (Almanzor)","reign":"chamberlain 978 – 1002","note":"Real ruler who raided the Christian north"},{"name":"Hisham III","reign":"1027 – 1031","note":"Last caliph"}],"summary":"When the Abbasids massacred the Umayyad family in 750, the young prince Abd al-Rahman escaped to Spain and seized Córdoba in 756, founding an independent emirate in al-Andalus. His successors governed a diverse society of Arabs, Berbers, Muslim converts, Christians and Jews, and Córdoba grew into western Europe's largest and most sophisticated city, with its Great Mosque, libraries and paved, lit streets. In 929 Abd al-Rahman III declared himself caliph, rivalling the Fatimids and Abbasids. Under him and the powerful chamberlain al-Mansur, who raided the Christian north and sacked Santiago de Compostela, the caliphate dominated Iberia. After al-Mansur's sons died, civil war broke out in 1009, and the caliphate was abolished in 1031, splitting into small rival kingdoms called taifas.","legacy":"Umayyad Córdoba was a beacon of learning, poetry and architecture whose Great Mosque still stands, and through al-Andalus much classical and Arabic knowledge reached Christian Europe.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Umayyad dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Umayyad-dynasty-Islamic-history"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Umayyad state of Córdoba","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_state_of_C%C3%B3rdoba"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abd al-Rahman III","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahman_III"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"achaemenid-empire","name":"Achaemenid Empire","aliases":["Achaemenid Empire"],"clio":["Achaemenid Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-550,"end":-330,"capital":"Pasargadae, Susa, Persepolis, Ecbatana and Babylon","peak":{"year":-500,"areaKm2":5500000,"note":"Under Darius I, from Egypt and Thrace to the Indus; c. 5.5M km² c. 500 BCE (Taagepera 1979); c. 5.5M km² c. 500 BCE (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Cyrus II the Great","reign":"559 – 530 BCE","note":"Founder; conquered Media, Lydia and Babylon"},{"name":"Cambyses II","reign":"530 – 522 BCE","note":"Conquered Egypt"},{"name":"Darius I","reign":"522 – 486 BCE","note":"Organised the satrapies and built Persepolis"},{"name":"Xerxes I","reign":"486 – 465 BCE","note":"Invaded Greece"},{"name":"Artaxerxes I","reign":"465 – 424 BCE","note":"Said to have made peace with Athens (the disputed Peace of Callias)"},{"name":"Darius III","reign":"336 – 330 BCE","note":"Last king, defeated by Alexander"}],"summary":"Cyrus the Great, king of the Persians in south-west Iran, overthrew his Median overlords in 550 BCE and went on to conquer Lydia and Babylon, creating the largest empire the world had yet seen. His son Cambyses added Egypt, and Darius I extended it to the Indus and into Europe. Darius organised the empire into provinces called satrapies, each paying set tribute, linked by the Royal Road and a fast courier service, and introduced standard gold coinage. The Persians generally tolerated local religions and customs, and Cyrus allowed exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem. Attempts to conquer Greece failed at Marathon and Salamis. Weakened by court intrigue and revolts, the empire fell to Alexander the Great, and Darius III was murdered in 330 BCE.","legacy":"The Achaemenids created the model of a tolerant, well-organised world empire, and Persepolis remains a symbol of Iranian identity.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Achaemenian Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Achaemenian-Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Achaemenid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cyrus the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Peace of Callias","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Callias"}]},{"id":"parthian-empire","name":"Parthian Empire","aliases":["Parthia","Parthian Empire"],"clio":["Parthian Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-247,"end":224,"capital":"Nisa and Hecatompylos, later Ecbatana and Ctesiphon","peak":{"year":-100,"areaKm2":2800000,"note":"Under Mithridates II, from the Euphrates to Afghanistan; Taagepera (1979) gives c. 2.8M km² around 1 CE; c. 2.8M km², dated c. 1 CE (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Arsaces I","reign":"c. 247 – 217 BCE","note":"Founder of the Arsacid dynasty"},{"name":"Mithridates I","reign":"c. 165 – 132 BCE","note":"Conquered Media and Mesopotamia"},{"name":"Mithridates II","reign":"c. 124 – 91 BCE","note":"Brought the empire to its height"},{"name":"Orodes II","reign":"c. 57 – 37 BCE","note":"His army destroyed Crassus at Carrhae"},{"name":"Vologases I","reign":"c. 51 – 78 CE","note":"Won Armenia for his brother after war with Rome"},{"name":"Artabanus IV","reign":"c. 213 – 224 CE","note":"Last king, overthrown by Ardashir"}],"summary":"The Parthians were an Iranian nomadic people, the Parni, who settled in the province of Parthia south-east of the Caspian Sea. Their leader Arsaces I founded the Arsacid dynasty around 247 BCE and, about 238 BCE, seized Parthia from its rebel Seleucid governor Andragoras. Mithridates I conquered Media and Mesopotamia, and by about 100 BCE Parthia stretched from the Euphrates to Afghanistan, controlling the overland Silk Road between Rome and China. The empire was decentralised, with great noble families and vassal kings holding much power, and its armoured cavalry and horse archers were formidable: at Carrhae in 53 BCE they destroyed a Roman army under Crassus. For nearly three centuries Parthia and Rome fought over Armenia and Mesopotamia. Weakened by Roman invasions and civil wars, the last king, Artabanus IV, was overthrown by the Persian Ardashir in 224.","legacy":"Parthia was Rome's great eastern rival for three centuries and kept Silk Road trade flowing; the Parthian shot, a backward arrow fired while retreating, survives as an English expression.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Parthia","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Parthia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Parthian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mithridates II of Parthia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_II_of_Parthia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mithridates I of Parthia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_I_of_Parthia"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Arsaces I of Parthia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsaces_I_of_Parthia"}]},{"id":"sasanian-empire","name":"Sasanian Empire","aliases":["Sasanian Empire","Sasanian dependencies"],"clio":["Sasanian Empire","(Alliance between Sasanian Empire and Byzantine Empire)"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":224,"end":651,"capital":"Ctesiphon","peak":{"year":550,"areaKm2":3500000,"note":"Under Khosrow I; Khosrow II briefly also held Egypt and the Levant c. 619 – 628; c. 3.5M km² c. 550 (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ardashir I","reign":"224 – 242","note":"Founder; overthrew the Parthians"},{"name":"Shapur I","reign":"240 – 270","note":"Captured the Roman emperor Valerian"},{"name":"Shapur II","reign":"309 – 379","note":"Long reign of wars with Rome"},{"name":"Khosrow I Anushirvan","reign":"531 – 579","note":"Reformer and patron of learning"},{"name":"Khosrow II","reign":"590 – 628","note":"Conquered Egypt and the Levant, then lost them"},{"name":"Yazdegerd III","reign":"632 – 651","note":"Last shah, killed after the Arab conquest"}],"summary":"Ardashir, a Persian ruler from Fars in south-west Iran, overthrew the last Parthian king in 224 and founded the Sasanian dynasty, which saw itself as heir to the Achaemenids. The Sasanians built a more centralised state than the Parthians, with Zoroastrianism as an official religion, a powerful priesthood and strong armoured cavalry. Shapur I defeated Gordian III, forced Philip the Arab to buy peace and captured Valerian in 260. For four centuries Persia was the equal of Rome and then Byzantium, fighting over Armenia, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus. Khosrow I reformed taxes and patronised learning. Khosrow II briefly conquered Egypt and the Levant, but a Byzantine counter-attack and civil war exhausted the empire. Arab Muslim armies defeated it at al-Qadisiyya and Nahavand, and the last shah, Yazdegerd III, was killed in 651.","legacy":"Sasanian art, court culture and administration deeply influenced the Islamic caliphates, Byzantium and lands as far away as China.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Sasanian dynasty","url":"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sasanian-dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sasanian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Khosrow II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khosrow_II"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shapur I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_I"}]},{"id":"maurya-empire","name":"Maurya Empire","aliases":["Mauryan Empire"],"clio":["Maurya Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-322,"end":-185,"capital":"Pataliputra (modern Patna)","peak":{"year":-250,"areaKm2":3400000,"note":"Under Ashoka, almost all of South Asia except the far south; c. 3.4M km² c. 261 BCE (Taagepera 1979), while Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006) give c. 5.0M km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Chandragupta Maurya","reign":"c. 322 – 298 BCE","note":"Founder; overthrew the Nanda dynasty"},{"name":"Bindusara","reign":"c. 298 – 273 BCE","note":"Extended the empire south"},{"name":"Ashoka","reign":"c. 268 – 232 BCE","note":"Conquered Kalinga, then embraced Buddhism and non-violence"},{"name":"Brihadratha","reign":"c. 187 – 185 BCE","note":"Last emperor, killed by his general Pushyamitra Shunga"}],"summary":"Around 322 BCE Chandragupta Maurya, reportedly guided by the minister Chanakya (Kautilya), overthrew the Nanda kings of Magadha in the Ganges valley. Moving into the vacuum left by Alexander's withdrawal, he conquered the north-west and later won Afghan territory from Seleucus I. His son Bindusara pushed south, and his grandson Ashoka conquered Kalinga in a war so bloody that he turned to Buddhism. Ashoka promoted dhamma, a code of non-violence, tolerance and welfare, carved in edicts on rocks and pillars across the empire, and sent Buddhist missionaries abroad. The Mauryas ruled through a large bureaucracy, spies and a standing army, as described in the Arthashastra. After Ashoka the empire shrank, and in about 185 BCE the general Pushyamitra Shunga killed the last emperor.","legacy":"The Mauryas first unified most of the Indian subcontinent, and Ashoka's lion capital and wheel are now India's national emblem and the symbol on its flag.","sources":[{"title":"Britannica: Mauryan Empire","url":"https://www.britannica.com/place/Mauryan-Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Maurya Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashoka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires, Journal of World-Systems Research 12(2), Table 1","url":"https://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/jwsr/article/download/369/381"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1978/1979/1997 and Turchin et al. 2006 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.B, The time of the Mauryan Empire, 321-181 B.C.","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_time_of_the_Mauryan_Empire_321-181_B.C.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"id":"kushan-empire","name":"Kushan Empire","aliases":["Kushan Empire","Kushan Principalities"],"clio":["Kushan Empire","Eastern Kushans","Western Kushans"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":30,"end":375,"capital":"Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura; summer capital at Kapisa (Bagram)","peak":{"year":200,"areaKm2":2000000,"note":"From Central Asia to the Ganges plain, built by Kanishka and held by his successors; c. 2.0M km² around 200 CE (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), with some estimates up to 2.5M km² (Taagepera 1979)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Kujula Kadphises","reign":"c. 30 – 80","note":"United the Yuezhi clans and founded the empire"},{"name":"Vima Kadphises","reign":"c. 113 – 127 (dates debated)","note":"Expanded into India and issued gold coins"},{"name":"Kanishka I","reign":"c. 127 – 150","note":"Greatest Kushan ruler, patron of Buddhism"},{"name":"Huvishka","reign":"c. 150 – 190","note":"Ruled at the empire's prosperous height"},{"name":"Vasudeva I","reign":"c. 190 – 230","note":"Last great Kushan emperor"}],"summary":"The Kushans descended from the Yuezhi, nomads driven from western China by the Xiongnu, who settled in Bactria (northern Afghanistan) in the 2nd century BCE. In the 1st century CE Kujula Kadphises united the five Yuezhi clans and crossed the Hindu Kush into northern India. Under Kanishka, the most famous ruler, the empire reached from Central Asia across Gandhara to the Ganges valley. Sitting astride the Silk Road, the Kushans grew rich on trade between Rome, Parthia, India and China, and their gold coins show Greek, Persian, Indian and local gods side by side. Kanishka patronised Buddhism, and Gandhara art blended Greek and Indian styles. From the 3rd century the Sasanians conquered the western lands, and the remaining Kushan principalities faded by the late 4th century.","legacy":"The Kushans helped carry Buddhism along the Silk Road to China, and Gandhara art produced some of the earliest images of the Buddha in human form.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kushan Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kanishka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanishka"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Vima Kadphises","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vima_Kadphises"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.C.2, The Satavahana-Saka-Kusana age, c. A.D. 1-300","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Satavahana-Saka-Kusana_age_c._A.D._1-300.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. II: The Age of Imperial Unity (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/ageofimperialuni07bhar"}]},{"id":"gupta-empire","name":"Gupta Empire","aliases":["Gupta Empire"],"clio":["Gupta Empire","(Alliance between Gupta Empire and Vakataka Kingdom)"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":320,"end":550,"capital":"Pataliputra; Ujjain as a secondary capital","peak":{"year":400,"areaKm2":3500000,"note":"Under Chandragupta II, across northern India with tributaries beyond; c. 3.5M km² around 400 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), though a much lower c. 1.7M km² for 440 is cited from Taagepera (1979)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Chandragupta I","reign":"c. 320 – 335","note":"Took the title great king of kings"},{"name":"Samudragupta","reign":"c. 335 – 375","note":"Conquered much of the subcontinent"},{"name":"Chandragupta II","reign":"c. 375 – 415","note":"Added western India; golden age of culture"},{"name":"Kumaragupta I","reign":"c. 415 – 455","note":"Traditionally credited with founding the monastery-university of Nalanda"},{"name":"Skandagupta","reign":"c. 455 – 467","note":"Repelled the first Hun invasions"}],"summary":"The Gupta dynasty rose in the Ganges valley, and Chandragupta I took the title great king of kings around 320. His son Samudragupta campaigned across the subcontinent, defeating northern kings and forcing southern rulers to pay tribute, and Chandragupta II added western India. The Guptas ruled the heartland directly and controlled outer regions through vassals. Their era is often called India's classical age: Sanskrit literature flourished with the poet Kalidasa, Aryabhata calculated the Earth's rotation and used a place-value number system, and Hindu temple architecture took shape, while Buddhist monasteries such as Nalanda thrived. From the late 5th century invasions by the Alchon Huns, together with the rise of regional rulers, broke up the empire by about 550.","legacy":"The Gupta age set enduring standards in Indian art, literature, mathematics and astronomy, and the decimal numerals it refined reached the world through Arab scholars.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Gupta Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Samudragupta","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudragupta"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kumaragupta I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumaragupta_I"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Gupta Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Gupta_Empire/"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. III.D, The Gupta-Vakataka Age, c. A.D. 300-500","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Gupta-Vakataka_Age_c._A.D._300-500.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. III: The Classical Age (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/classicalage03bhar"}]},{"id":"chola-empire","name":"Chola Empire","aliases":["Chola","Cholas","Chola Empire"],"clio":["Chola Empire","Early Cholas"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":-300,"end":1279,"capital":"Uraiyur; later Thanjavur and Gangaikonda Cholapuram","peak":{"year":1030,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Under Rajendra I, southern India and Sri Lanka, with naval raids on Srivijaya (rough estimate; not covered by Taagepera or Turchin; this atlas's map shows only c. 0.5M km² under direct rule)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Karikala","reign":"c. 2nd century CE","note":"Celebrated early Chola king of Tamil poetry"},{"name":"Vijayalaya","reign":"c. 848 – 871","note":"Revived the dynasty by capturing Thanjavur"},{"name":"Rajaraja I","reign":"985 – 1014","note":"Built the Brihadeeswarar temple; conquered northern Sri Lanka"},{"name":"Rajendra I","reign":"1014 – 1044","note":"Marched to the Ganges and raided Srivijaya by sea"},{"name":"Kulottunga I","reign":"1070 – 1122","note":"United the Chola and Eastern Chalukya lines"},{"name":"Rajendra III","reign":"1246 – 1279","note":"Last Chola king, defeated by the Pandyas"}],"summary":"The Cholas were one of the three ancient Tamil ruling families of southern India, mentioned in Ashoka's edicts and in early Tamil Sangam poetry. After centuries in the shadow of the Pallavas and Pandyas, Vijayalaya revived the dynasty around 848 by capturing Thanjavur. Rajaraja I and his son Rajendra I built an empire covering southern India and Sri Lanka, sent an army to the Ganges and launched a naval expedition against Srivijaya in 1025, projecting power across the Bay of Bengal. The Cholas ran an efficient administration with self-governing village assemblies, promoted trade with China and South-east Asia, and built great Shiva temples such as the Brihadeeswarar at Thanjavur. Wars with the Chalukyas and Pandyas weakened them, and the Pandyas ended the dynasty in 1279.","legacy":"Chola bronzes, temples and maritime trade spread Tamil culture across South-east Asia, and their great temples remain living places of worship.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Chola Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chola dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kulottunga I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulottunga_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rajendra III","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_III"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. IV.2, The age of the Ghaznavids, Cahmanas, Later Calukyas, and Colas, c. 975-1200","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_age_of_the_Ghaznavids_Cahmanas_Later_Calukyas_and_Colas_c._975-1200.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. V: The Struggle for Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforempir05bhar"}]},{"id":"delhi-sultanate","name":"Delhi Sultanate","aliases":["Sultanate of Delhi"],"clio":["(Delhi Sultanate)","Mamluk Dynasty","Khalji Dynasty","Tughlaq Dynasty","Sayyid Dynasty","Lodi Dynasty","(Allegiance of Delhi Sultanate to Abbasid Caliphate)"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1206,"end":1526,"capital":"Delhi (briefly Daulatabad from 1327; Agra under the later Lodis)","peak":{"year":1312,"areaKm2":3200000,"note":"Under Alauddin Khalji, after his conquests in the Deccan; c. 3.2M km² in 1312 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006). Schwartzberg (Historical Atlas of South Asia, pl. V) and this atlas's map instead show the widest extent under Muhammad bin Tughluq in the 1330s."},"rulers":[{"name":"Qutb ud-Din Aibak","reign":"1206 – 1210","note":"Founder; began the Qutb Minar"},{"name":"Iltutmish","reign":"1211 – 1236","note":"Consolidated the sultanate"},{"name":"Razia Sultana","reign":"1236 – 1240","note":"The only woman to rule the Delhi Sultanate"},{"name":"Alauddin Khalji","reign":"1296 – 1316","note":"Repelled the Mongols and raided the south"},{"name":"Muhammad bin Tughluq","reign":"1325 – 1351","note":"Ambitious ruler whose realm briefly reached the far south"},{"name":"Firuz Shah Tughluq","reign":"1351 – 1388","note":"Builder of canals, towns and forts"},{"name":"Ibrahim Lodi","reign":"1517 – 1526","note":"Last sultan, killed by Babur at Panipat"}],"summary":"After Muhammad of Ghor conquered northern India, his Turkic slave-general Qutb ud-Din Aibak made himself sultan at Delhi in 1206. Five dynasties followed: the Mamluks, Khaljis, Tughluqs, Sayyids and Lodis. The sultans ruled through a Turkic and Afghan military elite granted revenue rights over land, and they repelled repeated Mongol invasions. Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughluq pushed deep into southern India, briefly ruling most of the subcontinent, but rebellions created independent states such as the Bahmani and Vijayanagara kingdoms. Timur's sack of Delhi in 1398 left the sultanate a regional power. Persian became the language of government, and Indo-Islamic architecture such as the Qutb Minar flourished. Babur defeated the last sultan, Ibrahim Lodi, at Panipat in 1526, founding the Mughal Empire.","legacy":"The sultanate established Islam as a lasting force in South Asia and fostered the blending of cultures that produced the Urdu language and Indo-Islamic architecture.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Delhi Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qutb Minar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb_Minar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Razia Sultan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razia_Sultan"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, South Asia in the time of the Khaljis and Tughluqs, c. 1290-1390","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/South_Asia_in_the_time_of_the_Khaljis_and_Tughluqs_c._1290-1390.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VI: The Delhi Sultanate (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/delhisultanate00bhar"}]},{"id":"vijayanagara-empire","name":"Vijayanagara Empire","aliases":["Vijayanagara"],"clio":["Vijayanagara Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1336,"end":1646,"capital":"Vijayanagara (Hampi); later Penukonda, Chandragiri and Vellore","peak":{"year":1520,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"Under Krishnadevaraya, almost all of India south of the Krishna river (rough estimate; other estimates run to c. 880,000 km²)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Harihara I","reign":"1336 – 1356","note":"Co-founder of the Sangama dynasty"},{"name":"Bukka Raya I","reign":"1356 – 1377","note":"Co-founder; extended rule across the south"},{"name":"Deva Raya II","reign":"1424 – 1446","note":"Height of the Sangama dynasty"},{"name":"Krishnadevaraya","reign":"1509 – 1529","note":"Greatest emperor, poet and patron"},{"name":"Aliya Rama Raya","reign":"regent 1542 – 1565","note":"Killed at the Battle of Talikota"},{"name":"Sriranga III","reign":"1642 – 1646","note":"Last emperor"}],"summary":"Vijayanagara was founded in 1336 by the brothers Harihara and Bukka of the Sangama dynasty, in the wake of the Delhi Sultanate's raids into southern India. From their capital on the Tungabhadra river they united the Hindu kingdoms of the south, and for two centuries fought the Bahmani sultanate and its successors for the fertile Raichur Doab. Under Krishnadevaraya the empire covered almost all of India south of the Krishna river. Its capital was one of the largest and richest cities in the world, admired by Persian and Portuguese visitors for its markets, temples and waterworks. Revenue came from land and a busy trade in horses, spices and cotton. In 1565 the allied Deccan sultanates crushed its army at Talikota and sacked the capital, and the empire lingered in decline until 1646.","legacy":"The ruins of Hampi are a World Heritage Site, and Vijayanagara patronage helped preserve and develop South Indian music, literature and temple architecture.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Vijayanagara Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayanagara_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Krishnadevaraya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishnadevaraya"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. V, South Asia in the time of the Lodis, 1451-1526","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/South_Asia_in_the_time_of_the_Lodis_1451-1526.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VI: The Delhi Sultanate (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/delhisultanate00bhar"}]},{"id":"umayyad-caliphate","name":"Umayyad Caliphate","aliases":["Umayyad Caliphate"],"clio":["Umayyad Caliphate"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":661,"end":750,"capital":"Damascus","peak":{"year":720,"areaKm2":11100000,"note":"From Spain and Morocco to the Indus and Central Asia; c. 11.1M km² in 720 (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Muawiya I","reign":"661 – 680","note":"Founder; made the caliphate hereditary"},{"name":"Abd al-Malik","reign":"685 – 705","note":"Made Arabic the language of government; built the Dome of the Rock"},{"name":"al-Walid I","reign":"705 – 715","note":"Conquests of Spain, Sindh and Transoxiana"},{"name":"Umar II","reign":"717 – 720","note":"Pious reformer"},{"name":"Hisham","reign":"724 – 743","note":"Last strong Umayyad caliph"},{"name":"Marwan II","reign":"744 – 750","note":"Last caliph, defeated by the Abbasids"}],"summary":"After the murder of the fourth caliph Ali, Muawiya, governor of Syria and a member of the Meccan Umayyad clan, became caliph in 661 and made the office hereditary. Ruling from Damascus, the Umayyads continued the Arab conquests on an enormous scale: North Africa, Spain, Transoxiana and Sindh were all taken by the early 8th century, creating one of the largest empires in history. Abd al-Malik made Arabic the language of government, introduced Islamic coinage and built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Arab Muslims formed a privileged ruling class, which angered non-Arab converts and supporters of Ali's family. A revolt that began in Khurasan in 747 led to the dynasty's overthrow by the Abbasids in 750, although one prince escaped to found an Umayyad emirate in Spain.","legacy":"The Umayyads spread Islam and the Arabic language from the Atlantic to India, laying the foundations of the Islamic world.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Umayyad Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Umayyad Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Umayyad_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"}]},{"id":"abbasid-caliphate","name":"Abbasid Caliphate","aliases":["Abbasid Caliphate"],"clio":["Abbasid Caliphate","Abbasid Caliphate/Buyid Dynasty"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":750,"end":1258,"capital":"Kufa, then Baghdad (from 762) and Samarra (836 – 892)","peak":{"year":750,"areaKm2":11100000,"note":"At its founding, holding almost all the former Umayyad lands from North Africa to Central Asia; c. 11.1M km² in 750 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), falling to c. 8.3M km² by 800 under Harun al-Rashid as Spain and North Africa broke away"},"rulers":[{"name":"al-Saffah","reign":"750 – 754","note":"First Abbasid caliph"},{"name":"al-Mansur","reign":"754 – 775","note":"Founded Baghdad"},{"name":"Harun al-Rashid","reign":"786 – 809","note":"Caliph of the Thousand and One Nights"},{"name":"al-Ma'mun","reign":"813 – 833","note":"Patron of the House of Wisdom"},{"name":"al-Mu'tasim","reign":"833 – 842","note":"Built an army of Turkish slave soldiers"},{"name":"al-Musta'sim","reign":"1242 – 1258","note":"Last caliph in Baghdad, killed by the Mongols"}],"summary":"The Abbasids, descendants of the Prophet's uncle al-Abbas, overthrew the Umayyads in 750 with support from Persian converts in Khurasan. Their second caliph, al-Mansur, founded Baghdad, which became one of the world's largest cities. The Abbasid state adopted Persian-style court ceremony and a bureaucracy run by viziers, and its early centuries were a golden age: under Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun, scholars at the House of Wisdom translated Greek, Persian and Indian works and advanced mathematics, astronomy and medicine. From the 9th century the caliphs relied on Turkish slave soldiers, and provinces broke away under local dynasties. From 945 the Buyids and then the Seljuks held real power in Baghdad. The Mongols under Hulagu sacked Baghdad in 1258 and killed the last caliph, al-Musta'sim.","legacy":"Abbasid scholars preserved and built on ancient learning, giving the world algebra, algorithms and much of the science later passed on to Europe.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Abbasid Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Abbasid Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Abbasid_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera, Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"seljuk-empire","name":"Seljuk Empire and Sultanate of Rum","aliases":["Seljuk Empire","Seljuk Caliphate"],"clio":["Great Seljuk Empire","Seljuk Dynasty","Sultanate of Rum","(Allegiance of Sultanate of Rum to Abbasid Caliphate)"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1037,"end":1308,"capital":"Nishapur, Rayy, Isfahan and Merv; Konya for the Sultanate of Rum","peak":{"year":1080,"areaKm2":3900000,"note":"Under Malik-Shah I, from Anatolia and the Levant to Central Asia; c. 3.9M km² in 1080 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Tughril Beg","reign":"1037 – 1063","note":"Founder; entered Baghdad as sultan in 1055"},{"name":"Alp Arslan","reign":"1063 – 1072","note":"Defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert"},{"name":"Malik-Shah I","reign":"1072 – 1092","note":"Ruled at the empire's height with vizier Nizam al-Mulk"},{"name":"Ahmad Sanjar","reign":"1118 – 1157","note":"Last great sultan of the eastern Seljuks"},{"name":"Kilij Arslan II","reign":"1156 – 1192","note":"Sultan of Rum who defeated Byzantium at Myriokephalon"},{"name":"Kayqubad I","reign":"1220 – 1237","note":"Height of the Sultanate of Rum"}],"summary":"The Seljuks were a clan of Oghuz Turks from the steppes east of the Aral Sea who converted to Sunni Islam. Led by the brothers Tughril and Chaghri, they defeated the Ghaznavids at Dandanaqan in 1040 and swept into Iran, and Tughril entered Baghdad in 1055 as protector of the Abbasid caliph, who named him sultan. His nephew Alp Arslan crushed the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, opening Anatolia to Turkish settlement, and under Malik-Shah and his vizier Nizam al-Mulk the empire stretched from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, with madrasas spreading Sunni learning. After 1092 it fragmented among rival princes, and the eastern branch collapsed after Sanjar's death. A branch in Anatolia, the Sultanate of Rum, flourished at Konya until the Mongols made it a vassal in 1243; it vanished around 1308.","legacy":"The Seljuks brought Turkish peoples into the heart of the Middle East and Anatolia, preparing the way for the Ottomans, and their victories over Byzantium helped trigger the Crusades.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Seljuk Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuk_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sultanate of Rum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Rum"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"ilkhanate","name":"Ilkhanate","aliases":["Ilkhanate"],"clio":["Ilkhanate","(Allegiance of Ilkhanate to Yuan Dynasty)"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1256,"end":1335,"capital":"Maragheh, then Tabriz and Soltaniyeh","peak":{"year":1310,"areaKm2":3750000,"note":"Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus and much of Anatolia; c. 3.75M km² in 1310 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hulagu","reign":"1256 – 1265","note":"Founder; sacked Baghdad in 1258"},{"name":"Abaqa","reign":"1265 – 1282","note":"Fought the Mamluks and the Golden Horde"},{"name":"Arghun","reign":"1284 – 1291","note":"Sought alliances with European kings"},{"name":"Ghazan","reign":"1295 – 1304","note":"Converted to Islam and reformed the state"},{"name":"Öljaitü","reign":"1304 – 1316","note":"Built the great dome of Soltaniyeh"},{"name":"Abu Sa'id","reign":"1316 – 1335","note":"Last effective Ilkhan"}],"summary":"The Ilkhanate was the Mongol khanate in Iran, founded by Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan, who was sent west by his brother, the Great Khan Möngke. Hulagu destroyed the fortresses of the Assassins and sacked Baghdad in 1258, ending the Abbasid caliphate, but his advance into Syria was stopped by the Mamluks in 1260. The Ilkhans ruled Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus and Anatolia, fought the Golden Horde and the Mamluks, and exchanged embassies with the pope and European kings. In 1295 Ghazan converted to Islam and, with his vizier Rashid al-Din, reformed taxation and patronised learning; Rashid al-Din's world history is a landmark. Ilkhanid Tabriz became a hub of trade and art linking China and the west. When Abu Sa'id died without an heir in 1335, the khanate collapsed into rival successor states.","legacy":"The Ilkhanate reconnected Iran with China, blending Persian and Chinese art and shaping the later tradition of Persian miniature painting.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ilkhanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilkhanate"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Ilkhanate","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Ilkhanate/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"timurid-empire","name":"Timurid Empire","aliases":["Timurid Empire","Timurid Emirates"],"clio":["Timurid Empire"],"region":"north-central-asia","start":1370,"end":1507,"capital":"Samarkand; later Herat","peak":{"year":1405,"areaKm2":4400000,"note":"At Timur's death, from Anatolia to northern India; c. 4.4M km² in 1405 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Timur (Tamerlane)","reign":"1370 – 1405","note":"Founder and conqueror"},{"name":"Shah Rukh","reign":"1405 – 1447","note":"Ruled from Herat; patron of the arts"},{"name":"Ulugh Beg","reign":"1447 – 1449","note":"Astronomer-king who built the Samarkand observatory"},{"name":"Abu Sa'id Mirza","reign":"1451 – 1469","note":"Briefly reunited much of the empire"},{"name":"Sultan Husayn Bayqara","reign":"1469 – 1506","note":"Last great Timurid; his Herat court was a cultural centre"}],"summary":"Timur, known in Europe as Tamerlane, was a Turkic-Mongol warlord from Transoxiana who made himself master of the western Chagatai lands in 1370. Claiming to restore Genghis Khan's empire, though he ruled through puppet khans and called himself emir, he spent 35 years campaigning: he devastated Iran, crushed the Golden Horde, sacked Delhi in 1398 and defeated the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I at Ankara in 1402. His conquests were brutal, marked by towers of skulls, but he filled Samarkand with captured craftsmen and splendid buildings. After his death in 1405, while marching on China, his son Shah Rukh held the core together from Herat, and his grandson Ulugh Beg built a famous observatory. The empire then splintered among princes and fell to the Uzbeks and Safavids by 1507.","legacy":"The Timurid courts at Samarkand and Herat sparked a brilliant flowering of Persian art, architecture and science, and Timur's descendant Babur founded the Mughal Empire.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Timurid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timurid_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abu Sa'id Mirza","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Sa'id_Mirza"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"ottoman-empire","name":"Ottoman Empire","aliases":["Ottoman Empire","Ottoman Sultanate"],"clio":["Ottoman Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1299,"end":1922,"capital":"Söğüt, Bursa and Edirne, then Constantinople (Istanbul) from 1453","peak":{"year":1683,"areaKm2":5200000,"note":"Before the failed second siege of Vienna; c. 5.2M km² in 1683 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Osman I","reign":"c. 1299 – 1324","note":"Founder of the dynasty"},{"name":"Mehmed II","reign":"1444 – 1446, 1451 – 1481","note":"Conquered Constantinople in 1453"},{"name":"Selim I","reign":"1512 – 1520","note":"Conquered Syria, Egypt and Arabia"},{"name":"Suleiman I the Magnificent","reign":"1520 – 1566","note":"Lawgiver; the empire's golden age"},{"name":"Mahmud II","reign":"1808 – 1839","note":"Abolished the Janissaries and began modernisation"},{"name":"Abdul Hamid II","reign":"1876 – 1909","note":"Autocratic reformer of the late empire"},{"name":"Mehmed VI","reign":"1918 – 1922","note":"Last sultan"}],"summary":"The Ottomans began as one of many small Turkish principalities in north-west Anatolia, led around 1299 by Osman, from whom the dynasty takes its name. Combining frontier warfare against Byzantium with skilful alliances, his successors expanded into the Balkans, and in 1453 Mehmed II captured Constantinople. Selim I conquered the Mamluk lands of Syria, Egypt and Arabia, and under Suleiman the Magnificent the empire reached Hungary and dominated the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. The sultans ruled a multi-ethnic, multi-faith realm through a slave-based elite, including the Janissary infantry, and allowed religious communities to manage their own affairs. From the late 17th century the empire lost territory to Austria and Russia and, despite modernising reforms, was dismantled after defeat in the First World War; the sultanate was abolished in 1922.","legacy":"For six centuries the Ottomans linked Europe, Asia and Africa, and their legacy shapes the borders, cuisines and politics of the Balkans and the Middle East today.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ottoman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Ottoman Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Ottoman_Empire/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"xiongnu","name":"Xiongnu Empire","aliases":["Xiongnu","Southern Xiongnu"],"clio":["Xiongnu","Southern Xiongnu"],"region":"east-asia","start":-209,"end":216,"capital":"Mobile royal court (ordo) in the Orkhon valley, Mongolia","peak":{"year":-176,"areaKm2":9000000,"note":"Under Modu Chanyu, from Manchuria to the Tarim Basin; c. 9.0M km² (Taagepera 1979; Turchin et al. 2006); c. 9.0M km² in 176 BCE (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006; Taagepera 1979)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Touman","reign":"d. 209 BCE","note":"First chanyu known by name"},{"name":"Modu Chanyu","reign":"209 – 174 BCE","note":"Founder of the steppe empire; trapped the Han founder at Baideng"},{"name":"Laoshang Chanyu","reign":"174 – 161 BCE","note":"Drove the Yuezhi west"},{"name":"Huhanye Chanyu","reign":"58 – 31 BCE","note":"Submitted to the Han during a civil war"}],"summary":"The Xiongnu were a confederation of nomadic peoples on the Mongolian steppe. In 209 BCE Modu killed his father Touman and made himself chanyu, or supreme ruler, uniting the tribes into the first great steppe empire. Modu defeated the Donghu and Yuezhi, and in 200 BCE trapped the founder of the Han dynasty at Baideng, forcing China into treaties that sent silk, grain and princesses as brides to the steppe. The Xiongnu state was a hierarchy of tribal leaders under the chanyu's clan, relying on mounted archers and control of trade. From 133 BCE Emperor Wu of Han launched long wars that pushed them back. Civil wars split the confederation: the southern Xiongnu submitted to the Han and settled inside China, while the northern branch was crushed around 89 to 91 CE.","legacy":"The Xiongnu set the pattern for later steppe empires and for China's frontier policy, and their pressure spurred early Great Wall building and the opening of the Silk Road.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Xiongnu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Herrmann, Historical and Commercial Atlas of China (1935): The Hsiung-nu or Huns in Central Asia, 176 and 128–36 B.C.","url":"https://archive.org/details/kpbc.umk.pl.Kartografia_040_POWER_001_10_258359"}]},{"id":"gokturk-khaganate","name":"Turkic Khaganate (Göktürks)","aliases":["Göktürks","Western Gokturk Khaganate"],"clio":["Göktürk Khaganate","Western Göktürks","Eastern Göktürks","Turks"],"region":"north-central-asia","start":552,"end":744,"capital":"Ötüken in the Orkhon valley (Mongolia); western court at Suyab","peak":{"year":557,"areaKm2":6000000,"note":"From Manchuria towards the Black Sea steppe; c. 6.0M km² in 557 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006; Taagepera 1979)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Bumin Qaghan","reign":"552","note":"Founder; overthrew the Rouran"},{"name":"Istämi","reign":"552 – 576","note":"Ruler of the western wing; dealt with Byzantium and Persia"},{"name":"Muqan Qaghan","reign":"553 – 572","note":"Expanded the empire to its greatest extent"},{"name":"Ilterish Qaghan","reign":"c. 682 – 692","note":"Revived the eastern khaganate after Tang rule"},{"name":"Bilge Qaghan","reign":"716 – 734","note":"Height of the Second Khaganate; honoured in the Orkhon inscriptions"}],"summary":"The Göktürks, or Celestial Turks, were metal-working vassals of the Rouran in the Altai Mountains. In 552 their chief Bumin rebelled, destroyed the Rouran and took the title qaghan, founding the first state to bear the name Turk. Within a generation his brother Istämi and son Muqan had built an empire stretching from Manchuria to the Black Sea, controlling the Silk Road and negotiating with Byzantium, Persia and China. The empire split into eastern and western khaganates around 582, and both fell under Tang Chinese control in the 630s and 650s. In 682 Ilterish revived the eastern khaganate, which reached its height under Bilge Qaghan. Internal strife and an uprising by the Uyghurs, Basmyls and Karluks ended the khaganate in 744.","legacy":"The Göktürks gave their name to the Turkic peoples, and the Orkhon inscriptions are the oldest known texts in a Turkic language.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: First Turkic Khaganate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Turkic_Khaganate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Second Turkic Khaganate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Turkic_Khaganate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Istämi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istämi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Orkhon inscriptions","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkhon_inscriptions"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera, Turchin figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"tibetan-empire","name":"Tibetan Empire","aliases":["Tibetan Empire","Tufan Empire"],"clio":["Tibetan Empire"],"region":"east-asia","start":618,"end":842,"capital":"Lhasa (Rasa)","peak":{"year":800,"areaKm2":4600000,"note":"From the Tarim Basin to Bengal and western China; c. 4.6M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin et al. 2006, for 800); c. 4.6M km² in 800 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Namri Songtsen","reign":"d. c. 618","note":"Began uniting the Tibetan clans"},{"name":"Songtsen Gampo","reign":"c. 618 – 650","note":"Founder of the empire and of Lhasa"},{"name":"Trisong Detsen","reign":"755 – c. 797","note":"Made Buddhism the state religion; took Chang'an in 763"},{"name":"Ralpacan","reign":"c. 815 – 838","note":"Concluded the peace treaty of 821 – 822 with China"},{"name":"Langdarma","reign":"c. 838/841 – 842 (dates debated)","note":"Last emperor; his murder broke up the empire"}],"summary":"The Tibetan Empire was forged in the early 7th century when Namri Songtsen and his son Songtsen Gampo, kings of the Yarlung valley, united the clans of the Tibetan plateau. Songtsen Gampo founded Lhasa, married Nepalese and Chinese princesses, and is credited with introducing Buddhism and a writing system adapted from Indian scripts. Tibetan armies became a major military power: they fought Tang China for control of the Silk Road oasis cities of the Tarim Basin, and in 763 briefly captured the Tang capital, Chang'an. Under Trisong Detsen Buddhism became the state religion and the first monastery, Samye, was built. A peace treaty with China was carved in stone in 822. After the assassination of King Langdarma around 842, succession disputes broke the empire apart.","legacy":"The empire unified Tibet's language and identity and planted the Buddhist tradition that has defined Tibetan civilisation ever since.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tibetan Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Trisong Detsen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisong_Detsen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ralpachen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralpachen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Langdarma","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdarma"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"mongol-empire","name":"Mongol Empire","aliases":["Mongol Empire","Mongols"],"clio":["Mongol Empire"],"region":"east-asia","start":1206,"end":1368,"capital":"Avarga, then Karakorum (from 1235); from 1264 Khanbaliq (Beijing) for the Great Khan","peak":{"year":1270,"areaKm2":24000000,"note":"Largest contiguous land empire in history, from Korea to eastern Europe; c. 24.0M km² (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006, dated 1270; Taagepera 1997 gives 23.5M in 1294 and 24M in 1309)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Genghis Khan","reign":"1206 – 1227","note":"Founder; united the Mongol tribes"},{"name":"Ögedei Khan","reign":"1229 – 1241","note":"Conquered the Jin and sent armies into Europe"},{"name":"Güyük Khan","reign":"1246 – 1248","note":"Short reign marked by family rivalry"},{"name":"Möngke Khan","reign":"1251 – 1259","note":"Launched campaigns against the Song and Baghdad"},{"name":"Kublai Khan","reign":"1260 – 1294","note":"Founded the Yuan dynasty and conquered the Song"}],"summary":"In 1206 an assembly of steppe tribes proclaimed Temüjin as Genghis Khan, ruler of all the Mongols. Reorganising his followers into units of tens, hundreds and thousands loyal to him rather than to their clans, he created a disciplined army of mounted archers that conquered northern China, Central Asia and parts of Persia. His sons and grandsons continued the expansion: Ögedei finished off the Jin dynasty, Batu overran Russia and invaded Poland and Hungary, Hulagu took Baghdad, and Kublai conquered the Song. The Mongols ruled through local officials, a postal relay system and religious tolerance, and their peace made Eurasian trade routes safer than ever. After Möngke's death in 1259 the empire split into four khanates, and Mongol rule in China ended in 1368.","legacy":"The Mongol Empire connected East and West as never before, spreading goods, technologies and ideas, and also the Black Death, across Eurasia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Mongol Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Mongol_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yuan dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"golden-horde","name":"Golden Horde (Ulus of Jochi)","aliases":["Khanate of the Golden Horde","Golden Horde","White Horde","Blue Horde"],"clio":["Golden Horde","(Allegiance of Golden Horde to Yuan Dynasty)","(Alliance between Golden Horde and Timurid Empire)","White Horde","Blue Horde"],"region":"north-central-asia","start":1242,"end":1502,"capital":"Sarai on the lower Volga","peak":{"year":1310,"areaKm2":6000000,"note":"From the Danube to western Siberia; c. 6.0M km² in 1310 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Batu Khan","reign":"1227 – 1255","note":"Led the western campaign and founded Sarai"},{"name":"Berke","reign":"1257 – 1266","note":"First Muslim khan; fought the Ilkhanate"},{"name":"Özbeg Khan","reign":"1313 – 1341","note":"Made Islam the state religion; height of the Horde"},{"name":"Janibeg","reign":"1342 – 1357","note":"Besieged Caffa during the Black Death"},{"name":"Tokhtamysh","reign":"1380 – 1395","note":"Reunited the Horde and burned Moscow, then was crushed by Timur"}],"summary":"The Golden Horde was the north-western part of the Mongol Empire, granted to the descendants of Genghis Khan's eldest son Jochi. After his son Batu's great western campaign of 1236 to 1242 conquered the Volga Bulgars, the Kipchak steppe and the Russian principalities, Batu settled at Sarai on the lower Volga. The khans ruled the steppe directly, while Russian princes kept their thrones as tribute-paying vassals. The Horde grew rich on trade along the Volga and through Black Sea ports, and under Özbeg Khan it adopted Islam. From the 1350s it suffered plague and civil war; Tokhtamysh briefly reunited it, but Timur destroyed Sarai in 1395. It then broke into the khanates of Kazan, Crimea, Astrakhan and others, and the remnant Great Horde was destroyed in 1502.","legacy":"Two centuries of Horde overlordship shaped Russian political traditions, and its Turkic Muslim population included the ancestors of the Volga and Crimean Tatars and the Kazakhs.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Golden Horde","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Batu Khan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Khan"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Golden Horde","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Golden_Horde/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"chagatai-khanate","name":"Chagatai Khanate","aliases":["Chagatai Khanate"],"clio":["Chagatai Khanate","(Allegiance of Chagatai Khanate to Yuan Dynasty)","Moghulistan","Eastern Chagatai Khanate"],"region":"north-central-asia","start":1225,"end":1680,"capital":"Almaliq; later moving royal camps and Qarshi","peak":{"year":1310,"areaKm2":3500000,"note":"Transoxiana, Semirechye, the Tarim Basin and the Afghan borderlands; c. 3.5M km² in 1310 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006 give the same figure for 1350)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Chagatai Khan","reign":"1225 – 1242","note":"Second son of Genghis Khan"},{"name":"Alghu","reign":"1260 – 1266","note":"Made the khanate effectively independent"},{"name":"Duwa","reign":"1282 – 1307","note":"Ally of Kaidu against the Yuan"},{"name":"Kebek","reign":"1318 – 1326","note":"Settled in Transoxiana and reformed coinage"},{"name":"Tarmashirin","reign":"1331 – 1334","note":"Converted to Islam, provoking a nomad revolt"},{"name":"Tughlugh Timur","reign":"1347 – 1363","note":"Khan of Moghulistan in the east"}],"summary":"The Chagatai Khanate was the Central Asian share of the Mongol Empire, given to Genghis Khan's second son Chagatai. It covered Transoxiana, the steppes of Semirechye and the oasis cities of the Tarim Basin. Its khans kept their nomadic way of life longer than the other Mongol branches, and for decades they fought the Yuan and the Ilkhanate, often in alliance with the rebel prince Kaidu. Under Kebek and Tarmashirin the khans began to settle and adopt Islam, which provoked a revolt by the eastern nomads. By the 1340s the khanate had split into a western half in Transoxiana, soon dominated by Timur, and an eastern half known as Moghulistan, where Chagatayid khans ruled until the late 17th century, when the Dzungars took the Tarim Basin.","legacy":"The Chagatai Turkic language, named after the khanate, became the classical literary language of Central Asia and the ancestor of modern Uzbek and Uyghur.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Chagatai Khanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagatai_Khanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kebek","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebek"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Chagatai Khanate","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Chagatai_Khanate/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"shang-dynasty","name":"Shang dynasty","aliases":[],"clio":["Shang Dynasty"],"region":"east-asia","start":-1600,"end":-1046,"capital":"Several in turn, finally Yin (near modern Anyang)","peak":{"year":-1122,"areaKm2":1250000,"note":"Late Shang, the middle and lower Yellow River plain and allied lands; c. 1.25M km² (Taagepera 1978; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), dated 1122 BCE, the traditional date of the Zhou conquest"},"rulers":[{"name":"Tang (Cheng Tang)","reign":"c. 1600 BCE","note":"Founder; overthrew the Xia"},{"name":"Pan Geng","reign":"c. 1300 BCE","note":"Moved the capital to Yin"},{"name":"Wu Ding","reign":"c. 1250 – 1192 BCE","note":"Greatest Shang king, known from oracle bones"},{"name":"Fu Hao","reign":"c. 1200 BCE","note":"Wu Ding's consort and general, whose tomb survives intact"},{"name":"Di Xin","reign":"d. c. 1046 BCE","note":"Last king, defeated by the Zhou at Muye"}],"summary":"The Shang is the earliest Chinese dynasty confirmed by both written records and archaeology. Traditionally founded by Tang around 1600 BCE after overthrowing the Xia, it ruled the middle and lower Yellow River valley. Shang kings governed with the help of relatives and allied lords and moved their capital several times, finally settling at Yin near modern Anyang around 1300 BCE. They practised elaborate ancestor worship, and to ask the spirits about harvests, war and childbirth, diviners cracked oracle bones of turtle shell and ox bone, inscribing the questions in the earliest known Chinese writing. Shang craftsmen cast spectacular bronze vessels, and royal tombs held chariots and human sacrifices. Around 1046 BCE King Wu of Zhou defeated the last Shang king, Di Xin, at the Battle of Muye.","legacy":"Shang oracle-bone script is the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters, making Chinese the world's oldest continuously used writing system.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Shang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Shang Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Shang_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1978), Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 3000 to 600 B.C.","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt6wf6m5qg/qt6wf6m5qg.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"zhou-dynasty","name":"Zhou dynasty","aliases":["Zhoa","Zhou states"],"clio":["Zhou Dynasty","(Spring and Autumn States)","(Warring States China)"],"region":"east-asia","start":-1046,"end":-256,"capital":"Haojing (Western Zhou); Luoyi (Eastern Zhou)","peak":{"year":-1050,"areaKm2":550000,"note":"Western Zhou realm of royal relatives and vassal states; estimates vary widely, Taagepera (1978) giving only c. 0.55M km²; c. 0.55M km² around 1050 BCE (Taagepera 1978), shrinking as the vassals grew independent"},"rulers":[{"name":"King Wen","reign":"d. c. 1050 BCE","note":"Built Zhou power before the conquest"},{"name":"King Wu","reign":"c. 1046 – 1043 BCE","note":"Defeated the Shang at Muye"},{"name":"Duke of Zhou (regent)","reign":"c. 1042 – 1036 BCE","note":"Consolidated the new dynasty; revered by Confucius"},{"name":"King Xuan","reign":"827 – 782 BCE","note":"Briefly restored royal power"},{"name":"King You","reign":"781 – 771 BCE","note":"Killed by invaders, ending the Western Zhou"},{"name":"King Nan","reign":"314 – 256 BCE","note":"Last Zhou king, deposed by Qin"}],"summary":"The Zhou, a people from the Wei valley in the west, overthrew the Shang around 1046 BCE. They justified the conquest with the idea of the Mandate of Heaven: Heaven granted the right to rule to a virtuous dynasty and withdrew it from a corrupt one. The early Western Zhou kings ruled through a feudal network, granting lands to relatives and allies who owed loyalty and military service. In 771 BCE nomadic invaders killed King You and the court moved east to Luoyi, beginning the Eastern Zhou. Royal power then faded, and during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods rival states fought for supremacy; yet this was also the age of Confucius, Laozi and the Hundred Schools of Thought. The state of Qin deposed the last Zhou king in 256 BCE.","legacy":"The Zhou gave China the Mandate of Heaven and the classic texts and philosophies, Confucianism and Daoism above all, that shaped East Asian civilisation for over two thousand years.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhou dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Zhou Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Zhou_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1978), Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 3000 to 600 B.C.","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt6wf6m5qg/qt6wf6m5qg.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"qin-dynasty","name":"Qin dynasty","aliases":["Qin"],"clio":["Qin Dynasty","Qin"],"region":"east-asia","start":-221,"end":-206,"capital":"Xianyang","peak":{"year":-220,"areaKm2":2300000,"note":"Under Qin Shi Huang; c. 2.3M km² in 220 BCE (Taagepera 1979), before campaigns into the Ordos and the far south added more"},"rulers":[{"name":"Duke Xiao of Qin","reign":"361 – 338 BCE","note":"Backed Shang Yang's Legalist reforms"},{"name":"King Zhaoxiang of Qin","reign":"306 – 251 BCE","note":"Won decisive wars against rival states"},{"name":"Qin Shi Huang (Ying Zheng)","reign":"247 – 210 BCE (emperor from 221)","note":"First Emperor of a unified China"},{"name":"Qin Er Shi","reign":"210 – 207 BCE","note":"Second emperor, manipulated by court officials"},{"name":"Ziying","reign":"207 BCE","note":"Last ruler, surrendered to Liu Bang"}],"summary":"Qin was a frontier state in north-west China that, after the harsh Legalist reforms of the minister Shang Yang in the 4th century BCE, built the most efficient army and administration of the Warring States. Between 230 and 221 BCE its king, Ying Zheng, conquered the six rival states and declared himself Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor. He abolished feudal lordships in favour of commanderies run by appointed officials; standardised writing, coins, weights, measures and axle widths; built roads and canals; and linked frontier walls against the Xiongnu. He also burned books and was buried with the famous Terracotta Army. His rule relied on heavy taxes, forced labour and brutal punishments, and after his death in 210 BCE revolts toppled the dynasty in 206 BCE.","legacy":"The Qin created the first unified Chinese empire and its centralised model of government, and probably gave China its name in many languages.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Qin dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Qin Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Qin_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"han-dynasty","name":"Han dynasty","aliases":["Han Empire","Han"],"clio":["Han Dynasty","(Alliance between Han Dynasty and Xiongnu)","Xin Dynasty"],"region":"east-asia","start":-202,"end":220,"capital":"Chang'an; Luoyang under the Eastern Han","peak":{"year":100,"areaKm2":6500000,"note":"Eastern Han, including the Tarim Basin protectorate and parts of Korea and northern Vietnam; c. 6.5M km² in 100 CE (Taagepera 1979); the Western Han peak was c. 6.0M km² in 50 BCE (Taagepera 1979; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang)","reign":"202 – 195 BCE","note":"Commoner who founded the dynasty"},{"name":"Emperor Wu","reign":"141 – 87 BCE","note":"Fought the Xiongnu and opened the Silk Road"},{"name":"Wang Mang","reign":"9 – 23 CE","note":"Usurper who founded the short-lived Xin dynasty"},{"name":"Emperor Guangwu","reign":"25 – 57 CE","note":"Restored the dynasty as the Eastern Han"},{"name":"Emperor Xian","reign":"189 – 220 CE","note":"Last emperor, a puppet of warlords"}],"summary":"After the Qin collapsed, Liu Bang, a commoner turned rebel leader, defeated his rivals and founded the Han dynasty in 202 BCE. The Han kept the Qin's centralised state but softened its harsh laws, and made Confucianism the official ideology, recruiting officials partly through examinations in the classics. Emperor Wu fought the Xiongnu, sent Zhang Qian to Central Asia, helping open the Silk Road, and extended Han rule into Korea, Vietnam and the Tarim Basin. Paper, the seismograph and advances in iron-making date from this era. The usurper Wang Mang briefly interrupted the dynasty, but the Eastern Han was restored in 25 CE. Court eunuchs, land-owning clans, floods and the Yellow Turban rebellion of 184 then weakened it, until warlords took over and the last emperor abdicated in 220.","legacy":"Han rule defined Chinese identity so strongly that China's majority people still call themselves the Han.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Han Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Han_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"sui-dynasty","name":"Sui dynasty","aliases":["Sui Empire"],"clio":["Sui Dynasty"],"region":"east-asia","start":581,"end":618,"capital":"Daxing (Chang'an) and Luoyang","peak":{"year":610,"areaKm2":3100000,"note":"c. 3.0M km² (Taagepera 1979), after reunifying north and south China; c. 3.1M km² in 610 (Taagepera 1997) and c. 3.0M km² at reunification in 589 (Taagepera 1979)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Emperor Wen (Yang Jian)","reign":"581 – 604","note":"Founder; reunified China in 589"},{"name":"Emperor Yang","reign":"604 – 618","note":"Built the Grand Canal; failed against Goguryeo"},{"name":"Emperor Gong","reign":"617 – 618","note":"Child puppet emperor before the Tang takeover"}],"summary":"For nearly three centuries after the fall of the Han, China was divided among rival northern and southern dynasties. In 581 Yang Jian, a general of the Northern Zhou, seized the throne and founded the Sui, and in 589 he conquered the southern Chen dynasty, reunifying China. As Emperor Wen he reformed the laws, redistributed land, rebuilt the bureaucracy and began selecting officials by examination. His son Emperor Yang undertook vast projects, above all the Grand Canal linking the Yellow and Yangtze rivers; he also rebuilt the Great Wall and built a new capital at Luoyang, using millions of forced labourers. His three disastrous invasions of the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo drained the treasury and provoked widespread rebellion. Yang was murdered in 618, and his general Li Yuan founded the Tang.","legacy":"Though short-lived, the Sui reunified China and built the Grand Canal and the institutions on which the Tang golden age rested.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Sui dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Sui Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Sui_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires (Taagepera 1979 figures)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"tang-dynasty","name":"Tang dynasty","aliases":["Tang Empire"],"clio":["Tang Dynasty"],"region":"east-asia","start":618,"end":907,"capital":"Chang'an; secondary capital Luoyang","peak":{"year":715,"areaKm2":5400000,"note":"Including protectorates over the Tarim Basin and Central Asia; c. 5.4M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin et al. 2006, for 715); c. 5.4M km² in 715 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), after an earlier high of c. 4.9M km² around 660"},"rulers":[{"name":"Emperor Gaozu (Li Yuan)","reign":"618 – 626","note":"Founder"},{"name":"Emperor Taizong","reign":"626 – 649","note":"Model ruler who expanded into Central Asia"},{"name":"Emperor Gaozong","reign":"649 – 683","note":"Conquered the Western Turks and Goguryeo"},{"name":"Wu Zetian","reign":"690 – 705","note":"Only woman to rule China as emperor in her own name"},{"name":"Emperor Xuanzong","reign":"712 – 756","note":"Cultural golden age ended by the An Lushan rebellion"},{"name":"Emperor Ai","reign":"904 – 907","note":"Last emperor, deposed by Zhu Wen"}],"summary":"The Tang dynasty was founded in 618 by Li Yuan and consolidated by his son Taizong, one of China's most admired emperors. Tang armies extended Chinese power deep into Central Asia, and the capital Chang'an, perhaps the largest city in the world with around a million people, welcomed merchants, monks and envoys from Persia, Japan and beyond along the Silk Road. Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China as emperor in her own name, governed from 690 to 705. Poetry flourished under Li Bai and Du Fu, Buddhism spread widely and woodblock printing appeared. Under Xuanzong the An Lushan rebellion of 755 to 763 devastated the empire, after which regional military governors grew powerful. Peasant revolts, notably Huang Chao's, finished the dynasty in 907.","legacy":"The Tang is remembered as a golden age of Chinese culture whose laws, city planning, poetry and Buddhism shaped Japan, Korea and Vietnam.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Tang Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Tang_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"song-dynasty","name":"Song dynasty","aliases":["Song Empire"],"clio":["Northern Song","Southern Song","(Allegiance of Southern Song to Great Jin)"],"region":"east-asia","start":960,"end":1279,"capital":"Kaifeng (Northern Song); Lin'an, now Hangzhou (Southern Song)","peak":{"year":980,"areaKm2":3100000,"note":"Northern Song, before the loss of northern China in 1127; c. 3.1M km² (Taagepera 1997, reached by 980); c. 3.1M km² from 980 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Emperor Taizu (Zhao Kuangyin)","reign":"960 – 976","note":"Founder; placed civil officials over generals"},{"name":"Emperor Shenzong","reign":"1067 – 1085","note":"Backed Wang Anshi's sweeping reforms"},{"name":"Emperor Huizong","reign":"1100 – 1126","note":"Artist-emperor captured by the Jurchen"},{"name":"Emperor Gaozong","reign":"1127 – 1162","note":"Founded the Southern Song at Hangzhou"},{"name":"Zhao Bing","reign":"1278 – 1279","note":"Last boy emperor, died at the Battle of Yamen"}],"summary":"In 960 the general Zhao Kuangyin seized power and founded the Song, ending half a century of division. Wary of military strongmen, the Song placed civil officials chosen by competitive examinations in charge of government, and the scholar-official class flourished. The economy boomed: rice farming expanded, cities such as Kaifeng and Hangzhou held a million people, and the Song issued the world's first government paper money. Inventions included movable type, the magnetic compass for navigation and gunpowder weapons. Militarily the Song was weaker, paying tribute to the Liao and Western Xia; in 1127 the Jurchen Jin captured Kaifeng and the court fled south, ruling as the Southern Song from Hangzhou. The Mongols under Kublai Khan conquered it, and the last boy emperor died at the naval Battle of Yamen in 1279.","legacy":"The Song was one of the most inventive and commercially advanced societies of the pre-modern world, and its Neo-Confucian philosophy dominated East Asia for centuries.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Song dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Song Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Song_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"yuan-dynasty","name":"Yuan dynasty","aliases":["Great Khanate"],"clio":["Yuan Dynasty","Northern Yuan"],"region":"east-asia","start":1271,"end":1368,"capital":"Khanbaliq (Dadu, now Beijing); summer capital Shangdu (Xanadu)","peak":{"year":1310,"areaKm2":11000000,"note":"China, Mongolia, Tibet and Manchuria, with Korea as a vassal; c. 11M km² (Taagepera 1997); c. 11.0M km² in 1310 (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Kublai Khan","reign":"1260 – 1294 (Yuan from 1271)","note":"Founder; conquered the Southern Song"},{"name":"Temür Khan (Chengzong)","reign":"1294 – 1307","note":"Made peace with the western khanates"},{"name":"Ayurbarwada (Renzong)","reign":"1311 – 1320","note":"Restored the civil service examinations"},{"name":"Toghon Temür","reign":"1333 – 1368 in China","note":"Last Yuan emperor, fled to Mongolia"}],"summary":"Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, was proclaimed Great Khan in 1260 and in 1271 declared a Chinese-style dynasty called Yuan. He built a new capital at Dadu, modern Beijing, and completed the conquest of the Southern Song in 1279, uniting all of China under foreign rule for the first time. His invasions of Japan and South-east Asia failed. The Yuan divided society into ranked groups, with Mongols and Central Asians above northern and southern Chinese, and relied on foreigners such as Marco Polo, who claimed to have served at court. Trade flourished, paper money circulated widely and the Grand Canal was extended to Beijing. Later rulers were weak and quarrelsome, and inflation, floods and epidemics fuelled the Red Turban rebellion, which drove the Mongols back to the steppe in 1368.","legacy":"The Yuan made Beijing China's capital and joined China, Tibet and Mongolia under one government, a combination later claimed by the Ming and Qing.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Yuan dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Yuan Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Yuan_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"ming-dynasty","name":"Ming dynasty","aliases":["Ming Empire","Ming Chinese Empire"],"clio":["Ming Dynasty"],"region":"east-asia","start":1368,"end":1644,"capital":"Nanjing, then Beijing (from 1421)","peak":{"year":1450,"areaKm2":6500000,"note":"Including loosely held lands in Manchuria and the north-east; c. 6.5M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin et al. 2006); c. 6.5M km² in 1450 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hongwu Emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang)","reign":"1368 – 1398","note":"Peasant-born founder"},{"name":"Yongle Emperor","reign":"1402 – 1424","note":"Moved the capital to Beijing; sent Zheng He's fleets"},{"name":"Xuande Emperor","reign":"1425 – 1435","note":"Stable reign famous for its porcelain"},{"name":"Wanli Emperor","reign":"1572 – 1620","note":"Long reign of growing neglect"},{"name":"Chongzhen Emperor","reign":"1627 – 1644","note":"Last emperor; died as rebels took Beijing"}],"summary":"Zhu Yuanzhang, a former peasant and Buddhist monk who rose to lead the Red Turban rebels, drove out the Mongols and proclaimed the Ming dynasty in 1368, ruling as the Hongwu Emperor. He rebuilt agriculture and concentrated power in the emperor's hands. The Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, built the Forbidden City and sent Admiral Zheng He on great treasure voyages across the Indian Ocean as far as East Africa between 1405 and 1433. The Ming rebuilt the Great Wall in the form seen today, and Ming porcelain and silk were prized worldwide, drawing in vast amounts of silver from Japan and the Americas. Later emperors withdrew from government, and factional strife, war in Korea, famine and rebellion weakened the state. Rebels took Beijing in 1644, and the Manchu Qing dynasty, proclaimed by Hong Taiji in 1636, seized the throne.","legacy":"The Ming left the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and blue-and-white porcelain, and its silver economy tied China into the first global trade networks.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ming dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Ming Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Ming_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qing dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"goryeo","name":"Goryeo","aliases":["Goryeo"],"clio":["Goryeo","(Allegiance of Goryeo to Great Jin)"],"region":"east-asia","start":918,"end":1392,"capital":"Kaegyong (Kaesong)","peak":{"year":1100,"areaKm2":220000,"note":"Most of the Korean peninsula south of the Yalu (approximate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Taejo (Wang Geon)","reign":"918 – 943","note":"Founder; reunified Korea in 936"},{"name":"Gwangjong","reign":"949 – 975","note":"Introduced civil service examinations"},{"name":"Hyeonjong","reign":"1009 – 1031","note":"Defeated the Khitan invasions"},{"name":"Gongmin","reign":"1351 – 1374","note":"Threw off Mongol domination"},{"name":"Gongyang","reign":"1389 – 1392","note":"Last king, deposed by Yi Seong-gye"}],"summary":"Goryeo was founded in 918 by Wang Geon, a general from Kaesong, who reunited Korea after the breakup of Unified Silla by 936; the modern name Korea comes from Goryeo. Its kings built a centralised state on the Chinese model with civil service examinations, while powerful aristocratic families dominated the court. Buddhism was the state religion, and Goryeo is famous for its jade-green celadon pottery and for the Tripitaka Koreana, the Buddhist scriptures carved on more than 80,000 woodblocks. The kingdom repelled Khitan invasions, but from 1170 military officers seized power. After decades of resistance it made peace with the Mongols in 1259 and became a vassal of the Yuan, with its kings marrying Yuan princesses. Weakened by pirate raids and factional strife, it was overthrown by General Yi Seong-gye in 1392.","legacy":"Goryeo gave Korea its name in the West and pioneered printing with movable metal type; the Jikji, printed in 1377, is the oldest surviving example.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Goryeo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goryeo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jikji","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jikji"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gwangjong of Goryeo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangjong_of_Goryeo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol invasions of Korea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Korea"}]},{"id":"joseon","name":"Joseon","aliases":["Korea"],"clio":["Joseon","(Allegiance of Joseon to Ming Dynasty)"],"region":"east-asia","start":1392,"end":1897,"capital":"Hanyang (Seoul)","peak":{"year":1450,"areaKm2":220000,"note":"The whole peninsula up to the Yalu and Tumen rivers"},"rulers":[{"name":"Taejo (Yi Seong-gye)","reign":"1392 – 1398","note":"Founder"},{"name":"Sejong the Great","reign":"1418 – 1450","note":"Created the Hangul alphabet"},{"name":"Seonjo","reign":"1567 – 1608","note":"Reigned during the Japanese invasions"},{"name":"Yeongjo","reign":"1724 – 1776","note":"Long reign of reform and revival"},{"name":"Jeongjo","reign":"1776 – 1800","note":"Patron of learning and builder of Hwaseong Fortress"},{"name":"Gojong","reign":"1864 – 1897 (then emperor to 1907)","note":"Proclaimed the Korean Empire"}],"summary":"General Yi Seong-gye overthrew Goryeo in 1392 and founded the Joseon dynasty, which ruled Korea for five centuries from its new capital, Hanyang, today's Seoul. Joseon adopted Neo-Confucianism as its guiding philosophy, governing through a scholar-bureaucracy selected by examinations and dominated by the yangban aristocracy, while Buddhism lost its privileges. King Sejong the Great sponsored science and in 1443 created Hangul, a simple phonetic alphabet. Joseon survived devastating Japanese invasions in 1592 to 1598, when Admiral Yi Sun-sin's turtle ships won famous victories, and Manchu invasions in the 1620s and 1630s, after which it became a tributary of the Qing and limited foreign contact, earning the name Hermit Kingdom. Forced open by Japan in 1876, it became the Korean Empire in 1897 and was annexed by Japan in 1910.","legacy":"Joseon shaped Korea's language, Confucian social values and national culture, and Hangul remains the Korean alphabet today.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Joseon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sejong the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sejong_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hangul","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul"}]},{"id":"classical-japan","name":"Imperial Japan (Yamato to Kamakura)","aliases":["Yamato","Imperial Japan (Fujiwara)","Shogun Japan (Kamakura)"],"clio":["Asuka Japan","Nara Japan","Heian Japan","Kamakura Shogunate"],"region":"east-asia","start":250,"end":1333,"capital":"Asuka, then Nara (710) and Heian-kyo, now Kyoto (794); Kamakura for the shogunate","peak":{"year":1300,"areaKm2":280000,"note":"Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu (approximate land area)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Empress Suiko","reign":"593 – 628","note":"Reigned with Prince Shotoku as regent; promoted Buddhism"},{"name":"Emperor Kanmu","reign":"781 – 806","note":"Moved the capital to Heian-kyo"},{"name":"Fujiwara no Michinaga","reign":"dominant at court 995 – 1027 (regent 1016 – 1017)","note":"Height of Fujiwara power at court"},{"name":"Minamoto no Yoritomo","reign":"1185 – 1199 (shogun from 1192)","note":"Founded the Kamakura shogunate"},{"name":"Hojo Tokimune","reign":"regent 1268 – 1284","note":"Repelled the Mongol invasions"}],"summary":"From around 250 CE, the age of great keyhole-shaped burial mounds, the Yamato kings of the Nara basin gradually brought the clans of central and western Japan under their rule. Adopting Buddhism, Chinese writing and Tang-style law codes between the 6th and 8th centuries, they became emperors governing from planned capitals at Nara and, from 794, Heian-kyo, now Kyoto. In the Heian period the Fujiwara family ruled as regents for child emperors, and court culture produced masterpieces such as The Tale of Genji. Provincial warrior clans grew powerful, and after the Genpei War Minamoto no Yoritomo set up a military government, the shogunate, at Kamakura in 1185. The Kamakura regents of the Hojo family repelled Mongol invasions in 1274 and 1281, but strained by the cost, the shogunate fell in 1333.","legacy":"This era created Japan's imperial institution, the world's oldest continuous hereditary monarchy, and the samurai culture of the shogunate.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: History of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fujiwara no Michinaga","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujiwara_no_Michinaga"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Heian Period","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Heian_Period/"}]},{"id":"khmer-empire","name":"Khmer Empire","aliases":["Khmer Empire"],"clio":["Khmer Empire"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":802,"end":1431,"capital":"Hariharalaya, then Yashodharapura (Angkor)","peak":{"year":1290,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Much of mainland South-east Asia after the conquests of Jayavarman VII; c. 1.0M km² by 1290 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Jayavarman II","reign":"802 – c. 850 (dates debated)","note":"Founder; declared himself universal monarch"},{"name":"Yasovarman I","reign":"889 – c. 900 (some lists c. 910)","note":"Founded the first city at Angkor"},{"name":"Suryavarman II","reign":"1113 – c. 1150","note":"Built Angkor Wat"},{"name":"Jayavarman VII","reign":"1181 – c. 1218","note":"Buddhist king who built Angkor Thom and the Bayon"}],"summary":"In 802 Jayavarman II declared himself universal monarch in a ceremony on the Kulen hills, freeing the Khmer lands from Javanese overlordship and founding the Angkorian empire in what is now Cambodia. His successors built the city of Angkor near the Tonle Sap lake, supported by a vast system of reservoirs and canals that watered rice fields for perhaps 700,000 people. Khmer kings presented themselves as god-kings linked to Shiva or Vishnu, and later to the Buddha. Suryavarman II built Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument, and Jayavarman VII built Angkor Thom and the Bayon and extended the empire across Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam. From the 13th century wars with the Thai and Cham, strain on the water system and climate shifts weakened Angkor, which Ayutthaya sacked in 1431.","legacy":"Angkor Wat is Cambodia's national symbol and one of humanity's greatest architectural achievements.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Khmer Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jayavarman II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayavarman_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yasovarman I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasovarman_I"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Khmer Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Khmer_Empire/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"srivijaya","name":"Srivijaya","aliases":["Srivijaya Empire"],"clio":["Srivijaya"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":670,"end":1377,"capital":"Palembang (Sumatra); later Jambi","peak":{"year":1200,"areaKm2":1200000,"note":"Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and the Straits of Malacca and Sunda; a loose maritime sphere, so estimates vary widely (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006 give c. 1.2M km² for c. 1200); c. 1.2M km² in 1200 (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), a generous figure for a loose network of ports"},"rulers":[{"name":"Dapunta Hyang Sri Jayanasa","reign":"fl. 682 – 686","note":"Founder known from the earliest Malay inscriptions"},{"name":"Balaputradewa","reign":"mid 9th century","note":"Sailendra prince who ruled Srivijaya and endowed a monastery at Nalanda"},{"name":"Sri Culamanivarman","reign":"c. 1000","note":"Sent embassies to China and built a temple at Nagapattinam"},{"name":"Sangrama Vijayatunggavarman","reign":"c. 1025","note":"Captured during the Chola naval raid"}],"summary":"Srivijaya was a maritime empire centred on Palembang in southern Sumatra, first recorded in the 670s, when the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Yijing studied Sanskrit there. Its rulers grew rich by controlling the Straits of Malacca and Sunda, the sea lanes between China and India, taxing passing ships and suppressing piracy, while drawing on Sumatran gold and forest products. Srivijaya was a federation of port-cities bound to the ruler by oaths, gifts and trade privileges rather than a tightly governed territory. It was a great centre of Mahayana Buddhism, linked with the Sailendra dynasty of Java, which built Borobudur. In 1025 the Chola navy of southern India sacked its ports, beginning a long decline. Rivalry from Javanese states and shifts in Chinese trade weakened it further, and Majapahit absorbed its remnants in the late 14th century.","legacy":"Srivijaya helped make Malay the common language of island South-east Asia, the root of today's Indonesian and Malay.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Srivijaya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srivijaya"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"}]},{"id":"majapahit","name":"Majapahit","aliases":[],"clio":["Majapahit"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1293,"end":1527,"capital":"Trowulan (East Java)","peak":{"year":1365,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Claimed tribute from much of modern Indonesia under Hayam Wuruk; direct rule mainly over Java, Madura and Bali (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Raden Wijaya (Kertarajasa)","reign":"1293 – 1309","note":"Founder; used and then expelled a Mongol army"},{"name":"Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi","reign":"1328 – 1350","note":"Queen who appointed Gajah Mada"},{"name":"Gajah Mada","reign":"prime minister 1331 – 1364","note":"Swore to unite the archipelago"},{"name":"Hayam Wuruk (Rajasanagara)","reign":"1350 – 1389","note":"Ruled at the empire's height"},{"name":"Wikramawardhana","reign":"1389 – 1429","note":"His reign saw a ruinous civil war"}],"summary":"Majapahit was founded in 1293 by Raden Wijaya, a Javanese prince who cleverly used an invading Mongol army sent by Kublai Khan to defeat his rival, then turned on the Mongols and drove them out. From its capital at Trowulan in East Java the kingdom grew rich on rice farming and the spice trade. Under Queen Tribhuwana and her son Hayam Wuruk, the prime minister Gajah Mada vowed to unite the archipelago, and Majapahit claimed tribute from much of modern Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula and beyond, though it ruled directly mainly over Java, Madura and Bali. The court poem Nagarakretagama describes its splendour. After Hayam Wuruk's death, civil war, the rise of Malacca and the spread of Islamic coastal sultanates eroded its power, and it ended in the early 16th century.","legacy":"Majapahit is celebrated in Indonesia as a symbol of national unity, and its Hindu-Buddhist culture survives most strongly in Bali.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Majapahit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majapahit"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gajah Mada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gajah_Mada"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribhuwana_Wijayatunggadewi"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"pagan-kingdom","name":"Pagan Kingdom","aliases":["Pagan","Kingdom of Pagan","Bagan"],"clio":["Pagan Kingdom"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":849,"end":1297,"capital":"Pagan (Bagan)","peak":{"year":1200,"areaKm2":340000,"note":"Most of modern Myanmar (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Anawrahta","reign":"1044 – 1077","note":"Unified Burma and adopted Theravada Buddhism"},{"name":"Kyansittha","reign":"1084 – 1112","note":"Built the Ananda Temple"},{"name":"Alaungsithu","reign":"1112 – 1167","note":"Long reign of temple building and trade"},{"name":"Narapatisithu","reign":"1174 – 1211","note":"Height of the kingdom's prosperity"},{"name":"Narathihapate","reign":"1256 – 1287","note":"Fled the Mongol invasion"}],"summary":"Pagan grew from a settlement on the middle Irrawaddy, traditionally fortified in 849, into the first kingdom to unite the lands that make up modern Myanmar. King Anawrahta, who came to the throne in 1044, conquered the Mon of lower Burma and adopted Theravada Buddhism, which became the faith of the Burmese people. Under him and successors such as Kyansittha and Narapatisithu, the kingdom prospered from irrigated rice farming, and kings, nobles and commoners competed to earn religious merit by building temples. More than 10,000 temples, pagodas and monasteries rose on the plain of Pagan in about 250 years. So much land was donated tax-free to the Buddhist clergy that royal revenues shrank. Weakened, Pagan was invaded by the Mongols in 1287 and broke apart by 1297.","legacy":"The thousands of temples at Bagan are among Asia's great monuments, and Pagan established the Burmese language, script and Theravada Buddhism in Myanmar.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Pagan Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Anawrahta","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anawrahta"},{"title":"Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/george-coedes-the-indianized-states-of-southeast-asia-east-west-center-press-1968"}]},{"id":"dai-viet","name":"Đại Việt","aliases":["Đại Việt","Annam"],"clio":["Ngô Dynasty","Lê Dynasty"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":968,"end":1804,"capital":"Hoa Lư, then Thăng Long (Hanoi) from 1010","peak":{"year":1780,"areaKm2":300000,"note":"After the long southward expansion into Champa and the Mekong delta (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Đinh Bộ Lĩnh","reign":"968 – 979","note":"Unified the country and founded the kingdom"},{"name":"Lý Thái Tổ","reign":"1009 – 1028","note":"Moved the capital to Thăng Long"},{"name":"Trần Nhân Tông","reign":"1278 – 1293","note":"Repelled the Mongol invasions"},{"name":"Lê Lợi","reign":"1428 – 1433","note":"Expelled the Ming and founded the Lê dynasty"},{"name":"Lê Thánh Tông","reign":"1460 – 1497","note":"Conquered Champa's capital and issued a law code"},{"name":"Quang Trung (Nguyễn Huệ)","reign":"1788 – 1792","note":"Tây Sơn ruler who defeated a Qing invasion"}],"summary":"Northern Vietnam was ruled by China for about a thousand years until Ngô Quyền defeated a Southern Han fleet at the Bạch Đằng River in 938. In 968 Đinh Bộ Lĩnh unified the country and founded the kingdom later known as Đại Việt, Great Viet. The Lý dynasty moved the capital to Thăng Long, modern Hanoi, in 1010 and built a Confucian bureaucracy alongside Buddhism. The Trần dynasty repelled three Mongol invasions in the 13th century, and after a brief Ming occupation Lê Lợi restored independence in 1428. The Lê kings pushed steadily south at the expense of Champa. From the 16th century the realm was divided, first by the Mạc usurpation of 1527 and then between rival lords, the Trịnh in the north and Nguyễn in the south, until the Tây Sơn rebellion and the Nguyễn dynasty reunified it, renaming it Vietnam in 1804.","legacy":"Đại Việt forged a Vietnamese identity defined by resistance to Chinese domination and by the long march south that created the shape of modern Vietnam.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Đại Việt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Đại_Việt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Đinh Bộ Lĩnh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Đinh_Bộ_Lĩnh"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"ayutthaya-kingdom","name":"Ayutthaya Kingdom","aliases":["Ayutthaya"],"clio":["Ayutthaya Kingdom"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1351,"end":1767,"capital":"Ayutthaya","peak":{"year":1600,"areaKm2":400000,"note":"Central Thailand, the former Sukhothai lands, much of the Malay Peninsula and parts of Cambodia; c. 400,000 km² around 1600 (Wikipedia estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ramathibodi I (U Thong)","reign":"1351 – 1369","note":"Founder"},{"name":"Borommatrailokkanat","reign":"1448 – 1488","note":"Reorganised government and absorbed Sukhothai"},{"name":"Naresuan the Great","reign":"1590 – 1605","note":"Restored independence from Burma"},{"name":"Narai","reign":"1656 – 1688","note":"Exchanged embassies with Louis XIV of France"},{"name":"Ekkathat","reign":"1758 – 1767","note":"Last king, when the Burmese destroyed the city"}],"summary":"Ayutthaya was founded in 1351 by King U Thong, who took the title Ramathibodi I, on an island where three rivers meet in Thailand's central plain. The kingdom absorbed the older Thai state of Sukhothai and in 1431 sacked Angkor, inheriting Khmer ideas of divine kingship. Its rulers built a highly organised state, with the sakdina system ranking every subject by land and duty. Ayutthaya became one of Asia's great trading cities, home to Chinese, Persian, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch and French merchants, and King Narai exchanged embassies with Louis XIV. For centuries it fought Burmese kingdoms; it fell to Burma in 1569, until King Naresuan restored its independence. In 1767 a Burmese army destroyed the city after a long siege, ending the kingdom.","legacy":"Ayutthaya shaped Thai monarchy, law and culture, and its ruins are a World Heritage Site; later Thai kingdoms saw themselves as its heirs.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ayutthaya Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayutthaya_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Naresuan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naresuan"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"olmec-civilisation","name":"Olmec civilisation","aliases":["Olmec"],"clio":["Olmec Civilization"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":-1600,"end":-400,"capital":"San Lorenzo, then La Venta","peak":{"year":-900,"areaKm2":50000,"note":"Gulf Coast heartland in Veracruz and Tabasco, with influence across Mesoamerica (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Olmec rulers (names unknown)","reign":"c. 1200 – 400 BCE","note":"Probably portrayed in the colossal stone heads"}],"summary":"The Olmec, who lived in the hot, swampy lowlands of Mexico's Gulf Coast in today's Veracruz and Tabasco, created the first complex society in Mesoamerica. Around 1200 BCE San Lorenzo became a major centre, with earthen platforms and drainage channels, and after about 900 BCE La Venta took its place, with a great earthen pyramid. Olmec rulers, possibly the people portrayed in the famous colossal basalt heads weighing up to about 50 tons, controlled trade in jade, obsidian and other luxury goods across Mesoamerica. The Olmec developed a religion featuring jaguar, maize and rain deities, and probably played the rubber ball game. Their own name is unknown; Olmec, meaning rubber people, is an Aztec word. The heartland declined around 400 BCE, probably because of environmental change.","legacy":"Often called the mother culture of Mesoamerica, the Olmec pioneered art styles, religious ideas and the ball game later developed by the Maya and others.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Olmecs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Olmec colossal heads","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec_colossal_heads"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Olmec Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Olmec_Civilization/"}]},{"id":"maya-civilisation","name":"Maya civilisation","aliases":["Maya chiefdoms and states","Maya states","Maya city-states","Mayas","Maya"],"clio":["Mayan City-States","Later Mayan City-States"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":-2000,"end":1697,"capital":"No single capital; great cities included El Mirador, Tikal, Calakmul, Palenque, Copán, Chichén Itzá and Mayapán","peak":{"year":750,"areaKm2":400000,"note":"Classic-period city-states across southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and western Honduras (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo' of Copán","reign":"426 – 437","note":"Founder of Copán's royal dynasty"},{"name":"K'inich Janaab Pakal I of Palenque","reign":"615 – 683","note":"Buried in the Temple of the Inscriptions"},{"name":"Yuknoom Ch'een II of Calakmul","reign":"636 – 686","note":"Led the Kaan kingdom at its height"},{"name":"Jasaw Chan K'awiil I of Tikal","reign":"682 – 734","note":"Revived Tikal by defeating Calakmul in 695"},{"name":"Kan Ek'","reign":"until 1697","note":"Itza king of Nojpetén, the last independent Maya kingdom"}],"summary":"Maya farming villages appeared in southern Mexico and Central America by about 2000 BCE, and by 300 BCE great cities such as El Mirador were building huge pyramids. In the Classic period, from about 250 to 900 CE, dozens of city-states ruled by divine kings flourished in the lowland rainforest, and superpowers such as Tikal and Calakmul fought for dominance through warfare and alliances. The Maya developed the most complete writing system in the Americas, recorded dates in their Long Count calendar, tracked the movements of Venus and used the concept of zero. In the 9th century the southern cities collapsed, probably due to drought, overpopulation and constant war, but northern centres such as Chichén Itzá and Mayapán continued. The Spanish conquered most Maya states in the 16th century, and the last, Nojpetén, in 1697.","legacy":"Millions of Maya people still live in the region speaking Mayan languages, and their deciphered inscriptions reveal one of the ancient world's most sophisticated cultures.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Maya civilization","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Maya Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Maya_Civilization/"},{"title":"Martin & Velásquez García (2016), Polities and Places: Tracing the Toponyms of the Snake Dynasty, PARI Journal 17(2)","url":"https://www.mesoweb.com/pari/journal/archive/PARI1702.pdf"}]},{"id":"teotihuacan","name":"Teotihuacan","aliases":["Teotihuacan"],"clio":["Teotihuacan"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":-100,"end":550,"capital":"Teotihuacan","peak":{"year":450,"areaKm2":40000,"note":"A city of perhaps 100,000 people dominating the Valley of Mexico, with influence reaching the Maya region (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Rulers unknown","reign":"c. 100 BCE – 550 CE","note":"No royal portraits or names survive; the city may have been governed by councils"},{"name":"Spearthrower Owl","reign":"c. 374 – 439","note":"Possible Teotihuacan ruler named in Maya inscriptions, whose son became king of Tikal"}],"summary":"Teotihuacan, in the Valley of Mexico north-east of modern Mexico City, grew from about 100 BCE into one of the largest cities in the ancient world, home to perhaps 100,000 people at its height around 450 CE. It was laid out on a grid along a great avenue, later called the Avenue of the Dead, lined with the Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Its people lived in large apartment compounds, some housing migrants from Oaxaca and the Gulf Coast. Teotihuacan controlled the obsidian trade and influenced cities across Mesoamerica; in 378 its envoys intervened in the Maya city of Tikal and installed a new dynasty. Around 550 the city centre was burned, perhaps in an internal revolt, and the population dispersed.","legacy":"The Aztecs revered the ruined city, naming it Teotihuacan, the place where the gods were created, and it is now one of Mexico's most visited ancient sites.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Teotihuacan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spearthrower Owl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearthrower_Owl"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Teotihuacan","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Teotihuacan/"}]},{"id":"aztec-empire","name":"Aztec Empire (Triple Alliance)","aliases":["Aztec Empire"],"clio":["Aztec Triple Alliance","Tenochtitlan"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":1428,"end":1521,"capital":"Tenochtitlan","peak":{"year":1520,"areaKm2":220000,"note":"Tributary provinces from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific; c. 0.22M km² in 1520 (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Itzcoatl","reign":"1427 – 1440","note":"Formed the Triple Alliance"},{"name":"Moctezuma I","reign":"1440 – 1469","note":"Expanded the empire to the Gulf Coast"},{"name":"Ahuitzotl","reign":"1486 – 1502","note":"Greatest conqueror; rebuilt the Great Temple"},{"name":"Moctezuma II","reign":"1502 – 1520","note":"Ruler when the Spanish arrived"},{"name":"Cuauhtémoc","reign":"1520 – 1521","note":"Last emperor; defended Tenochtitlan"}],"summary":"The Mexica, a people who claimed to have migrated from a homeland called Aztlan, founded Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco around 1325. At first vassals of the Tepanec city of Azcapotzalco, in 1428 they formed the Triple Alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan and overthrew their overlords. Under rulers such as Moctezuma I and Ahuitzotl, the alliance conquered much of central and southern Mexico, collecting tribute in maize, cotton, cacao, feathers and gold from hundreds of towns rather than governing them directly. Tenochtitlan, linked to the shore by causeways and fed by floating chinampa gardens, held perhaps 200,000 people. Warfare also supplied captives for human sacrifice. In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived; allied with the Tlaxcalans and helped by smallpox, the Spanish captured Tenochtitlan in 1521.","legacy":"Mexico City stands on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, and the Aztec emblem of an eagle on a cactus appears on the Mexican flag.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Aztec Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Aztec Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Aztec_Civilization/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"}]},{"id":"tiwanaku","name":"Tiwanaku","aliases":["Tiahuanaco Empire"],"clio":[],"region":"northern-south-america","start":500,"end":1000,"capital":"Tiwanaku, near Lake Titicaca","peak":{"year":800,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"Influence from the Titicaca basin into southern Peru, northern Chile and north-west Argentina (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Rulers unknown","reign":"c. 500 – 1000","note":"Tiwanaku had no writing; its elite is known only from monuments such as the Gateway of the Sun"}],"summary":"Tiwanaku grew near the southern shore of Lake Titicaca, about 3,850 metres above sea level in what is now Bolivia. Settled long before, it became a major city and ceremonial centre from about 500 CE, with stone temples such as the Akapana pyramid, the Kalasasaya enclosure and the carved Gateway of the Sun. Its farmers fed tens of thousands of people using raised fields separated by canals, which protected crops from frost, while herds of llamas and alpacas carried goods. Tiwanaku spread its influence through colonies, religion and trade across the southern Andes into Peru, Chile and Argentina, sharing a staff-god imagery with its northern neighbour Wari. After about 1000 a long drought undermined its farming, and the city was gradually abandoned.","legacy":"Tiwanaku is a symbol of indigenous Andean identity in Bolivia, and its raised-field farming has been revived by modern farmers.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tiwanaku","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwanaku"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Tiwanaku","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Tiwanaku/"}]},{"id":"wari-empire","name":"Wari Empire","aliases":["Huari Empire"],"clio":[],"region":"northern-south-america","start":600,"end":1000,"capital":"Huari, near modern Ayacucho","peak":{"year":800,"areaKm2":400000,"note":"Much of the Peruvian highlands and coast (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Rulers unknown","reign":"c. 600 – 1000","note":"Wari left no writing; its rulers' names are lost"}],"summary":"The Wari state rose around 600 CE in the Ayacucho valley of the central Peruvian highlands, with its capital at Huari, a city covering several square kilometres. Many archaeologists see Wari as the first true empire of the Andes: it built planned administrative centres such as Pikillacta near Cusco and Viracochapampa in the north, linked by roads, and moved colonists to expand terrace farming. Wari officials probably kept records on khipus, knotted cords later used by the Inca. Wari shared religious imagery, notably a staff-holding god, with Tiwanaku to the south, and the two powers met but seem to have avoided major war. Around 1000 Wari collapsed, perhaps because of drought and internal unrest, leaving a patchwork of regional states.","legacy":"Wari pioneered the roads, administrative centres, terracing and record-keeping that the Inca later built into their own empire.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Wari culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wari_culture"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Wari Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Wari_Civilization/"}]},{"id":"chimu-empire","name":"Chimú Empire (Chimor)","aliases":["Chimú Empire","Chimú"],"clio":["Chimu Empire","Chimor"],"region":"northern-south-america","start":900,"end":1470,"capital":"Chan Chan","peak":{"year":1450,"areaKm2":100000,"note":"About 1,000 km of the north Peruvian coast (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Tacaynamo","reign":"c. 900 (legendary)","note":"Founder in Chimú tradition, said to have arrived by sea"},{"name":"Ñançenpinco","reign":"c. 14th century (traditional)","note":"Remembered as the conqueror who expanded Chimor"},{"name":"Minchançaman","reign":"c. 1460s – 1470","note":"Last independent king, taken to Cusco by the Inca"}],"summary":"The Chimú kingdom, called Chimor, arose around 900 in the Moche valley on Peru's desert north coast, where the Moche civilisation had flourished earlier. Its capital, Chan Chan, was the largest adobe city in the Americas, made up of walled royal compounds, each built by a king who was buried in it with his treasures. Chimú engineers dug long irrigation canals to water the desert, and its craftsmen were skilled goldsmiths and weavers. From the 14th century the Chimú conquered neighbouring valleys until they controlled about 1,000 kilometres of coast, from near the Ecuadorian border to near Lima. Around 1470 the Inca under Topa Inca Yupanqui conquered Chimor, reportedly by cutting its water supply, and carried its king and many artisans off to Cusco.","legacy":"Chan Chan is a World Heritage Site, and Chimú metalworkers shaped the gold-working traditions of the Inca court.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Chimor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimor"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Chimu Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Chimu_Civilization/"}]},{"id":"inca-empire","name":"Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu)","aliases":["Inca Empire"],"clio":["Inca Empire"],"region":"northern-south-america","start":1438,"end":1533,"capital":"Cusco","peak":{"year":1527,"areaKm2":2000000,"note":"From southern Colombia to central Chile; c. 2.0M km² in 1527 (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Manco Cápac","reign":"c. 1200 (legendary)","note":"Legendary founder of Cusco"},{"name":"Pachacuti","reign":"1438 – 1471","note":"Began the imperial expansion; rebuilt Cusco"},{"name":"Topa Inca Yupanqui","reign":"1471 – 1493","note":"Conquered Chimor and pushed into Chile"},{"name":"Huayna Capac","reign":"1493 – 1527","note":"Ruled at the empire's height; died in an epidemic, possibly smallpox"},{"name":"Atahualpa","reign":"1532 – 1533","note":"Won the civil war, then was executed by Pizarro"}],"summary":"The Inca were a small kingdom around Cusco in the Peruvian highlands, traditionally founded by Manco Cápac around 1200. In 1438 Pachacuti repelled an attack by the rival Chanka and began a series of conquests that his son Topa Inca and grandson Huayna Capac continued, creating Tawantinsuyu, the Land of the Four Quarters, the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Inca ruled some 10 million people through a network of about 40,000 kilometres of roads with rope bridges and relay runners, state storehouses and a labour tax called mit'a, keeping records on knotted khipus. They resettled loyal colonists and spread the Quechua language. A civil war between Huáscar and Atahualpa had just ended when Francisco Pizarro arrived; he captured Atahualpa and executed him in 1533.","legacy":"Machu Picchu and the Inca roads are world-famous, and Quechua, the Inca state language, is still spoken by millions of Andean people.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Inca Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Huayna Capac","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huayna_Capac"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Inca Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Inca_Civilization/"},{"title":"Taagepera (1997), Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities","url":"https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cn68807/qt3cn68807.pdf"},{"title":"Turchin, Adams & Hall (2006), East-West Orientation of Historical Empires","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200707181315/http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_Adams_Hall_2006.pdf"}]},{"id":"thule-culture","name":"Thule culture","aliases":["Thule"],"clio":[],"region":"northern-north-america","start":1000,"end":1600,"capital":"None; small seasonal villages across the Arctic","peak":{"year":1300,"areaKm2":2300000,"note":"From Alaska across Arctic Canada to Greenland (rough estimate)"},"rulers":[{"name":"No rulers","reign":"c. 1000 – 1600","note":"Thule society was organised in kin-based groups led by experienced whaling captains (umialik)"}],"summary":"The Thule people, ancestors of today's Inuit, developed in coastal Alaska around 1000 CE. Using sophisticated technology, including large skin boats called umiaks, kayaks, toggling harpoons, dog sleds and snow houses, they hunted bowhead whales, seals and walrus. From about 1200, perhaps encouraged by warmer conditions and the search for iron and new hunting grounds, they spread rapidly eastward across Arctic Canada to Greenland in just a few generations, replacing the earlier Dorset people. In Greenland they met Norse settlers, whose colonies later vanished. Thule communities were small and mobile, without states or kings, but linked by trade networks stretching thousands of kilometres. As the Little Ice Age cooled the Arctic after about 1400, whaling declined and Thule culture evolved into the regional Inuit cultures met by Europeans.","legacy":"The Thule migration created the Inuit world of Alaska, Canada and Greenland, whose inventions such as the kayak are now used worldwide.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Thule people","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_people"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dorset culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_culture"},{"title":"Historical Climatology: What made the Thule move? (on Friesen & Arnold 2008)","url":"https://historicalclimatology.com/features/what-made-the-thule-move-climate-and-culture-in-the-high-arctic"}]},{"id":"tui-tonga-empire","name":"Tuʻi Tonga Empire","aliases":["Tuʻi Tonga Empire"],"clio":[],"region":"australasia","start":950,"end":1865,"capital":"Toloa and Heketā, then Muʻa, all on Tongatapu","peak":{"year":1200,"areaKm2":23000,"note":"Rough upper bound counting the land of Tonga, Samoa, ʻUvea, Futuna and Fiji; Tonga itself has about 750 km² of land, and its maritime influence spread far wider"},"rulers":[{"name":"ʻAhoʻeitu","reign":"c. 950 (legendary)","note":"First Tuʻi Tonga, said to be the son of the god Tangaloa"},{"name":"Tuʻitātui","reign":"c. 12th century","note":"Credited with building the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui trilithon"},{"name":"Takalaua","reign":"c. 15th century","note":"Tuʻi Tonga whose assassination led to a division of power"},{"name":"Kauʻulufonua I","reign":"c. 15th century","note":"Avenged his father and created the Tuʻi Haʻatakalaua line"},{"name":"Laufilitonga","reign":"1827 – 1865","note":"Last Tuʻi Tonga"}],"summary":"According to Tongan tradition, the line of sacred kings called Tuʻi Tonga began around 950 with ʻAhoʻeitu, son of the sky god Tangaloa and a mortal woman. From Tongatapu, the Tuʻi Tonga built a maritime chiefdom whose influence, through voyaging canoes, marriage alliances and tribute, extended at its height in the 12th and 13th centuries across Samoa, ʻUvea (Wallis), Futuna and parts of Fiji. The royal centre at Muʻa has great stone-faced tombs called langi, and the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui trilithon is attributed to the king Tuʻitātui. After several Tuʻi Tonga were assassinated, around the 15th century they handed political power to a new line, the Tuʻi Haʻatakalaua, and later the Tuʻi Kanokupolu, keeping a sacred role. The title lapsed when Laufilitonga died in 1865, as George Tupou I unified Tonga as a modern kingdom.","legacy":"The Tuʻi Tonga tradition underpins the modern Kingdom of Tonga, the only Pacific island monarchy never formally colonised.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tuʻi Tonga Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuʻi_Tonga_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tuʻitātui","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuʻi-tā-tui"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tonga","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Geography of Tonga","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Tonga"}]},{"id":"pallava-empire","name":"Pallava dynasty","aliases":["Pallava","Pallavas","Pallava state"],"clio":["Late Pallava Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":275,"end":897,"capital":"Kanchipuram","peak":{"year":650,"areaKm2":100000,"note":"Under Narasimhavarman I, after his sack of the Chalukya capital Vatapi in 642, over the northern Tamil country and southern Telugu lands (rough estimate; not covered by Taagepera or Turchin; this atlas's map shows c. 0.1M km² under direct rule from 602 to 805)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Simhavishnu","reign":"c. 555 – 590","note":"Revived the dynasty by defeating the Kalabhras and pushed south to the Kaveri; reign dates are disputed"},{"name":"Mahendravarman I","reign":"c. 600 – 630","note":"Pioneered Pallava rock-cut temples and wrote the Sanskrit satire Mattavilasa Prahasana; lost his northern provinces to the Chalukya Pulakeshin II"},{"name":"Narasimhavarman I (Mamalla)","reign":"630 – 668","note":"Defeated and killed Pulakeshin II and sacked Vatapi in 642; Mamallapuram is named after him"},{"name":"Paramesvaravarman I","reign":"c. 670 – 695","note":"Fought off a renewed Chalukya invasion under Vikramaditya I"},{"name":"Narasimhavarman II (Rajasimha)","reign":"c. 695 – 728","note":"Built the Shore Temple at Mamallapuram and the Kailasanathar temple at Kanchipuram; sent embassies to Tang China"},{"name":"Nandivarman II (Pallavamalla)","reign":"c. 731 – 796","note":"Chosen as a boy from a collateral branch; Kanchipuram was taken by the Chalukya Vikramaditya II, and he built the Vaikuntha Perumal temple"},{"name":"Nandivarman III","reign":"846 – 869","note":"Defeated the Pandyas at Tellaru and kept a strong navy trading with South-east Asia"},{"name":"Aparajita","reign":"c. 880 – 897","note":"Last Pallava king, defeated and killed by the Chola Aditya I"}],"summary":"The Pallavas first appear in 4th-century copper-plate grants issued from Kanchipuram, and probably began as feudatories of the Satavahanas before ruling the region around Kanchi in their own right. After a period of eclipse under the Kalabhra invasions, Simhavishnu revived the dynasty in the later 6th century and the Tamil country was divided between the Pallavas in the north and the Pandyas in the south. A struggle with the Chalukyas of Vatapi lasted more than two centuries: Pulakeshin II took Mahendravarman I's northern provinces, but Narasimhavarman I killed him and sacked Vatapi in 642, and the Chalukyas later captured Kanchipuram in their turn. The Pallava court patronised Sanskrit and Tamil literature, the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited Kanchipuram in about 640, and Narasimhavarman II sent an embassy to Tang China. Squeezed between the Pandyas, Rashtrakutas and a reviving Chola dynasty, the Pallavas declined in the 9th century, and the Chola Aditya I defeated and killed the last king, Aparajita, in about 897.","legacy":"The Pallavas moved southern Indian architecture from rock-cut caves to free-standing stone temples, leaving the Pancha Rathas and Shore Temple at Mamallapuram (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and the Kailasanathar temple at Kanchipuram, and their script, carried by traders, priests and monks, became the ancestor of Grantha and Tamil and of many South-east Asian scripts such as Khmer.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Pallava dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallava_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Simhavishnu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simhavishnu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Narasimhavarman I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narasimhavarman_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Narasimhavarman II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narasimhavarman_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Vikramaditya II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikramaditya_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aparajitavarman","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aparajitavarman"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Monuments_at_Mahabalipuram"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pallava script","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallava_script"}]},{"id":"spanish-empire","name":"Spanish Empire","aliases":["Spain","Viceroyalty of New Spain","Viceroyalty of Peru","Viceroyalty of New Granada","Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata","Luisiana","Florida","Florida (Spain)","Cuba (Spain)","Hispaniola (Spain)","Santo Domingo (Spain)","Spanish Sahara","Spanish Morocco","Spanish Guinea","Habsburg Netherlands"],"clio":["(Spanish Empire)","Spanish Empire","Kingdom of Spain","(Personal union of Crown of Aragon with Crown of Castile)","(Personal union of Spanish Empire with Habsburg Monarchy)","(Alliance between Papal States and Spanish Empire)","Pro-Habsburg Spain","First Spanish Republic","Second Spanish Republic","Spanish Nationalists","Francoist Spain"],"region":"europe","start":1492,"end":1976,"capital":"Madrid from 1561 (Valladolid 1601–1606); earlier the court moved between Toledo, Valladolid and other cities","peak":{"year":1810,"areaKm2":13700000,"note":"c. 13.7M km² (Taagepera 1997), including vast claimed but thinly settled lands in North and South America, plus the Philippines; c. 13.7M km² (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Isabella I and Ferdinand II","reign":"1474–1504 (Castile) and 1479–1516 (Aragon)","note":"The Catholic Monarchs; conquered Granada and sponsored Columbus in 1492"},{"name":"Charles I (Emperor Charles V)","reign":"1516–1556","note":"Also Holy Roman Emperor; his reign saw the conquest of the Aztecs and Incas"},{"name":"Philip II","reign":"1556–1598","note":"Ruled Portugal too from 1580; the Spanish Armada failed in 1588"},{"name":"Philip V","reign":"1700–1746","note":"First Bourbon king, after the War of the Spanish Succession"},{"name":"Charles III","reign":"1759–1788","note":"Enlightenment reformer of colonial government and trade"},{"name":"Alfonso XIII","reign":"1886–1931","note":"Reigned as Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898"},{"name":"Francisco Franco","reign":"1939–1975","note":"Dictator; Spain left its last African colonies soon after his death"}],"summary":"Spain's empire grew from the union of Castile and Aragon under Isabella and Ferdinand, who in 1492 conquered Granada and sponsored Columbus's first voyage. Within two generations conquistadors toppled the Aztec and Inca empires, and silver from Potosí and Zacatecas paid for Habsburg wars across Europe, where Charles V and Philip II also ruled the Netherlands, much of Italy and, from 1580 to 1640, Portugal. The Americas were run through viceroyalties, royal courts and the Catholic Church, with Indigenous labour forced through the encomienda and mita systems and enslaved Africans shipped in. After Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, the mainland American colonies won independence by 1825. Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were lost to the United States in 1898, and the last African holdings were given up by 1976.","legacy":"Spanish is now the first language of nearly 500 million people, and Catholic churches, grid-plan towns and legal traditions across the Americas and the Philippines trace back to Spanish rule.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"portuguese-empire","name":"Portuguese Empire","aliases":["Portugal","Portuguese Brazil","Viceroyalty of Brazil","Portuguese East Africa","Angola (Portugal)","Mozambique (Portugal)","Portuguese Guinea","Guinea-Bissau (Portugal)","Goa","Delagoa Bay"],"clio":["(Portuguese Empire)","Portuguese Empire","Kingdom of Portugal","Portuguese Republic","Estado Novo","Portugal","Portuguese Colonies","Portuguese Ceylon","Portuguese Africa"],"region":"europe","start":1415,"end":1999,"capital":"Lisbon (Rio de Janeiro 1808–1821)","peak":{"year":1815,"areaKm2":10400000,"note":"Nominal extent, mostly Brazil, shortly before its independence in 1822 (10.4M km², Brzezinski 2012); Taagepera (1997), counting only effectively controlled land, gives c. 5.5M km² for 1820"},"rulers":[{"name":"John I","reign":"1385–1433","note":"Captured Ceuta in 1415; father of Prince Henry the Navigator"},{"name":"Manuel I","reign":"1495–1521","note":"Vasco da Gama reached India and Cabral reached Brazil in his reign"},{"name":"John III","reign":"1521–1557","note":"Began the colonisation of Brazil; trade reached Japan"},{"name":"John IV","reign":"1640–1656","note":"Restored independence from Spain, founding the Braganza dynasty"},{"name":"John VI","reign":"1816–1826","note":"Ruled the empire from Rio de Janeiro after fleeing Napoleon"},{"name":"António de Oliveira Salazar","reign":"1932–1968","note":"Dictator who fought to keep the African colonies"}],"summary":"Portugal, a small Atlantic kingdom, began Europe's age of overseas empire when it captured Ceuta in Morocco in 1415. Encouraged by Prince Henry the Navigator, its sailors crept down the African coast until Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. Rather than conquering large lands, Portugal first built a chain of fortified trading posts from Elmina and Mozambique to Goa, Malacca and Macau, controlling the spice trade with naval power. Brazil, claimed in 1500, became the heart of the empire through sugar, gold and the labour of millions of enslaved Africans. The royal court fled to Rio de Janeiro in 1808, and Brazil became independent in 1822. Portugal clung to Angola, Mozambique and Guinea until a revolution at home in 1974 ended long colonial wars; Macau was returned to China in 1999.","legacy":"Portuguese is spoken by some 250 million people on four continents, and the empire's Atlantic slave trade reshaped the populations of Brazil and Africa.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Portuguese Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Portuguese Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Portuguese_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"british-empire","name":"British Empire","aliases":["United Kingdom","United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","Rupert's Land","Quebec","British American colonies","Acadian Peninsula (UK)","Massachusetts Bay","Virginia","South Carolina","Jamaica (UK)","Barbados (UK)","Saint Kitts and Nevis (UK)","Virgin Islands (UK)","Cape Colony","Natal","New South Wales","New South Wales (UK)","Western Australia (UK)","Queensland (UK)","South Australia (UK)","Victoria (UK)","Northern Territory (UK)","British Guiana","Guiana","British East Africa","British Protectorate","British Somaliland","Anglo-Egyptian Sudan","Mesopotamia (GB)","Mandatory Palestine (GB)","Gold Coast (GB)","Gold Coast","Yemen (UK)","Oman (British Raj)","Dominion of Newfoundland","Rhodesia","Northern Rhodesia","Southern Rhodesia","Cyraneica (UK Lybia)","Tripolitana (UK Lybia)"],"clio":["(British Empire)","British Colonial Empire","Kingdom of Great Britain","English Colonial Empire","Commonwealth of England","British Africa","British East Africa","British Gold Coast","British Cape Colony","British Ceylon","Freetown Colony","British Overseas Territories"],"region":"europe","start":1583,"end":1997,"capital":"London","peak":{"year":1920,"areaKm2":35500000,"note":"c. 35.5M km² (Taagepera 1997); about a quarter of the world's land and a quarter of its people"},"rulers":[{"name":"Elizabeth I","reign":"1558–1603","note":"Her reign saw the first English colonial ventures and the East India Company's charter"},{"name":"George III","reign":"1760–1820","note":"Won Canada and India from France but lost the American colonies"},{"name":"Victoria","reign":"1837–1901","note":"Empress of India from 1876"},{"name":"George V","reign":"1910–1936","note":"Reigned as the empire reached its greatest size"},{"name":"Winston Churchill","reign":"1940–1945, 1951–1955","note":"Prime minister who led the empire through the Second World War"},{"name":"Elizabeth II","reign":"1952–2022","note":"Oversaw decolonisation and the modern Commonwealth"}],"summary":"England's overseas expansion began with Atlantic claims and colonies in Virginia, New England and the Caribbean, built by chartered companies, sugar plantations and the slave trade. After union with Scotland in 1707, Britain beat France for North America and India in the Seven Years' War, then lost thirteen colonies in the American Revolution. It rebuilt in Asia, Africa and the Pacific: the East India Company conquered India, convicts and settlers founded Australia, and in the scramble for Africa Britain took Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and lands from the Cape towards Cairo. Rule ranged from self-governing settler dominions to direct rule and indirect rule through princes and chiefs, all guarded by the Royal Navy. Two world wars drained its strength; India's independence in 1947 began rapid decolonisation, and Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 is often taken as the end.","legacy":"English became a global language, and parliamentary government, common law and railways spread with the empire, as did lasting scars from conquest, famine and partition. Most former colonies remain linked through the Commonwealth.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: British Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"french-colonial-empire","name":"French Colonial Empire","aliases":["French West Africa","French Equatorial Africa","Algeria (France)","Algeria (FR)","Madagascar (France)","French Indochina","French Indo-China","Morocco (France)","Syria (France)","French Cameroons","Congo (France)","Fezzan (Frech Lybia)","Senegal (FR)","Martinique (France)","French Somaliland","New France","Louisiana","Cayenne","French Guiana"],"clio":["(French Third Republic)","(French Fourth Republic)","(Vichy France)","(Second French Empire)","(First French Empire)","(French Second Republic)","(Bourbon Kingdom of France)","(French Directory)","(French Consulate)","(French First Republic)","French Africa","French Indochina","New France","French Algeria","French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon","French Louisiana","French Colony of Guiana","French India","France Antarctique","First French colonial empire","First French Empire","Second French Empire","French First Republic","French Directory","French Consulate","Bourbon Kingdom of France","French Second Republic","French Third Republic","Vichy France","Free French","French Fourth Republic","French Fifth Republic"],"region":"europe","start":1534,"end":1980,"capital":"Paris","peak":{"year":1920,"areaKm2":11500000,"note":"c. 11.5M km² (Taagepera 1997); most of it in North, West and Central Africa"},"rulers":[{"name":"Louis XIV","reign":"1643–1715","note":"His minister Colbert built up New France, the Caribbean colonies and overseas trade"},{"name":"Louis XV","reign":"1715–1774","note":"Lost Canada and most of India to Britain in 1763"},{"name":"Napoleon I","reign":"1804–1814, 1815","note":"Failed to restore slavery in Saint-Domingue and sold Louisiana in 1803"},{"name":"Napoleon III","reign":"1852–1870","note":"Expanded into Senegal, Indochina and New Caledonia"},{"name":"Jules Ferry","reign":"1880–1881, 1883–1885","note":"Prime minister who drove expansion into Tunisia, Indochina and Africa"},{"name":"Charles de Gaulle","reign":"1959–1969","note":"President who ended the Algerian War and granted African independence"}],"summary":"France's first colonial empire began with Jacques Cartier's voyages to the St Lawrence in 1534 and grew into New France, a vast fur-trading realm reaching down the Mississippi to Louisiana, plus rich sugar islands such as Saint-Domingue worked by enslaved Africans. Defeat by Britain in 1763 cost Canada and most of India, the Haitian Revolution freed Saint-Domingue, and Napoleon sold Louisiana in 1803. A second empire began with the invasion of Algeria in 1830 and spread across West and Equatorial Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and, after 1919, Syria and Lebanon. Paris governed centrally, claiming a civilising mission and assimilating a small educated elite. After the Second World War, defeat in Vietnam in 1954 and a brutal war in Algeria, independent in 1962, brought most colonies to independence; some islands remain parts of France today.","legacy":"French is still widely spoken across West and Central Africa, and overseas departments such as Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion remain part of France.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: French colonial empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_colonial_empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"dutch-empire","name":"Dutch Republic and Dutch Colonial Empire","aliases":["Dutch Republic","Netherlands","Dutch East Indies","Netherlands Indies","Dutch Brazil","Guyana (Netherlands)","Dutch Guiana","Dutch Guinea","Ceylon (Dutch)","Dutch Formosa","Dutch settlements","Netherlands Antilles"],"clio":["(Dutch Republic)","(Batavian Republic)","(Netherlands)","Dutch Republic","Batavian Republic","Napoleonic Batavia Republic","Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands","Netherlands","Dutch East Indies","New Netherland","Dutch Cape Colony","Dutch Ceylon","Dutch Gold Coast","Netherlands Antilles"],"region":"europe","start":1581,"end":1975,"capital":"Amsterdam (government at The Hague); Batavia in the East Indies","peak":{"year":1938,"areaKm2":2100000,"note":"c. 2.1M km² (Oxford figure cited in Wikipedia's list; not covered by Taagepera); mostly the Netherlands Indies, today's Indonesia, plus Suriname"},"rulers":[{"name":"William the Silent","reign":"1568–1584","note":"Prince of Orange who led the revolt against Spain"},{"name":"Maurice of Nassau","reign":"1585–1625","note":"Stadtholder and army reformer during the war with Spain"},{"name":"Johan de Witt","reign":"1653–1672","note":"Grand Pensionary of Holland at the height of the golden age"},{"name":"William III","reign":"1672–1702","note":"Stadtholder who also became King of England in 1689"},{"name":"William I","reign":"1815–1840","note":"First king of the Netherlands"},{"name":"Wilhelmina","reign":"1890–1948","note":"Queen through both world wars and the start of Indonesian independence"}],"summary":"The Dutch Republic was born when seven northern provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands revolted against Philip II of Spain and renounced his rule in 1581. Its merchants built the most advanced commercial economy of the 17th century, and two chartered firms, the Dutch East India Company (VOC, 1602) and the West India Company (1621), carved out an empire of trade. The VOC seized the Spice Islands from Portugal, founded Batavia (Jakarta) in 1619 and held Ceylon, the Cape and a post at Nagasaki, while the West India Company briefly held northeastern Brazil and New Amsterdam, later New York. After the VOC collapsed in 1799, the Netherlands, a kingdom from 1815, ruled the East Indies directly and forced farmers to grow export crops. Indonesia won independence in 1949 after a war, and Suriname left in 1975.","legacy":"Afrikaans, Dutch place names from New York to South Africa, and modern financial tools such as the stock exchange all trace back to the Dutch golden age.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Dutch East India Company","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Dutch_East_India_Company/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"belgium-congo","name":"Belgium and the Belgian Congo","aliases":["Belgium","Belgian Congo","Zaire (Belgium)","Rwanda (Belgium)"],"clio":["Kingdom of Belgium","Belgian Congo"],"region":"europe","start":1830,"end":1962,"capital":"Brussels (Léopoldville in the Congo)","peak":{"year":1938,"areaKm2":2430000,"note":"c. 2.43M km² (Wikipedia); the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi were about 80 times the size of Belgium"},"rulers":[{"name":"Leopold I","reign":"1831–1865","note":"First King of the Belgians"},{"name":"Leopold II","reign":"1865–1909","note":"Personally owned the Congo Free State, 1885–1908"},{"name":"Albert I","reign":"1909–1934","note":"The Belgian state ran the Congo directly during his reign"},{"name":"Baudouin","reign":"1951–1993","note":"Reigned when Congo became independent in 1960"}],"summary":"Belgium broke away from the Netherlands in 1830 and became a constitutional kingdom under Leopold I. His son Leopold II, eager for a colony, used explorers and a front of humanitarian societies to win international recognition at the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 for the Congo Free State, which he owned personally. Its rubber and ivory profits were extracted through forced labour, hostage-taking and mutilation, and millions died from violence, famine and disease. International outrage forced Belgium to annex the territory as the Belgian Congo in 1908. The state, the Catholic Church and mining companies then ran it as a paternalist colony that allowed Africans almost no higher education. After the First World War Belgium also governed Ruanda-Urundi. Congo became independent in 1960, and Rwanda and Burundi in 1962.","legacy":"The Congo Free State became a worldwide symbol of colonial atrocity, and its exploitation shaped the troubled history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Belgian colonial empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_colonial_empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"habsburg-monarchy","name":"Habsburg Monarchy (Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary)","aliases":["Austrian Empire","Austria Hungary","Austro-Hungarian Empire","Austrian Netherlands","Milano (Austria)","Austria"],"clio":["(Habsburg Monarchy)","Habsburg Monarchy","Austrian Empire","Austria-Hungary","Republic of Austria","Second Republic of Austria"],"region":"europe","start":1526,"end":1918,"capital":"Vienna","peak":{"year":1914,"areaKm2":676000,"note":"c.; Austria-Hungary was c. 622,000 km² in 1905 (Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911), plus Bosnia-Herzegovina (c. 51,000 km²), annexed in 1908"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ferdinand I","reign":"1526–1564","note":"Gained Bohemia and Hungary after Mohács; Holy Roman Emperor from 1556"},{"name":"Leopold I","reign":"1658–1705","note":"Saw the Ottoman siege of Vienna broken in 1683 and Hungary reconquered"},{"name":"Maria Theresa","reign":"1740–1780","note":"Defended her inheritance and reformed the state"},{"name":"Joseph II","reign":"1780–1790","note":"Radical enlightened reformer; abolished serfdom in Bohemia"},{"name":"Francis II/I","reign":"1792–1835","note":"Declared the Austrian Empire in 1804 and ended the Holy Roman Empire in 1806"},{"name":"Franz Joseph I","reign":"1848–1916","note":"Created the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867"},{"name":"Charles I","reign":"1916–1918","note":"Last Habsburg emperor"}],"summary":"The Austrian Habsburgs, Holy Roman Emperors almost continuously since 1438, became a great power when Archduke Ferdinand I inherited the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary after the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Their multinational realm, ruled from Vienna, held off the Ottomans at the sieges of 1529 and 1683 and then reconquered Hungary. Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II reformed the army, taxes and schools, while wars with Prussia cost them Silesia. Francis I declared an Austrian Empire in 1804 and dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Defeat by Prussia in 1866 led to the Compromise of 1867, creating Austria-Hungary, a dual monarchy of two governments under one emperor. Rising nationalism among Czechs, Poles, Serbs and others strained it, and after defeat in the First World War it broke apart in 1918.","legacy":"Vienna's music and architecture flowered under the Habsburgs, and the successor states of Central Europe, from Czechoslovakia to Yugoslavia, were drawn from the empire's ruins.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Habsburg monarchy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburg_monarchy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Austria-Hungary","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"russian-empire","name":"Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire","aliases":["Tsardom of Muscovy","Russian Empire"],"clio":["Tsardom of Russia","Russian Empire","Russian Republic"],"region":"europe","start":1547,"end":1917,"capital":"Moscow; St Petersburg from 1712 (Moscow again 1728–1732)","peak":{"year":1895,"areaKm2":22800000,"note":"c. 22.8M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), after the conquest of Central Asia; Alaska had been sold in 1867"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ivan IV, the Terrible","reign":"1547–1584","note":"First crowned tsar; conquered Kazan and Astrakhan"},{"name":"Michael I","reign":"1613–1645","note":"First Romanov tsar, after the Time of Troubles"},{"name":"Peter I, the Great","reign":"1682–1725","note":"Westernised the state and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721"},{"name":"Catherine II, the Great","reign":"1762–1796","note":"Annexed Crimea and much of Poland"},{"name":"Alexander I","reign":"1801–1825","note":"Defeated Napoleon's invasion of 1812"},{"name":"Alexander II","reign":"1855–1881","note":"Freed the serfs in 1861; assassinated"},{"name":"Nicholas II","reign":"1894–1917","note":"Last tsar, forced to abdicate in 1917"}],"summary":"Moscow's grand princes threw off Mongol overlordship and gathered the Russian lands, and in 1547 Ivan IV, the Terrible, was crowned the first Tsar of All Russia. His conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan opened the Volga, and Cossacks and fur traders crossed Siberia to reach the Pacific by 1639. After the chaotic Time of Troubles, the Romanov dynasty took power in 1613. Peter the Great built a modern army and navy, founded St Petersburg and proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721; Catherine the Great added Crimea, the Black Sea steppe and much of Poland. In the 19th century Russia took Finland, the Caucasus and Central Asia. The tsars ruled as autocrats over a peasant majority, most of them serfs until 1861. Defeats and hardship in the First World War led to revolution in 1917 and the end of the monarchy.","legacy":"Russia became the largest country on Earth, and the expansion that brought dozens of peoples under Moscow's rule still shapes politics from the Baltic to the Pacific.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Russian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"soviet-union","name":"Soviet Union (USSR)","aliases":["USSR","White Russia","Far Eastern SSR"],"clio":["Union of Soviet Socialist Republics","Republics of the Soviet Union"],"region":"europe","start":1922,"end":1991,"capital":"Moscow","peak":{"year":1946,"areaKm2":22400000,"note":"About one-sixth of the world's land surface; official area 22.4M km²; Taagepera (1997) gives c. 22.3M km² for 1945"},"rulers":[{"name":"Vladimir Lenin","reign":"1922–1924","note":"Led the Bolshevik Revolution and headed the Soviet government from 1917"},{"name":"Joseph Stalin","reign":"c. 1924–1953","note":"Dictator of forced collectivisation, purges and victory over Nazi Germany"},{"name":"Nikita Khrushchev","reign":"1953–1964","note":"Denounced Stalin; Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962"},{"name":"Leonid Brezhnev","reign":"1964–1982","note":"Era of stability and later stagnation"},{"name":"Mikhail Gorbachev","reign":"1985–1991","note":"His reforms, glasnost and perestroika, preceded the union's collapse"}],"summary":"The Soviet Union grew out of the October Revolution of 1917, when Lenin's Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd and then won a brutal civil war. In 1922 Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasian republics formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a one-party state run by the Communist Party from Moscow. Under Stalin it forced peasants into collective farms, industrialised at terrible human cost and sent millions to Gulag labour camps. Invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, it lost around 27 million people but drove on to Berlin, then dominated Eastern Europe through allied communist regimes. It rivalled the United States in the Cold War, launching the first satellite and the first human into space. Economic stagnation, Gorbachev's reforms and nationalist movements led to its breakup into fifteen independent states in December 1991.","legacy":"The Cold War rivalry it led divided the world for four decades, and Russian remains a common language across its fifteen successor states.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"russian-federation","name":"Russian Federation","aliases":["Russia"],"clio":["(Russian Federation)","Russian Federation","Russian-occupied territories"],"region":"europe","start":1991,"end":2026,"capital":"Moscow","peak":{"year":1992,"areaKm2":17100000,"note":"The largest country on Earth; c. 17.1M km² (Taagepera 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Boris Yeltsin","reign":"1991–1999","note":"First president; led the shift to a market economy"},{"name":"Vladimir Putin","reign":"2000–2008, 2012–","note":"Recentralised power; prime minister 2008–2012"},{"name":"Dmitry Medvedev","reign":"2008–2012","note":"President while Putin served as prime minister"}],"summary":"The Russian Federation emerged as the main successor of the Soviet Union when it dissolved in December 1991, inheriting its seat on the UN Security Council, its nuclear arsenal and about three-quarters of its territory. Under Boris Yeltsin the country moved rapidly toward a market economy, but hasty privatisation enriched a small group of oligarchs while many people lost savings and jobs; a financial crisis struck in 1998, and wars were fought against separatists in Chechnya. Vladimir Putin, president from 2000, used high oil and gas revenues to restore central control, curbing independent media and political opposition. Russia fought Georgia in 2008, annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, provoking sweeping Western sanctions.","legacy":"Still the largest country on Earth, spanning eleven time zones, Russia remains a major energy exporter and nuclear power.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Russia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"polish-lithuanian-commonwealth","name":"Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth","aliases":["Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth"],"clio":["Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth","Pro-Swedish Poland"],"region":"europe","start":1569,"end":1795,"capital":"Kraków; Warsaw from 1596","peak":{"year":1619,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"c. 1.0M km² after the Truce of Deulino with Russia (1618–19); Taagepera (1997) gives c. 1.1M km² for 1650"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sigismund II Augustus","reign":"1548–1572","note":"Created the Commonwealth by the Union of Lublin, 1569"},{"name":"Stephen Báthory","reign":"1576–1586","note":"Elected king who defeated Ivan the Terrible"},{"name":"Sigismund III Vasa","reign":"1587–1632","note":"Moved the capital to Warsaw; his forces occupied Moscow in 1610"},{"name":"John III Sobieski","reign":"1674–1696","note":"Led the relief of Vienna from the Ottomans in 1683"},{"name":"Stanisław August Poniatowski","reign":"1764–1795","note":"Last king; backed the Constitution of 3 May 1791"}],"summary":"The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had shared monarchs since 1386, and in 1569 the Union of Lublin merged them into a single Commonwealth with one parliament, the Sejm. It was unusual for its time: kings were elected by the whole nobility, the szlachta, who made up nearly a tenth of the population, and the Warsaw Confederation of 1573 guaranteed religious toleration. At its height it stretched from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea, and its army occupied Moscow in 1610. But the liberum veto, which let a single deputy block legislation, paralysed government, and the wars of the mid-17th century, known as the Deluge, devastated it. Weakened, it was carved up by Russia, Prussia and Austria in three partitions in 1772, 1793 and 1795, despite the reforming Constitution of 3 May 1791.","legacy":"Its 1791 constitution is often called the first modern written constitution in Europe, and memories of the Commonwealth inspired later Polish and Lithuanian nationalism.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"swedish-empire","name":"Swedish Empire","aliases":["Sweden","Sweden–Norway"],"clio":["Swedish Empire","Kingdom of Sweden","United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway","New Sweden"],"region":"europe","start":1611,"end":1721,"capital":"Stockholm","peak":{"year":1658,"areaKm2":1100000,"note":"c. 1.1M km² (Wikipedia: Swedish Empire), after the Treaty of Roskilde took Scania and other provinces from Denmark; not covered by Taagepera"},"rulers":[{"name":"Gustav I Vasa","reign":"1523–1560","note":"Broke away from the Kalmar Union and founded the modern Swedish state"},{"name":"Gustavus Adolphus","reign":"1611–1632","note":"Military innovator; killed at Lützen in the Thirty Years' War"},{"name":"Christina","reign":"1632–1654","note":"Gained German lands at the Peace of Westphalia, 1648"},{"name":"Charles X Gustav","reign":"1654–1660","note":"Marched across the frozen Danish straits in 1658"},{"name":"Charles XI","reign":"1660–1697","note":"Made the monarchy absolute and restored royal finances"},{"name":"Charles XII","reign":"1697–1718","note":"Defeated by Peter the Great at Poltava in 1709"}],"summary":"Sweden left the Danish-led Kalmar Union under Gustav Vasa in 1523, and his heirs built a strong, Lutheran, centralised state rich in iron and copper. Gustavus Adolphus turned it into a great power: his reformed army won stunning victories in the Thirty Years' War, and by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 Sweden held lands around the Baltic in Finland, Estonia, Livonia, Pomerania and Bremen. Charles X Gustav took Scania and other provinces from Denmark in 1658, and Sweden briefly had a colony on the Delaware River. With a small population stretched thin, the empire could not survive a coalition of Russia, Denmark and Saxony in the Great Northern War; Charles XII was crushed at Poltava in 1709, and the Treaty of Nystad in 1721 ended Swedish dominance. Finland was lost to Russia in 1809.","legacy":"Sweden's century as a great power left an efficient state administration, and after losing its empire it turned toward the neutrality and prosperity it later became known for.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Swedish Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"denmark-norway","name":"Denmark–Norway","aliases":["Denmark-Norway"],"clio":["Denmark-Norway","Danish India","Danish Gold Coast"],"region":"europe","start":1537,"end":1814,"capital":"Copenhagen","peak":{"year":1600,"areaKm2":2600000,"note":"Rough estimate; most of it Greenland, claimed but barely controlled; plus Norway, Iceland and Denmark with Scania. Wikipedia gives c. 2.66M km² for 1800"},"rulers":[{"name":"Christian III","reign":"1534–1559","note":"Made Norway a dependency of the Danish crown in 1537 and brought in Lutheranism"},{"name":"Christian IV","reign":"1588–1648","note":"Great builder of towns and palaces, but lost wars to Sweden"},{"name":"Frederick III","reign":"1648–1670","note":"Lost Scania in 1658; became absolute hereditary monarch in 1660"},{"name":"Christian VII","reign":"1766–1808","note":"Mentally ill king whose doctor Struensee briefly ruled as a reformer"},{"name":"Frederick VI","reign":"1808–1814 (in Norway)","note":"Lost Norway to Sweden after siding with Napoleon"}],"summary":"When the Kalmar Union fell apart after Sweden broke away in 1523, Denmark kept Norway, and in 1537 Christian III made Norway a dependency ruled from Copenhagen, along with Iceland, the Faroe Islands and claims to Greenland. The twin realms controlled the Sound, the narrow strait into the Baltic, and collected rich tolls from passing ships. Christian IV built towns and fortresses but lost wars to Sweden, and in 1658 Denmark gave up Scania, Halland and Blekinge for good. In 1660 Frederick III became an absolute hereditary monarch. Denmark-Norway also held trading posts in India and on the Gold Coast, and the Danish West Indies, where enslaved Africans grew sugar. Siding with Napoleon proved disastrous: after his defeat, the Treaty of Kiel in 1814 handed Norway to Sweden.","legacy":"Greenland and the Faroe Islands are still linked to Denmark, and written Norwegian long remained close to Danish.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Denmark–Norway","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark%E2%80%93Norway"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"prussia","name":"Prussia (Brandenburg-Prussia)","aliases":["Prussia","Brandenburg"],"clio":["Duchy of Prussia","Electorate of Brandenburg","Brandenburg-Prussia","Kingdom of Prussia"],"region":"europe","start":1525,"end":1947,"capital":"Königsberg; Berlin from the 17th century","peak":{"year":1910,"areaKm2":348780,"note":"348,780 km² (Wikipedia: Kingdom of Prussia); nearly two-thirds of the German Empire"},"rulers":[{"name":"Albert","reign":"1525–1568","note":"Last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, became its first duke"},{"name":"Frederick William, the Great Elector","reign":"1640–1688","note":"Built a standing army and a unified state"},{"name":"Frederick I","reign":"1701–1713","note":"Crowned himself the first King in Prussia"},{"name":"Frederick William I","reign":"1713–1740","note":"The soldier king who built up the army"},{"name":"Frederick II, the Great","reign":"1740–1786","note":"Seized Silesia and made Prussia a great power"},{"name":"Wilhelm I","reign":"1861–1888","note":"Became German Emperor in 1871"},{"name":"Otto von Bismarck","reign":"1862–1890","note":"Minister-president who unified Germany through three wars"}],"summary":"Prussia became a duchy in 1525, when Albert of Hohenzollern, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, turned Lutheran and secularised their lands. In 1618 it passed to his relatives, the electors of Brandenburg, and Frederick William the Great Elector forged their scattered territories into a disciplined state with a standing army. His son crowned himself King in Prussia in 1701. Frederick William I enlarged the army further, and Frederick the Great seized Silesia from Austria, survived the Seven Years' War and took a share of partitioned Poland. Crushed by Napoleon in 1806, Prussia reformed and gained the Rhineland in 1815. Under Bismarck it defeated Denmark, Austria and France, and in 1871 its king became German Emperor. Prussia lived on as the largest German state until the Allies abolished it in 1947.","legacy":"Prussia's efficient bureaucracy, compulsory schooling and general staff were widely copied, though its militarism is often blamed for Germany's path to war.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Prussia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Prussia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Prussia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia"}]},{"id":"germany","name":"German Empire and Germany","aliases":["German Empire","Germany","West Germany","East Germany","East Prussia","Germany (UK)","Germany (USA)","Germany (France)","Germany (Soviet)","German E. Africa (Tanganyika)","German South-West Africa","Kamerun","Togoland"],"clio":["German Confederation","North German Confederation","German Empire","German Africa","Weimar Republic","Nazi Germany","Federal Republic of Germany","German Democratic Republic","Federated Republic of Germany"],"region":"europe","start":1871,"end":2026,"capital":"Berlin (Bonn for West Germany 1949–1990)","peak":{"year":1914,"areaKm2":3500000,"note":"c. 3.5M km² in 1912 (Wikipedia: German colonial empire): about 540,000 km² in Europe plus colonies in Africa and the Pacific"},"rulers":[{"name":"Wilhelm I","reign":"1871–1888","note":"First German Emperor"},{"name":"Otto von Bismarck","reign":"1871–1890","note":"Chancellor and architect of unification"},{"name":"Wilhelm II","reign":"1888–1918","note":"Last emperor; abdicated at the end of the First World War"},{"name":"Adolf Hitler","reign":"1933–1945","note":"Nazi dictator responsible for the Holocaust and the Second World War"},{"name":"Konrad Adenauer","reign":"1949–1963","note":"First chancellor of West Germany"},{"name":"Helmut Kohl","reign":"1982–1998","note":"Chancellor of German reunification in 1990"}],"summary":"The German Empire was proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871, after Prussia under Otto von Bismarck defeated France and united the German states except Austria. It quickly became Europe's leading industrial and scientific power and gained colonies in Africa and the Pacific, where a rising in German South West Africa was crushed in the genocide of the Herero and Nama. Kaiser Wilhelm II's ambitions helped bring on the First World War, and defeat in 1918 brought the Weimar Republic. Economic crisis let Adolf Hitler's Nazis take power in 1933; their dictatorship murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust and launched the Second World War, which ended in total defeat in 1945. Germany was split into four occupation zones, then into West and East Germany in 1949, and was peacefully reunited in 1990.","legacy":"Reunited Germany is Europe's largest economy and a founding member of the European Union, and its reckoning with the Nazi past is often cited as a model of remembrance.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: German Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: German colonial empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_colonial_empire"}]},{"id":"italy","name":"Kingdom of Italy and Italian Republic","aliases":["Kingdom of Italy","Italy","Kingdom of Sardinia","Sardinia-Piedmont","Libya (IT)","Italian Somaliland","Eritrea (Italy)","Ethiopia (Italy)"],"clio":["Kingdom of Italy","House of Savoy","Kingdom of Sardinia","Italian Republic","Italian Nationalists","Italian Africa","Republic of Italy"],"region":"europe","start":1861,"end":2026,"capital":"Turin, then Florence (1865), then Rome (1871)","peak":{"year":1940,"areaKm2":3800000,"note":"c. 3.8M km² in 1938 (Harrison 2000), including Libya and Italian East Africa; Albania, annexed in 1939, added c. 29,000 km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Victor Emmanuel II","reign":"1861–1878","note":"King of Sardinia who became the first King of Italy"},{"name":"Camillo di Cavour","reign":"1852–1861","note":"Sardinian prime minister who masterminded unification"},{"name":"Umberto I","reign":"1878–1900","note":"Reign saw the first colonies in Eritrea and Somalia; assassinated"},{"name":"Victor Emmanuel III","reign":"1900–1946","note":"Appointed Mussolini in 1922"},{"name":"Benito Mussolini","reign":"1922–1943","note":"Fascist dictator who conquered Ethiopia and allied with Hitler"},{"name":"Alcide De Gasperi","reign":"1945–1953","note":"Prime minister who rebuilt Italy as a democratic republic"}],"summary":"For centuries Italy was divided among rival states and foreign powers. In the Risorgimento, or resurgence, the Kingdom of Sardinia, ruled by the House of Savoy from Turin, led unification: its prime minister Cavour allied with France against Austria in 1859, Garibaldi's volunteers conquered the south in 1860, and Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed King of Italy in 1861. Venice followed in 1866 and Rome in 1870, becoming the capital. Italy took colonies in Eritrea, Somalia and Libya and gained Trieste and South Tyrol after the First World War. Benito Mussolini's Fascists ruled from 1922, conquered Ethiopia in 1936 and joined Hitler in the Second World War, which ended in defeat and the loss of all colonies. A referendum in 1946 abolished the monarchy and created the Italian Republic.","legacy":"Italy became a founding member of the European Community and one of the world's largest economies, though the gap between its industrial north and poorer south dates back to unification.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Italy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Italy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Italian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"republic-of-turkey","name":"Republic of Turkey","aliases":["Turkey","Republic of Turkey"],"clio":["Republic of Turkey"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1923,"end":2026,"capital":"Ankara","peak":{"year":1939,"areaKm2":783600,"note":"783,600 km²; after annexing Hatay from French-ruled Syria"},"rulers":[{"name":"Mustafa Kemal Atatürk","reign":"1923–1938","note":"Founder and first president"},{"name":"İsmet İnönü","reign":"1938–1950","note":"Kept Turkey out of the Second World War; allowed multiparty elections"},{"name":"Adnan Menderes","reign":"1950–1960","note":"First elected opposition prime minister; overthrown and executed after a coup"},{"name":"Turgut Özal","reign":"1983–1993","note":"Prime minister, then president; opened the economy"},{"name":"Recep Tayyip Erdoğan","reign":"2003–","note":"Prime minister 2003–2014, then president"}],"summary":"The Republic of Turkey rose from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. When the Allies occupied Istanbul and planned to partition Anatolia, Mustafa Kemal led a nationalist war of independence from Ankara, defeating Greek, Armenian and French forces. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 recognised Turkey's borders, followed by a vast population exchange with Greece, and the republic was proclaimed that October. Kemal, later named Atatürk, abolished the sultanate and caliphate, replaced Islamic law with European-style codes, adopted the Latin alphabet and gave women the vote. A one-party state until 1950, Turkey then became a multiparty democracy, interrupted by military coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980. It joined NATO in 1952 and became a regional power bridging Europe and the Middle East.","legacy":"Atatürk's secular reforms reshaped Turkish society, and the tension between secular nationalism and religious politics still defines Turkish public life.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Turkey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hatay State","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatay_State"}]},{"id":"mughal-empire","name":"Mughal Empire","aliases":["Mughal Empire"],"clio":["Mughal Empire"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1526,"end":1857,"capital":"Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Lahore and Delhi at different times","peak":{"year":1690,"areaKm2":4000000,"note":"c. 4.0M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006); under Aurangzeb, covering almost the whole subcontinent"},"rulers":[{"name":"Babur","reign":"1526–1530","note":"Founder; won the first battle of Panipat"},{"name":"Humayun","reign":"1530–1540, 1555–1556","note":"Lost and regained the throne"},{"name":"Akbar","reign":"1556–1605","note":"Built the imperial system and promoted religious tolerance"},{"name":"Jahangir","reign":"1605–1627","note":"Patron of painting; received the first English ambassador"},{"name":"Shah Jahan","reign":"1628–1658","note":"Built the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort"},{"name":"Aurangzeb","reign":"1658–1707","note":"Expanded the empire to its greatest extent"},{"name":"Bahadur Shah II","reign":"1837–1857","note":"Last emperor, exiled by the British after the 1857 rebellion"}],"summary":"Babur, a Central Asian prince descended from both Timur and Genghis Khan, invaded India and defeated the Delhi Sultanate at Panipat in 1526. His son Humayun lost the throne to Sher Shah Suri but regained it in 1555. Humayun's son Akbar built a lasting empire through conquest and alliances with Rajput kings, a ranked nobility of mansabdars and a revenue system based on surveyed land, and he promoted dialogue among religions. Under Jahangir and Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, the court was among the richest in the world. Aurangzeb pushed the empire to its greatest size in the Deccan but exhausted it in endless wars. After his death in 1707 provincial governors, Marathas, Sikhs and the British carved it up, and the British deposed the last emperor after the rebellion of 1857.","legacy":"Mughal architecture, painting, cuisine and the Urdu language left a deep mark on South Asian culture, from the Taj Mahal to Delhi's Red Fort.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mughal Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VI.A, The Mughal Empire, c. 1605","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_Mughal_Empire_c._1605.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VII: The Mughul Empire (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/mughulempire00bhar"},{"title":"Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/historyofaurangz02sarkuoft"}]},{"id":"safavid-empire","name":"Safavid Empire","aliases":["Safavid Empire"],"clio":["Safavid Dynasty"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1501,"end":1736,"capital":"Tabriz, then Qazvin, then Isfahan (from 1598)","peak":{"year":1630,"areaKm2":2900000,"note":"c. 2.9M km² (Oxford figure cited by Wikipedia); after Shah Abbas I's conquests, including Iraq and the Caucasus"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ismail I","reign":"1501–1524","note":"Founder; made Shia Islam the state religion"},{"name":"Tahmasp I","reign":"1524–1576","note":"Long reign of consolidation; sheltered the Mughal Humayun"},{"name":"Abbas I, the Great","reign":"1588–1629","note":"Reformed the army and rebuilt Isfahan"},{"name":"Sultan Husayn","reign":"1694–1722","note":"Lost Isfahan to Afghan invaders"}],"summary":"The Safavids began as leaders of a Sufi order in Ardabil whose Turkmen followers, the Qizilbash or red heads, revered them. In 1501 the young Ismail I captured Tabriz and declared himself shah, and he made Twelver Shia Islam the state religion, gradually converting a largely Sunni Iran. Defeat by the Ottomans at Chaldiran in 1514 began a long frontier rivalry. Shah Abbas the Great rebuilt the state, creating an army of slave soldiers loyal to the crown, recovering lands from the Ottomans and Uzbeks, and making Isfahan a magnificent capital of mosques, bridges and bazaars that traded silk with Europe and India. Later shahs were weaker and more secluded, and in 1722 Afghan invaders captured Isfahan. The general Nader, who drove the Afghans out, ended the dynasty by crowning himself shah in 1736.","legacy":"The Safavids gave Iran its Shia identity and much of its modern territory, and Isfahan's Naqsh-e Jahan Square remains a masterpiece of Islamic architecture.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Safavid Iran","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_Iran"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"qajar-pahlavi-iran","name":"Iran from Nader Shah to the Pahlavis (Persia)","aliases":["Persia","Iran"],"clio":["Afsharid Iran","Zand Dynasty","Qajar Dynasty","Pahlavi Dynasty","Islamic Republic of Iran"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1736,"end":1979,"capital":"Mashhad under Nader Shah; Shiraz under Karim Khan Zand; Tehran from 1786","peak":{"year":1740,"areaKm2":3000000,"note":"Rough estimate; Nader Shah's empire, from the Caucasus and Khiva to the Indus. No Taagepera figure; the later Qajar state was c. 1.3M km² (1873)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Nader Shah","reign":"1736–1747","note":"Afsharid conqueror who sacked Delhi in 1739; assassinated"},{"name":"Karim Khan Zand","reign":"1751–1779","note":"Ruled most of Iran from Shiraz as regent, not shah"},{"name":"Agha Mohammad Khan","reign":"1789–1797","note":"Founder of the Qajar dynasty; crowned shah in 1796"},{"name":"Fath-Ali Shah","reign":"1797–1834","note":"Lost the Caucasus to Russia"},{"name":"Naser al-Din Shah","reign":"1848–1896","note":"Long reign of limited reform and foreign concessions"},{"name":"Mozaffar ad-Din Shah","reign":"1896–1907","note":"Granted Iran's first constitution in 1906"},{"name":"Reza Shah Pahlavi","reign":"1925–1941","note":"Army officer who founded the Pahlavi dynasty"},{"name":"Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi","reign":"1941–1979","note":"Last shah, overthrown in the Islamic Revolution"}],"summary":"After the Safavids fell, the general Nader crowned himself shah in 1736 and briefly built a vast empire, sacking Delhi in 1739, but it fell apart after his murder in 1747, and Karim Khan Zand then ruled most of Iran from Shiraz. Agha Mohammad Khan, chief of the Turkic Qajar tribe, then defeated his rivals, made Tehran his capital in 1786 and was crowned shah in 1796. His successors lost Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to Russia by 1828, while Britain and Russia competed for influence and concessions. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 created Iran's first parliament. In 1925 the army officer Reza Khan founded the Pahlavi dynasty, modernising the country by force, and in 1935 Persia officially became Iran abroad. His son Mohammad Reza Shah, backed by the West and oil wealth, was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.","legacy":"Iran's modern borders, its capital at Tehran and its tradition of popular protest against foreign influence took shape under these two dynasties.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Afsharid Iran","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afsharid_Iran"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qajar Iran","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qajar_Iran"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agha_Mohammad_Khan_Qajar"}]},{"id":"maratha-empire","name":"Maratha Empire (Maratha Confederacy)","aliases":["Maratha Confederacy","Mahratta states","Maratha"],"clio":["Maratha Empire","Thanjavur Maratha Kingdom"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1674,"end":1818,"capital":"Raigad, then Satara; Pune under the Peshwas","peak":{"year":1760,"areaKm2":2500000,"note":"c. 2.5M km² (Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), including tributary lands, just before defeat at Panipat"},"rulers":[{"name":"Shivaji","reign":"1674–1680","note":"Founder, crowned Chhatrapati in 1674"},{"name":"Sambhaji","reign":"1681–1689","note":"Captured and executed by Aurangzeb"},{"name":"Tarabai","reign":"1700–1708","note":"Regent who led resistance against the Mughals"},{"name":"Shahu I","reign":"1707–1749","note":"Under him the Peshwas became the real power"},{"name":"Baji Rao I","reign":"1720–1740","note":"Peshwa who carried Maratha power into northern India"},{"name":"Madhavrao I","reign":"1761–1772","note":"Peshwa who restored Maratha power after Panipat"},{"name":"Baji Rao II","reign":"1796–1818","note":"Last Peshwa, defeated by the British"}],"summary":"The Marathas, Marathi-speaking warriors of the western Deccan hills, rose under Shivaji, who used hill forts and swift guerrilla raids to carve a kingdom out of the Bijapur sultanate and the Mughal Empire, crowning himself Chhatrapati in 1674. They survived Aurangzeb's long war against them, and from 1713 real power passed to hereditary chief ministers, the Peshwas, ruling from Pune. Peshwa Baji Rao I led cavalry far into the north, and by the 1750s Maratha armies collected tribute from Delhi to Bengal and the far south. Their advance was checked by the Afghan Ahmad Shah Durrani at the third battle of Panipat in 1761. The realm then became a confederacy of powerful chiefs, the Scindias, Holkars, Gaekwads and Bhonsles, who fought the British East India Company in three wars and were finally defeated in 1818.","legacy":"The Marathas ended Mughal supremacy and were India's last great indigenous power before British rule; Shivaji remains a hero in Maharashtra.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Maratha Confederacy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Confederacy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Baji Rao II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baji_Rao_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. VIII: The Maratha Supremacy (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/marathasupremacy08bhar"},{"title":"Jadunath Sarkar, Shivaji and His Times (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/shivajihistimes00sarkrich"},{"title":"Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, vol. I (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.511649"}]},{"id":"sikh-empire","name":"Sikh Empire","aliases":["Sikhs","Lahore"],"clio":["Sikh Empire","Sikh Confederacy","Sikhs"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1799,"end":1849,"capital":"Lahore","peak":{"year":1839,"areaKm2":520000,"note":"c. 520,000 km² (200,000 sq mi; Singh 2010); Punjab, Kashmir and the Peshawar valley"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ranjit Singh","reign":"1801–1839","note":"The Lion of Punjab; took Lahore in 1799"},{"name":"Kharak Singh","reign":"1839–1840","note":"Brief reign amid court intrigue"},{"name":"Sher Singh","reign":"1841–1843","note":"Assassinated by rival nobles"},{"name":"Duleep Singh","reign":"1843–1849","note":"Child maharaja deposed when Britain annexed Punjab"}],"summary":"The Sikh faith, founded by Guru Nanak in Punjab around 1500, was forged into a martial brotherhood, the Khalsa, by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699. As Mughal power collapsed in the 18th century, Sikh bands fought both the Mughals and Afghan invaders and divided Punjab among a dozen confederacies called misls. Ranjit Singh, leader of the Sukerchakia misl, captured Lahore in 1799 and was proclaimed Maharaja of Punjab in 1801. He united the misls, built a modern army trained partly by European officers, and conquered Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar, ruling Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus with notable tolerance. After his death in 1839, court intrigue and a rapid succession of rulers weakened the state. The British East India Company defeated it in two Anglo-Sikh wars and annexed Punjab in 1849.","legacy":"Ranjit Singh's kingdom is remembered as a golden age of Sikh power, and the Koh-i-Noor diamond, taken by the British in 1849, is still claimed by several countries.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Sikh Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, The expansion of British power, 1819-1857","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_expansion_of_British_power_1819-1857.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IX: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part I (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/britishparamount09bhar"}]},{"id":"durrani-empire","name":"Durrani Empire (Afghanistan)","aliases":["Afghanistan"],"clio":["Durrani Empire","Durrani Dynasty","Emirate of Afghanistan","Kingdom of Afghanistan","Republic of Afghanistan","Afghanistan"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1747,"end":1823,"capital":"Kandahar; Kabul from 1776","peak":{"year":1762,"areaKm2":2000000,"note":"c. 2.0M km² (Bosin 2009, cited by Wikipedia); from eastern Iran to Kashmir, Punjab and Sindh"},"rulers":[{"name":"Ahmad Shah Durrani","reign":"1747–1772","note":"Founder, victor at the third battle of Panipat"},{"name":"Timur Shah","reign":"1772–1793","note":"Moved the capital to Kabul"},{"name":"Zaman Shah","reign":"1793–1801","note":"Deposed and blinded by his brother"},{"name":"Shah Shuja","reign":"1803–1809, 1839–1842","note":"Restored by the British in the First Anglo-Afghan War"},{"name":"Dost Mohammad Khan","reign":"1826–1839, 1843–1863","note":"Founder of Barakzai rule"},{"name":"Abdur Rahman Khan","reign":"1880–1901","note":"The Iron Amir who centralised Afghanistan"}],"summary":"When Nader Shah of Iran was assassinated in 1747, Ahmad Khan Abdali, a commander of his Afghan cavalry, was chosen king by a tribal council near Kandahar and took the title Durr-i-Durran, Pearl of Pearls. Uniting the Pashtun tribes, he built an empire stretching from Mashhad to Kashmir and Punjab, raiding Mughal India repeatedly and crushing the Marathas at Panipat in 1761. His son Timur Shah moved the capital to Kabul. Rivalry among Ahmad Shah's grandsons broke the empire apart in the early 1800s, as the Sikhs took Punjab and Kashmir, and power passed to the Barakzai family under Dost Mohammad Khan. Afghanistan survived two wars with Britain and became a buffer between the British and Russian empires, which fixed its borders in the 1880s and 1890s.","legacy":"Ahmad Shah Durrani is honoured as the father of modern Afghanistan, and his empire defined the Pashtun-led state that followed.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Durrani Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrani_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dost Mohammad Khan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dost_Mohammad_Khan"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, Mughal disintegration and the rise of regional powers, 1707-1766","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/Mughal_disintegration_and_the_rise_of_regional_powers_1707-1766.json&canvasID=0"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. IX: British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part I (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/britishparamount09bhar"}]},{"id":"british-india","name":"British India (Company Rule and the Raj)","aliases":["British Raj","British East India Company"],"clio":["British Empire","British Raj"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1757,"end":1947,"capital":"Calcutta; Delhi from 1911-12 (New Delhi inaugurated 1931)","peak":{"year":1930,"areaKm2":4994000,"note":"c. 5.0M km² (Wikipedia: British Raj; the 1901 census, by contrast, gave 1,766,597 sq mi, c. 4.58M km²), including the princely states and Burma, separated in 1937"},"rulers":[{"name":"Robert Clive","reign":"1758–1760, 1765–1767","note":"Victor of Plassey and governor of Bengal"},{"name":"Warren Hastings","reign":"1773–1785","note":"First governor-general of Bengal"},{"name":"Lord Dalhousie","reign":"1848–1856","note":"Governor-general who annexed Punjab and Awadh"},{"name":"Victoria","reign":"1876–1901","note":"Took the title Empress of India in 1876; proclaimed at Delhi on 1 January 1877"},{"name":"Lord Curzon","reign":"1899–1905","note":"Viceroy whose partition of Bengal provoked mass protest"},{"name":"Lord Mountbatten","reign":"1947","note":"Last viceroy, who oversaw independence and partition"}],"summary":"The English East India Company began as a trading firm with posts at Surat, Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. As Mughal power waned, its victory at Plassey in 1757 made it master of Bengal, and over the next century it conquered or subordinated most of the subcontinent, ruling through armies of Indian sepoys and alliances with princes. The great rebellion of 1857 led the British Crown to take direct control in 1858, and Queen Victoria became Empress of India in 1876. The Raj, governed by a viceroy and the Indian Civil Service, built railways and universities but drained wealth and presided over deadly famines. The Indian National Congress, and from the 1920s Gandhi's mass non-violent campaigns, pressed for self-rule. In 1947 Britain withdrew, partitioning the Raj into India and Pakistan amid terrible violence.","legacy":"Railways, the English language and parliamentary institutions remain from the Raj, as does the bitter legacy of partition between India and Pakistan.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Company rule in India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India"},{"title":"Wikipedia: British Raj","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj"},{"title":"Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. I (1909), p. 449: area of British provinces and Native States (DSAL)","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/reference/gazetteer/query.py?object=479&bookid=DS405.1.I34_V01&display_type=page_display"},{"title":"Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. II (1908): Historical (DSAL)","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/reference/gazetteer/query.py?display_type=volume_display&volume=2"},{"title":"Schwartzberg, A Historical Atlas of South Asia (DSAL), pl. VII.A, The expansion of British power, 1766-1819","url":"https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/schwartzberg_mirador?https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/manifests/map_groups/The_expansion_of_British_power_1766-1819.json&canvasID=0"}]},{"id":"republic-of-india","name":"Republic of India","aliases":["India"],"clio":["Republic of India"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1947,"end":2026,"capital":"New Delhi","peak":{"year":1975,"areaKm2":3287000,"note":"After Sikkim joined; India also claims areas held by Pakistan and China"},"rulers":[{"name":"Jawaharlal Nehru","reign":"1947–1964","note":"First prime minister"},{"name":"Vallabhbhai Patel","reign":"1947–1950","note":"Deputy prime minister who integrated the princely states"},{"name":"Indira Gandhi","reign":"1966–1977, 1980–1984","note":"Won the 1971 war; declared the Emergency; assassinated"},{"name":"P. V. Narasimha Rao","reign":"1991–1996","note":"Launched economic liberalisation"},{"name":"Atal Bihari Vajpayee","reign":"1996, 1998–2004","note":"First full-term prime minister from outside Congress"},{"name":"Narendra Modi","reign":"2014–","note":"Prime minister"}],"summary":"Independent India was born at midnight on 15 August 1947, when British rule ended and the subcontinent was partitioned, displacing some 15 million people. Jawaharlal Nehru became prime minister, while Vallabhbhai Patel persuaded or forced over 500 princely states to join the new nation. The constitution of 1950, drafted under B. R. Ambedkar, created a secular, federal parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage. India fought wars with Pakistan and China, absorbed Goa from Portugal in 1961 and Sikkim in 1975, and followed a planned, largely state-led economy and a foreign policy of non-alignment. Democracy was suspended only once, during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975–77. Economic liberalisation from 1991 brought rapid growth, and India tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998.","legacy":"India is the world's most populous country and largest democracy, with nearly a billion eligible voters.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_India"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"id":"pakistan","name":"Pakistan","aliases":["Pakistan"],"clio":["Islamic Republic of Pakistan"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1947,"end":2026,"capital":"Karachi; Rawalpindi (interim, 1959–1967); Islamabad from 1967","peak":{"year":1960,"areaKm2":943700,"note":"Including East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and excluding Pakistan-administered Kashmir"},"rulers":[{"name":"Muhammad Ali Jinnah","reign":"1947–1948","note":"Founder, the Quaid-i-Azam, and first governor-general"},{"name":"Liaquat Ali Khan","reign":"1947–1951","note":"First prime minister; assassinated"},{"name":"Ayub Khan","reign":"1958–1969","note":"First military ruler"},{"name":"Zulfikar Ali Bhutto","reign":"1971–1977","note":"President, then prime minister; executed in 1979"},{"name":"Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq","reign":"1977–1988","note":"Military ruler who promoted Islamisation"},{"name":"Benazir Bhutto","reign":"1988–1990, 1993–1996","note":"First woman elected to lead the government of a Muslim-majority country"}],"summary":"Pakistan was created on 14 August 1947 as a homeland for the Muslims of British India, the goal of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League. It began in two wings, West and East Pakistan, separated by about 1,600 km of Indian territory, and partition brought mass migration and violence. War with India over Kashmir broke out at once and recurred in 1965. Pakistan became an Islamic republic in 1956 but was often ruled by the army, under Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and later Zia-ul-Haq. Resentment in the Bengali-speaking east over political and economic domination led to a brutal war in 1971 and, with Indian help, the independence of Bangladesh. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and later his daughter Benazir led civilian governments between periods of military rule.","legacy":"Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998, and its unresolved dispute with India over Kashmir remains one of the world's most dangerous rivalries.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Pakistan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Islamabad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamabad"},{"title":"Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol. XI: Struggle for Freedom (Internet Archive)","url":"https://archive.org/details/struggleforfreed00bhar"}]},{"id":"saudi-arabia","name":"Saudi State (Diriyah, Nejd, Saudi Arabia)","aliases":["Saudi Arabia","Nejd","Arabia (Nejd)"],"clio":["Emirate of Diriyah","Emirate of Nejd","Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd","Kingdom of Saudi Arabia"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1727,"end":2026,"capital":"Diriyah; Riyadh from 1824","peak":{"year":1934,"areaKm2":2150000,"note":"c. 2.15M km²; about four-fifths of the Arabian Peninsula"},"rulers":[{"name":"Muhammad bin Saud","reign":"1727–1765","note":"Allied with the preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in 1744"},{"name":"Abdulaziz bin Muhammad","reign":"1765–1803","note":"Expanded the First Saudi State across Arabia"},{"name":"Turki bin Abdullah","reign":"1824–1834","note":"Founded the Second Saudi State at Riyadh"},{"name":"Abdulaziz ibn Saud","reign":"1902–1953","note":"Founder of the modern kingdom, proclaimed in 1932"},{"name":"Faisal","reign":"1964–1975","note":"Modernising king who led the 1973 oil embargo"},{"name":"Fahd","reign":"1982–2005","note":"Took the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques"}],"summary":"In 1744 the emir of the oasis town of Diriyah, Muhammad bin Saud, allied with the reforming preacher Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, joining political power to a strict form of Sunni Islam. This First Saudi State conquered most of Arabia, including Mecca and Medina, until an Egyptian army sent on behalf of the Ottomans destroyed Diriyah in 1818. A smaller Second Saudi State ruled from Riyadh from 1824 until its rivals, the Rashidis, took over in 1891. In 1902 the young Abdulaziz ibn Saud recaptured Riyadh, then conquered Nejd, the Hasa coast, the Rashidi lands and, in 1924–25, the Hejaz with the holy cities. In 1932 he renamed his realm the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Oil, found in 1938, made it one of the world's richest states, an absolute monarchy ruled by his sons.","legacy":"As guardian of Mecca and Medina and holder of vast oil reserves, Saudi Arabia wields great influence over the Muslim world and global energy markets.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Saudi Arabia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emirate of Diriyah","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Diriyah"}]},{"id":"kazakh-khanate","name":"Kazakh Khanate","aliases":["Quazaq Khanate"],"clio":["Kazakh Khanate"],"region":"north-central-asia","start":1465,"end":1847,"capital":"Turkistan (Yasi), with nomadic seasonal camps","peak":{"year":1520,"areaKm2":2000000,"note":"Rough estimate under Kasym Khan, when the Kazakhs controlled nearly the whole eastern steppe; steppe borders were fluid and no scholarly area figure was found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Kerei and Janibek","reign":"c. 1465–c. 1480","note":"Founders who broke away from the Uzbek khanate"},{"name":"Kasym Khan","reign":"c. 1511–1521","note":"Made the khanate a major steppe power"},{"name":"Haqnazar Khan","reign":"1538–1580","note":"Reunited the Kazakhs after a period of decline"},{"name":"Tauke Khan","reign":"1680–1718","note":"Remembered for the Zhety Zhargy law code"},{"name":"Abylai Khan","reign":"1771–1781","note":"Led resistance to the Dzungars and balanced Russia and China"},{"name":"Kenesary Khan","reign":"1841–1847","note":"Last khan, who led a rising against Russian rule"}],"summary":"Around 1465 the Chinggisid princes Kerei and Janibek led their followers away from the Uzbek khan Abu'l-Khayr and settled in the Chu valley; these nomads became known as Kazakhs, roughly meaning free wanderers. Under Kasym Khan in the early 1500s the khanate grew into a powerful steppe confederation stretching from the Syr Darya towards the Irtysh, its herders moving seasonally with sheep, horses and camels. It later divided into three hordes, or zhuz: the Senior, Middle and Junior. Devastating invasions by the Dzungars in the early 18th century, remembered as the Years of Great Disaster, led the Junior and then the Middle horde to accept Russian protection from 1731. Russia abolished the khans' powers between the 1820s and 1840s, and the last khan, Kenesary, died fighting in 1847.","legacy":"The khanate is regarded as the foundation of Kazakh nationhood, and independent Kazakhstan celebrated its 550th anniversary in 2015.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kazakh Khanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_Khanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kenesary Kasymov","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenesary_Kasymov"}]},{"id":"crimean-khanate","name":"Crimean Khanate","aliases":["Crimean Khanate"],"clio":["Crimean Khanate"],"region":"europe","start":1441,"end":1783,"capital":"Bakhchysarai","peak":{"year":1600,"areaKm2":300000,"note":"Rough estimate: Crimea plus the steppe north of the Black Sea; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Hacı I Giray","reign":"1441–1466","note":"Founder of the Giray dynasty"},{"name":"Meñli I Giray","reign":"1466–1515 (with interruptions)","note":"Accepted Ottoman overlordship and destroyed the Great Horde in 1502"},{"name":"Devlet I Giray","reign":"1551–1577","note":"Burned Moscow in 1571"},{"name":"Şahin Giray","reign":"1777–1783","note":"Last khan, a Russian-backed reformer"}],"summary":"The Crimean Khanate broke away from the disintegrating Golden Horde in 1441 under Hacı Giray, founder of a dynasty descended from Genghis Khan that ruled for over three centuries from Bakhchysarai. In 1475 it became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, which held the southern coast, yet the khans kept wide freedom and a powerful cavalry. For two centuries Crimean raiders swept into Poland-Lithuania and Russia, carrying off hundreds of thousands of captives for the slave markets of Kaffa and Istanbul, and in 1571 Devlet Giray burned Moscow. As Russia grew stronger it pushed south, and the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 made the khanate independent of the Ottomans, in practice a Russian client. Catherine the Great annexed it in 1783.","legacy":"The Crimean Tatars are the khanate's descendants; deported en masse by Stalin in 1944, they were able to return only after 1989.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Crimean Khanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Khanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Devlet I Giray","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devlet_I_Giray"}]},{"id":"bukhara","name":"Khanate and Emirate of Bukhara","aliases":["Bukara Khanate","Bokhara Khanate"],"clio":["Khanate of Bukhara","Emirate of Bukhara"],"region":"north-central-asia","start":1500,"end":1920,"capital":"Bukhara (Samarkand in the early years)","peak":{"year":1585,"areaKm2":900000,"note":"Rough estimate under Abdullah Khan II, including Khorasan and Balkh; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Muhammad Shaybani","reign":"1500–1510","note":"Uzbek conqueror of Transoxiana"},{"name":"Abdullah Khan II","reign":"1583–1598","note":"Effective ruler from 1557; the khanate's greatest extent"},{"name":"Imam Quli Khan","reign":"1611–1642","note":"Strongest ruler of the Janid dynasty"},{"name":"Shah Murad","reign":"1785–1800","note":"Manghit ruler who took the title of emir"},{"name":"Muzaffar","reign":"1860–1885","note":"Defeated by Russia, which made Bukhara a protectorate in 1868"},{"name":"Alim Khan","reign":"1910–1920","note":"Last emir, overthrown by the Red Army"}],"summary":"In 1500 the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani, a descendant of Genghis Khan, swept down from the steppe and conquered Timurid Transoxiana, taking Samarkand and Bukhara. His Shaybanid heirs made Bukhara their capital, and under Abdullah Khan II in the late 1500s the khanate reached Herat, Mashhad and Badakhshan. Power passed to the Janid, or Ashtarkhanid, dynasty around 1600, and later to the Manghit family, whose rulers took the Islamic title of emir in 1785. Bukhara was a great centre of Islamic learning, with scores of madrasas, and a hub of the caravan trade, though it competed constantly with Khiva, Kokand and Iran. Russian armies defeated it in 1868, making it a protectorate, and the Red Army overthrew the last emir in 1920.","legacy":"Bukhara's old city, rich in mosques and madrasas, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the khanate's lands form the core of modern Uzbekistan.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Khanate of Bukhara","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanate_of_Bukhara"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emirate of Bukhara","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara"}]},{"id":"omani-empire","name":"Omani Empire (Muscat, Oman and Zanzibar)","aliases":["Oman","Muscat and Oman","Zanzibar","Sultanate of Zanzibar"],"clio":["Sultanate of Oman","Sultanate of Muscat and Oman","Omani Slave Coast","People's Republic of Zanzibar","Sultanate of Zanzibar"],"region":"middle-east-south-asia","start":1650,"end":1964,"capital":"Nizwa and Rustaq under the Yaruba imams; Muscat from 1792; Zanzibar became the sultan's main seat in the 1830s–1840","peak":{"year":1850,"areaKm2":350000,"note":"Rough estimate: Oman plus Zanzibar, Pemba and the Swahili coast; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sultan bin Saif I","reign":"1649–1679","note":"Yaruba imam who expelled the Portuguese from Muscat"},{"name":"Ahmad bin Said","reign":"1744–1783","note":"Founder of the Al Said dynasty"},{"name":"Said bin Sultan","reign":"1806–1856","note":"Built a commercial empire centred on Zanzibar"},{"name":"Barghash bin Said","reign":"1870–1888","note":"Sultan of Zanzibar forced by Britain to close the slave market in 1873"},{"name":"Qaboos bin Said","reign":"1970–2020","note":"Sultan who modernised Oman"}],"summary":"In 1650 Imam Sultan bin Saif of the Yaruba dynasty drove the Portuguese out of Muscat, and Omani fleets went on to seize Portuguese strongholds on the East African coast, taking Fort Jesus at Mombasa in 1698. Under the Al Said dynasty, founded by Ahmad bin Said in 1744, Oman built a maritime trading empire across the western Indian Ocean. Said bin Sultan moved his main court to Zanzibar around 1840, where clove plantations worked by enslaved Africans and the caravan trade in ivory and slaves made the island rich. After his death in 1856 his sons split the realm into the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, both increasingly under British influence. Zanzibar's sultan was overthrown in a revolution in 1964, while the Al Said dynasty continued to rule Oman.","legacy":"Swahili coastal culture still bears Omani influence, and the Al Said dynasty rules Oman to this day.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Omani Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omani_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sultan bin Saif","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_bin_Saif"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zanzibar Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanzibar_Sultanate"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s (ed. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 1989)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general_history_africa_vi"}]},{"id":"mongolia","name":"Mongolia (Bogd Khanate and Mongolian People's Republic)","aliases":["Mongolia"],"clio":["Great Mongol State","Mongolian People's Republic","Mongolia"],"region":"east-asia","start":1911,"end":2026,"capital":"Urga, renamed Ulaanbaatar in 1924","peak":{"year":1924,"areaKm2":1564000,"note":"c. 1.56M km²; Outer Mongolia, roughly its present borders"},"rulers":[{"name":"Bogd Khan","reign":"1911–1924","note":"Buddhist leader proclaimed Great Khan at independence"},{"name":"Damdin Sükhbaatar","reign":"1921–1923","note":"Revolutionary hero of 1921"},{"name":"Khorloogiin Choibalsan","reign":"c. 1936–1952","note":"Stalinist leader of the purges"},{"name":"Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal","reign":"1952–1984","note":"Long-serving communist leader"},{"name":"Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat","reign":"1990–1997","note":"First president of democratic Mongolia"}],"summary":"When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, Mongol princes in Urga declared independence and made the Buddhist leader Jebtsundamba Khutuktu their ruler, the Bogd Khan. Chinese troops reoccupied the country in 1919, but in February 1921 the White Russian warlord Baron Ungern-Sternberg drove them from Urga, and Mongolian revolutionaries led by Damdin Sükhbaatar, aided by the Soviet Red Army, then expelled him and entered Urga in July. After the Bogd Khan died, the Mongolian People's Republic was declared in 1924, the world's second communist state. Under Khorloogiin Choibalsan, purges in the late 1930s killed tens of thousands of people, including many Buddhist monks, and most monasteries were destroyed. Mongolia remained a close Soviet ally, and China recognised its independence in 1946. Peaceful protests in 1990 brought multiparty democracy and a market economy.","legacy":"Mongolia built one of Asia's most stable post-communist democracies and has revived Genghis Khan as a national symbol.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongolia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bogd Khanate of Mongolia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogd_Khanate_of_Mongolia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongolian Revolution of 1921","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_Revolution_of_1921"}]},{"id":"qing-dynasty","name":"Qing Empire","aliases":["Qing Empire","Manchu Empire"],"clio":["Qing Dynasty"],"region":"east-asia","start":1636,"end":1912,"capital":"Mukden (Shenyang), then Beijing from 1644","peak":{"year":1790,"areaKm2":14700000,"note":"c. 14.7M km² (Taagepera 1997; Turchin, Adams & Hall 2006), including Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Manchuria"},"rulers":[{"name":"Nurhaci","reign":"1616–1626","note":"United the Jurchens and founded the Later Jin"},{"name":"Hong Taiji","reign":"1626–1643","note":"Proclaimed the Qing dynasty in 1636"},{"name":"Kangxi Emperor","reign":"1661–1722","note":"Consolidated the conquest of China and took Taiwan"},{"name":"Yongzheng Emperor","reign":"1722–1735","note":"Reformed finances and government"},{"name":"Qianlong Emperor","reign":"1735–1796","note":"Conquered Xinjiang; the empire's greatest extent"},{"name":"Empress Dowager Cixi","reign":"1861–1908","note":"Dominant regent of the late Qing"},{"name":"Puyi","reign":"1908–1912","note":"Last emperor, abdicated as a child"}],"summary":"The Qing were founded by the Manchus, Jurchen peoples of the northeast united by Nurhaci, whose son Hong Taiji proclaimed the Qing dynasty in 1636. When rebels toppled the Ming in 1644, Manchu armies entered Beijing and went on to conquer all of China, forcing Chinese men to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle. The Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors ruled for over a century of prosperity, roughly doubling the empire's size by conquering Taiwan, Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, and the population soared past 300 million. In the 19th century the empire was battered by the Opium Wars with Britain, the Taiping Rebellion, which killed perhaps 20 million people, and defeat by Japan in 1895. Reforms came too late: the 1911 revolution forced the child emperor Puyi to abdicate in 1912, ending over two thousand years of imperial rule.","legacy":"The borders of modern China, including Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, largely follow those the Qing conquered.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Qing dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"republic-of-china","name":"Republic of China","aliases":["Chinese Warlords","Chinese warlords","Manchuria","Xinjiang","Taiwan"],"clio":["Republic of China","Empire of China","Kuomintang","Anti-Kuomintang Coalition"],"region":"east-asia","start":1912,"end":2026,"capital":"Beijing, then Nanjing (1928), wartime Chongqing, and Taipei from 1949","peak":{"year":1946,"areaKm2":9700000,"note":"Nominal extent (9.67M km², Wikipedia) after recovering Taiwan and recognising Mongolian independence; Tibet was self-governing in practice. The 1912 claim including Mongolia was 11.4M km², while Taagepera (1997) estimates only c. 7.7M km² for 1912"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sun Yat-sen","reign":"1912","note":"Provisional president and father of the nation"},{"name":"Yuan Shikai","reign":"1912–1916","note":"General who tried to make himself emperor"},{"name":"Chiang Kai-shek","reign":"1928–1975","note":"Nationalist leader on the mainland, then on Taiwan from 1949"},{"name":"Chiang Ching-kuo","reign":"1978–1988","note":"Lifted martial law in 1987"},{"name":"Lee Teng-hui","reign":"1988–2000","note":"Led Taiwan's transition to full democracy"}],"summary":"The Republic of China was founded on 1 January 1912 after the revolution against the Qing, with Sun Yat-sen as provisional president. Power soon passed to the general Yuan Shikai, and after his death in 1916 China fragmented among rival warlords. Sun's Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang, rebuilt in the south, and in 1926–28 Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition reunited much of the country under a government in Nanjing. Chiang fought both the Communists and, from 1937, a full-scale Japanese invasion that killed millions. After Japan's defeat the civil war resumed, and in 1949 the Communists won the mainland. Chiang's government retreated to Taiwan, which it ruled under martial law until 1987. Under Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan became a prosperous democracy.","legacy":"The Republic of China survives on Taiwan, a high-tech economy whose status remains one of the most sensitive questions in world politics.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Republic of China (1912–1949)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912%E2%80%931949)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Taiwan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"peoples-republic-of-china","name":"People's Republic of China","aliases":["China"],"clio":["People's Republic of China","Communist Party of China","Chinese Communists"],"region":"east-asia","start":1949,"end":2026,"capital":"Beijing","peak":{"year":1951,"areaKm2":9600000,"note":"c. 9.6M km²; Taagepera (1997) gives c. 9.7M km² for 1950; after taking control of Tibet"},"rulers":[{"name":"Mao Zedong","reign":"1949–1976","note":"Founder and Communist Party chairman"},{"name":"Zhou Enlai","reign":"1949–1976","note":"Premier and chief diplomat"},{"name":"Deng Xiaoping","reign":"c. 1978–1992","note":"Paramount leader who launched reform and opening"},{"name":"Jiang Zemin","reign":"1989–2002","note":"Party leader during rapid growth"},{"name":"Hu Jintao","reign":"2002–2012","note":"Party leader; Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympics"},{"name":"Xi Jinping","reign":"2012–","note":"Party general secretary and president"}],"summary":"Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, after the Communist Party won the civil war. The new state took control of Tibet in 1950–51, fought the United States in Korea and carried out land reform and Soviet-style planning. Mao's Great Leap Forward of 1958–62 caused a famine that killed tens of millions, and his Cultural Revolution of 1966–76 unleashed a decade of persecution and chaos. After his death, Deng Xiaoping began reform and opening in 1978, allowing family farming, foreign investment and markets while keeping one-party rule, which was violently reasserted at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Hong Kong and Macau returned to Chinese rule in 1997 and 1999. Decades of rapid growth lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and made China the world's second-largest economy.","legacy":"China is once again a great power, a manufacturing centre for the world and a rival to the United States in technology and influence.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: China","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"tokugawa-shogunate","name":"Tokugawa Shogunate","aliases":["Tokugawa shogunate","Japan (Warring States)"],"clio":["Tokugawa Shogunate","Warring States Japan"],"region":"east-asia","start":1603,"end":1868,"capital":"Edo (Tokyo); the emperor stayed in Kyoto","peak":{"year":1800,"areaKm2":300000,"note":"c.; Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and southern Hokkaido, with the Ryukyu kingdom as a vassal of Satsuma; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Tokugawa Ieyasu","reign":"1603–1605","note":"Victor of Sekigahara and founder of the shogunate"},{"name":"Tokugawa Hidetada","reign":"1605–1623","note":"Destroyed the rival Toyotomi at Osaka in 1615"},{"name":"Tokugawa Iemitsu","reign":"1623–1651","note":"Introduced alternate attendance and closed the country"},{"name":"Tokugawa Tsunayoshi","reign":"1680–1709","note":"The Genroku era of flourishing urban culture"},{"name":"Tokugawa Yoshimune","reign":"1716–1745","note":"Reformer who relaxed the ban on Western books"},{"name":"Tokugawa Yoshinobu","reign":"1866–1867","note":"Last shogun, returned power to the emperor"}],"summary":"After a century of civil war in the Sengoku, or Warring States, period, Japan was reunited by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. When Hideyoshi died, Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated his rivals at Sekigahara in 1600, and in 1603 the emperor named him shogun. From Edo, the Tokugawa shoguns ruled through about 260 domain lords, the daimyo, who had to spend alternate years in Edo, while the emperor remained a figurehead in Kyoto. Christianity was banned, and from the 1630s foreign trade was restricted to the Dutch and Chinese at Nagasaki. Two and a half centuries of peace brought growing cities, a wealthy merchant class and arts such as kabuki and woodblock prints. The arrival of Commodore Perry's American warships in 1853 forced Japan open, and in 1867–68 the last shogun surrendered power to the emperor.","legacy":"The long Tokugawa peace created the urban, literate society that let Japan modernise so rapidly after 1868.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tokugawa shogunate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_shogunate"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Edo Period","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Edo_Period/"}]},{"id":"empire-of-japan","name":"Empire of Japan","aliases":["Empire of Japan","Imperial Japan","Japan","Japan (USA)"],"clio":["Empire of Japan","Japan"],"region":"east-asia","start":1868,"end":1947,"capital":"Tokyo","peak":{"year":1942,"areaKm2":7400000,"note":"c. 7.4M km² (Conrad 2014), including occupied territories in China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific"},"rulers":[{"name":"Emperor Meiji","reign":"1867–1912","note":"Symbol of the Meiji Restoration and modernisation"},{"name":"Itō Hirobumi","reign":"1885–1888","note":"First prime minister and author of the 1889 constitution"},{"name":"Emperor Taishō","reign":"1912–1926","note":"Era of party government"},{"name":"Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito)","reign":"1926–1989","note":"Reigned through war, defeat and recovery"},{"name":"Hideki Tōjō","reign":"1941–1944","note":"Wartime prime minister, executed as a war criminal"},{"name":"Shigeru Yoshida","reign":"1946–1947, 1948–1954","note":"Postwar prime minister who shaped the new Japan"}],"summary":"In the Meiji Restoration of 1868, reformers overthrew the shogunate in the name of Emperor Meiji and set out to modernise Japan so it could resist the Western powers. They abolished the samurai class, built railways, factories and a conscript army, and adopted a constitution in 1889. Japan defeated China in 1895, taking Taiwan, and stunned the world by defeating Russia in 1905; it annexed Korea in 1910. Militarists gained control in the 1930s, seizing Manchuria in 1931 and invading China in 1937. After attacking Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japan overran Southeast Asia and the western Pacific, committing widespread atrocities. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered in 1945. Under American occupation a new constitution in 1947 made the emperor a symbol and renounced war.","legacy":"Postwar Japan rebuilt into one of the world's largest economies, while memories of its wartime empire still strain relations with China and Korea.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Empire of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Japan"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Meiji Restoration","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Meiji_Restoration/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"siam-thailand","name":"Rattanakosin Siam (Thailand)","aliases":["Rattanakosin Kingdom","Siam","Thailand"],"clio":["Thonburi Kingdom","Rattanakosin Kingdom","Kingdom of Thailand"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1782,"end":2026,"capital":"Bangkok","peak":{"year":1805,"areaKm2":1120000,"note":"c. 1.12M km² (432,000 sq mi, Wikipedia), including vassal Lan Na, Laos, western Cambodia and northern Malay sultanates; by 1893 it had shrunk to c. 727,000 km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Taksin","reign":"1767–1782","note":"Drove out the Burmese and ruled from Thonburi"},{"name":"Rama I","reign":"1782–1809","note":"Founded the Chakri dynasty and Bangkok"},{"name":"Rama III","reign":"1824–1851","note":"Expanded control over Laos and Cambodia"},{"name":"Mongkut (Rama IV)","reign":"1851–1868","note":"Opened Siam to Western trade"},{"name":"Chulalongkorn (Rama V)","reign":"1868–1910","note":"Modernised the state and abolished slavery"},{"name":"Plaek Phibunsongkhram","reign":"1938–1944, 1948–1957","note":"Military prime minister who renamed the country Thailand"},{"name":"Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX)","reign":"1946–2016","note":"One of the longest-reigning monarchs in history"}],"summary":"After Ayutthaya fell in 1767, the general Taksin drove out the Burmese and ruled from Thonburi. In 1782 his general Chao Phraya Chakri took the throne as Rama I, founding the Chakri dynasty and a new capital at Bangkok across the river; the period is named Rattanakosin after its royal island. The kingdom extended its rule over Laos, western Cambodia and northern Malay sultanates. Kings Mongkut and Chulalongkorn modernised Siam, signing trade treaties, abolishing slavery and building railways and ministries, and skilfully played Britain and France against each other, so that Siam alone in Southeast Asia escaped colonisation, though it ceded outlying lands. A revolution in 1932 ended absolute monarchy, and the country was renamed Thailand in 1939. Military governments alternated with elected ones, while King Bhumibol reigned for seventy years.","legacy":"Thailand is the only Southeast Asian country never colonised by a European power, and the Chakri dynasty still reigns.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Rattanakosin Kingdom (1782–1932)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattanakosin_Kingdom_(1782%E2%80%931932)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chakri dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakri_dynasty"}]},{"id":"toungoo-burma","name":"Toungoo Empire (Burma)","aliases":["Ava","Burmese kingdoms"],"clio":["First Toungoo Empire"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1510,"end":1752,"capital":"Taungoo, then Pegu (Bago), then Ava from 1635","peak":{"year":1580,"areaKm2":1300000,"note":"Rough estimate under Bayinnaung, including Ayutthaya, Lan Na, Lan Xang and the Shan states; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Mingyi Nyo","reign":"1510–1530","note":"Founder, made Taungoo independent of Ava"},{"name":"Tabinshwehti","reign":"1530–1550","note":"United Upper and Lower Burma"},{"name":"Bayinnaung","reign":"1550–1581","note":"Built the largest empire in Southeast Asian history"},{"name":"Nanda Bayin","reign":"1581–1599","note":"Lost the empire to rebellions and invasions"},{"name":"Anaukpetlun","reign":"1605–1628","note":"Restored the kingdom"},{"name":"Thalun","reign":"1629–1648","note":"Moved the capital to Ava and reorganised the state"},{"name":"Mahadhammaraza Dipadi","reign":"1733–1752","note":"Last king, captured when the Mons took Ava"}],"summary":"The Toungoo dynasty began in the small principality of Taungoo, which grew strong as refugees fled wars elsewhere in Burma. King Tabinshwehti, from 1530, united Upper and Lower Burma and took the Mon port of Pegu, using Portuguese mercenaries and firearms. His brother-in-law Bayinnaung built the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia, subduing the Shan states, Manipur, Lan Na, Lan Xang and Ayutthaya, which he took in 1569. It was held together by personal loyalty and could not survive him: under Nanda Bayin it collapsed by 1599. Anaukpetlun and Thalun rebuilt a smaller, sturdier kingdom, and the capital moved to Ava in 1635. Weakened by Manipuri raids and a Mon rebellion, the restored kingdom fell when the Mons captured Ava in 1752.","legacy":"The Toungoo kings laid the foundations of a unified Burmese state, and Bayinnaung is still celebrated as one of Myanmar's greatest rulers.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Toungoo dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toungoo_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bayinnaung","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayinnaung"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"konbaung-burma","name":"Konbaung Burma","aliases":["Burma"],"clio":["Konbaung Dynasty","Burma","Union of Myanmar"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1752,"end":1885,"capital":"Shwebo, Ava and Amarapura at different times; Mandalay from 1857","peak":{"year":1824,"areaKm2":794000,"note":"c. 794,000 km² (Harvey 1925), including Assam, Manipur and Arakan, before the First Anglo-Burmese War"},"rulers":[{"name":"Alaungpaya","reign":"1752–1760","note":"Founder who reunified Burma"},{"name":"Hsinbyushin","reign":"1763–1776","note":"Destroyed Ayutthaya and repelled Qing invasions"},{"name":"Bodawpaya","reign":"1782–1819","note":"Conquered Arakan"},{"name":"Bagyidaw","reign":"1819–1837","note":"Lost the First Anglo-Burmese War"},{"name":"Mindon","reign":"1853–1878","note":"Reforming king who founded Mandalay"},{"name":"Thibaw","reign":"1878–1885","note":"Last king, exiled by the British"}],"summary":"When Mon forces sacked Ava in 1752, a village chief named Aung Zeya rallied resistance, took the royal name Alaungpaya and reunified Burma within a decade. His sons were formidable conquerors: Hsinbyushin destroyed Ayutthaya in 1767 and beat back four Qing invasions, and Bodawpaya annexed Arakan in 1785, after which Burmese armies pushed into Manipur and Assam. That advance brought Burma into conflict with British India. Three Anglo-Burmese wars followed; in 1826 Burma lost Assam, Arakan and Tenasserim, and in 1852 Lower Burma with Rangoon. King Mindon tried to modernise from his new capital at Mandalay, but in 1885 Britain seized the rest of the kingdom and exiled King Thibaw to India. Burma was ruled as part of British India until 1937 and became independent in 1948.","legacy":"The Konbaung kings unified the lands that make up modern Myanmar, and Mandalay's royal city remains a symbol of Burmese independence.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Konbaung dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konbaung_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alaungpaya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaungpaya"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"malacca-sultanate","name":"Malacca Sultanate","aliases":["Malacca"],"clio":["Sultanate of Malacca"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1400,"end":1511,"capital":"Malacca","peak":{"year":1500,"areaKm2":180000,"note":"Rough estimate: the southern Malay peninsula and the east coast of Sumatra; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Parameswara","reign":"c. 1400–1414","note":"Founder, a prince from Palembang"},{"name":"Muzaffar Shah","reign":"1445–1459","note":"First ruler to take the title of sultan"},{"name":"Mansur Shah","reign":"1459–1477","note":"Reign of greatest expansion"},{"name":"Tun Perak","reign":"c. 1456–1498","note":"Bendahara, or chief minister, under four rulers"},{"name":"Mahmud Shah","reign":"1488–1511","note":"Last sultan, driven out by the Portuguese"}],"summary":"Malacca was founded around 1400 by Parameswara, a prince from Palembang in Sumatra, who settled at a fishing village on the strait between Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. By seeking the protection of Ming China, whose admiral Zheng He visited several times, the young port escaped Siamese control. Its rulers converted to Islam, and Malacca became the busiest trading hub in Southeast Asia, where merchants from Gujarat, China, Java and the Spice Islands exchanged cloth, spices and porcelain under efficient harbour officials. Under the long-serving chief minister Tun Perak the sultanate expanded along both shores of the strait. Its wealth drew the Portuguese, who captured the city in 1511; Sultan Mahmud Shah fled, and his heirs founded the sultanates of Johor and Perak.","legacy":"Malacca helped spread Islam and the Malay language across maritime Southeast Asia, and its court is remembered as the model of classical Malay kingship.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Malacca Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tun Perak","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tun_Perak"},{"title":"D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (1981), archive.org","url":"https://archive.org/details/a-history-of-south-east-asia-4th-ed"}]},{"id":"indonesia","name":"Republic of Indonesia","aliases":["Indonesia"],"clio":["Republic of Indonesia"],"region":"southeast-asia","start":1945,"end":2026,"capital":"Jakarta (Yogyakarta during the independence war)","peak":{"year":1976,"areaKm2":1919000,"note":"c. 1.92M km²; including East Timor, annexed in 1976 and independent from 2002"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sukarno","reign":"1945–1967","note":"Founding president"},{"name":"Mohammad Hatta","reign":"1945–1956","note":"Vice president and co-proclaimer of independence"},{"name":"Suharto","reign":"1967–1998","note":"Military ruler of the New Order"},{"name":"B. J. Habibie","reign":"1998–1999","note":"Began the democratic transition"},{"name":"Abdurrahman Wahid","reign":"1999–2001","note":"First president chosen after the free elections of 1999"},{"name":"Megawati Sukarnoputri","reign":"2001–2004","note":"First woman president, Sukarno's daughter"}],"summary":"Indonesian nationalists Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared independence on 17 August 1945, two days after Japan surrendered and ended its wartime occupation of the Dutch East Indies. The Netherlands fought to return, but after four years of war and diplomacy, and American pressure, it transferred sovereignty in 1949; western New Guinea followed in 1963. Sukarno led a turbulent young nation of thousands of islands and hundreds of ethnic groups, united by the Indonesian language and the state philosophy of Pancasila. After a failed coup in 1965, the army under Suharto oversaw the killing of hundreds of thousands of alleged communists and took power. Suharto's New Order brought economic growth but also corruption and the invasion of East Timor in 1975. The Asian financial crisis toppled him in 1998, opening the way to democracy.","legacy":"Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-majority country and its third-largest democracy.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Indonesia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abdurrahman Wahid","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdurrahman_Wahid"}]},{"id":"songhai-empire","name":"Songhai Empire","aliases":["Songhai"],"clio":["Songhai Empire"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1464,"end":1591,"capital":"Gao","peak":{"year":1550,"areaKm2":800000,"note":"c. 0.8M km² (Taagepera 1979, 1997); other estimates reach c. 1.4M km² under Askia Muhammad. Along the Niger from Senegal's borders to present-day Nigeria; c. 0.8M km² (Taagepera 1997, for c. 1550)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Sonni Ali","reign":"1464–1492","note":"Conqueror of Timbuktu and Djenné"},{"name":"Askia Muhammad I","reign":"1493–1528","note":"Founder of the Askia dynasty; organised the empire"},{"name":"Askia Dawud","reign":"1549–1582","note":"Long, prosperous reign"},{"name":"Askia Ishaq II","reign":"1588–1591","note":"Defeated by Morocco at Tondibi"}],"summary":"The Songhai people had long been based around Gao on the Niger River, for a time as tributaries of the Mali Empire. Sonni Ali, ruling from 1464, broke free and conquered Timbuktu in 1468 and then Djenné with powerful cavalry and a river fleet, building one of the largest empires in African history. His successor Askia Muhammad, a devout Muslim, seized the throne in 1493, made the pilgrimage to Mecca and organised provinces under appointed governors, with a professional army and standard weights and measures. Timbuktu flourished as a centre of Islamic scholarship and of the trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt and slaves. Succession struggles weakened the Askias, and in 1591 an army sent by the Moroccan sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, armed with guns, defeated Songhai at the battle of Tondibi. Songhai remnants held out to the south.","legacy":"The manuscripts and mosques of Timbuktu and Gao recall a golden age of African scholarship, and the Songhai language is still spoken along the middle Niger.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Songhai Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhai_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Songhai Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Songhai_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"sokoto-caliphate","name":"Sokoto Caliphate","aliases":["Sokoto Caliphate","Fulani Empire"],"clio":["Sokoto Caliphate"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1804,"end":1903,"capital":"Sokoto (from 1809)","peak":{"year":1850,"areaKm2":470000,"note":"About; a federation of some 30 emirates. Estimates range from c. 400,000 km² (Wesseling) to c. 488,500 km² (Wikipedia, 1900)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Usman dan Fodio","reign":"1804–1817","note":"Scholar who led the jihad and founded the caliphate"},{"name":"Muhammad Bello","reign":"1817–1837","note":"First sultan of Sokoto; founded the capital"},{"name":"Abu Bakr Atiku","reign":"1837–1842","note":"Usman's son, second successor"},{"name":"Abdurrahman Atiku","reign":"1891–1902","note":"Defied the British"},{"name":"Muhammadu Attahiru I","reign":"1902–1903","note":"Killed resisting the British conquest"}],"summary":"In 1804 Usman dan Fodio, a Fulani Islamic scholar who preached against the corruption of the Hausa kings, declared a jihad in what is now northern Nigeria. His followers overthrew most Hausa states within a few years, creating a vast caliphate of emirates such as Kano, Zaria and Adamawa. His son Muhammad Bello founded Sokoto as the capital in 1809 and ruled as caliph, while Usman's daughter Nana Asma'u, a poet and teacher, spread education among women. Each emirate was governed by an emir loyal to the caliph, sending tribute and troops. The caliphate fostered Islamic learning but also relied heavily on slave raiding and slave plantations. In 1903 British forces under Frederick Lugard captured Kano and Sokoto, and Britain then ruled the emirates indirectly through their emirs within the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria.","legacy":"The Sultan of Sokoto remains the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, and the emirate system still shapes northern Nigerian society.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Sokoto Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokoto_Caliphate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"zulu-kingdom","name":"Zulu Kingdom","aliases":["Zulu","Zululand"],"clio":["Zululand"],"region":"southern-africa","start":1816,"end":1897,"capital":"KwaBulawayo under Shaka; later Ulundi (oNdini)","peak":{"year":1828,"areaKm2":30000,"note":"c.; the core kingdom under Shaka, whose influence reached much further: Gluckman (1960) put the area he dominated by 1822 at about 80,000 sq mi (c. 207,000 km²)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Shaka","reign":"1816–1828","note":"Military innovator who built the kingdom"},{"name":"Dingane","reign":"1828–1840","note":"Defeated by the Boers at Blood River in 1838"},{"name":"Mpande","reign":"1840–1872","note":"Long, relatively peaceful reign"},{"name":"Cetshwayo","reign":"1872–1879","note":"Won at Isandlwana but lost the Anglo-Zulu War"},{"name":"Dinuzulu","reign":"1884–1913","note":"Last independent king, later exiled by the British"}],"summary":"The Zulu were a small Nguni chiefdom until Shaka seized power in 1816 with the backing of the Mthethwa leader Dingiswayo. He reorganised fighting men into disciplined age-grade regiments armed with short stabbing spears and large shields, and used encircling horns of the buffalo tactics to absorb neighbouring peoples, amid the wars and migrations known as the Mfecane. Shaka was assassinated in 1828 by his half-brother Dingane, who clashed with Voortrekker Boers and lost the battle of Blood River in 1838. Under Mpande the kingdom recovered, but Britain demanded its submission, and in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 Cetshwayo's army won a famous victory at Isandlwana before being defeated at Ulundi. Britain divided Zululand, annexed it in 1887 and joined it to the colony of Natal in 1897.","legacy":"Isandlwana remains a celebrated symbol of African resistance, and the Zulu king is still a revered traditional leader in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Zulu Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_Kingdom"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Zulu Kingdom","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Zulu_Kingdom/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"asante-empire","name":"Asante Empire","aliases":["Asante"],"clio":["Ashanti Empire"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1701,"end":1902,"capital":"Kumasi","peak":{"year":1820,"areaKm2":259000,"note":"c. 259,000 km² (\"over 250,000\", Iliffe 1995), including tributary states, most of present-day Ghana"},"rulers":[{"name":"Osei Tutu I","reign":"c. 1701–1717","note":"Founder, with the priest Okomfo Anokye"},{"name":"Opoku Ware I","reign":"1720–1750","note":"Greatly expanded the empire"},{"name":"Osei Bonsu","reign":"c. 1800–1824","note":"Conquered the coastal Fante"},{"name":"Kofi Karikari","reign":"1867–1874","note":"Reigned when the British burned Kumasi"},{"name":"Prempeh I","reign":"1888–1896","note":"Exiled by the British to the Seychelles"},{"name":"Yaa Asantewaa","reign":"1900","note":"Queen mother who led the War of the Golden Stool"}],"summary":"The Akan states of the Gold Coast forest were united around 1700 by Osei Tutu, ruler of Kumasi, with the priest Okomfo Anokye, who according to tradition called down the Golden Stool from the sky as the symbol of Asante unity. After defeating its overlord Denkyira in 1701, Asante grew into the dominant power of the region, trading gold, kola nuts and enslaved captives to European forts on the coast for guns and cloth. Its kings, the Asantehene, ruled through a sophisticated bureaucracy and a network of great roads radiating from Kumasi. Asante fought a series of wars with Britain in the 19th century; the British burned Kumasi in 1874 and exiled King Prempeh I in 1896, and after the War of the Golden Stool, led by Yaa Asantewaa, they annexed Asante in 1902.","legacy":"The Asantehene still reigns as a traditional king in Ghana, and Asante kente cloth and goldwork are famous worldwide.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashanti Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Osei Bonsu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osei_Bonsu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Prempeh I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prempeh_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"mutapa","name":"Kingdom of Mutapa","aliases":["Mwenemutapa"],"clio":[],"region":"southern-africa","start":1430,"end":1760,"capital":"Royal towns in the northern Zimbabwe plateau and Zambezi valley","peak":{"year":1480,"areaKm2":500000,"note":"Rough estimate; borders were fluid and many chiefs only paid tribute. Wikipedia gives a disputed c. 700,000 km² for the 16th century"},"rulers":[{"name":"Nyatsimba Mutota","reign":"c. 1430–c. 1450","note":"Traditional founder"},{"name":"Matope","reign":"c. 1450–c. 1480","note":"Expanded the kingdom across the plateau"},{"name":"Mavura II","reign":"1629–1652","note":"Accepted Portuguese overlordship and baptism"}],"summary":"According to tradition, the Mutapa state was founded around 1430 by Nyatsimba Mutota, a Shona prince who moved north from the region of Great Zimbabwe to the Zambezi valley, perhaps seeking salt and new trade. His son Matope extended Mutapa rule over much of the plateau between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. The ruler's title, Mwenemutapa, is usually translated as lord of the conquered lands. The kingdom grew rich by exporting gold and ivory through Swahili and later Portuguese traders on the Indian Ocean coast. Portuguese adventurers coveted its gold, and after civil wars a king accepted Portuguese overlordship in 1629. In the 1690s the rising Rozvi state drove the Portuguese from the plateau, and the Mutapa kingdom shrank to a small realm in the Zambezi valley.","legacy":"Under the spelling Monomotapa, the kingdom appeared on European maps for centuries as a legendary African land of gold.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Mutapa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mutapa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mavura Mhande Felipe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavura_Mhande_Felipe"}]},{"id":"merina-kingdom","name":"Merina Kingdom (Madagascar)","aliases":["Imerina","Merina Kingdom"],"clio":["Merina Kingdom"],"region":"southern-africa","start":1540,"end":1897,"capital":"Antananarivo","peak":{"year":1880,"areaKm2":390000,"note":"c.; about two-thirds of Madagascar"},"rulers":[{"name":"Andriamanelo","reign":"c. 1540–c. 1575","note":"Early king of Imerina"},{"name":"Andrianampoinimerina","reign":"c. 1785–1810","note":"Reunited Imerina"},{"name":"Radama I","reign":"1810–1828","note":"Allied with Britain and conquered much of the island"},{"name":"Ranavalona I","reign":"1828–1861","note":"Resisted foreign influence and persecuted Christians"},{"name":"Rainilaiarivony","reign":"1864–1895","note":"Prime minister and husband of three successive queens"},{"name":"Ranavalona III","reign":"1883–1897","note":"Last monarch, exiled by France"}],"summary":"The Merina people of Madagascar's central highlands built small rival kingdoms around Antananarivo from the 1500s. Around 1785 Andrianampoinimerina began reuniting Imerina, expanding rice terraces and declaring that the sea would be the border of his rice field. His son Radama I allied with Britain, which helped him build a modern army, end the export slave trade and write the Malagasy language in the Latin alphabet with the help of missionaries. By the 1820s the Merina controlled about two-thirds of the island. Queen Ranavalona I resisted foreign influence and persecuted Christians, while her successors, guided by Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony, converted to Protestantism and modernised. France invaded in 1895, and in 1897 it abolished the monarchy and exiled Queen Ranavalona III.","legacy":"The Merina kingdom unified much of Madagascar and shaped its written language, and Antananarivo remains the national capital.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Merina Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merina_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Andrianampoinimerina","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrianampoinimerina"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. VI: Africa in the Nineteenth Century until the 1880s (ed. J. F. Ade Ajayi, 1989)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general_history_africa_vi"}]},{"id":"morocco","name":"Morocco (Saadian and Alaouite Sultanates)","aliases":["Morocco","Watassid Morocco"],"clio":["Wattasid dynasty","Saadi Sultanate","Morocco"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1549,"end":2026,"capital":"Marrakesh, Fez and Meknes at different times; Rabat from 1912","peak":{"year":1595,"areaKm2":1000000,"note":"Rough estimate after the conquest of Songhai; control of the Niger bend faded within decades; no scholarly area figure found"},"rulers":[{"name":"Muhammad al-Shaykh","reign":"1544–1557","note":"Saadian sultan who took Fez in 1549"},{"name":"Ahmad al-Mansur","reign":"1578–1603","note":"Proclaimed sultan on the field of the Battle of the Three Kings; conquered Songhai"},{"name":"Moulay Rashid","reign":"1666–1672","note":"Founder of Alaouite rule over Morocco"},{"name":"Moulay Ismail","reign":"1672–1727","note":"Built Meknes and a huge slave army"},{"name":"Mohammed V","reign":"1927–1953, 1955–1961","note":"Led Morocco to independence in 1956"},{"name":"Hassan II","reign":"1961–1999","note":"Long reign; annexed Western Sahara"}],"summary":"Morocco has been ruled since the 1500s by sharifian dynasties claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad. The Saadians rose in the south leading resistance to Portuguese coastal forts, displaced the Wattasid sultans and took Fez in 1549. Ahmad al-Mansur, who took the throne when his brother Abd al-Malik died during the victory over Portugal at the Battle of the Three Kings in 1578, grew rich on sugar and Saharan gold and sent an army that conquered Songhai in 1591. After civil war, the Alaouite dynasty took power in the 1660s; Moulay Ismail built a huge army of enslaved Black soldiers and a palace city at Meknes. Morocco avoided Ottoman rule, but European pressure grew, and in 1912 it was divided into French and Spanish protectorates. Sultan Mohammed V led the country to independence in 1956 and took the title of king.","legacy":"The Alaouite dynasty, ruling since the 1660s, is one of the oldest reigning royal houses in the world.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Morocco","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Saadi Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mohammed V of Morocco","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_V_of_Morocco"},{"title":"UNESCO General History of Africa, vol. V: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century (ed. B. A. Ogot, 1992)","url":"https://archive.org/details/general-history-of-africa-vol-5"}]},{"id":"south-africa","name":"Union and Republic of South Africa","aliases":["Union of South Africa","South Africa"],"clio":["South Africa"],"region":"southern-africa","start":1910,"end":2026,"capital":"Pretoria (administrative), Cape Town (legislative), Bloemfontein (judicial)","peak":{"year":1910,"areaKm2":1221000,"note":"1,221,000 km²; roughly unchanged since union; South West Africa was also ruled from 1915 to 1990"},"rulers":[{"name":"Louis Botha","reign":"1910–1919","note":"First prime minister"},{"name":"Jan Smuts","reign":"1919–1924, 1939–1948","note":"Statesman who helped found the League of Nations and the UN"},{"name":"D. F. Malan","reign":"1948–1954","note":"Introduced apartheid"},{"name":"Hendrik Verwoerd","reign":"1958–1966","note":"Chief architect of apartheid; assassinated"},{"name":"F. W. de Klerk","reign":"1989–1994","note":"Freed Mandela and negotiated the end of apartheid"},{"name":"Nelson Mandela","reign":"1994–1999","note":"First democratically elected president"}],"summary":"The Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 from four British colonies, the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange River, eight years after the Boer War. It was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, but only white men, with limited exceptions in the Cape, could vote, and the Natives Land Act of 1913 confined Africans to a small share of the land. Under Louis Botha and Jan Smuts it fought for Britain in both world wars. In 1948 the National Party won power and imposed apartheid, a rigid system of racial segregation enforced by pass laws, forced removals and violence against protest, such as the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. South Africa became a republic in 1961. Resistance and sanctions led F. W. de Klerk to free Nelson Mandela in 1990, and democratic elections in 1994 ended apartheid.","legacy":"South Africa's peaceful transition to democracy and its 1996 constitution made Mandela a global symbol of reconciliation.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Union of South Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: South Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa"}]},{"id":"boer-republics","name":"Boer Republics (Transvaal and Orange Free State)","aliases":["Transvaal","Orange Free State"],"clio":["Natalia Republic","South African Republic","Free Orange State"],"region":"southern-africa","start":1852,"end":1902,"capital":"Pretoria (Transvaal) and Bloemfontein (Orange Free State)","peak":{"year":1900,"areaKm2":400000,"note":"Rough combined total, sources differ: the Transvaal about 190,000–290,000 km² and the Orange Free State about 130,000–180,000 km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Andries Pretorius","reign":"1838–1853","note":"Voortrekker leader, victor at Blood River"},{"name":"Marthinus Wessel Pretorius","reign":"1857–1871","note":"First president of the South African Republic"},{"name":"Johannes Brand","reign":"1864–1888","note":"Long-serving president of the Orange Free State"},{"name":"Paul Kruger","reign":"1883–1902","note":"Transvaal president who led resistance to Britain"},{"name":"Martinus Theunis Steyn","reign":"1896–1902","note":"Last president of the Orange Free State"}],"summary":"Dutch-speaking settlers at the Cape, known as Boers or Afrikaners, resented British rule and its abolition of slavery, and from 1835 thousands left on the Great Trek into the interior. After Britain annexed their short-lived republic of Natalia, they founded two independent states that Britain recognised: the South African Republic, or Transvaal, in 1852, and the Orange Free State in 1854. Both had elected presidents and parliaments, but citizenship and land were reserved for white men, and African peoples were conquered or pushed off their lands. The Transvaal threw off a British annexation in the First Boer War of 1880–81, but the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 drew a flood of foreigners and British ambitions. Britain won the Second Boer War of 1899–1902 and annexed both republics.","legacy":"The war's concentration camps, where many Boer and African civilians died, left deep bitterness, and Afrikaner nationalism later shaped apartheid.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: South African Republic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Republic"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Orange Free State","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Free_State"}]},{"id":"liberia","name":"Republic of Liberia","aliases":["Liberia"],"clio":["Republic of Liberia"],"region":"northern-africa","start":1847,"end":2026,"capital":"Monrovia","peak":{"year":1960,"areaKm2":111400,"note":"Present extent, after earlier claims were lost to British and French colonies"},"rulers":[{"name":"Joseph Jenkins Roberts","reign":"1848–1856, 1872–1876","note":"First president"},{"name":"Charles D. B. King","reign":"1920–1930","note":"Resigned over a forced-labour scandal"},{"name":"William Tubman","reign":"1944–1971","note":"Longest-serving president"},{"name":"William Tolbert","reign":"1971–1980","note":"Killed in the 1980 coup"},{"name":"Samuel Doe","reign":"1980–1990","note":"Coup leader killed in the civil war"},{"name":"Ellen Johnson Sirleaf","reign":"2006–2018","note":"Africa's first elected female head of state"}],"summary":"Liberia began in 1822 as a settlement founded by the American Colonization Society for freed African Americans, who were later joined by Africans freed from slave ships. In 1847 the colonists declared the independent Republic of Liberia, with a constitution modelled on that of the United States, and Joseph Jenkins Roberts became its first president. The Americo-Liberian minority dominated politics and the economy through the True Whig Party for over a century, while Indigenous Africans were largely excluded. Liberia kept its independence during the scramble for Africa but lost claimed territory to Britain and France, and in 1926 the Firestone company leased vast lands for rubber. William Tubman's long presidency brought foreign investment. A coup by Samuel Doe in 1980 ended Americo-Liberian rule, and civil wars from 1989 to 2003 devastated the country.","legacy":"Liberia was Africa's first independent republic, and in 2006 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the continent's first elected woman head of state.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Liberia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia"},{"title":"US Office of the Historian: Liberia","url":"https://history.state.gov/countries/liberia"}]},{"id":"united-states","name":"United States of America","aliases":["United States","United States of America","United States Virgin Islands","American Samoa"],"clio":["United States of America","Confederate States of America"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":1776,"end":2026,"capital":"Washington, D.C. (from 1800; earlier New York and Philadelphia)","peak":{"year":1959,"areaKm2":9830000,"note":"After Alaska and Hawaii became states"},"rulers":[{"name":"George Washington","reign":"1789–1797","note":"Revolutionary commander and first president"},{"name":"Thomas Jefferson","reign":"1801–1809","note":"Author of the Declaration of Independence; made the Louisiana Purchase"},{"name":"James K. Polk","reign":"1845–1849","note":"Expanded the country to the Pacific through war with Mexico"},{"name":"Abraham Lincoln","reign":"1861–1865","note":"Led the Union through the Civil War and ended slavery"},{"name":"Theodore Roosevelt","reign":"1901–1909","note":"Began building the Panama Canal and expanded US power abroad"},{"name":"Franklin D. Roosevelt","reign":"1933–1945","note":"Led the country through the Depression and the Second World War"}],"summary":"Thirteen British colonies along the Atlantic coast declared independence on 4 July 1776 and won it in the Revolutionary War with French help. The Constitution of 1787 created a federal republic with an elected president, Congress and courts, and George Washington became the first president in 1789. The young nation expanded westward through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, war with Mexico in 1846–48 and the acquisition of Oregon and Alaska, displacing Native American nations by force and treaty. Disputes over slavery led to the Civil War of 1861–65, in which the Union's victory abolished slavery. Rapid industrialisation and mass immigration made it the world's largest economy by the 1890s. After the world wars the United States emerged as a superpower, leading the West in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.","legacy":"The United States became the world's leading economic, military and cultural power, and its constitution, the oldest written national constitution still in use, inspired republics worldwide.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: United States","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Theodore Roosevelt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt"}]},{"id":"mexico","name":"Mexico","aliases":["Mexico"],"clio":["Mexicans","First Mexican Empire","Federated Republic of Mexico","Centralist Mexico","Mexican Monarchists","Second Mexican Empire","Mexico","Maderistas"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":1821,"end":2026,"capital":"Mexico City","peak":{"year":1822,"areaKm2":4900000,"note":"The First Mexican Empire: c. 4.43M km² plus c. 446,000 km² of Central America (Rodríguez & Vincent 1997)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Agustín de Iturbide","reign":"1822–1823","note":"Independence leader who reigned as Emperor Agustín I"},{"name":"Antonio López de Santa Anna","reign":"1833–1855 (several terms)","note":"Strongman who lost Texas and the war with the United States"},{"name":"Benito Juárez","reign":"1858–1872","note":"Liberal reformer who defeated the French intervention"},{"name":"Maximilian I","reign":"1864–1867","note":"Austrian archduke made emperor by France; executed"},{"name":"Porfirio Díaz","reign":"1876–1880, 1884–1911","note":"Dictator overthrown by the Mexican Revolution"},{"name":"Lázaro Cárdenas","reign":"1934–1940","note":"Redistributed land and nationalised the oil industry"}],"summary":"Mexico's war of independence began with the priest Miguel Hidalgo's call to revolt in 1810 and ended in 1821, when the royalist officer Agustín de Iturbide joined the rebels; he briefly reigned as emperor, and Central America broke away in 1823. The young republic was unstable, and under the strongman Santa Anna it lost Texas in 1836 and, after war with the United States in 1846–48, about half its territory. Benito Juárez's liberal reforms provoked civil war and a French invasion that installed the Austrian archduke Maximilian as emperor, executed in 1867. Porfirio Díaz then ruled for over three decades, building railways but concentrating land and wealth. The Mexican Revolution of 1910–20 overthrew him, and the party later called the Institutional Revolutionary Party governed from 1929 until the elections of 2000.","legacy":"Mexico is the world's most populous Spanish-speaking country, and its revolution's land reform and nationalised oil industry became models for Latin America.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mexico","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Mexican Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Mexican_Empire"}]},{"id":"gran-colombia","name":"Gran Colombia","aliases":[],"clio":["Gran Colombia"],"region":"northern-south-america","start":1819,"end":1831,"capital":"Bogotá","peak":{"year":1825,"areaKm2":2400000,"note":"Approximate: the combined area of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama; with claimed Amazon lands now in Brazil and Peru, Wikipedia gives c. 3.06M km²"},"rulers":[{"name":"Simón Bolívar","reign":"1819–1830","note":"The Liberator, president of the republic"},{"name":"Francisco de Paula Santander","reign":"1821–1827","note":"Vice president who governed in Bolívar's absence"},{"name":"Joaquín Mosquera","reign":"1830","note":"President during the final breakup"},{"name":"Rafael Urdaneta","reign":"1830–1831","note":"General who briefly seized power"}],"summary":"Gran Colombia was the republic created by Simón Bolívar's independence campaigns in northern South America; historians use the name to distinguish it from today's Colombia. After his victory at Boyacá in 1819, the Congress of Angostura proclaimed the Republic of Colombia, joining the former Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Captaincy General of Venezuela, and the Congress of Cúcuta gave it a constitution in 1821. Victories at Carabobo in 1821 and Pichincha in 1822 added Venezuela's heartland and Quito, and Panama joined after breaking from Spain. Bolívar was president but was often away leading campaigns in Peru, leaving Vice President Santander to govern from Bogotá. The country was huge, with poor communications, and regional leaders in Venezuela and Quito resented central rule. Venezuela and Ecuador seceded in 1830, the year Bolívar died, and the union dissolved in 1831.","legacy":"Its successors are Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, and Bolívar's dream of a united Spanish America still inspires politicians across the region.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Gran Colombia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Colombia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Francisco de Paula Santander","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Paula_Santander"}]},{"id":"brazil","name":"Empire of Brazil and Brazil","aliases":["Kingdom of Brazil","Brazil"],"clio":["Empire of Brazil","Brazilian Republic","Unitary State of Brazil","Federated Republic of Brazil","Republic of Brazil"],"region":"northern-south-america","start":1822,"end":2026,"capital":"Rio de Janeiro; Brasília from 1960","peak":{"year":1903,"areaKm2":8515000,"note":"8,515,000 km²; after acquiring Acre from Bolivia (the Empire in 1889 was c. 8.34M km², IBGE)"},"rulers":[{"name":"Pedro I","reign":"1822–1831","note":"Declared independence and became the first emperor"},{"name":"Pedro II","reign":"1831–1889","note":"Long, stable reign; deposed by the army"},{"name":"Princess Isabel","reign":"1871–1872, 1876–1877, 1887–1888","note":"Regent who signed the Golden Law abolishing slavery"},{"name":"Getúlio Vargas","reign":"1930–1945, 1951–1954","note":"Dominant 20th-century leader"},{"name":"Juscelino Kubitschek","reign":"1956–1961","note":"Built the new capital, Brasília"},{"name":"Fernando Henrique Cardoso","reign":"1995–2002","note":"Stabilised the currency and economy"}],"summary":"When Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, the Portuguese royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro, which became the capital of the whole empire. After King João VI returned to Lisbon, his son Pedro declared Brazil independent in 1822 and became its emperor. Unlike its Spanish-speaking neighbours, Brazil stayed united as a constitutional monarchy, and Pedro II's long reign from 1831 brought stability and coffee wealth, though the economy depended on slavery. Brazil fought Paraguay in the devastating war of 1864–70. Slavery was abolished only in 1888, the last in the Americas, and the next year the army proclaimed a republic. Getúlio Vargas ruled from 1930 to 1945 and again in the 1950s, and the new capital Brasília opened in 1960. A military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985 gave way to democracy.","legacy":"Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and the world's biggest Portuguese-speaking nation, home to most of the Amazon rainforest.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Brazil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Empire of Brazil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Brazil"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of largest empires","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires"}]},{"id":"argentina","name":"Argentina","aliases":["Argentina","United Provinces of the Río de la Plata"],"clio":["Río de la Plata","Argentine Confederation","Argentine Republic"],"region":"southern-cone","start":1816,"end":2026,"capital":"Buenos Aires","peak":{"year":1900,"areaKm2":2780000,"note":"After the conquest of Patagonia; excluding Antarctic and Falklands claims"},"rulers":[{"name":"Bernardino Rivadavia","reign":"1826–1827","note":"First president"},{"name":"Juan Manuel de Rosas","reign":"1829–1832, 1835–1852","note":"Caudillo who ruled as governor of Buenos Aires"},{"name":"Bartolomé Mitre","reign":"1862–1868","note":"First president of the unified nation"},{"name":"Domingo Faustino Sarmiento","reign":"1868–1874","note":"Champion of public education"},{"name":"Julio Argentino Roca","reign":"1880–1886, 1898–1904","note":"Led the Conquest of the Desert"},{"name":"Juan Perón","reign":"1946–1955, 1973–1974","note":"Populist leader whose movement still shapes politics"}],"summary":"Buenos Aires deposed its Spanish viceroy in the May Revolution of 1810, and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata declared independence at Tucumán in 1816. José de San Martín led armies across the Andes to free Chile and Peru, while Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay went their own ways. Decades of conflict between Buenos Aires and the provinces followed, dominated by the caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas, until a national constitution was adopted in 1853. Presidents Mitre, Sarmiento and Roca built a modern state, and the Conquest of the Desert in 1878–85 seized Patagonia from Indigenous peoples. Millions of European immigrants and exports of beef and grain made Argentina one of the richest countries by 1900. The 20th century brought Peronism, repeated coups, a brutal dictatorship from 1976 and defeat in the Falklands War of 1982.","legacy":"Argentina's immigrant culture produced the tango, and its trials of the dictatorship's leaders made it a pioneer of human rights justice.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Argentina","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Conquest of the Desert","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_the_Desert"}]},{"id":"canada","name":"Canada","aliases":["Canada"],"clio":["Canada"],"region":"northern-north-america","start":1867,"end":2026,"capital":"Ottawa","peak":{"year":1949,"areaKm2":9985000,"note":"After Newfoundland joined; the world's second-largest country"},"rulers":[{"name":"John A. Macdonald","reign":"1867–1873, 1878–1891","note":"First prime minister"},{"name":"Wilfrid Laurier","reign":"1896–1911","note":"First French-Canadian prime minister"},{"name":"William Lyon Mackenzie King","reign":"1921–1926, 1926–1930, 1935–1948","note":"Longest-serving prime minister"},{"name":"Lester B. Pearson","reign":"1963–1968","note":"Introduced the maple leaf flag and universal health care"},{"name":"Pierre Trudeau","reign":"1968–1979, 1980–1984","note":"Brought home the constitution with a Charter of Rights"}],"summary":"French and British colonies along the St Lawrence and the Atlantic coast were united under British rule after 1763. In 1867 the Province of Canada, which became Ontario and Quebec, joined Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Confederation to form the Dominion of Canada, led by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. The new country acquired the vast Hudson's Bay Company lands in 1870, added Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island, and completed a transcontinental railway in 1885, often at the expense of First Nations and Métis peoples. Canadian troops fought in both world wars, and the Statute of Westminster in 1931 confirmed its legislative independence. Newfoundland joined in 1949. Canada built a welfare state, adopted official bilingualism and multiculturalism, and in 1982 brought home its constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.","legacy":"Canada is known for its bilingual federal democracy, though reconciliation with Indigenous peoples remains unfinished.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Canada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada"},{"title":"Wikipedia: William Lyon Mackenzie King","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lyon_Mackenzie_King"}]},{"id":"haiti","name":"Haiti","aliases":["Haiti"],"clio":["Haiti","Empire of Haiti","Republic of Haiti"],"region":"southern-north-america","start":1804,"end":2026,"capital":"Port-au-Prince","peak":{"year":1822,"areaKm2":76000,"note":"The whole island of Hispaniola, ruled from 1822 to 1844"},"rulers":[{"name":"Toussaint Louverture","reign":"1791–1802","note":"Leader of the revolution; captured by the French"},{"name":"Jean-Jacques Dessalines","reign":"1804–1806","note":"Declared independence and ruled as emperor"},{"name":"Henri Christophe","reign":"1807–1820","note":"King of northern Haiti from 1811"},{"name":"Jean-Pierre Boyer","reign":"1818–1843","note":"Reunited Haiti and ruled all Hispaniola"},{"name":"François Duvalier","reign":"1957–1971","note":"Papa Doc, brutal dictator"}],"summary":"The French colony of Saint-Domingue was the richest in the Caribbean, producing sugar and coffee with the labour of about half a million enslaved Africans. In 1791 they rose in revolt, and under the formerly enslaved Toussaint Louverture they ended slavery and fought off Spanish, British and French armies. When Napoleon tried to restore slavery, Jean-Jacques Dessalines led the final war and on 1 January 1804 declared independence, naming the country Haiti. It was the first free Black republic and the only nation born from a successful slave revolt. Haiti was split for years between Henri Christophe's northern kingdom and a southern republic, then united under Jean-Pierre Boyer, who also ruled the whole island from 1822 to 1844. A crushing indemnity demanded by France in 1825, foreign interventions and dictatorships kept it poor.","legacy":"The Haitian Revolution inspired enslaved people and independence movements across the Americas and helped push Napoleon to sell Louisiana.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Haiti","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Haitian Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution"}]},{"id":"kingdom-of-hawaii","name":"Kingdom of Hawaii","aliases":["Kingdom of Hawaii"],"clio":["Kingdom of Hawaï'i","(Allegiance of Kingdom of Hawaï'i to British Empire)","Republic of Hawai'i"],"region":"australasia","start":1795,"end":1893,"capital":"Moved with Kamehameha I (Waikīkī, Honolulu, Kailua-Kona); Lahaina 1820–1845; Honolulu from 1845","peak":{"year":1810,"areaKm2":16600,"note":"Land area of all the Hawaiian islands, after Kauai submitted"},"rulers":[{"name":"Kamehameha I","reign":"1795–1819","note":"Unified the islands"},{"name":"Kamehameha II","reign":"1819–1824","note":"Abolished the kapu system"},{"name":"Kamehameha III","reign":"1825–1854","note":"Issued the first constitution and land reform"},{"name":"Kalākaua","reign":"1874–1891","note":"The Merrie Monarch who revived hula"},{"name":"Liliʻuokalani","reign":"1891–1893","note":"Last monarch, overthrown in 1893"}],"summary":"Polynesian voyagers settled the Hawaiian islands many centuries ago, and by the 18th century they were divided among rival chiefdoms. Kamehameha I, a chief from the island of Hawaii, used European ships and guns to conquer Maui, Oahu and the others, winning the decisive battle of Nuʻuanu in 1795; Kauai submitted peacefully in 1810. His successors abolished the old kapu religious laws in 1819, and American missionaries brought Christianity and literacy. Kamehameha III issued a constitution in 1840 and carried out the Great Mahele land reform, which let foreigners buy land. Sugar plantations owned by Americans grew powerful while new diseases cut the native population sharply. In 1893 American businessmen, backed by US Marines, overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani, and the United States annexed the islands in 1898. Hawaii became the 50th US state in 1959.","legacy":"The Hawaiian language and hula traditions have revived since the 1970s, and in 1993 the US Congress formally apologised for the overthrow.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Hawaiian Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hawaii","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii"}]},{"id":"australia","name":"Commonwealth of Australia","aliases":["Australia"],"clio":["Commonwealth of Australia"],"region":"australasia","start":1901,"end":2026,"capital":"Melbourne (temporary), then Canberra from 1927","peak":{"year":1901,"areaKm2":7692000,"note":"The whole continent and Tasmania, excluding external territories and the Antarctic claim"},"rulers":[{"name":"Edmund Barton","reign":"1901–1903","note":"First prime minister"},{"name":"Alfred Deakin","reign":"1903–1904, 1905–1908, 1909–1910","note":"Shaped the young federation"},{"name":"Billy Hughes","reign":"1915–1923","note":"Wartime prime minister"},{"name":"John Curtin","reign":"1941–1945","note":"Turned to the United States as Japan advanced"},{"name":"Robert Menzies","reign":"1939–1941, 1949–1966","note":"Longest-serving prime minister"},{"name":"Gough Whitlam","reign":"1972–1975","note":"Reforming prime minister dismissed by the governor-general"},{"name":"Bob Hawke","reign":"1983–1991","note":"Opened up the economy"}],"summary":"Britain founded a convict colony at Sydney in 1788, claiming the land despite more than 50,000 years of Aboriginal occupation. Six separate colonies grew, driven by wool, wheat and the gold rushes of the 1850s, while frontier violence and disease devastated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. On 1 January 1901 the colonies federated as the Commonwealth of Australia, a self-governing dominion with a parliament modelled partly on Britain's and partly on that of the United States. One of its first laws began the White Australia policy restricting non-European immigration. Australians fought in both world wars, notably at Gallipoli in 1915, and from 1942 the country turned to the United States as its main ally. Mass immigration from Europe and later Asia transformed the country, and the White Australia policy was dismantled by 1973.","legacy":"Australia is a prosperous, multicultural federation that remains a constitutional monarchy under the British Crown, while recognition of Indigenous Australians is still a central national debate.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Australia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of prime ministers of Australia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Australia"}]},{"id":"new-zealand","name":"New Zealand","aliases":["New Zealand"],"clio":["New Zealand"],"region":"australasia","start":1840,"end":2026,"capital":"Okiato (Old Russell) 1840–1841, then Auckland, then Wellington from 1865","peak":{"year":1920,"areaKm2":268000,"note":"The main islands; it also governed Western Samoa (1920–1962) and the Cook Islands"},"rulers":[{"name":"Richard Seddon","reign":"1893–1906","note":"Premier of social reform; women won the vote in 1893 despite his opposition"},{"name":"Michael Joseph Savage","reign":"1935–1940","note":"First Labour prime minister; built the welfare state"},{"name":"Peter Fraser","reign":"1940–1949","note":"Wartime prime minister"},{"name":"Keith Holyoake","reign":"1957, 1960–1972","note":"Long-serving National Party leader"},{"name":"David Lange","reign":"1984–1989","note":"Made New Zealand nuclear-free"}],"summary":"Māori settled New Zealand around 1300, making it one of the last major land masses to be peopled. British colonisation began in earnest after the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, signed by representatives of the British Crown and many Māori chiefs, though its English and Māori versions differed on sovereignty. Disputes over land led to the New Zealand Wars of the 1840s to 1870s and large confiscations of Māori land. Settlers built a farming economy exporting wool, meat and butter to Britain. New Zealand became a self-governing colony and, in 1893, the first country to give women the vote in national elections. It became a dominion in 1907 and fought for Britain in both world wars. Full independence was adopted in 1947, and from the 1970s the country revived Māori rights and adopted a nuclear-free policy.","legacy":"New Zealand is known for pioneering social reforms, and te reo Māori is an official language alongside English and New Zealand Sign Language.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: New Zealand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Richard Seddon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seddon"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Capital of New Zealand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_of_New_Zealand"}]}],"moments":[{"id":"farming","year":-9500,"yearLabel":"c. 9500–8500 BCE","title":"Farming begins","place":"Jericho and the Fertile Crescent (southern Levant)","lonlat":[35.44,31.87],"category":"technology","summary":"In the Fertile Crescent, people began cultivating wild cereals such as barley around 9500 BCE and settled in permanent villages like Jericho, founded beside a spring between about 9500 and 9000 BCE. Over the following one to two thousand years emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, lentils, peas, chickpeas, bitter vetch and flax became fully domesticated crops, and the region's wild sheep, goats, cattle and pigs became farm animals.","why":"Farming fed far more people from the same land than hunting and gathering, making possible permanent villages, food surpluses, growing populations and, in time, towns, specialists and states.","also":"Farming was invented independently in several other places: rice and millet in China (rice domesticated between about 13,500 and 8,200 years ago), taro and yams at Kuk in New Guinea (perhaps from 8000 BCE), squash and maize in Mesoamerica (maize from about 7000 BCE), potatoes and manioc in South America, sorghum and pearl millet in Africa, and sunflowers and other seed plants in eastern North America (c. 2500 BCE).","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Fertile Crescent","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertile_Crescent"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Founder crops","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_crops"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pre-Pottery Neolithic A","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Pottery_Neolithic_A"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Neolithic Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution"}]},{"id":"catalhoyuk","year":-7500,"yearLabel":"c. 7500–5600 BCE","title":"Çatalhöyük, an early proto-city","place":"Çatalhöyük, near Konya (central Türkiye)","lonlat":[32.83,37.67],"category":"culture","summary":"On the Konya plain of Anatolia, farmers built a tightly packed settlement of mudbrick houses with no streets: people walked across the rooftops and climbed down into their homes by ladder. Houses were plastered and decorated with wall paintings and bull horns, and the dead were buried beneath the floors. Older estimates put its population at 5,000 or more; recent excavations suggest perhaps 600–800 people in a typical year of its middle phase.","why":"Çatalhöyük shows early farmers living together in large numbers for some 2,000 years without palaces, temples or obvious rulers, making it a key site for understanding the step from village life towards towns.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Çatalhöyük","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Çatalhöyük","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Catalhoyuk/"}]},{"id":"copper","year":-5000,"yearLabel":"c. 5000–4500 BCE","title":"Copper smelting begins","place":"Belovode, near Petrovac na Mlavi (eastern Serbia)","lonlat":[21.42,44.33],"category":"technology","summary":"At Belovode, a village of the Vinča culture in the Balkans, copper slag dated to about 5000 BCE is the oldest securely dated evidence of smelting copper from ore at high temperature. Within a few centuries metal was spreading across south-eastern Europe: the cemetery at Varna on the Black Sea coast (c. 4600–4300 BCE) held copper tools and some 3,000 gold objects, often called the oldest gold treasure in the world.","why":"Smelting turned rock into tools, ornaments and portable wealth, opening the Copper Age, and rich graves like those at Varna show metal sharpening the divide between elites and everyone else.","also":"Early copper-working is also documented in the Near East, and around the North American Great Lakes people of the Old Copper complex cold-hammered native copper from about 6500 BCE, though without smelting it.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Chalcolithic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic"},{"title":"Radivojević, Archaeometallurgy of the Vinča culture: Belovode in eastern Serbia (Historical Metallurgy 47)","url":"https://www.hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/108"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Varna Necropolis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_Necropolis"}]},{"id":"wheel-plough","year":-3500,"yearLabel":"c. 3500 BCE","title":"The wheel and the plough","place":"Bronocice (southern Poland) and Uruk (Iraq)","lonlat":[20.33,50.33],"category":"technology","summary":"Wheeled vehicles appear almost at once across a wide area in the second half of the 4th millennium BCE: a pot from Bronocice in Poland (c. 3600–3400 BCE) is incised with a four-wheeled wagon, pictographs from Uruk show wagons around 3500–3350 BCE, and the oldest surviving wooden wheel, from the Ljubljana Marshes in Slovenia, dates to about 3340–3030 BCE. In the same era farmers in the Near East harnessed oxen to the ard, a simple scratch plough, part of a wider shift to using animals for pulling, milk and wool.","why":"Animal power multiplied the land a farming family could work and the loads it could move, opening up new land and making heavy overland transport practical.","also":"In Mesoamerica the wheel was invented independently but was used only on small wheeled toys, never for transport before the 16th century.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Wheel","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bronocice pot","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronocice_pot"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Plough","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plough"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Secondary products revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_products_revolution"}]},{"id":"writing","year":-3300,"yearLabel":"c. 3400–3200 BCE","title":"Writing is invented","place":"Uruk, Sumer (southern Iraq)","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"category":"technology","summary":"In the temple district of Uruk, scribes began pressing signs into clay tablets around 3300 BCE to keep accounts of grain, animals and labour, a system that grew out of older clay accounting tokens. This proto-cuneiform developed into cuneiform, used for Sumerian, Akkadian and many other languages for some 3,000 years. In Egypt, labels from tomb U-j at Abydos (c. 3400–3200 BCE) show the beginnings of hieroglyphs, usually counted as a separate invention.","why":"Writing let people store information beyond human memory, run large states and economies, and record laws, letters and literature; it marks the line between prehistory and history.","also":"Writing was invented independently at least twice more: in Shang China (oracle-bone inscriptions, c. 1250 BCE) and in Mesoamerica, where Maya inscriptions date from the 3rd century BCE and possible earlier Olmec writing is debated.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: History of writing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cuneiform","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Uruk period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk_period"}]},{"id":"uruk","year":-3200,"yearLabel":"c. 3500–3100 BCE","title":"Uruk, the first great city","place":"Uruk (Warka), southern Iraq","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"category":"state","summary":"In the Late Uruk period, Uruk grew to some 250 hectares and perhaps 25,000–50,000 people, with tens of thousands more in its surrounding territory, the largest urban area in the world at the time. Its walled Eanna temple district had monumental temples, administrators using cylinder seals and tablets, and mass-produced ration bowls, and Uruk-style outposts spread from western Iran to south-eastern Anatolia.","why":"Uruk is the earliest clear example of a city-state, with social classes, full-time specialists, temples and bureaucrats, a pattern of urban life soon repeated across Mesopotamia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Uruk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Uruk period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk_period"}]},{"id":"egypt-unified","year":-3100,"yearLabel":"c. 3150–3100 BCE","title":"Egypt is unified","place":"Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), Upper Egypt","lonlat":[32.78,25.1],"category":"state","summary":"Kings from Upper (southern) Egypt took control of the Nile Delta, completing a unification begun by earlier rulers. The Narmer Palette, found at Nekhen, shows King Narmer, usually identified with the legendary Menes, wearing the crowns of both Upper and Lower Egypt. The First Dynasty ruled from Memphis, where the Nile valley meets the delta.","why":"Unification created a single kingdom along the Nile under one king, with writing and a bureaucracy, and pharaonic rule endured, with interruptions, for about 3,000 years.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Narmer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narmer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nekhen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nekhen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Early Dynastic Period (Egypt)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Dynastic_Period_(Egypt)"}]},{"id":"bronze","year":-3000,"yearLabel":"c. 3300–3000 BCE","title":"Bronze comes into wide use","place":"Anatolia and Mesopotamia (Kestel tin mine, southern Türkiye)","lonlat":[34.9,37.7],"category":"technology","summary":"Metalworkers found that adding arsenic or, better, tin to copper made a harder alloy, bronze. Arsenical bronze came first (the Maykop culture of the North Caucasus used it by the mid-4th millennium BCE), and by about 3000 BCE the Bronze Age had begun across much of the Old World, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Indus. Because tin is rare, bronze depended on long-distance trade; Kestel in southern Türkiye was mined for tin from about 3250 BCE.","why":"Bronze tools and weapons were tougher than copper ones, and the hunt for tin and copper tied distant regions together in the first long-distance metal trade networks.","also":"A tin-bronze foil from Pločnik in Serbia may date to c. 4650 BCE, though its dating is disputed. In China bronze-working took hold later, with early centres in the north-west by c. 2500–2300 BCE and large-scale casting at Erlitou.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Bronze Age","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tin sources and trade in ancient times","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_in_ancient_times"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chalcolithic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcolithic"}]},{"id":"caral","year":-2620,"yearLabel":"c. 2600–2000 BCE","title":"Caral, first cities of the Americas","place":"Caral, Supe Valley (Peru)","lonlat":[-77.52,-10.89],"category":"state","summary":"On Peru's dry north-central coast, the Caral–Supe (Norte Chico) civilisation built the earliest known monumental centres in the Americas, with large-scale construction from about 3200 BCE. Caral itself, inhabited from about 2600 to 2000 BCE, had six monumental complexes each built around a pyramid, sunken circular plazas and around 3,000 residents. Its people irrigated cotton for fishing nets and textiles, ate fish and shellfish as well as crops, and made no pottery.","why":"Caral shows that cities and monumental architecture arose in the Americas entirely independently, and almost as early as in Egypt and Mesopotamia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Caral–Supe civilization","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral%E2%80%93Supe_civilization"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Caral","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caral"}]},{"id":"indus-cities","year":-2600,"yearLabel":"c. 2600–1900 BCE","title":"Indus Valley cities flourish","place":"Mohenjo-daro, Sindh (Pakistan)","lonlat":[68.14,27.33],"category":"state","summary":"In its mature phase the Indus civilisation built planned cities such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, each with perhaps 30,000–60,000 people, laid out on grids with baked-brick houses and covered street drains. Spread over more than 1,000 settlements from Afghanistan and Balochistan to Gujarat, it covered a larger area than Egypt and Mesopotamia combined, yet no clear palaces or temples have been found and its script is still undeciphered.","why":"The Indus cities were among the world's first urban societies, with some of the earliest known city sanitation, and show that early urban life could flourish without obvious palaces or royal monuments.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Indus Valley Civilisation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro"}]},{"id":"great-pyramid","year":-2560,"yearLabel":"c. 2600–2560 BCE","title":"The Great Pyramid rises","place":"Giza, near Cairo (Egypt)","lonlat":[31.13,29.98],"category":"culture","summary":"For the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu, Egyptians built the Great Pyramid at Giza, originally about 146.6 m tall, over roughly 26 years. Excavated workers' camps point to organised, conscripted labour rather than slaves, perhaps 13,000 on average and up to about 40,000 at peak, and the papyrus diary of an official named Merer records limestone being shipped to the site in Khufu's 27th year.","why":"It was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years and shows how far an early state could organise labour, food supply and engineering.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Great Pyramid of Giza","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Khufu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu"}]},{"id":"sargon-akkad","year":-2334,"yearLabel":"c. 2334–2279 BCE","title":"Sargon builds the first empire","place":"Kish and Akkad, central Mesopotamia (Iraq)","lonlat":[44.6,32.54],"category":"state","summary":"Sargon, who in later legend began as cupbearer to the king of Kish, defeated Lugal-zage-si of Uruk around 2300 BCE, took control of Sumer to the Persian Gulf, and campaigned from Elam in Iran to Mari and Syria. He ruled from Akkad, a city whose site has never been found, and at its height around 2250 BCE his dynasty's empire reached from the Mediterranean to Iran.","why":"Often called the world's first empire (historians debate the label), Akkad set the pattern of one king ruling many conquered cities and peoples, with a professional army and Akkadian as a shared language of government.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Sargon of Akkad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Akkadian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kish (Sumer)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_(Sumer)"}]},{"id":"horse-chariot","year":-2000,"yearLabel":"c. 2200–1800 BCE","title":"Horses and war chariots","place":"Sintashta culture, southern Urals (Russia)","lonlat":[59.57,52.65],"category":"technology","summary":"Ancient DNA shows that the ancestors of nearly all modern domestic horses were domesticated around 2200 BCE in the Volga–Don region of the western Eurasian steppe. Soon after, people of the Sintashta culture east of the Urals, who built fortified settlements such as Arkaim, buried light chariots with spoked wheels, the oldest known, in graves dated to around 2000 BCE, often together with these horses.","why":"Fast horses and chariots transformed warfare, travel and communication: within about 500 years chariots appeared in Greece, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they reached Shang China around 1200 BCE.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Domestication of the horse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_horse"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sintashta culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintashta_culture"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Arkaim","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkaim"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty"}]},{"id":"hammurabi","year":-1754,"yearLabel":"c. 1755–1750 BCE","title":"Code of Hammurabi","place":"Babylon (Iraq)","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"category":"law","summary":"Late in his reign (c. 1792–1750 BCE), King Hammurabi of Babylon had about 282 laws carved on a 2.25 m basalt stele crowned by an image of the sun god Shamash. The laws cover trade, wages, family and property, set penalties that differed by social class, and include the principle of an eye for an eye. Centuries later the stele was carried off to Susa in Iran as plunder; it was found there in 1901 and is now in the Louvre.","why":"It is the best-known early law collection, a ruler's public statement of fixed rules for justice, and it made the idea of written, displayed law famous across the ages.","also":"It was not the first: the earlier Mesopotamian law collections of Ur-Nammu, Lipit-Ishtar and Eshnunna are known.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Code of Hammurabi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi"},{"title":"Louvre: Law Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon","url":"https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010174436"}]},{"id":"vedas","year":-1300,"yearLabel":"c. 1500–1000 BCE","title":"The Vedas are composed","place":"Punjab, north-western Indian subcontinent","lonlat":[73.5,31.0],"category":"ideas","summary":"In the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, poets composed the Rigveda, 1,028 hymns in Vedic Sanskrit, most likely between about 1500 and 1000 BCE, and it was gathered into a fixed collection around 1200–1000 BCE. Passed down orally with remarkable precision for many centuries before being written down, it was followed by the other Vedas and, from roughly the 7th–6th centuries BCE (dates are debated), by the philosophical Upanishads.","why":"The Vedas are the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, and the Upanishads' ideas of brahman, atman and karma became central to Indian religion and philosophy.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Rigveda","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Upanishads","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads"}]},{"id":"shang-oracle-bones","year":-1250,"yearLabel":"c. 1250 BCE","title":"Shang bronzes and oracle bones","place":"Yinxu, Anyang (Henan, China)","lonlat":[114.32,36.12],"category":"technology","summary":"At Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty near modern Anyang, kings consulted their ancestors by cracking turtle shells and ox shoulder blades with heat and carving the questions and answers onto them. These oracle-bone inscriptions, beginning in the reign of Wu Ding around 1250 BCE, are the earliest substantial body of Chinese writing, with around 5,000 different characters. The same court cast magnificent bronze ritual vessels, like those in the tomb of Fu Hao, Wu Ding's consort and a war leader.","why":"The oracle-bone script is the ancestor of the Chinese characters still in use today, making Chinese one of the world's longest continuously used writing systems.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Oracle bone","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_bone"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yinxu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinxu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty"}]},{"id":"olmec","year":-1200,"yearLabel":"c. 1200–900 BCE","title":"Olmec civilisation flourishes","place":"San Lorenzo, Veracruz (Mexico)","lonlat":[-94.76,17.75],"category":"culture","summary":"In the tropical lowlands of Mexico's Gulf Coast, the Olmecs built San Lorenzo, the largest city in Mesoamerica from about 1200 to 900 BCE, before La Venta became their leading centre (c. 900–400 BCE). They carved colossal stone heads up to about 3 m tall and weighing many tonnes, probably portraits of rulers, and buried rich offerings of jade and serpentine.","why":"Often called the mother culture of Mesoamerica (a debated label), the Olmecs pioneered monumental art and possibly ideas such as the ballgame and the Long Count calendar that shaped later civilisations like the Maya.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Olmecs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmecs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lorenzo_Tenochtitl%C3%A1n"}]},{"id":"bronze-age-collapse","year":-1190,"yearLabel":"c. 1200–1150 BCE","title":"Late Bronze Age collapse","place":"Ugarit, Syrian coast","lonlat":[35.78,35.6],"category":"collapse","summary":"Within a few decades around 1200 BCE, the interconnected palace kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean fell apart. The Hittite Empire broke up, the Mycenaean palaces of Greece were abandoned, and the port of Ugarit was destroyed around 1190–1185 BCE, its last letters warning of enemy ships; Egypt and Assyria survived but were weakened. Recent studies suggest fewer cities were destroyed than once believed.","why":"The collapse ended an age of palace-run kingdoms and long-distance trade and cleared the way for the Iron Age world of new peoples, iron tools and the alphabet; its causes probably combined drought, earthquakes, migrations including the Sea Peoples, and fragile, over-centralised states.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Late Bronze Age collapse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ugarit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit"}]},{"id":"iron","year":-1150,"yearLabel":"c. 1200–1000 BCE","title":"Iron working spreads","place":"Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"category":"technology","summary":"Iron had long been known in small amounts, from meteorites and occasional smelting, but around 1300–1200 BCE smiths in Anatolia and neighbouring regions mastered smelting iron ore, which needs far higher temperatures than bronze. In the 12th and 11th centuries BCE ironworking spread across the eastern Mediterranean, and smiths learned to harden iron into steel by heating it in charcoal and quenching it. The old idea that the Hittites guarded the secret of iron is no longer accepted.","why":"Iron ore is far more common than tin, so once smelting was mastered, iron tools and weapons became cheap and widespread, transforming farming and warfare.","also":"Iron was worked early, and probably independently, elsewhere: in India's Ganges plain from about 1800–1200 BCE, in sub-Saharan Africa (see Nok), and in China, which was making cast iron by the 5th century BCE.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Iron Age","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ferrous metallurgy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy"}]},{"id":"phoenician-alphabet","year":-1050,"yearLabel":"c. 1050 BCE","title":"The Phoenician alphabet","place":"Byblos (Lebanon)","lonlat":[35.65,34.12],"category":"ideas","summary":"Phoenician scribes in coastal cities such as Byblos used a script of just 22 letters, each standing for a consonant, developed from the earlier Proto-Sinaitic script, which was itself derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs. Its conventional starting date is c. 1050 BCE, and the inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, usually dated to around 1000 BCE, is the earliest known example of the fully developed alphabet.","why":"Carried by Phoenician traders around the Mediterranean, it became the ancestor of the Greek and Latin alphabets and, through Aramaic, of the Hebrew and Arabic scripts; a couple of dozen letters made reading and writing far easier to learn than systems with hundreds of signs.","also":"At Ugarit, scribes had earlier used a 30-letter alphabet written in cuneiform wedges (c. 1400 BCE), whose letter order resembles the Phoenician.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Phoenician alphabet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ahiram sarcophagus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahiram_sarcophagus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ugarit","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit"}]},{"id":"lapita","year":-890,"yearLabel":"c. 1200–890 BCE","title":"Lapita voyagers reach Polynesia","place":"Nukuleka, Tongatapu (Tonga)","lonlat":[-175.1,-21.13],"category":"culture","summary":"The Lapita people, Austronesian-speaking seafarers known for their pottery decorated with toothed stamps, had settled the Bismarck Archipelago off New Guinea by about 1600–1200 BCE. After 1200 BCE they sailed east into previously uninhabited islands, reaching Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji, and high-precision dating puts their founding settlement at Nukuleka in Tonga, the first landfall in Polynesia, at about 890 BCE.","why":"Crossing hundreds of kilometres of open ocean in outrigger canoes, the Lapita began the human settlement of Remote Oceania, which their Polynesian descendants would later carry across the Pacific.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Lapita culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapita_culture"},{"title":"Burley, Weisler & Zhao (2012), High Precision U/Th Dating of First Polynesian Settlement, PLoS ONE","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3492438"}]},{"id":"olympic-games","year":-776,"yearLabel":"776 BCE (traditional)","title":"First Olympic Games","place":"Olympia, Peloponnese (Greece)","lonlat":[21.63,37.64],"category":"culture","summary":"According to tradition, the first Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE at the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia, with a single footrace, the stadion, won by Koroibos of Elis; archaeology suggests major games began nearer 700 BCE. Held every four years for free-born Greek men, the games were protected by a sacred truce for travellers and continued until the late 4th century CE or a little later.","why":"The four-year Olympiad became a common Greek way of dating events, the games gave rival Greek city-states a shared festival and identity, and they inspired the modern Olympic Games.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ancient Olympic Games","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Olympia, Greece","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia,_Greece"}]},{"id":"nok-iron","year":-650,"yearLabel":"c. 750–550 BCE","title":"Iron smelting in West Africa","place":"Nok, Kaduna State (central Nigeria)","lonlat":[8.0,9.5],"category":"technology","summary":"The Nok culture of central Nigeria, famous for its hollow, near life-sized terracotta sculptures, was smelting iron in bloomery furnaces by about 550 BCE and perhaps from 750 BCE or earlier. Excavations at Taruga uncovered iron slag, clay furnace pipes and wrought iron, helping to show that the Nok people lived in an Iron Age.","why":"Early dates at Nok and other sites match or predate known ironworking at Carthage and Meroë, so many archaeologists now argue that iron smelting was invented independently south of the Sahara, though the evidence is still debated.","also":"Even earlier smelting dates claimed for sites in Niger (Termit, c. 1500 BCE) and Nigeria (Lejja) remain disputed.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Nok culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nok_culture"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Iron metallurgy in Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_metallurgy_in_Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ferrous metallurgy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy"}]},{"id":"lydian-coinage","year":-620,"yearLabel":"late 7th century BCE","title":"First coins in Lydia","place":"Sardis, Lydia (western Türkiye)","lonlat":[28.04,38.49],"category":"trade","summary":"In Lydia and the neighbouring Greek cities of Ionia, the first coins, small lumps of electrum (a natural gold–silver alloy) stamped with a design, were struck in the late 7th century BCE; the electrum coin of Phanes from Ephesus dates to about 625–600 BCE. Around 550 BCE King Croesus issued the first coins of refined gold and silver, and workshops for separating electrum into pure gold and silver have been excavated at the Lydian capital, Sardis.","why":"Coins of guaranteed weight and purity made trade, taxes and paying soldiers far simpler, and coinage soon spread through the Greek and Persian worlds.","also":"In China, shovel-shaped bronze coins were cast at a mint in Henan between about 640 and 550 BCE, a separate tradition; India's punch-marked coins followed by the 4th century BCE, possibly earlier.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Coin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Lydia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sardis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardis"}]},{"id":"cyrus-persia","year":-550,"yearLabel":"550 BCE","title":"Cyrus founds the Persian Empire","place":"Pasargadae (Fars, Iran)","lonlat":[53.17,30.2],"category":"state","summary":"Cyrus II, king of Anshan in Persis, overthrew his Median overlord Astyages around 550 BCE and built his capital, Pasargadae, near the site of his victory. He went on to conquer Lydia (546 BCE) and Babylon (539 BCE), where the Cyrus Cylinder presents him as a restorer of temples and of displaced peoples; the Bible credits him with letting exiled Jews return to Jerusalem.","why":"By his death in 530 BCE the Achaemenid Persian Empire stretched from Asia Minor to the Indus, the largest empire the world had yet seen, uniting many peoples, languages and religions under one king.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Cyrus the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pasargadae","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasargadae"}]},{"id":"athenian-democracy","year":-508,"yearLabel":"508/507 BCE","title":"Democracy in Athens","place":"Athens (Greece)","lonlat":[23.73,37.97],"category":"state","summary":"The reformer Cleisthenes reorganised the citizens of Athens into ten tribes based on where they lived rather than on family, created a Council of 500 chosen by lot, and strengthened the Assembly, where any adult male citizen could speak and vote. He called the system isonomia, equality before the law.","why":"Athens became the best-known early democracy, where ordinary citizens debated and decided policy directly, though women, slaves and foreign residents were excluded, so voters were a minority of adults.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Cleisthenes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleisthenes"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Athenian democracy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy"}]},{"id":"axial-age","year":-500,"yearLabel":"c. 6th–5th centuries BCE","title":"The Axial Age thinkers","place":"Bodh Gaya (Bihar, India) and across Eurasia","lonlat":[84.99,24.7],"category":"ideas","summary":"Within a few centuries, thinkers across Eurasia laid the foundations of lasting religions and philosophies: the Buddha (enlightened at Bodh Gaya; his dates are debated, c. 563–483 or c. 480–400 BCE) and Mahavira in India, Confucius (traditionally 551–479 BCE) and, according to tradition, Laozi in China, the Hebrew prophets in Israel, and Greek philosophers from Heraclitus and Parmenides to Plato. In 1949 the philosopher Karl Jaspers named this period, roughly the 8th to 3rd centuries BCE, the Axial Age.","why":"Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Daoism, the prophetic tradition of Judaism and Greek philosophy still shape the ethics and beliefs of billions of people; scholars debate whether this was one connected shift or a convenient label for separate developments.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Axial Age","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age"},{"title":"Wikipedia: The Buddha","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buddha"},{"title":"Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Confucius","url":"https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mahavira","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavira"}]},{"id":"persian-wars","year":-490,"yearLabel":"490–479 BCE","title":"The Persian Wars","place":"Marathon (Attica, Greece)","lonlat":[23.98,38.12],"category":"state","summary":"After Athens helped the Ionian Greeks revolt against Persia, King Darius sent an expedition that the Athenians and Plataeans defeated at Marathon in 490 BCE. In 480 BCE Xerxes invaded with a far larger force, won at Thermopylae and sacked an evacuated Athens, but lost the sea battle of Salamis; Greek victories at Plataea and Mycale in 479 BCE ended the invasion.","why":"Greek independence survived, Athens rose as a naval power at the head of the Delian League, and its classical age followed; Herodotus' account of the wars earned him the title Father of History.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Greco-Persian Wars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Marathon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marathon"}]},{"id":"alexander","year":-334,"yearLabel":"334–323 BCE","title":"Alexander's conquests","place":"Pella (Macedon) to the Indus","lonlat":[22.52,40.76],"category":"state","summary":"Alexander III of Macedon crossed into Asia in 334 BCE, beat the Persians at the Granicus, Issus (333) and Gaugamela (331), took Egypt, where he founded Alexandria, and overthrew the Achaemenid Empire. He pushed on to the Indus, defeating King Porus at the Hydaspes in 326 BCE, until his army refused to go further; he died at Babylon in 323 BCE, aged 32.","why":"His conquests and the kingdoms of his successors spread Greek language and culture from Egypt to north-western India, opening the Hellenistic age in which Greek became a shared language across the region and cultures mixed, from Greco-Buddhist art to Alexandrian science.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Alexander the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hellenistic period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_period"}]},{"id":"euclid-alexandria","year":-300,"yearLabel":"c. 300 BCE","title":"Euclid and the Library of Alexandria","place":"Alexandria (Egypt)","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"category":"science","summary":"In Alexandria, Ptolemy I founded the Mouseion, a research institute whose great library, probably established under Ptolemy II (r. 285–246 BCE), gathered somewhere between tens and hundreds of thousands of scrolls. Working in the city around 300 BCE, Euclid wrote the Elements, 13 books that build geometry and number theory step by step from definitions and postulates; later scholars there included Eratosthenes, who calculated the Earth's circumference.","why":"The Elements was the core of mathematics teaching for some 2,000 years and has appeared in more than 1,000 printed editions, while the library became a lasting symbol of the ambition to collect all knowledge in one place.","sources":[{"title":"MacTutor History of Mathematics (University of St Andrews): Euclid","url":"https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Euclid/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Euclid","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Library of Alexandria","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria"}]},{"id":"ashoka-kalinga","year":-261,"yearLabel":"c. 261–260 BCE","title":"Ashoka turns from war","place":"Dhauli, Kalinga (Odisha, India)","lonlat":[85.84,20.19],"category":"ideas","summary":"In about the eighth year of his reign, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka conquered Kalinga on India's east coast; his own Rock Edict 13 records 100,000 killed and 150,000 carried off, and expresses deep remorse. He turned to dhamma, a moral code of non-violence and right conduct not tied to a single religion, proclaimed it in edicts carved on rocks and pillars across his empire, and became a lay follower and patron of Buddhism.","why":"Ashoka is remembered as a ruler who renounced conquest by war, and the missionaries he is credited with sending, including his son Mahinda to Sri Lanka, helped Buddhism spread beyond India.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashoka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kalinga War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinga_War"}]},{"id":"qin-unification","year":-221,"yearLabel":"221 BCE","title":"Qin unifies China","place":"Xianyang (Shaanxi, China)","lonlat":[108.71,34.33],"category":"state","summary":"After conquering the last of the rival Warring States, King Ying Zheng of Qin proclaimed himself Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor, in 221 BCE. He replaced hereditary lords with appointed officials in 36 commanderies and standardised the script, coins, weights, measures and even cart axle widths, while linking northern walls, building roads and ordering the burning of books from rival schools of thought.","why":"Although the Qin dynasty fell in 206 BCE, after only 15 years, it created the centralised imperial system and common written script that held China together under emperors until 1911.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Qin dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qin Shi Huang","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang"}]},{"id":"han-dynasty","year":-202,"yearLabel":"202 BCE","title":"The Han dynasty begins","place":"Chang'an (Xi'an, China)","lonlat":[108.88,34.3],"category":"state","summary":"Liu Bang, born into a peasant family, rose from minor Qin official to rebel leader, defeated his rival Xiang Yu at Gaixia and became emperor in 202 BCE, remembered as Emperor Gaozu of Han. Keeping much of the Qin's centralised system but easing its harsh laws and taxes, the Han ruled from Chang'an and, after a brief break (9–23 CE), from Luoyang until 220 CE.","why":"Under the Han, Confucianism became the state ideology and a census of 2 CE counted some 57.7 million people; the dynasty became so central to Chinese identity that China's majority still call themselves the Han people and their writing Han characters.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emperor Gaozu of Han","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Gaozu_of_Han"}]},{"id":"paper","year":-160,"yearLabel":"c. 2nd century BCE","title":"Paper is invented in China","place":"Fangmatan, Gansu (China)","lonlat":[106.0,34.35],"category":"technology","summary":"The oldest surviving fragment of paper, apparently part of a map, was found at Fangmatan in Gansu and dates to about 179–141 BCE. Early paper made from plant fibres was used mostly for wrapping and padding, for example around bronze mirrors, and only later for writing. In 105 CE the court official Cai Lun refined papermaking using bark, hemp, rags and old fishing nets, which is why he was long credited with inventing it.","why":"Cheap, light paper gradually replaced bamboo, silk and parchment, reaching the Islamic world and then Europe by the 11th century, and made books and records far more widely available.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: History of paper","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paper"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Paper","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper"}]},{"id":"carthage-corinth","year":-146,"yearLabel":"146 BCE","title":"Rome destroys Carthage and Corinth","place":"Carthage (Tunisia)","lonlat":[10.32,36.85],"category":"state","summary":"In early 146 BCE, after a three-year siege in the Third Punic War, Roman troops under Scipio Aemilianus stormed Carthage, destroyed the city and sold some 50,000 survivors into slavery; its lands became the Roman province of Africa. In the same year Lucius Mummius defeated the Achaean League and sacked Corinth, bringing mainland Greece under direct Roman control.","why":"With its great rival gone and Greece subdued, Rome became the unchallenged power of the Mediterranean, and the flood of Greek art and learning into Rome reshaped Roman culture.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Third Punic War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Punic_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Corinth (146 BC)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Corinth_(146_BC)"}]},{"id":"silk-road","year":-138,"yearLabel":"c. 138–114 BCE","title":"The Silk Road opens","place":"Dayuan (Ferghana Valley, Central Asia)","lonlat":[71.78,40.39],"category":"trade","summary":"Around 138 BCE Emperor Wu of Han sent the envoy Zhang Qian west to seek allies against the Xiongnu. After years as a Xiongnu captive he reached Dayuan (Ferghana), the Yuezhi and Bactria, and returned to Chang'an in 125 BCE with reports of rich states to the west. Han embassies, campaigns and trade followed, and by around 114 BCE a network of routes linked China with Central Asia and, in time, the Roman world.","why":"For some 1,500 years the Silk Road carried silk, horses, paper and ideas across more than 6,400 km of Eurasia, linking civilisations that had known little of one another.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhang Qian","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Qian"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Silk Road","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty"}]},{"id":"caesar-augustus","year":-44,"yearLabel":"44–27 BCE","title":"From Caesar to Augustus","place":"Rome (Italy)","lonlat":[12.48,41.9],"category":"state","summary":"On 15 March 44 BCE, about 60 senators led by Brutus and Cassius stabbed Julius Caesar, recently named dictator for life, in the Curia of Pompey in Rome. His heir Octavian joined Mark Antony and Lepidus in the Second Triumvirate, then defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE; in 27 BCE the Senate gave him the name Augustus.","why":"Augustus became Rome's first emperor, ending the Republic and founding the Principate, a system of one-man rule behind republican forms that opened a long era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Augustus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Assassination of Julius Caesar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Julius_Caesar"}]},{"id":"birth-of-jesus","year":-5,"yearLabel":"c. 6–4 BCE","title":"Birth of Jesus","place":"Bethlehem (traditional), Judea","lonlat":[35.2,31.7],"category":"ideas","summary":"Jesus of Nazareth was probably born between about 6 and 4 BCE, since the Gospels place his birth in the reign of King Herod, whose death is usually dated to 4 BCE. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke set his birth in Bethlehem, though many historians think he was more likely born in Nazareth in Galilee, where he grew up.","why":"Christianity, which grew from his life and teachings, became one of the world's largest religions, and the Anno Domini year count devised by Dionysius Exiguus in 525 CE, which placed his birth a few years too late, underlies today's common calendar era.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Chronology of Jesus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Jesus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nativity of Jesus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativity_of_Jesus"}]},{"id":"christianity-spreads","year":33,"yearLabel":"c. 33–65 CE","title":"Christianity spreads beyond Judea","place":"Antioch (Antakya, Türkiye)","lonlat":[36.16,36.2],"category":"ideas","summary":"After Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, around 33 CE, his followers formed communities that spread quickly to Damascus and Antioch, where, according to the Book of Acts, they were first called Christians. From the mid-40s to the mid-50s CE the apostle Paul travelled through Cyprus, Asia Minor and Greece, founding churches among non-Jews, before dying in Rome around 64–65 CE, about the time Nero blamed the city's Christians for the Great Fire of 64.","why":"Opening the movement to non-Jews turned a small Jewish sect into a religion that could travel along the Roman Empire's roads and sea lanes, and from there around the world.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Paul the Apostle","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Early Christianity","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Christianity"}]},{"id":"buddhism-china","year":68,"yearLabel":"1st–2nd century CE","title":"Buddhism reaches China","place":"White Horse Temple, Luoyang (China)","lonlat":[112.6,34.72],"category":"ideas","summary":"Buddhism reached China along the Silk Road in the 1st century CE. Tradition says Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han dreamed of a golden figure, sent envoys west and in 68 CE founded the White Horse Temple at Luoyang for two Indian monks, though many scholars treat the story as a pious legend. Firmer evidence comes in the 2nd century, when Central Asian monks such as the Parthian An Shigao (from 148 CE) and the Kushan Lokakṣema began translating Buddhist texts into Chinese at Luoyang.","why":"The translation work begun at Luoyang carried Indian religious and philosophical ideas into the Chinese language, starting a transmission that made Buddhism a lasting part of Chinese life.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: White Horse Temple","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Horse_Temple"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Silk Road transmission of Buddhism","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_transmission_of_Buddhism"}]},{"id":"teotihuacan","year":100,"yearLabel":"c. 100–550 CE","title":"Teotihuacan, metropolis of Mesoamerica","place":"Teotihuacan, near Mexico City (Mexico)","lonlat":[-98.84,19.69],"category":"state","summary":"Teotihuacan grew explosively in the first centuries CE into the largest city in Mesoamerica, laid out along the Avenue of the Dead with the Pyramid of the Sun, about 65 m high, completed by around 100 CE. At its height around 450 CE it may have housed about 100,000 people, though estimates range from 25,000 to well over that. Its ruling-class buildings were burned around 550 CE and the city declined; the Aztecs, who revered its ruins centuries later, gave it the Nahuatl name by which we know it.","why":"Teotihuacan's power reached far beyond central Mexico: in 378 CE a warlord linked to the city took over the Maya city of Tikal and installed a new king, showing how one metropolis could shape politics across Mesoamerica.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Teotihuacan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tikal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal"}]},{"id":"cai-lun-paper","year":105,"yearLabel":"105 CE","title":"Cai Lun improves papermaking","place":"Luoyang, Eastern Han capital (China)","lonlat":[112.63,34.68],"category":"technology","summary":"In 105 CE Cai Lun, an official at the Eastern Han court, presented Emperor He with an improved way of making paper from tree bark, hemp waste, old rags and fishing nets. Paper already existed in China (the oldest surviving fragment, from Fangmatan in Gansu, dates to about 179–141 BCE), so historians see his work as improving and standardising an existing craft rather than inventing it, but his improvements led to paper's widespread use.","why":"Cheaper and lighter than silk or heavy bamboo strips, paper gradually replaced them, letting whole books circulate and be carried by hand; Cai Lun came to be honoured as the traditional inventor of paper.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Cai Lun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cai_Lun"},{"title":"Wikipedia: History of paper","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paper"}]},{"id":"pax-romana","year":117,"yearLabel":"27 BCE – 180 CE (peak extent 117 CE)","title":"The Pax Romana and Rome at its height","place":"Rome (Italy)","lonlat":[12.49,41.89],"category":"state","summary":"The Pax Romana, the roughly two centuries from Augustus (27 BCE) to the death of Marcus Aurelius (180 CE), was a time of relative peace and prosperity inside the Roman Empire, though not free of revolts and frontier wars. Under Trajan, who conquered Dacia and briefly annexed Armenia and Mesopotamia, the empire reached its greatest extent at his death in 117 CE. Its population is estimated to have peaked at about 70 million.","why":"Long internal peace let trade flourish across the Mediterranean and beyond, and because it overlapped with Han China's own era of stability it stimulated travel and commerce right across Eurasia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Pax Romana","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Romana"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Trajan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan"}]},{"id":"kushan-kanishka","year":127,"yearLabel":"c. 127–150 CE","title":"Kanishka and the Kushan crossroads","place":"Purushapura (Peshawar, Pakistan)","lonlat":[71.58,34.01],"category":"trade","summary":"The Kushan Empire, which ruled from Central Asia to northern India between about 30 and 375 CE, reached its peak under Kanishka, who reigned from about 127 to 150 CE from Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura. It linked Silk Road caravan routes with Indian Ocean sea trade, and Kanishka, though not himself a convert, patronised Buddhism and both the Gandhara and Mathura schools of Buddhist art.","why":"Kushan control of the routes between India, Iran and China helped carry Buddhism, especially Mahayana Buddhism, into Central Asia and China.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kushan Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kanishka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanishka"}]},{"id":"constantine","year":313,"yearLabel":"312–330 CE","title":"Constantine, Christianity and a new Rome","place":"Constantinople (Istanbul, Türkiye)","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"category":"ideas","summary":"After defeating his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge near Rome in 312, Constantine began favouring Christianity, and in 313 he and his co-emperor Licinius agreed at Milan to grant religious freedom and return confiscated church property. In 325 he summoned the Council of Nicaea, which produced the Nicene Creed, and on 11 May 330 he consecrated a new capital, Constantinople, on the site of Byzantium.","why":"A persecuted faith became the emperor's favoured religion, and in 380 Theodosius I made it the empire's official one; Constantinople remained a Christian imperial capital until 1453.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Constantine the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Edict of Milan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Constantinople","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople"}]},{"id":"gupta-age","year":320,"yearLabel":"c. 320–550 CE","title":"The Gupta age in India","place":"Pataliputra (Patna, India)","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"category":"culture","summary":"From Pataliputra, Chandragupta I (crowned c. 320), his son Samudragupta and grandson Chandragupta II built an empire across northern India. The period is often called India's golden age, a label some historians dispute; the poet Kalidasa, the astronomer Aryabhata and the visiting Chinese monk Faxian, who praised its mild government, all belong to it. Hun invasions from the late 490s and rising regional rulers broke the empire up by the mid-6th century.","why":"Gupta-era scholars produced lasting works of Sanskrit literature and science: Aryabhata, writing around 500, used place-value notation and gave π as about 3.1416, part of the tradition that produced modern numerals.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Gupta Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aryabhata","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryabhata"}]},{"id":"aksum-christian","year":330,"yearLabel":"c. 325–340 CE","title":"Aksum becomes a Christian kingdom","place":"Aksum (Tigray, Ethiopia)","lonlat":[38.72,14.13],"category":"ideas","summary":"Aksum, in today's northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, grew rich on Red Sea trade through its port of Adulis, exporting ivory, gold and tortoiseshell and minting its own coins; in the 3rd century the prophet Mani counted it among the world's four great powers with Rome, Persia and China. King Ezana, taught by Frumentius, a Christian from the Roman east, became its first Christian ruler, around 325–330 by most estimates, and his coins replaced the pagan disc and crescent with the cross.","why":"Aksum became one of the earliest states anywhere to adopt Christianity, and Ezana made its Ge'ez script and language official alongside Greek, rooting a Christian, literate tradition in the Horn of Africa.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Aksum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ezana of Axum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezana_of_Axum"}]},{"id":"fall-western-rome","year":476,"yearLabel":"476 CE","title":"The Western Roman Empire falls","place":"Ravenna (Italy)","lonlat":[12.2,44.42],"category":"collapse","summary":"On 4 September 476 the Germanic general Odoacer took Ravenna, deposed the young emperor Romulus Augustulus and sent the imperial regalia to the Eastern emperor Zeno in Constantinople instead of naming a new Western emperor. It capped a long decline that included mass migrations from 376, the sack of Rome in 410, civil wars and financial strain; historians also point to epidemics and climate change, and some prefer other end dates such as 480.","why":"Western Europe passed to Germanic kingdoms while the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire carried on for nearly a thousand years more; 476 is often used to mark the end of antiquity.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of the Western Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Romulus Augustulus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_Augustulus"}]},{"id":"justinian","year":527,"yearLabel":"527–565 CE","title":"Justinian's law code and reconquests","place":"Constantinople (Istanbul, Türkiye)","lonlat":[28.98,41.0],"category":"law","summary":"The Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) had a commission led by Tribonian gather centuries of Roman law into the Code (529, revised 534), the Digest and the Institutes (533), later called the Corpus Juris Civilis. After the Nika riots of 532 burned the old church, he rebuilt Hagia Sophia, completed in 537, and his generals retook North Africa from the Vandals (533–534), Italy from the Ostrogoths (535–554) and part of southern Spain. From 541 plague, caused by the same bacterium as the later Black Death, swept the Mediterranean.","why":"Recovered in Italy around 1070 and taught at Bologna, Justinian's law books became the foundation of the civil-law systems used across continental Europe and far beyond.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Justinian I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Corpus Juris Civilis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Juris_Civilis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Plague of Justinian","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian"}]},{"id":"tang-dynasty","year":618,"yearLabel":"618–907 CE","title":"The Tang dynasty","place":"Chang'an (Xi'an, China)","lonlat":[108.94,34.27],"category":"state","summary":"The Tang dynasty, founded in 618 after the collapse of the Sui, ruled China for nearly three centuries from Chang'an, a walled grid city of about 78 km² whose population inside the walls is estimated at 800,000 to 1 million. Merchants, monks and envoys from Central Asia, Persia, India and Arabia filled its markets, and the era is counted the greatest age of Chinese poetry, the age of Li Bai and Du Fu. The An Lushan rebellion (755–763) badly weakened the dynasty, which ended in 907.","why":"Tang China was one of the most cosmopolitan societies of its time, and Chang'an's grid plan was copied for Japan's capitals at Nara and Kyoto and for Silla Korea's capital at Gyeongju.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chang'an","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27an"}]},{"id":"hijra","year":622,"yearLabel":"622 CE","title":"Muhammad's Hijra to Medina","place":"Medina (Saudi Arabia)","lonlat":[39.61,24.47],"category":"ideas","summary":"Muhammad, born in Mecca around 570, began around 610 to report revelations that Muslims believe were delivered by the angel Gabriel and that form the Quran. Facing hostility from Mecca's ruling Quraysh, in 622 he and his followers migrated to Medina, then called Yathrib, where he became the community's leader and judge. Mecca surrendered to him in 629–630, and by his death in 632 most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.","why":"The Hijra marks the founding of the first Muslim community, and the caliph Umar later made it year one of the Islamic calendar, which Muslims still use.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Hijrah","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijrah"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Muhammad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad"}]},{"id":"zero-brahmagupta","year":628,"yearLabel":"628 CE","title":"Zero becomes a number","place":"Bhinmal (Bhillamala), Rajasthan (India)","lonlat":[72.27,25.0],"category":"science","summary":"Indian mathematicians had been writing numbers with base-10 place value for centuries (the earliest leaves of the Bakhshali manuscript are dated to about 224–383 CE), and around 500 Aryabhata marked empty places with the word kha, 'emptiness'. In 628 Brahmagupta, a native of Bhillamala, completed his Brahmasphutasiddhanta, the earliest known text to treat zero as a number in its own right, with rules for adding, subtracting and multiplying with zero and negative numbers.","why":"Translated into Arabic at the Abbasid court, spread by al-Khwarizmi's book on Hindu numerals (c. 825) and brought into Europe from the 12th century, Indian place-value numerals with zero became the digits the whole world uses today.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Brahmagupta","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmagupta"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Hindu–Arabic numeral system","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu%E2%80%93Arabic_numeral_system"}]},{"id":"arab-conquests","year":636,"yearLabel":"632–750 CE","title":"The Arab Muslim conquests","place":"Damascus (Syria)","lonlat":[36.31,33.51],"category":"war","summary":"Within a few years of Muhammad's death, Arab Muslim armies defeated the Byzantines at Yarmuk and the Sasanian Persians at al-Qadisiyya (both 636), taking Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem (638) and Egypt (639–642); Persian resistance was broken at Nahavand in 642 and the last shah was killed in 651. Under the Umayyad caliphs, ruling from Damascus from 661, the conquests reached Spain and Sindh in 711, until the Franks defeated a raid near Tours in 732.","why":"By 750 Muslim rulers governed, by various estimates, 11–15 million km² from Iberia to the Indus, and Arabic, made the language of government under the Umayyads, became a shared language of religion, law and learning across this vast area.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Early Muslim conquests","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Umayyad Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate"}]},{"id":"vikings-lindisfarne","year":793,"yearLabel":"793–1066 CE","title":"Vikings raid Lindisfarne","place":"Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland (England)","lonlat":[-1.8,55.67],"category":"war","summary":"In 793 Norse raiders plundered the island monastery of Lindisfarne, killing or enslaving many monks; the scholar Alcuin wrote that such terror had never before appeared in Britain. Over the next two and a half centuries Scandinavians raided, traded and settled from Ireland to the Russian rivers, where Rurik's successors founded Kievan Rus', served the Byzantine emperors, received Normandy in 911 and settled Iceland and Greenland. The age is traditionally closed by Harald Hardrada's death at Stamford Bridge in 1066.","why":"Viking raiding, trading and settlement reshaped early medieval Europe, founding new states and linking the North Atlantic and the Baltic to Constantinople.","also":"Around 1021 Norse Greenlanders were at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, a date fixed by tree rings; excavated by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad from 1961, it is the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside Greenland, almost five centuries before Columbus.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Lindisfarne","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindisfarne"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Viking Age","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age"},{"title":"Wikipedia: L'Anse aux Meadows","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows"}]},{"id":"charlemagne","year":800,"yearLabel":"25 December 800 CE","title":"Charlemagne crowned emperor","place":"Old St Peter's Basilica, Rome (Italy)","lonlat":[12.45,41.9],"category":"state","summary":"Charlemagne, king of the Franks from 768 and of the Lombards from 774, conquered Saxony, Bavaria, northern Italy and part of northern Spain, uniting most of Western and Central Europe. On Christmas Day 800 Pope Leo III crowned him emperor in Rome. From his palace at Aachen he sponsored a revival of learning, the Carolingian Renaissance, led by scholars such as Alcuin of York, whose scribes spread the clear Carolingian minuscule handwriting.","why":"Carolingian copyists made the earliest surviving copies of many Latin classics, including Cicero, Horace and Lucretius, and Charlemagne's lasting influence on the continent has earned him the title 'Father of Europe'.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Charlemagne","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Carolingian Renaissance","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Renaissance"}]},{"id":"maya-collapse","year":800,"yearLabel":"c. 750–950 CE","title":"The Classic Maya collapse","place":"Tikal, Petén (Guatemala)","lonlat":[-89.62,17.22],"category":"collapse","summary":"In the 8th and 9th centuries the great Maya city-states of the southern lowlands broke down: dated monuments fell from about 40 a year around 750 to none by 900, and monumental building in the central area stopped after 830. Tikal, which may once have held tens of thousands of people, raised its last monument in 869 and was largely deserted by the end of the 10th century. Drought is now the leading explanation among more than 80 theories, alongside warfare, environmental damage and the collapse of trade routes.","why":"The collapse shows how large, sophisticated societies can unravel, yet Maya civilization continued in northern Yucatán at cities such as Chichén Itzá and Mayapán, and independent Maya rule lasted until 1697.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Classic Maya collapse","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tikal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal"}]},{"id":"house-of-wisdom","year":820,"yearLabel":"9th century CE","title":"Baghdad's House of Wisdom","place":"Baghdad (Iraq)","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"category":"science","summary":"After the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur founded Baghdad in 762, the city became a centre of learning, and under al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) a royal library known as the House of Wisdom became a hub for scholars translating Greek, Persian, Syriac and Indian works into Arabic. Hunayn ibn Ishaq translated Galen and Hippocrates, and al-Khwarizmi, who worked there around 820, wrote the book on al-jabr that gave us the word 'algebra'. Some historians doubt it was a formal academy, seeing the name as covering a library and Baghdad's wider community of scholars.","why":"The translation movement preserved and built on ancient science and philosophy, and Arabic works such as al-Khwarizmi's later reached Europe in Latin; his Latinised name gave us the word 'algorithm'.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: House of Wisdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Al-Khwarizmi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khwarizmi"}]},{"id":"diamond-sutra","year":868,"yearLabel":"868 CE","title":"The Diamond Sutra, oldest dated printed book","place":"Mogao Caves, Dunhuang (Gansu, China)","lonlat":[94.81,40.04],"category":"technology","summary":"In Tang China printers carved whole pages into wooden blocks, inked them and pressed them onto paper. A printed scroll of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, dated 11 May 868 and made 'for universal free distribution', was sealed in a cave library at Dunhuang, found there in 1900 and acquired by Aurel Stein in 1907; it is now in the British Library. It is the oldest surviving printed book that carries a date, though earlier undated prints exist.","why":"Printing let texts be copied quickly and cheaply, and in the 1040s Bi Sheng took the next step in China with movable type made of baked clay, one character per piece.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Diamond Sutra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bi Sheng","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi_Sheng"}]},{"id":"polynesian-settlement","year":1025,"yearLabel":"c. 1025–1290 CE","title":"Polynesians settle the remote Pacific","place":"Society Islands (French Polynesia)","lonlat":[-151.44,-16.83],"category":"exploration","summary":"Sailing double-hulled canoes and steering by the rising and setting points of stars and by ocean swells, Polynesian voyagers spread across thousands of kilometres of open Pacific. High-precision radiocarbon dating suggests the Society Islands were settled around 1025–1120 CE and that, in one rapid pulse around 1190–1290, voyagers reached the remaining islands of East Polynesia, including Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Aotearoa New Zealand.","why":"Without instruments or charts, Polynesian navigators settled the last large habitable islands on the map of the Pacific, spreading related languages and cultures from Hawaii to New Zealand and Rapa Nui.","also":"Sweet potatoes, native to South America, were growing in the Cook Islands by about 1000 CE, which many researchers take as a sign that Polynesian voyagers reached the Americas and came back, though natural drift has also been proposed.","sources":[{"title":"Wilmshurst et al. 2011, PNAS: High-precision radiocarbon dating of East Polynesian colonization","url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3033267/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Polynesian navigation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation"},{"title":"Wikipedia: History of New Zealand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_Zealand"}]},{"id":"song-inventions","year":1040,"yearLabel":"c. 1024–1088 CE","title":"Song China: gunpowder, compass and paper money","place":"Kaifeng (China)","lonlat":[114.31,34.8],"category":"technology","summary":"Under the Song dynasty (960–1279), whose northern capital was Kaifeng, China's population roughly doubled and its economy boomed. In 1023–1024 the government took over the jiaozi notes first issued by Sichuan merchants, usually regarded as the first government paper money; the military manual Wujing Zongyao (compiled c. 1040–1044) holds the earliest known written formulas for gunpowder; and by 1088 Shen Kuo described the magnetic compass in use for navigation.","why":"Gunpowder weapons and the compass, first recorded in Europe around 1190, later transformed warfare and sea travel worldwide, while state-backed paper money pointed the way to modern currency.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Song dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Wujing Zongyao","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wujing_Zongyao"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jiaozi (currency)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaozi_(currency)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Compass","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass"}]},{"id":"cahokia","year":1050,"yearLabel":"c. 1050–1350 CE","title":"Cahokia, city of the Mississippians","place":"Cahokia Mounds, Illinois (USA)","lonlat":[-90.06,38.66],"category":"culture","summary":"Around 1050 a sudden building boom beside the Mississippi, across the river from today's St. Louis, created Cahokia, the dominant centre of the maize-farming Mississippian culture. At its peak around 1100 it held perhaps 10,000–20,000 people, and its Monks Mound, about 30 m high and 290 m long, is the largest earthen mound north of Mexico. The city declined over the following centuries and was abandoned by about 1350.","why":"Cahokia was the largest and most complex settlement north of the great cities of Mexico, showing that North America had its own urban societies long before Europeans arrived.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Cahokia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mississippian culture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture"}]},{"id":"great-schism","year":1054,"yearLabel":"1054 CE","title":"The East–West Schism","place":"Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Istanbul, Türkiye)","lonlat":[28.98,41.008],"category":"ideas","summary":"On 16 July 1054 papal legates led by Cardinal Humbert laid a document excommunicating Patriarch Michael Cerularius on the altar of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople; days later the patriarch's synod excommunicated the legates in return. The quarrel capped centuries of disputes over the pope's authority, the filioque wording of the Nicene Creed and whether the Eucharist should use leavened or unleavened bread.","why":"The break, hardened when crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204, divided Christianity into a Roman Catholic West and an Eastern Orthodox East; the mutual excommunications were lifted only in 1965.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: East–West Schism","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East%E2%80%93West_Schism"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Michael I Cerularius","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_I_Cerularius"}]},{"id":"first-crusade","year":1096,"yearLabel":"1095–1099 CE","title":"The First Crusade takes Jerusalem","place":"Jerusalem","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"category":"war","summary":"Answering a Byzantine appeal for help against the Seljuk Turks, Pope Urban II called at Clermont in November 1095 for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Crusaders set out in 1096, some bands massacring Jewish communities in the Rhineland on the way, took Antioch in 1098 and stormed Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, killing much of its population. They founded four crusader states: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.","why":"The crusade opened two centuries of holy war between Latin Christians and Muslim rulers in the Levant, and the crusading idea was later turned on Muslim Spain, the pagan Baltic and even Christian Constantinople.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: First Crusade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Crusades","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades"}]},{"id":"angkor-wat","year":1113,"yearLabel":"c. 1113–1150 CE","title":"Angkor Wat and the Khmer Empire","place":"Angkor (Siem Reap, Cambodia)","lonlat":[103.87,13.41],"category":"culture","summary":"The Khmer kings who ruled from Angkor from 802 built a vast 'hydraulic city' of reservoirs and canals; a 2007 survey found it was the largest pre-industrial city by area, with infrastructure spread over at least 1,000 km². King Suryavarman II (r. 1113–c. 1150) built Angkor Wat, a temple to Vishnu that is the largest religious complex in the world, and from 1181 Jayavarman VII added the walled city of Angkor Thom and made Mahayana Buddhism the state religion.","why":"Angkor shows the scale a tropical rice-farming civilization could reach; it remained the Khmer capital until Ayutthaya sacked it in 1431 and much of its population moved south.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Angkor Wat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_Wat"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Angkor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor"}]},{"id":"genghis-khan","year":1206,"yearLabel":"1206 CE","title":"Genghis Khan unites the Mongols","place":"Source of the Onon River, Khentii (Mongolia)","lonlat":[108.9,48.8],"category":"state","summary":"In 1206 an assembly (kurultai) at the source of the Onon River proclaimed the Mongol chief Temüjin Genghis Khan, ruler of the united steppe peoples. He went on to force the Western Xia to submit, captured the Jin capital Zhongdu (modern Beijing) in 1215 and destroyed the Khwarazmian Empire in Central Asia from 1219, dying on campaign in 1227.","why":"His heirs built the largest contiguous land empire in history, about 23.5 million km² by 1294, whose 'Pax Mongolica' carried goods, technologies and ideas across Eurasia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Genghis Khan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire"}]},{"id":"magna-carta","year":1215,"yearLabel":"15 June 1215 CE","title":"Magna Carta","place":"Runnymede, Surrey (England)","lonlat":[-0.565,51.444],"category":"law","summary":"Facing a rebellion by his barons, King John set his seal to a charter of liberties in the meadow at Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on 15 June 1215. It declared the English Church free and set limits on the king's demands, but Pope Innocent III declared it void within weeks and civil war followed. It was reissued in 1216, 1217 and 1225, and three of its clauses remain law in England and Wales.","why":"Magna Carta came to stand for the principle that even the king is bound by law: later jurists and the American colonists invoked it, though it began as a settlement between the crown and the barons.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Magna Carta","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta"},{"title":"The National Archives (UK): Magna Carta 1214–1225","url":"https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/teaching-resources/magna-carta-1214-1225/"}]},{"id":"great-zimbabwe","year":1220,"yearLabel":"c. 1220–1450 CE","title":"Great Zimbabwe","place":"Great Zimbabwe, near Masvingo (Zimbabwe)","lonlat":[30.93,-20.27],"category":"trade","summary":"Ancestors of today's Shona people began building in stone at Great Zimbabwe in the 11th century, and in the 13th and 14th centuries raised the Great Enclosure, whose mortarless walls stand up to 11 m high. The city was the capital of a kingdom that controlled the flow of gold from the Zimbabwean plateau to Swahili ports such as Sofala, and Chinese porcelain and glass beads found there show its links to Indian Ocean trade. Decline set in from the 15th century as power shifted to the Mutapa and Butua kingdoms.","why":"Colonial-era writers credited the ruins to Phoenicians or the Queen of Sheba and Rhodesian authorities pressured archaeologists to deny African builders; only in the 1950s did its African origin become the scholarly consensus, making it a lasting symbol of pre-colonial African achievement.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Great Zimbabwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kingdom of Zimbabwe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Zimbabwe"}]},{"id":"sack-of-baghdad","year":1258,"yearLabel":"1258 CE","title":"The Mongols sack Baghdad","place":"Baghdad (Iraq)","lonlat":[44.39,33.33],"category":"war","summary":"In late January 1258 a Mongol army under Hulagu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, besieged Baghdad; the caliph al-Musta'sim surrendered on 10 February, the city was sacked and the caliph was put to death. Later writers claimed 800,000 or more dead, figures historians regard as inflated, though the true toll is unknown.","why":"The sack ended the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad after about 500 years and is traditionally seen as closing the Islamic Golden Age, although historians now see Baghdad's decline as more gradual and note that its libraries partly recovered within a few years.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Baghdad (1258)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: House of Wisdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom"}]},{"id":"fall-of-acre","year":1291,"yearLabel":"1291 CE","title":"The fall of Acre ends the crusader states","place":"Acre (Akko, Israel)","lonlat":[35.07,32.92],"category":"war","summary":"In 1187 Saladin destroyed the crusader armies at Hattin and Jerusalem was lost, and later crusades, including the Fourth Crusade that sacked Christian Constantinople in 1204, failed to restore the crusader states. On 18 May 1291, after a six-week siege, the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalil captured Acre, the crusaders' last major stronghold, and their remaining mainland strongholds were lost the same year.","why":"Acre's fall ended two centuries of crusader rule on the Levantine mainland; the crusades had deepened the split between Catholic and Orthodox Christians and helped Italian merchants come to dominate Mediterranean trade.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Acre (1291)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Acre_(1291)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Crusades","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades"}]},{"id":"mansa-musa","year":1324,"yearLabel":"1324–1325 CE","title":"Mansa Musa's pilgrimage","place":"Timbuktu (Mali)","lonlat":[-3.01,16.77],"category":"trade","summary":"Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire (c. 1312–1337), crossed the Sahara on pilgrimage to Mecca, reaching Cairo in July 1324 with a vast retinue; later Arabic accounts tell of thousands of attendants and camels laden with gold, numbers historians treat as rhetorical rather than measured. The Cairo official al-Umari reported that Musa's spending lowered the value of gold there for at least twelve years. On his return Musa commissioned the Djinguereber Mosque in Timbuktu, around 1327.","why":"Mali supplied almost half the Old World's gold in the early 14th century, and Musa's journey made West Africa's wealth famous in the Islamic world and Europe, where the Catalan Atlas of 1375 depicts him.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mansa Musa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mali Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire"}]},{"id":"tenochtitlan","year":1325,"yearLabel":"c. 1325 CE","title":"Tenochtitlan is founded","place":"Tenochtitlan (Mexico City, Mexico)","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"category":"state","summary":"According to their tradition, the Mexica settled where they saw an eagle with a snake in its beak perched on a cactus, on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco, traditionally in 1325. They enlarged the island with chinampa farm plots and joined it to the mainland with causeways, and after defeating Azcapotzalco in 1428 Tenochtitlan allied with Texcoco and Tlacopan in the Triple Alliance. By 1519 the city had over 200,000 people, and the empire it dominated covered most of central Mexico.","why":"Tenochtitlan was the heart of the Aztec Empire until Spanish and Tlaxcalan forces besieged and destroyed it in 1521, and today's Mexico City stands on its ruins.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tenochtitlan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aztec Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_Empire"}]},{"id":"black-death","year":1347,"yearLabel":"1346–1353 CE","title":"The Black Death","place":"Caffa (Feodosia, Crimea)","lonlat":[35.38,45.03],"category":"collapse","summary":"Plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, probably originating in Central Asia, reached the Black Sea in the mid-1340s, when the Golden Horde was besieging the Genoese port of Caffa in Crimea; the famous story of plague corpses catapulted over its walls comes from a single, doubtful source. Genoese ships carried the disease to Constantinople and, in October 1347, to Sicily, and by 1353 it had swept Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, killing an estimated 25–60 percent of Europe's people and more than a third of Cairo's.","why":"One of the deadliest pandemics in history, it left labour so scarce that wages rose in many places, while frightened communities turned on scapegoats: by 1351 some 210 Jewish communities had been destroyed.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Black Death","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Caffa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Caffa"}]},{"id":"zheng-he","year":1405,"yearLabel":"1405–1433 CE","title":"Zheng He's treasure voyages","place":"Nanjing (China)","lonlat":[118.73,32.07],"category":"exploration","summary":"Between 1405 and 1433 the Ming court eunuch Zheng He led seven great voyages into the Indian Ocean for the Yongle and Xuande emperors; the first had 317 ships and almost 28,000 men. Built largely at the Longjiang shipyard in Nanjing, the fleets called at Champa, Java, Malacca, Ceylon and Calicut, and later voyages reached Hormuz, Aden, Mogadishu and Malindi, returning with foreign envoys and gifts such as a giraffe.","why":"The voyages displayed Ming power and drew distant states into China's tributary system, but the court abandoned them after 1433 amid high costs and Mongol threats in the north, decades before Portuguese ships entered the Indian Ocean.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Zheng He","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ming treasure voyages","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages"}]},{"id":"inca-pachacuti","year":1438,"yearLabel":"c. 1438 CE","title":"Pachacuti builds the Inca Empire","place":"Cusco (Peru)","lonlat":[-71.97,-13.53],"category":"state","summary":"In the standard chronology, the Inca ruler Pachacuti came to power in 1438 after the Chanka attack on Cusco and began turning his small kingdom into an empire, Tawantinsuyu. He rebuilt Cusco as an imperial capital and probably built Machu Picchu as a royal estate, and his son Topa Inca pushed conquests north into Ecuador. By the early 1500s the empire stretched along the Andes from Colombia to Chile, tied together by the Qhapaq Ñan road network and run with quipu knotted-cord records.","why":"It became the largest empire of the pre-Columbian Americas, governing perhaps 6–14 million people, before the Spanish conquest that began in 1532.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Inca Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pachacuti","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachacuti"}]},{"id":"gutenberg-press","year":1450,"yearLabel":"c. 1440–1455 CE","title":"Gutenberg's printing press","place":"Mainz (Germany)","lonlat":[8.27,50.0],"category":"technology","summary":"Around 1440 the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing system that combined movable metal type cast in a hand mould, an oil-based ink and an adapted screw press. His Mainz workshop finished the 42-line Bible in 1454 or 1455, in an edition of perhaps 160–185 copies. Printing spread fast: by 1500 about 270 European cities had presses, which had turned out more than 20 million copies.","why":"Cheap printed books spread literacy, scholarship and new ideas across Europe and helped make the Protestant Reformation possible, when Martin Luther became Europe's most published author.","also":"Metal movable type had already been used in Korea, where the Jikji of 1377 is the oldest surviving book printed with it.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Printing press","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Gutenberg Bible","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible"}]},{"id":"fall-of-constantinople","year":1453,"yearLabel":"1453 CE","title":"The fall of Constantinople","place":"Constantinople (Istanbul, Türkiye)","lonlat":[28.93,41.02],"category":"war","summary":"On 6 April 1453 the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II laid siege to Constantinople with perhaps 50,000–80,000 troops and about 70 cannon, including a giant bombard cast by the engineer Orban, against some 7,000–8,000 defenders. After 53 days his forces broke through the 5th-century Theodosian Walls on 29 May; the last emperor, Constantine XI, died in the fighting, and Mehmed made the city his new capital.","why":"The conquest ended the Byzantine Empire, the last remnant of the Roman Empire after nearly 1,500 years, showed that gunpowder artillery could breach the strongest walls, and is often taken to mark the end of the Middle Ages.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Constantinople","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Constantinople","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople"}]},{"id":"columbus","year":1492,"yearLabel":"1492 CE","title":"Columbus crosses the Atlantic","place":"Guanahani (probably San Salvador Island, Bahamas)","lonlat":[-74.48,24.05],"category":"exploration","summary":"Sponsored by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Christopher Columbus sailed from Palos on 3 August 1492 with the Santa María, Pinta and Niña, hoping to reach Asia by sailing west. On 12 October he landed on an island its people called Guanahani, probably today's San Salvador in the Bahamas, then explored Cuba and Hispaniola. He made four voyages in all (1492–1504) and maintained that he had reached the Indies.","why":"His voyages began lasting contact between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia: the Columbian exchange of crops, animals and diseases, and European conquest and colonization, as Old World diseases contributed to an estimated 80–95 percent fall in Native American populations within 100–150 years.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Voyages of Christopher Columbus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyages_of_Christopher_Columbus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Columbian exchange","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange"}]},{"id":"vasco-da-gama","year":1498,"yearLabel":"1497–1499 CE","title":"Vasco da Gama reaches India by sea","place":"Kappad, near Kozhikode (Calicut), Kerala (India)","lonlat":[75.72,11.38],"category":"exploration","summary":"Following Bartolomeu Dias, who had rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, Vasco da Gama left Lisbon on 8 July 1497 with four ships, sailed around southern Africa and, with a pilot hired at Malindi on the Swahili coast, crossed the Indian Ocean on the monsoon winds. He landed near Calicut in May 1498, but talks with its ruler, the Zamorin, went badly, and only about 55 of his men survived the voyage home in 1499.","why":"It opened the first sea route from Europe to Asia, breaking Venice's hold on the spice trade and launching Portugal's maritime empire in the Indian Ocean; with Columbus's voyages it marks the start of the Age of Exploration.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Vasco da Gama","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_discovery_of_the_sea_route_to_India"}]},{"id":"columbian-exchange","year":1500,"yearLabel":"1492 onwards","title":"The Columbian Exchange","place":"Santo Domingo, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic)","lonlat":[-69.89,18.47],"category":"trade","summary":"After Columbus's 1492 voyage, plants, animals and diseases crossed the Atlantic in both directions. American crops such as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cassava, chili peppers and tobacco spread across Afro-Eurasia, while wheat, rice, sugar cane, horses, cattle, pigs and sheep transformed the Americas. Old World diseases such as smallpox, first recorded in the Americas in 1518, together with war, enslavement and exploitation, cut the Indigenous population of the Americas (perhaps around 50 million before contact, though estimates vary widely) by an estimated 80 to 95 percent.","why":"The exchange reshaped diets, farming and populations across the world: cassava became Africa's most important food crop, while maize, potatoes and sweet potatoes fed population growth in Asia and Europe, while the peoples of the Americas suffered a demographic catastrophe.","also":"Silver flowed the other way: the Cerro Rico at Potosí (in today's Bolivia), discovered in 1545 and worked by Indigenous forced labour under the mita system, was the Spanish Empire's main source of silver until the 18th century, and some of it crossed the Pacific on the Manila galleons to buy Asian goods.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Columbian exchange","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Potosí","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potos%C3%AD"}]},{"id":"reformation","year":1517,"yearLabel":"1517","title":"Luther's Ninety-five Theses and the Reformation","place":"Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony (Germany)","lonlat":[12.64,51.87],"category":"ideas","summary":"On 31 October 1517 the theologian Martin Luther sent his Ninety-five Theses, an attack on the sale of indulgences, to the Archbishop of Mainz; by tradition he also posted them on the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg. Several hundred printed copies circulated in Germany that year, and Luther's challenge to papal authority grew into the Protestant Reformation, carried further by reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin and, in England, under Henry VIII.","why":"The Reformation split Western Christianity into Catholic and Protestant churches, used the printing press to spread religious writing in everyday languages, and fed the European wars of religion, which killed an estimated 7 to 17 million people.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Reformation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ninety-five Theses","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses"}]},{"id":"magellan-elcano","year":1519,"yearLabel":"1519–1522","title":"First circumnavigation of the Earth","place":"Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain (departure and return port)","lonlat":[-6.35,36.78],"category":"exploration","summary":"Five ships and about 270 men left Spain on 20 September 1519 under the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, seeking a western route to the Spice Islands (the Moluccas). The fleet entered the strait now named after Magellan on 1 November 1520 and crossed the Pacific in 98 days, but Magellan was killed fighting Lapu-Lapu's forces at Mactan in the Philippines in April 1521. Juan Sebastián Elcano brought the last ship, the Victoria, home around Africa on 6 September 1522 with just 18 of the original crew aboard.","why":"The voyage, the first by Europeans across the Pacific, revealed the vast size of that ocean and proved that ships could sail around the world by a western sea route.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Magellan expedition","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_expedition"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Juan Sebastián Elcano","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Sebasti%C3%A1n_Elcano"}]},{"id":"suleiman-ottoman-zenith","year":1520,"yearLabel":"1520–1566","title":"Suleiman the Magnificent and the Ottoman zenith","place":"Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul (Türkiye)","lonlat":[28.964,41.016],"category":"state","summary":"Suleiman I, sultan from 1520 to 1566, had the longest reign of any Ottoman ruler. He took Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522, broke the Kingdom of Hungary at Mohács in 1526, besieged Vienna in 1529, annexed Iraq in wars with Safavid Iran, and built a fleet that dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. His chief architect, Mimar Sinan, is credited with over 300 buildings, including the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul.","why":"His reign marked the peak of Ottoman power and culture, ruling at least 25 million subjects, while the failed siege of Vienna set the limit of the empire's advance into central Europe.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Suleiman the Magnificent","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Mohács","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moh%C3%A1cs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Vienna (1529)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna_(1529)"}]},{"id":"aztec-conquest","year":1521,"yearLabel":"1519–1521","title":"Fall of Tenochtitlan","place":"Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)","lonlat":[-99.131,19.435],"category":"war","summary":"Hernán Cortés reached the Aztec (Mexica) capital Tenochtitlan in November 1519 with a small Spanish force and a far larger army of Indigenous allies, above all Tlaxcaltec warriors. After the Spaniards were driven from the city in 1520, smallpox killed an estimated 40 percent of its roughly 200,000 people, and the Spanish-led coalition besieged the island city until it surrendered on 13 August 1521 and its last ruler, Cuauhtémoc, was captured.","why":"The fall of the most powerful state in Mesoamerica founded New Spain, governed from Mexico City on the site of Tenochtitlan, and opened the way to Spanish rule over much of the Americas.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Tenochtitlan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Columbian exchange","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange"}]},{"id":"inca-conquest","year":1532,"yearLabel":"1532–1572","title":"Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire","place":"Cajamarca, Peru","lonlat":[-78.5175,-7.1569],"category":"war","summary":"On 16 November 1532, 168 Spanish soldiers under Francisco Pizarro, with Indigenous auxiliaries, ambushed the Sapa Inca Atahualpa in the main square of Cajamarca, killing thousands of his unarmed attendants and taking him prisoner. The Inca Empire, by far the largest of the great pre-Columbian civilisations, had already been weakened by epidemics and by a civil war between Atahualpa and his brother Huáscar. Atahualpa paid a ransom but was executed in July 1533, and Inca resistance continued until 1572.","why":"The conquest brought the Andes under Spanish rule as the Viceroyalty of Peru and launched further Spanish campaigns into present-day Chile and Colombia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Cajamarca","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Atahualpa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atahualpa"}]},{"id":"copernicus","year":1543,"yearLabel":"1543","title":"Copernicus puts the Sun at the centre","place":"Frombork, Royal Prussia (now Poland), where Copernicus is buried","lonlat":[19.68,54.36],"category":"science","summary":"In 1543, shortly before his death on 24 May, the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), printed in Nuremberg. The book replaced Ptolemy's Earth-centred system, accepted since ancient times, with a model that placed the Sun at the centre of the universe.","why":"It began the Copernican Revolution: once Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei supplied supporting evidence half a century later, the Sun-centred model became a cornerstone of the Scientific Revolution.","also":"Acceptance was slow: by one count, sixty years after publication only about 15 astronomers in all of Europe supported Copernicus's system.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Nicolaus Copernicus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium"}]},{"id":"mughal-akbar","year":1556,"yearLabel":"1556–1605","title":"Akbar and the Mughal high point","place":"Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra (India)","lonlat":[77.66,27.09],"category":"state","summary":"The Mughal Empire was founded in 1526, when Babur, a Timurid prince from Central Asia, defeated Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi at the First Battle of Panipat. Babur's grandson Akbar, emperor from 1556 to 1605, extended it over much of the Indian subcontinent, built a centralised administration, won the support of non-Muslim subjects by abolishing the sectarian jizya tax, and drew scholars, poets and holy men of many faiths to his courts, including his new capital at Fatehpur Sikri (1571–1585).","why":"Mughal India was one of the world's great manufacturing economies, producing about a quarter of world industrial output until 1750, and its architecture culminated in the Taj Mahal under Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan.","also":"The empire reached its greatest extent under Aurangzeb (d. 1707), then broke up, and was formally dissolved by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mughal Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Akbar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Battle of Panipat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Panipat"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fatehpur Sikri","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri"}]},{"id":"atlantic-slave-trade","year":1560,"yearLabel":"16th–19th centuries","title":"The Atlantic slave trade","place":"Atlantic coast of West and Central Africa (pin: Luanda, Angola)","lonlat":[13.23,-8.84],"category":"trade","summary":"From the 16th century until well into the 19th, European and American traders bought captives from West and Central African merchants and states and shipped them across the Atlantic on the 'Middle Passage' to be sold into slavery in Brazil, the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas. An estimated 12.5 million people were carried off from Africa, of whom about 10.7 million survived the voyage.","why":"In the first three centuries after Columbus far more Africans than Europeans crossed to the Americas, and the trade and the slavery it fed shaped the populations, economies and societies of the Atlantic world.","also":"Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba (in present-day Angola) fought Portuguese expansion in the 17th century. Britain banned its slave trade in 1807 and the United States soon followed, but slavery itself lasted in Brazil until 1888.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Atlantic slave trade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Columbian exchange","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange"}]},{"id":"qing-conquest","year":1644,"yearLabel":"1644 (conquest completed 1683)","title":"The Qing take Beijing","place":"Forbidden City, Beijing","lonlat":[116.397,39.916],"category":"state","summary":"In April 1644 Beijing fell to the rebel army of Li Zicheng, and the last Ming emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor, hanged himself in the imperial garden outside the Forbidden City. Manchu forces, aided by the defecting Ming general Wu Sangui, defeated Li at Shanhai Pass and entered Beijing in June 1644, beginning the Qing dynasty's rule over China; Ming loyalists held out in the south and on Taiwan until 1683.","why":"The Qing, China's last imperial dynasty, ruled until 1912, controlled more territory than any earlier Chinese dynasty and assembled the territorial base of modern China.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Transition from Ming to Qing","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_from_Ming_to_Qing"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qing dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty"}]},{"id":"westphalia","year":1648,"yearLabel":"1618–1648","title":"Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia","place":"Münster, Westphalia (Germany)","lonlat":[7.626,51.962],"category":"war","summary":"Rooted in the religious divisions of the Holy Roman Empire that followed the Reformation, and in disputes over imperial authority, the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) drew in Austria, Spain, Sweden, France and many German states. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine or disease, and parts of Germany lost more than half their population. Treaties signed at Münster and Osnabrück in October 1648, together called the Peace of Westphalia, ended the war; earlier that year Spain and the Dutch Republic had made peace at Münster, ending the Eighty Years' War.","why":"Many international-relations scholars trace the principle of sovereign states that do not interfere in one another's internal affairs ('Westphalian sovereignty') to this settlement, though some historians argue that reading was a later invention.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Thirty Years' War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Peace of Westphalia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia"}]},{"id":"newton-principia","year":1687,"yearLabel":"1687","title":"Newton's Principia","place":"London (published under the Royal Society's imprimatur)","lonlat":[-0.09,51.515],"category":"science","summary":"Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), approved by the Royal Society in July 1686 and published in 1687, set out his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. With one set of mathematical principles Newton explained Kepler's laws of planetary motion, the paths of comets, the tides and irregularities in the Moon's motion.","why":"The Principia became the mathematical foundation of classical mechanics and is generally considered one of the most important works in the history of science; the Enlightenment is sometimes dated from its publication.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Age of Enlightenment","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment"}]},{"id":"glorious-revolution","year":1688,"yearLabel":"1688–1689","title":"Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights","place":"Palace of Westminster, London","lonlat":[-0.1246,51.4995],"category":"law","summary":"In November 1688 the Catholic King James II of England was deposed after an invasion by his Dutch nephew and son-in-law, William of Orange, who then ruled jointly with James's daughter Mary II. The Bill of Rights, given royal assent on 16 December 1689, barred Catholics from the throne, forbade taxation or a peacetime standing army without Parliament's consent, and set out rights including free elections, regular parliaments, freedom of debate in Parliament and protection from cruel and unusual punishment.","why":"It established that the Crown must govern with the consent of Parliament, and the Bill became one of the models for the United States Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Glorious Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bill of Rights 1689","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689"}]},{"id":"enlightenment-encyclopedie","year":1751,"yearLabel":"c. 1687–1789 (Encyclopédie 1751–1772)","title":"The Enlightenment and the Encyclopédie","place":"Paris, France","lonlat":[2.35,48.857],"category":"ideas","summary":"The Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that emerged in Western and Central Europe in the late 17th century and peaked in the 18th, championed reason, evidence and the scientific method, and promoted individual liberty, religious tolerance, progress and natural rights. Its landmark was the Encyclopédie, edited by Denis Diderot (with Jean le Rond d'Alembert until 1759) and published in France from 1751 to 1772: 28 volumes with some 71,818 articles, which Diderot hoped would 'change the way people think'.","why":"Enlightenment arguments for constitutional government, natural rights and the separation of church and state were a key inspiration for the American and French revolutions and remain foundations of modern democracy.","also":"Leading figures included John Locke, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin and Immanuel Kant.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Age of Enlightenment","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Encyclopédie","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die"},{"title":"Wikipedia: American Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution"}]},{"id":"seven-years-war","year":1756,"yearLabel":"1756–1763","title":"The Seven Years' War","place":"Plains of Abraham, Quebec City (Canada)","lonlat":[-71.22,46.8],"category":"war","summary":"Fought mainly between Britain and Prussia on one side and France and Austria, with Russia, Spain, Sweden and others, on the other, the Seven Years' War spread from Europe to North America, the Caribbean, West Africa, India and the Philippines. Britain's victories included Plassey in Bengal (23 June 1757) and the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec (13 September 1759); in the 1763 Treaty of Paris France ceded Canada and its other North American lands east of the Mississippi to Britain, and Louisiana to Spain. By one compilation of national estimates, the armies of the main belligerents lost roughly 900,000 dead.","why":"The war made Britain the leading colonial power in North America and India, where the East India Company's victory at Plassey began its rule over Bengal.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Seven Years' War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Plassey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of the Plains of Abraham","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Plains_of_Abraham"}]},{"id":"industrial-revolution","year":1769,"yearLabel":"c. 1760–1840","title":"Watt's steam engine and the Industrial Revolution","place":"Soho Manufactory, Birmingham (England)","lonlat":[-1.93,52.5],"category":"technology","summary":"Beginning in Great Britain around 1760, the Industrial Revolution moved production from hand methods to machines driven by water and steam, and brought the mechanised factory system, first in textiles: Richard Arkwright patented his water frame in 1769. That year James Watt also patented a separate condenser that made steam engines far more efficient than Thomas Newcomen's 1712 design; built commercially by Watt and Matthew Boulton from 1776, his engines used about half as much coal for the same power, and from 1781 could turn machinery with rotary motion.","why":"Economic historians regard the Industrial Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, comparable to the adoption of farming: it set off an unprecedented rise in output and population and had spread to continental Europe and the United States by about 1840.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Industrial Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Watt steam engine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_steam_engine"},{"title":"Wikipedia: James Watt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt"}]},{"id":"american-revolution","year":1776,"yearLabel":"1775–1783","title":"American Revolution and independence","place":"Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall), Philadelphia","lonlat":[-75.15,39.949],"category":"state","summary":"Quarrels between Britain and its Thirteen Colonies turned to war in April 1775. On 4 July 1776 the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted chiefly by Thomas Jefferson, which proclaimed that 'all men are created equal'. With French, Spanish and Dutch support, George Washington's Continental Army won a decisive victory at Yorktown in 1781, and Britain recognised American independence in the Treaty of Paris of 3 September 1783.","why":"The revolution created the United States as a republic founded on Enlightenment ideas of natural rights and government by consent, and its Declaration has become one of the most circulated, reprinted and influential documents in history.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: American Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: United States Declaration of Independence","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence"},{"title":"Wikipedia: American Revolutionary War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War"},{"title":"US National Archives: Declaration of Independence","url":"https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration"}]},{"id":"first-fleet-australia","year":1788,"yearLabel":"1788","title":"The First Fleet reaches Australia","place":"Sydney Cove, Port Jackson (Sydney)","lonlat":[151.21,-33.86],"category":"state","summary":"Eleven British ships under Captain Arthur Phillip, carrying over 1,400 convicts, marines, sailors and officials, reached Botany Bay in January 1788 and settled instead at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson on 26 January, founding the penal Colony of New South Wales. Aboriginal Australians had lived on the continent for 50,000 to 65,000 years; the local Eora people met the newcomers with curiosity and suspicion, and an outbreak of smallpox in April 1789 killed about half the Aboriginal population of the Sydney region.","why":"It began the British colonisation of Australia, which brought disease, violent conflict and the dispossession of Aboriginal peoples from their lands; 26 January is still marked as Australia Day.","also":"In New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and Māori chiefs (rangatira), first signed on 6 February 1840, is increasingly recognised as a founding document of the country; its English and Māori texts differ, and their meaning is still debated.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: First Fleet","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fleet"},{"title":"Wikipedia: History of Australia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Australia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Waitangi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi"}]},{"id":"french-revolution","year":1789,"yearLabel":"1789–1799","title":"The French Revolution","place":"Site of the Bastille, Paris","lonlat":[2.369,48.853],"category":"state","summary":"Amid financial crisis and widespread distress, the Estates General met in May 1789 for the first time since 1614; the Third Estate broke away to form a National Assembly, and on 14 July crowds in Paris stormed the Bastille fortress. The Assembly abolished feudalism and issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; the monarchy was replaced by a republic in September 1792, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793, and after the Reign of Terror the Revolution ended when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power on 9 November 1799.","why":"Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, and the wars that grew out of it reshaped Europe.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: French Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Storming of the Bastille","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille"}]},{"id":"haitian-revolution","year":1791,"yearLabel":"1791–1804","title":"The Haitian Revolution","place":"Gonaïves, Haiti (where independence was declared)","lonlat":[-72.69,19.45],"category":"state","summary":"On 21 August 1791 enslaved Africans rose in revolt in Saint-Domingue, France's most profitable colony, which in 1789 produced 60 percent of the world's coffee. Through 13 years of war and shifting alliances, including British and Spanish interventions and a large French expedition sent by Napoleon in 1802, the rebels prevailed; their foremost general, the formerly enslaved Toussaint Louverture, died in a French prison in 1803, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who led the final campaign, declared Haiti independent at Gonaïves on 1 January 1804.","why":"Haiti became the first independent nation in Latin America and the first post-colonial state founded and ruled by formerly enslaved people, and its revolution's effects on slavery were felt throughout the Americas.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Haitian Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Toussaint Louverture","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_Louverture"}]},{"id":"napoleonic-wars-waterloo","year":1815,"yearLabel":"1803–1815","title":"Napoleonic Wars and Waterloo","place":"Waterloo, near Brussels (Belgium)","lonlat":[4.41,50.68],"category":"war","summary":"From 1803 Napoleon's France fought a series of coalitions of European powers and dominated most of the continent, until the failed invasion of Russia in 1812 and defeat in 1814 sent him into exile on Elba. Returning to power in March 1815, he was beaten for the last time on 18 June 1815 near Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington's British-led army and Gebhard von Blücher's Prussians, and abdicated four days later. Estimates of military deaths across the wars run from at least 2.8 million to as many as 5 million, alongside many civilian victims.","why":"The Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's borders, and Britain emerged as the world's foremost naval and economic power for the rest of the 19th century.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Napoleonic Wars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Waterloo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo"}]},{"id":"latin-american-independence","year":1824,"yearLabel":"1808–1826","title":"Latin American independence","place":"Pampa de Ayacucho (Quinua), Peru","lonlat":[-74.14,-13.05],"category":"state","summary":"Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 broke the authority of the Spanish Crown, and from 1810 juntas and revolts across Spanish America turned into wars of independence. Simón Bolívar led what are now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Bolivia to independence and José de San Martín led the armies of the south, until Antonio José de Sucre's victory at Ayacucho on 9 December 1824 secured the independence of Peru and the rest of Spanish South America. Mexico's war (1810–1821) ended in independence, and Brazil declared independence from Portugal on 7 September 1822.","why":"By 1826 Spain had lost its mainland American empire, keeping only Cuba and Puerto Rico until 1898, and new independent states took shape from Mexico to Argentina and Chile.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish American wars of independence","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_American_wars_of_independence"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ayacucho","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ayacucho"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Simón Bolívar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Independence of Brazil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_Brazil"}]},{"id":"liverpool-manchester-railway","year":1830,"yearLabel":"1830","title":"The first inter-city railway","place":"Liverpool, England (western terminus)","lonlat":[-2.97,53.405],"category":"technology","summary":"The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, built by George Stephenson and opened on 15 September 1830, was the world's first inter-city railway and the first to rely entirely on steam locomotives, with double track, signalling and timetabled services. Its engines were chosen at the 1829 Rainhill trials, where the Stephensons' Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the course, and its opening day was marred when the MP William Huskisson was killed on the line.","why":"Its financial success set off railway building across Britain in the 1830s, and from the 1840s railways largely replaced canals, carrying people and goods faster and cheaper than ever before.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Liverpool and Manchester Railway","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_and_Manchester_Railway"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Industrial Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution"}]},{"id":"opium-wars","year":1839,"yearLabel":"1839–1842 (second war 1856–1860)","title":"The Opium Wars","place":"Guangzhou (Canton), China","lonlat":[113.26,23.13],"category":"war","summary":"When the Qing official Lin Zexu forced British merchants at Guangzhou to hand over some 1,420 tonnes of opium and destroyed it at Humen in June 1839, Britain went to war to win compensation and open China to trade. British victories forced the Treaty of Nanjing (29 August 1842), which ceded Hong Kong Island, opened five treaty ports and imposed an indemnity; in the Second Opium War (1856–1860) Britain and France captured Beijing, burned the Old Summer Palace and forced the legalisation of the opium trade.","why":"Chinese nationalists later counted 1839 as the start of a 'century of humiliation' under unequal treaties, and many historians date modern Chinese history from it.","also":"The weakened Qing also faced the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), the deadliest civil war in history, in which an estimated 20 to 30 million people died.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: First Opium War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Nanking","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Second Opium War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Taiping Rebellion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion"}]},{"id":"indian-rebellion-1857","year":1857,"yearLabel":"1857–1858","title":"Indian Rebellion of 1857","place":"Meerut, north-east of Delhi (India)","lonlat":[77.71,28.98],"category":"war","summary":"On 10 May 1857 Indian soldiers (sepoys) of the British East India Company's army mutinied at Meerut; rebels quickly reached Delhi, where the 81-year-old Mughal ruler Bahadur Shah Zafar was declared Emperor of Hindustan, and the revolt spread through other regiments and civilian uprisings across the upper Gangetic plain and central India. British forces stormed Delhi in September 1857 and defeated the last major rebel army at Gwalior on 20 June 1858.","why":"The rebellion led to the dissolution of the East India Company and, under the Government of India Act 1858, to direct rule of India by the British Crown; the last Mughal emperor was exiled and the dynasty ended.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Indian Rebellion of 1857","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mughal Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire"}]},{"id":"origin-of-species","year":1859,"yearLabel":"1859","title":"Darwin's On the Origin of Species","place":"Down House, Downe, Kent (England), Darwin's home","lonlat":[0.053,51.331],"category":"science","summary":"Published on 24 November 1859, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species argued that populations evolve over generations through natural selection and that the diversity of life arose by common descent, through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin drew on evidence gathered on the voyage of HMS Beagle in the 1830s and on two decades of later research, and was spurred to publish after receiving a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace, who had reached similar ideas, in June 1858.","why":"The book is considered the foundation of evolutionary biology.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: On the Origin of Species","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Charles Darwin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin"}]},{"id":"us-civil-war","year":1861,"yearLabel":"1861–1865","title":"American Civil War","place":"Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina (where the war began)","lonlat":[-79.875,32.752],"category":"war","summary":"After Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery, won the 1860 election, Southern slave states seceded to form the Confederacy, and the war began when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863 declared more than 3.5 million enslaved people in Confederate territory free; General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865, and the Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery throughout the United States from December 1865.","why":"The deadliest war in US history, it left an estimated 700,000 soldiers dead, preserved the Union and freed four million African Americans from slavery.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: American Civil War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Emancipation Proclamation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation"}]},{"id":"meiji-restoration","year":1868,"yearLabel":"1868","title":"Meiji Restoration","place":"Edo, renamed Tokyo in 1868 (Japan)","lonlat":[139.752,35.685],"category":"state","summary":"The arrival of the US Perry Expedition in 1853 and the unequal treaties that followed undermined the Tokugawa shogunate, which had ruled Japan since 1603. On 3 January 1868 an alliance led by the Satsuma and Chōshū domains restored political power to the young Emperor Meiji; Tokugawa resistance was defeated in the Boshin War, and Edo was renamed Tokyo, where the emperor took up residence in 1869.","why":"The new government dismantled the shogunal system and set Japan on a course of rapid industrialisation and Westernisation, adopting Western ideas, production methods and technology.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Meiji Restoration","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tokugawa shogunate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokugawa_shogunate"}]},{"id":"berlin-conference","year":1884,"yearLabel":"1884–1885","title":"Berlin Conference and the Scramble for Africa","place":"Wilhelmstrasse, Berlin (Germany)","lonlat":[13.382,52.512],"category":"state","summary":"Organised by German chancellor Otto von Bismarck at the request of King Leopold II of Belgium, the Berlin Conference met from 15 November 1884 to 26 February 1885, when fourteen countries signed the General Act regulating European colonisation and trade in Africa, including a common framework for recognising claims backed by 'effective occupation'. As late as the 1870s Europeans controlled about 10 percent of Africa, mostly near the coasts; by 1914 only Ethiopia and Liberia remained outside European control.","why":"The conference gave international legal backing to a rapid wave of European claims, and the colonial states carved out in the following decades became the framework from which most modern African countries emerged.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Berlin Conference","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Scramble for Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Decolonisation of Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonisation_of_Africa"}]},{"id":"battle-of-adwa","year":1896,"yearLabel":"1896","title":"Battle of Adwa","place":"Adwa, Tigray (Ethiopia)","lonlat":[38.9,14.16],"category":"war","summary":"On 1 March 1896 the army of Emperor Menelik II, estimated at 73,000 to over 100,000 men and mostly armed with modern rifles bought from France and Russia, routed an Italian colonial force under General Oreste Baratieri that was trying to impose a protectorate on Ethiopia after a dispute over the Treaty of Wuchale. Over 6,000 Italian and colonial troops were killed and about 3,800 captured, while Ethiopian losses are estimated at 4,000 to 7,000 killed; Italy was forced to recognise Ethiopia's sovereignty in the Treaty of Addis Ababa.","why":"Adwa kept Ethiopia independent through the Scramble for Africa, and the victory became a rallying point for later African nationalists and the Pan-African movement.","also":"Ethiopia remained independent until Fascist Italy occupied it in 1936; Italian rule there ended during World War II.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Adwa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adwa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Scramble for Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramble_for_Africa"}]},{"id":"world-war-i","year":1914,"yearLabel":"1914–1918","title":"World War I","place":"Latin Bridge, Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), site of the assassination","lonlat":[18.429,43.858],"category":"war","summary":"On 28 June 1914 the Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo; Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, and within weeks Europe's alliance system had pulled the great powers into war between the Allies (the Entente) and the Central Powers. Machine guns, artillery, poison gas, aircraft and tanks made it one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with 15 to 22 million deaths, before the armistice of 11 November 1918.","why":"The war destroyed the Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and the peace settlements that followed, including the Treaty of Versailles, left unresolved tensions that helped cause World War II.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: World War I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War I casualties","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand"}]},{"id":"russian-revolution","year":1917,"yearLabel":"1917–1922","title":"Russian Revolution","place":"Winter Palace, Petrograd (St Petersburg)","lonlat":[30.314,59.94],"category":"state","summary":"Amid military defeats and bread shortages in World War I, the February Revolution of 1917 forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate on 15 March (New Style) and ended the monarchy. On 7 November (25 October, Old Style) Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd, storming the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government; after victory in the Russian Civil War they founded the Soviet Union on 30 December 1922.","why":"Lenin's government created the world's first constitutionally communist state, and the Soviet Union's rivalry with the West shaped much of the 20th century.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Russian Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: October Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union"}]},{"id":"influenza-pandemic-1918","year":1918,"yearLabel":"1918–1920","title":"The 1918 influenza pandemic","place":"Haskell County, Kansas (earliest probable recorded cases)","lonlat":[-100.87,37.56],"category":"collapse","summary":"An H1N1 influenza virus caused an exceptionally deadly pandemic at the end of World War I and after; the earliest probable cases were documented in Haskell County, Kansas, in March 1918, though the virus's geographic origin is still uncertain. In two years an estimated 500 million people, nearly a third of the world's population, were infected, and estimates of deaths range from 17 million to 50 million, possibly as high as 100 million, with unusually high mortality among young adults.","why":"It was one of the deadliest pandemics in history; it was misleadingly called 'Spanish flu' because wartime censors suppressed news elsewhere while newspapers in neutral Spain reported it freely.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish flu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I"}]},{"id":"great-depression","year":1929,"yearLabel":"1929–1939","title":"Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression","place":"New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, New York City","lonlat":[-74.011,40.707],"category":"collapse","summary":"After a speculative boom, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 13 percent on Black Monday, 28 October 1929, and nearly 12 percent the next day, and had lost almost half its value by mid-November. The crash opened the Great Depression: between 1929 and 1932 world GDP fell by an estimated 15 percent, US unemployment reached 25 percent by 1933 and about 9,000 of the country's 25,000 banks failed, while tariffs such as the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Act helped collapse world trade.","why":"The Depression brought new government intervention in the economy, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and helped fascist movements, including the Nazis in Germany, rise to power.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Great Depression","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Wall Street crash of 1929","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_crash_of_1929"},{"title":"Federal Reserve History: Stock Market Crash of 1929","url":"https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/stock-market-crash-of-1929"}]},{"id":"world-war-ii","year":1939,"yearLabel":"1939–1945","title":"World War II","place":"Warsaw, Poland","lonlat":[21.01,52.23],"category":"war","summary":"World War II began on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and Britain and France declared war on Germany; the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east in mid-September, and Japan had been at war with China since 1937. Fought between the Allies and the Axis powers and involving nearly every country, it ended with Germany's surrender on 8 May 1945 and Japan's on 2 September 1945. It was the deadliest conflict in history: an estimated 60 to 75 million people died, most of them civilians.","why":"The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, while Europe's weakened powers began to lose their colonies in Africa and Asia.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: World War II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War II casualties","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Invasion of Poland","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland"}]},{"id":"holocaust","year":1941,"yearLabel":"1941–1945","title":"The Holocaust","place":"Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim (Poland)","lonlat":[19.18,50.035],"category":"atrocity","summary":"From 1941 to 1945 Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews, about two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, in mass shootings across Eastern Europe and in the gas chambers of extermination camps in occupied Poland. At the Auschwitz complex, the deadliest killing centre, at least 1.1 million people were killed, about a million of them Jews, before Soviet troops liberated it on 27 January 1945.","why":"The Holocaust was state-sponsored mass murder on an unprecedented scale; the Nazi regime also killed Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Soviet prisoners of war and millions of other civilians.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: The Holocaust","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Auschwitz concentration camp","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp"},{"title":"USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia: Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution","url":"https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution"}]},{"id":"atomic-bombings","year":1945,"yearLabel":"1945","title":"Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki","place":"Hiroshima, Japan","lonlat":[132.454,34.395],"category":"war","summary":"On 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped 'Little Boy', a uranium bomb, on Hiroshima, and three days later 'Fat Man', a plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki. By the end of 1945 the bombings had killed an estimated 150,000 to 246,000 people, most of them civilians. Japan announced its surrender on 15 August, six days after Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria, and signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September.","why":"They remain the only uses of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict, and they opened the nuclear age.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II"}]},{"id":"united-nations","year":1945,"yearLabel":"1945","title":"The United Nations is founded","place":"San Francisco, USA (where the UN Charter was signed)","lonlat":[-122.42,37.778],"category":"law","summary":"Delegates of 50 countries met in San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June 1945 to draft the Charter of the United Nations, which they signed on 26 June; it came into force on 24 October 1945 after ratification by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and a majority of the other signatories. Succeeding the League of Nations, the UN was built around a General Assembly of all members, a Security Council in which those five powers hold permanent seats, and an International Court of Justice.","why":"With 193 member states today it is the world's largest international organisation, and in 1948 its General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.","sources":[{"title":"United Nations: History of the UN","url":"https://www.un.org/en/about-us/history-of-the-un"},{"title":"United Nations: UN Charter","url":"https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter"},{"title":"Wikipedia: United Nations","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Charter of the United Nations","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_United_Nations"}]},{"id":"india-independence-partition","year":1947,"yearLabel":"1947","title":"Indian independence and Partition","place":"Delhi, India","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"category":"state","summary":"At midnight on 14–15 August 1947 British rule in India ended and two independent dominions, India and Pakistan, came into existence under the Indian Independence Act. The provinces of Punjab and Bengal were divided according to Muslim or non-Muslim majorities, and Partition displaced 12 to 20 million people along religious lines amid communal violence whose death toll is estimated at 200,000 to 2 million.","why":"Partition created the states that are today India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the contested accession of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir became a lasting source of conflict between India and Pakistan.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Partition of India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Indian Independence Act 1947","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Independence_Act_1947"}]},{"id":"israel-nakba-1948","year":1948,"yearLabel":"1947–1949","title":"The creation of Israel, the 1948 war and the Nakba","place":"Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine (Israel)","lonlat":[34.771,32.063],"category":"war","summary":"On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly voted to partition British-ruled Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international administration; Jewish leaders accepted the plan, Palestinian Arab and wider Arab leaders rejected it, and civil war broke out. On 14 May 1948, as the British Mandate ended, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel in Tel Aviv, and the next morning Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Iraqi forces invaded; when the 1949 armistice agreements ended the war, Israel held about 78 percent of Mandatory Palestine, Transjordan held the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. During the fighting an estimated 700,000 to 750,000 Palestinian Arabs, about half the Arab population of Palestine, fled or were expelled from their homes and hundreds of Arab towns and villages were depopulated, events Palestinians call the Nakba (Arabic for \"catastrophe\").","why":"Israelis remember the war as their War of Independence, which secured the Jewish state that the Zionist movement had sought since the late 19th century; Palestinians mark the Nakba each year on 15 May, and the fate of the refugees, whose return or compensation the UN General Assembly called for in December 1948, remains a key issue in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.","also":"Israel lost 6,373 people, about 1 percent of its population; Arab deaths are uncertain, with estimates in the thousands. In the three years after the war a similar number of Jews migrated, fled or were expelled from Arab states, about 260,000 of whom went to Israel.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 1948 Arab–Israeli War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Israeli Declaration of Independence","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence"},{"title":"United Nations (Question of Palestine): About the Nakba","url":"https://www.un.org/unispal/about-the-nakba/"}]},{"id":"prc-proclaimed","year":1949,"yearLabel":"1949","title":"People's Republic of China proclaimed","place":"Tiananmen Square, Beijing","lonlat":[116.391,39.907],"category":"state","summary":"After the Chinese Communist Party defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in the civil war that resumed in full in 1946, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949. The Nationalist government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan.","why":"Communist rule brought sweeping social change to China, and the division between the People's Republic and the government on Taiwan that began in 1949 persists today.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Proclamation of the People's Republic of China","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chinese Communist Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution"}]},{"id":"korean-war","year":1950,"yearLabel":"1950–1953","title":"Korean War","place":"Panmunjom, Korean Demilitarized Zone","lonlat":[126.677,37.956],"category":"war","summary":"Korea, a Japanese colony for 35 years, was divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and US occupation zones in 1945, and rival governments formed in 1948. On 25 June 1950 North Korea invaded the South; a US-led United Nations force came to the South's aid and China and the Soviet Union backed the North, and after two years of attritional fighting an armistice signed on 27 July 1953 created a 4-kilometre-wide Demilitarized Zone along the front line.","why":"The war caused around one million military deaths and an estimated 1.5 to 3 million civilian deaths, and left Korea divided under an armistice that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Korean War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Korean Armistice Agreement","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Armistice_Agreement"}]},{"id":"vietnam-war","year":1955,"yearLabel":"1955–1975","title":"Vietnam War","place":"Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam","lonlat":[106.695,10.777],"category":"war","summary":"After the First Indochina War ended French rule, Vietnam was divided between the communist North, backed by the Soviet Union and China, and the South, backed by the United States. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 and peaked in 1969; US forces withdrew in 1973, North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon on 30 April 1975, and the country was reunified in 1976. Estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from about 970,000 to 3 million, and some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians and 58,220 US service members also died.","why":"Both a war of national liberation and a Cold War proxy war, it spilled into Laos and Cambodia, and all three countries ended up under communist governments.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Vietnam War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Saigon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon"}]},{"id":"year-of-africa","year":1960,"yearLabel":"1960","title":"The Year of Africa","place":"Lagos, Nigeria","lonlat":[3.39,6.45],"category":"state","summary":"After Ghana became independent from Britain on 6 March 1957, decolonisation swept the continent, and in 1960 alone seventeen African countries won independence: fourteen from France, two from Britain (Somalia and Nigeria, Africa's most populous country) and one from Belgium (the Congo). The process was often violent, as in the Algerian War (1954–1962) and the Congo Crisis that followed Congolese independence.","why":"Between the mid-1950s and 1976 the colonial states created in the Scramble for Africa gave way to independent nations, and Africa emerged as a major force in the United Nations.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Year of Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_Africa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Decolonisation of Africa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonisation_of_Africa"}]},{"id":"cuban-missile-crisis","year":1962,"yearLabel":"1962","title":"Cuban Missile Crisis","place":"Havana, Cuba","lonlat":[-82.37,23.11],"category":"war","summary":"On 14 October 1962 a US U-2 spy plane photographed Soviet nuclear missile sites being built in Cuba, and President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval 'quarantine' of the island on 22 October. After 13 days of confrontation, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced on 28 October that the missiles would be removed, in return for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and a secret US promise to withdraw its Jupiter missiles from Turkey.","why":"Widely considered the closest the Cold War came to full-scale nuclear war, the crisis led to a Moscow–Washington hotline and a treaty banning atmospheric nuclear tests.","sources":[{"title":"Office of the Historian (US State Department): The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962","url":"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-crisis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cuban Missile Crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis"}]},{"id":"apollo-11","year":1969,"yearLabel":"1969","title":"Apollo 11: humans on the Moon","place":"Kennedy Space Center, Florida (launch site)","lonlat":[-80.604,28.608],"category":"exploration","summary":"Launched on a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on 16 July 1969, Apollo 11 carried Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon. On 20 July Armstrong and Aldrin landed the lunar module Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility while Collins orbited in the command module Columbia; Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon, and the crew returned to Earth on 24 July with 21.5 kg of lunar material.","why":"The landing was the culmination of the US–Soviet Space Race and fulfilled President Kennedy's 1961 challenge to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Apollo 11","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11"},{"title":"NASA: Apollo 11","url":"https://www.nasa.gov/mission/apollo-11/"}]},{"id":"china-reform-opening","year":1978,"yearLabel":"1978 onwards","title":"China's reform and opening-up","place":"Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, Guangdong (China)","lonlat":[114.06,22.54],"category":"trade","summary":"Two years after Mao Zedong's death, the Chinese Communist Party, guided by Deng Xiaoping, launched 'reform and opening-up' on 18 December 1978, gradually opening the economy to markets and foreign investment. Shenzhen, on the border with Hong Kong, was made a special economic zone on 1 May 1980 and grew from a largely rural area into a global metropolis; China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.","why":"Between 1978 and 2018 China reduced extreme poverty by 800 million people, became the world's leading manufacturing power and in 2010 overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Reform and opening up","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_and_opening_up"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shenzhen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen"}]},{"id":"soviet-afghan-war","year":1979,"yearLabel":"1979–1989","title":"Soviet–Afghan War","place":"Kabul, Afghanistan","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"category":"war","summary":"In December 1979 Soviet forces entered Afghanistan to prop up its communist government against rebel mujahideen, who were backed above all by Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Fighting raged through the 1980s, mostly in the countryside; the war killed an estimated one to three million Afghans and drove millions more to flee as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. The Soviet Union, which lost an estimated 14,453 to 26,000 soldiers, withdrew in February 1989.","why":"The war added to the strains on the Soviet Union in its final years, and in Afghanistan fighting continued after the withdrawal until the Taliban seized Kabul and most of the country in 1996.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet–Afghan War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Afghan conflict","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_conflict"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dissolution of the Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union"}]},{"id":"iranian-revolution","year":1979,"yearLabel":"1978–1979","title":"The Iranian Revolution","place":"Tehran (Iran)","lonlat":[51.389,35.689],"category":"state","summary":"Protests against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose rule many Iranians saw as corrupt, repressive and too dependent on the United States, began in January 1978 after a government-planted newspaper article attacked the exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and grew into a broad uprising of clerics, liberal nationalists and leftists whose strikes and mass demonstrations paralysed the country. The Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979, Khomeini returned on 1 February to a welcome by several million people, and on 11 February the army declared itself neutral and the monarchy fell. After a referendum in March 1979 Iran became an Islamic Republic, and a new constitution approved in December 1979 made Khomeini its Supreme Leader.","why":"The revolution replaced a pro-Western monarchy with a theocratic republic built on Khomeini's doctrine of guardianship of the Islamic jurist (velayat-e faqih), and the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979, when 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days, caused a lasting rupture between Iran and the United States.","also":"The death toll is disputed: the Islamic Republic cites 60,000 \"martyrs\", but historians' estimates for January 1978 to February 1979 are far lower, from about 500 to 3,000.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Iranian Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Casualties of the Iranian Revolution","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iranian_Revolution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Iran hostage crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis"},{"title":"US State Department, Office of the Historian: The Iranian Hostage Crisis","url":"https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/iraniancrises"}]},{"id":"world-wide-web","year":1989,"yearLabel":"1989–1991","title":"The World Wide Web","place":"CERN, near Geneva (Switzerland)","lonlat":[6.054,46.234],"category":"technology","summary":"In March 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist at the CERN physics laboratory, proposed a decentralised hypertext system for sharing information. By the end of 1990 he had a working browser, WorldWideWeb, and the first web server; the Web was released to other research institutions in January 1991 and to the whole Internet in August 1991, and on 30 April 1993 CERN made its protocols and code available royalty-free.","why":"After the Mosaic browser appeared later in 1993, thousands of websites sprang up within a year, setting off the Web's explosive growth into a global information system.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: World Wide Web","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web"},{"title":"W3C: Tim Berners-Lee","url":"https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/"}]},{"id":"fall-of-berlin-wall","year":1989,"yearLabel":"1989","title":"Fall of the Berlin Wall","place":"Brandenburg Gate, Berlin","lonlat":[13.3777,52.5163],"category":"state","summary":"Amid the revolutions sweeping the Eastern Bloc in 1989, an East German press conference on 9 November prematurely announced that East Germans could travel freely; crowds gathered at Berlin's crossings, and that night puzzled border guards let them through as the world watched on live television. Communist governments fell across Central and Eastern Europe that year, and Germany was reunified on 3 October 1990.","why":"The fall of the Wall became a symbol of the collapse of communist rule in Europe and the end of the Cold War.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of the Berlin Wall","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Berlin_Wall"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Revolutions of 1989","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989"}]},{"id":"dissolution-of-ussr","year":1991,"yearLabel":"1991","title":"Dissolution of the Soviet Union","place":"Moscow Kremlin, Russia","lonlat":[37.617,55.752],"category":"collapse","summary":"Economic stagnation, the burden of the arms race and foreign wars, nationalist movements in the union republics and the destabilising effects of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms (glasnost and perestroika) eroded Soviet power. On 8 December 1991 the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine declared in the Belovezha Accords that the Soviet Union no longer existed; Gorbachev resigned on 25 December, and on 26 December 1991 the USSR was formally dissolved.","why":"Fifteen independent states replaced the Soviet Union, with Russia as its recognised successor, ending the Cold War world of two rival superpowers.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Dissolution of the Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union"}]},{"id":"end-of-apartheid","year":1994,"yearLabel":"1990–1994","title":"End of apartheid","place":"Pretoria, South Africa","lonlat":[28.19,-25.75],"category":"state","summary":"From 1948 South Africa's white-minority government enforced apartheid, a system of institutionalised racial segregation. In February 1990 President F. W. de Klerk announced the repeal of discriminatory laws and lifted the ban on anti-apartheid groups, and that year released Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison; negotiations led to the country's first elections open to citizens of all races on 26–29 April 1994, won by Mandela's African National Congress with about 62 percent of the vote.","why":"Mandela's inauguration on 10 May 1994 as South Africa's first Black president, heading a Government of National Unity, ended minority rule; he and de Klerk shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize for ending apartheid peacefully.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Apartheid","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 1994 South African general election","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_South_African_general_election"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nelson Mandela","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela"},{"title":"Nobel Prize: The Nobel Peace Prize 1993","url":"https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1993/summary/"}]},{"id":"rwandan-genocide","year":1994,"yearLabel":"April–July 1994","title":"The genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda","place":"Kigali (Rwanda)","lonlat":[30.062,-1.944],"category":"atrocity","summary":"On 6 April 1994 a plane carrying Rwanda's president Juvénal Habyarimana and the president of Burundi was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali (responsibility is still disputed), and within hours Hutu extremists in the army and the Presidential Guard and militias such as the Interahamwe began systematically killing Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutu, among them Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana. Over about 100 days, incited by local officials and by radio broadcasts that called Tutsi \"cockroaches\", militias and ordinary villagers killed their neighbours, mostly with machetes, at roadblocks, in homes and in the churches and schools where victims had sought refuge, and hundreds of thousands of women were raped. The killing ended in July when the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel army took Kigali on 4 July and the north-west by 18 July.","why":"An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people were killed, most of them Tutsi, while the outside world failed to intervene: after ten Belgian peacekeepers were murdered and countries pulled out their troops, the UN peacekeeping force was cut from 2,165 to 270. The genocide led to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the flight of some two million Hutu refugees into neighbouring countries, mainly Zaire, helped trigger the Congo wars.","also":"Death-toll estimates differ: Human Rights Watch estimated at least half a million (about 507,000 Tutsi, roughly three-quarters of Rwanda's Tutsi population), scholarly estimates of Tutsi deaths range from about 500,000 to 662,000, and the Rwandan government's count is over one million.","sources":[{"title":"United Nations Outreach Programme on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda: Historical background","url":"https://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/historical-background.shtml"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rwandan genocide","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide"},{"title":"Human Rights Watch (1999), Leave None to Tell the Story: Numbers","url":"https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-04.htm"}]},{"id":"september-11-afghanistan","year":2001,"yearLabel":"2001–2021","title":"9/11 and the war in Afghanistan","place":"World Trade Center, New York City","lonlat":[-74.0134,40.7115],"category":"war","summary":"On 11 September 2001, 19 hijackers from the Islamist terrorist organisation al-Qaeda flew airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington; a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers fought back. The attacks killed 2,977 people. When Afghanistan's Taliban government refused to hand over al-Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden, a US-led coalition invaded and toppled it, but the Taliban regrouped as an insurgency; after a US–Taliban deal in February 2020 and the withdrawal of US forces, the Taliban captured Kabul on 15 August 2021, and the last US military aircraft left on 30 August.","why":"The 20-year war, the longest in US history, killed an estimated 176,000 to 212,000 or more people, including over 46,000 Afghan civilians, and ended with the Taliban's Islamic Emirate restored.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: September 11 attacks","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks"},{"title":"Wikipedia: War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Kabul (2021)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Kabul_(2021)"}]},{"id":"financial-crisis-2008","year":2008,"yearLabel":"2007–2009","title":"Global financial crisis","place":"Lehman Brothers headquarters, Seventh Avenue, New York City","lonlat":[-73.983,40.76],"category":"collapse","summary":"A US housing boom fuelled by risky subprime mortgages turned to bust, and from early 2007 securities tied to those loans collapsed in value, spreading losses through banks worldwide. The crisis peaked when the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on 15 September 2008, the largest bankruptcy in US history, triggering stock-market crashes and bank runs; governments responded with huge bank bailouts and monetary and fiscal stimulus to prevent a collapse of the financial system.","why":"It deepened the Great Recession (December 2007 to June 2009), the longest US downturn since World War II, in which US unemployment peaked at 10 percent, and contributed to crises in Iceland and the eurozone.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: 2008 financial crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_financial_crisis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_of_Lehman_Brothers"},{"title":"Federal Reserve History: The Great Recession","url":"https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-recession-of-200709"}]},{"id":"paris-agreement","year":2015,"yearLabel":"2015","title":"The Paris Agreement on climate change","place":"Le Bourget, Paris (France)","lonlat":[2.44,48.952],"category":"law","summary":"On 12 December 2015, at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) at Le Bourget near Paris, 195 countries and the European Union adopted by consensus a treaty to hold the rise in global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Instead of imposing targets, it asks every country to set its own plan for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, a Nationally Determined Contribution, and to submit a stronger one every five years; the agreement was signed in New York on 22 April 2016 and entered into force on 4 November 2016.","why":"Unlike the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set binding targets for only a limited set of countries, it brought developing countries into emissions planning as well, and almost every country has joined; but emissions kept rising, the United States withdrew in 2020, rejoined in 2021 and withdrew again in 2026, and 2024 was the hottest year on record, more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.","sources":[{"title":"United Nations Climate Action: The Paris Agreement","url":"https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Paris Agreement","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference"}]},{"id":"covid-19-pandemic","year":2020,"yearLabel":"2019–2023","title":"COVID-19 pandemic","place":"Wuhan, Hubei (China)","lonlat":[114.258,30.62],"category":"collapse","summary":"A new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was first identified in an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and spread worldwide in early 2020; the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency on 30 January and described the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March 2020. Lockdowns, travel restrictions, school closures and remote working transformed daily life, vaccines were rolled out from December 2020, and the WHO declared the global health emergency over in May 2023.","why":"About 7 million deaths were officially reported, but the WHO estimated 14.9 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 alone, and other estimates put the toll at 19 to 36 million; the pandemic also caused the largest global recession since the Great Depression.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: COVID-19 pandemic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic"},{"title":"Wikipedia: COVID-19 pandemic deaths","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_deaths"},{"title":"WHO: 14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021","url":"https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-covid-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021"}]},{"id":"russian-invasion-of-ukraine","year":2022,"yearLabel":"2022 onwards","title":"Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine","place":"Kyiv (Ukraine)","lonlat":[30.523,50.45],"category":"war","summary":"In 2014, after protests in Kyiv ousted the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, Russia seized and annexed Crimea and backed separatist forces in the Donbas, where fighting killed about 14,000 people before 2022. On 24 February 2022 President Vladimir Putin announced a \"special military operation\" and Russian forces invaded from Belarus towards Kyiv, from Crimea in the south and from the Donbas in the east; they withdrew from around Kyiv by April, revealing the Bucha massacre, and Ukrainian counteroffensives retook most of Kharkiv Oblast and the city of Kherson in late 2022. The war then became a costly war of attrition, with Russia occupying roughly a fifth of Ukraine.","why":"It is the largest and deadliest war in Europe since the Second World War: estimates of military casualties (killed and wounded) on both sides range from about 1.3 million to 2 million by mid-2026, though all such figures are uncertain, and the UN had verified more than 17,000 civilian deaths, which it believes is an undercount, while 6 to 7 million Ukrainians fled abroad, Europe's largest refugee crisis since 1945.","also":"On 2 March 2022 the UN General Assembly voted 141 to 5, with 35 abstentions, to demand that Russia withdraw its forces from Ukraine; many countries imposed sanctions on Russia, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Putin and other Russian officials.","sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_war_(2022%E2%80%93present)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Casualties of the Russo-Ukrainian war","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war"},{"title":"Wikipedia: 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Russian_annexation_of_Crimea"},{"title":"UN News: General Assembly resolution demands end to Russian offensive in Ukraine","url":"https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1113152"}]}],"journeys":[{"id":"sumer","name":"Sumerian city-states","profile":"sumer","chain":[{"clio":"Sumerian City-States","from":-3400,"to":-2334}],"span":[-3400,-2334],"summary":"In the marshy south of Mesopotamia, Uruk and its neighbours grew into the world's first cities and, by c. 3300 BCE, the first writing. Through the Early Dynastic period (c. 2900–2334 BCE) rival city-states such as Kish, Ur, Lagash and Umma fought over land and water, until Lugalzagesi united Sumer, only to lose it to Sargon of Akkad. All dates are approximate (middle chronology).","events":[{"year":-3400,"text":"Late Uruk period: Uruk is the leading city of southern Mesopotamia","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"detail":"In the fourth millennium BCE, farming villages on the irrigated plains of southern Mesopotamia grew into the first true cities, and Uruk outgrew them all. In the Late Uruk period it covered roughly 230–250 hectares, with monumental buildings in its Eanna district and perhaps 25,000–50,000 inhabitants, far more than any rival settlement. Uruk-style outposts and colonies, such as the walled town of Habuba Kabira, spread up the Euphrates into Syria. This 'Uruk expansion' made southern Mesopotamia, the heart of the map's Sumerian territory, the most urban and influential region of the Near East."},{"year":-3300,"text":"Earliest unequivocal written documents (proto-cuneiform) appear at Uruk","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"detail":"Running a city of thousands meant keeping track of grain, livestock, labour and rations, and for a long time clay tokens had been used for counting. From about 3300 BCE, in the phase archaeologists call Uruk IV, scribes at Uruk began drawing signs and numbers on clay tablets with a reed stylus: the earliest unequivocal written documents. Almost all of them are administrative records, not stories or laws. Writing gave Sumer's temples and rulers a powerful tool for managing people and goods, and its descendant, cuneiform, would be used across the Near East for more than 3,000 years."},{"year":-3100,"text":"Jemdet Nasr period: writing becomes more abstract; cities run central administrations","lonlat":[44.8,32.72],"detail":"After the Uruk expansion faded, the period named after the site of Jemdet Nasr (c. 3100–2900 BCE) saw southern culture continue on a more local scale, limited to south-central Iraq. Writing kept developing: pictures gave way to simpler, more abstract signs, and the script began to take on its wedge-shaped look. Tablets, cylinder seals and large central buildings suggest that a central administration rationed food and organised crafts and farming. A seal impression listing cities such as Ur, Uruk and Larsa hints at close ties between them, the network from which Sumer's city-states would emerge."},{"year":-2900,"text":"Early Dynastic period begins: rival city-states ruled by kings (lugal)","lonlat":null,"detail":"From about 2900 BCE southern Mesopotamia was divided among independent city-states, each a large city controlling the surrounding villages, fields and canals, and each protected by its own god. The most important included Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Adab and Umma, while Kish in the north may have led a larger territorial state. Rulers bore titles such as ensi (governor) or lugal (literally 'big man', meaning king). Because these rival states competed for land and irrigation water, the map shows Sumer as a cluster of cities rather than a single kingdom for the next five centuries."},{"year":-2700,"text":"Era of Gilgamesh of Uruk and Enmebaragesi of Kish, kings of later legend","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"detail":"The early centuries of the Early Dynastic period left almost no contemporary texts, so they are known mainly through later legend. Enmebaragesi of Kish is the earliest king on the Sumerian King List whose name has been found in inscriptions; scholars date him to c. 2700–2600 BCE. Gilgamesh of Uruk was probably a real king of roughly the same era, and a Sumerian poem tells of his revolt against Enmebaragesi's son Agga of Kish. Later generations made Gilgamesh a god and the hero of a famous epic, but the real political map of this 'heroic age' cannot be reconstructed."},{"year":-2600,"text":"Royal Cemetery of Ur: rich burials with goods traded from the Indus","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"By the 26th century BCE Ur was among the richest cities of Sumer. Its cemetery, excavated by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s, held about 2,000 burials, including sixteen 'royal' tombs in which rulers such as Queen Puabi were buried with attendants, sometimes seventy or more. The graves were filled with gold, silver, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and carnelian beads that point to trade with the Indus Valley. These treasures show that Sumer, which had to import all its metals, sat at the centre of a trade network reaching from the Gulf to Afghanistan and India."},{"year":-2500,"text":"Mesilim of Kish arbitrates the border war between Lagash and Umma","lonlat":[44.6,32.54],"detail":"Lagash and its neighbour Umma were locked in a long quarrel over the Gu-Edin, a fertile irrigated plain on their shared border. Around the middle of the third millennium (c. 2550 BCE by one estimate), Mesilim, king of Kish, who seems to have held some authority over Lagash and Adab, stepped in as arbiter. Claiming the guidance of the god Ishtaran, he fixed a new boundary and set up an inscribed pillar to mark it. The settlement did not last: a later king of Umma, Ush, tore the pillar down, and the border war flared again for generations."},{"year":-2450,"text":"Eannatum of Lagash defeats Umma; Stele of the Vultures","lonlat":[46.18,31.55],"detail":"Eannatum of Lagash, grandson of the dynasty's founder Ur-Nanshe, renewed the war for the Gu-Edin. Around 2450 BCE he defeated Ush of Umma, whose army, according to Eannatum's inscription, left 3,600 dead, and then imposed a boundary treaty and grain payments on Umma's next ruler, Enakalle. He celebrated the victory on the Stele of the Vultures, named after the birds shown carrying off enemy heads; its fragments are now in the Louvre. Eannatum also fought Ur, Uruk, Kish, Mari and parts of Elam, making Lagash briefly the strongest power in Sumer, though revolts soon followed."},{"year":-2350,"text":"Urukagina rules Lagash; Lugalzagesi of Umma conquers Uruk","lonlat":[46.4,31.41],"detail":"Urukagina (also read Uruinimgina) became ruler of Lagash after Lugalanda and is famous for inscriptions listing changes he made, such as cutting the fees officials charged for burials. Historians now doubt there was one coherent 'reform', and many lines of the texts are hard to interpret. Meanwhile Umma, Lagash's old rival, expanded under Lugalzagesi, who took Uruk in the seventh year of his reign. Lugalzagesi then ravaged Lagash and its temples, leaving Urukagina to rule only from Girsu, and the balance of power in Sumer shifted to Umma and Uruk."},{"year":-2340,"text":"Lugalzagesi rules all Sumer from Uruk, the first such kingdom on record","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"detail":"Having crushed Lagash, Lugalzagesi overthrew the king of Kish and took Ur, Nippur and Larsa, making Uruk his capital. His inscriptions call him 'king of the Land' and claim that the god Enlil gave him all the lands from the Lower Sea (the Gulf) to the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean), though his westward reach may have been little more than a raid. He is the first ruler reliably documented to have united all of Sumer in one kingdom, which the Sumerian King List says lasted 25 years. For a generation the map's many city-states became a single realm centred on Uruk."},{"year":-2334,"text":"Sargon of Akkad comes to power; Lugalzagesi's kingdom falls to him","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"detail":"Sargon built his power at Akkad, a city in central Mesopotamia whose site has never been found; later legend says he had begun as cupbearer to the king of Kish. Lugalzagesi's kingdom now faced this new northern rival. According to Sargon's own inscriptions, three battles were needed to defeat Lugalzagesi; Sargon tore down Uruk's walls and led the captured king in a neck-stock to Enlil's temple at Nippur. The date is debated: Sargon's reign is usually placed from c. 2334 BCE, but the conquest of Sumer is often dated nearer 2300. Sumer's age of independent city-states was over."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Late Uruk period: Uruk the leading city","from":-3400,"to":-3100},{"name":"Jemdet Nasr period","from":-3100,"to":-2900},{"name":"Early Dynastic I–II: Kish and Uruk (Enmebaragesi, Gilgamesh)","from":-2900,"to":-2600},{"name":"First Dynasty of Ur (Meskalamdug, Mesannepada)","from":-2600,"to":-2500},{"name":"Dynasty of Ur-Nanshe at Lagash (Eannatum, Entemena, Urukagina)","from":-2500,"to":-2358},{"name":"Lugalzagesi of Umma and Uruk","from":-2358,"to":-2334}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Sumer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Dynastic_Period_(Mesopotamia)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cuneiform","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jemdet Nasr period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jemdet_Nasr_period"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Eannatum","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eannatum"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Lugalzagesi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugalzagesi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Uruk period","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk_period"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Royal Cemetery at Ur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Cemetery_at_Ur"}]},{"id":"akkadian-empire","name":"Akkadian Empire","profile":"akkadian-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Akkadian Empire","from":-2300,"to":-2154}],"span":[-2334,-2154],"summary":"Sargon of Akkad (r. c. 2334–2279 BCE) conquered Sumer and campaigned from the Gulf to Syria and Elam, creating the first empire to rule all Mesopotamia. His grandson Naram-Sin crushed a great revolt and took the realm to its widest extent, but after Shar-kali-sharri (d. c. 2193 BCE) the state broke apart under Gutian and Amorite pressure and fell c. 2154 BCE. Dates follow the middle chronology and are approximate.","events":[{"year":-2334,"text":"Sargon comes to power and founds a dynasty ruling from Akkad (site still unknown)","lonlat":null,"detail":"Sargon emerged as ruler of Akkad, a small city in central Mesopotamia whose exact site is still unknown; it probably lay near where the Tigris meets the Adhem or Diyala rivers. Almost nothing reliable is known about his rise. Legends written long afterwards call him a usurper who began as cupbearer to King Ur-Zababa of Kish, and some historians suspect he was a vassal of Kish who rebelled. His reign is usually dated c. 2334–2279 BCE, though other estimates run 2316–2277. For perhaps 18 years or more his power seems to have been limited to the north."},{"year":-2300,"text":"Sargon defeats Lugalzagesi in three battles, razes Uruk's walls and takes Sumer","lonlat":[45.64,31.32],"detail":"The turning point of Sargon's career was his clash with Lugalzagesi, who ruled a united Sumer from Uruk. According to Sargon's inscriptions, three battles were needed to defeat Lugalzagesi and his allies; Sargon 'conquered fifty governors', razed Uruk's walls and led the captured king in a neck-stock to Enlil's temple at Nippur. The date is debated but is usually put around 2300 BCE. Sumer's cities became provinces under governors, some of them 'sons of Akkad', and for the first time the whole of southern Mesopotamia answered to a single king."},{"year":-2290,"text":"Sargon takes Mari and claims the 'Upper Country' to the Cedar Forest","lonlat":[40.89,34.55],"detail":"With Sumer secured, Sargon turned to Syria, then dominated by Mari on the middle Euphrates, Nagar and Ebla. One of his year-names records the destruction of Mari, and an inscription says the god Dagan at Tuttul gave him 'the Upper Land: Mari, Yarmuti and Ebla as far as the Cedar Forest and the Silver Mountains'. Sargon also boasted of 34 victorious battles and of ships from Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha docking at Akkad. These campaigns stretched Akkad's reach towards the Mediterranean and the Taurus, though how firmly the west was held is uncertain, and the date here is approximate."},{"year":-2279,"text":"Sargon dies; Rimush reconquers rebel cities including Ur, Umma and Lagash","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"Sargon died c. 2279 BCE (other estimates are 2284 or 2277), and his son Rimush inherited an empire whose conquered cities still remembered independence. Rimush's inscriptions describe widespread revolts and the reconquest of Ur, Umma, Adab, Lagash, Der and Kazallu, claiming tens of thousands of enemies killed or captured. He also campaigned east against Elam and Marhashi. His reign was short, about nine years according to the Sumerian King List, and a later tradition says his own courtiers killed him. Still, he held Sargon's empire together and kept Sumer within its borders."},{"year":-2270,"text":"Manishtushu leads a fleet down the Gulf against 32 kings; takes Anshan","lonlat":[52.36,30.01],"detail":"Rimush's brother Manishtushu became king c. 2270 BCE and, free of the revolts that had troubled his brother, looked outward. According to his inscription, he sent ships across the 'Lower Sea' (the Persian Gulf), defeated an alliance of 32 cities on the far shore, plundered as far as the silver mines, and brought back black stone for a statue of himself. He also conquered Anshan in Elam, and Akkadian governors came to rule Elam and Pashime on the Iranian coast. He died c. 2255 BCE after about fifteen years, possibly murdered by his courtiers, with Akkad's grip on south-western Iran tightened."},{"year":-2255,"text":"Naram-Sin succeeds; under him the empire reaches its greatest extent","lonlat":null,"detail":"Naram-Sin, Manishtushu's son and Sargon's grandson, ruled c. 2255–2218 BCE, and under him the Akkadian state reached its greatest extent. He defeated the ruler of Magan, fought hill peoples of the Zagros, Taurus and Amanus mountains, and destroyed Armanum and Ebla in Syria, claiming the Amanus, the 'Cedar Mountain' and the Upper Sea. He was the first king to call himself 'King of the Four Quarters', meaning ruler of the whole world. On the map, Akkad's power now stretched from the Gulf and western Iran to northern Syria and the Mediterranean coast."},{"year":-2250,"text":"Victory Stele: Naram-Sin defeats the Lullubi of the Zagros","lonlat":[45.43,35.56],"detail":"The Lullubi were a mountain people of the Zagros, astride routes between Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau. Naram-Sin's army defeated them and their chief Satuni, a victory celebrated on a 2-metre stele of pinkish limestone dated only to his reign. Breaking with older art, it shows the battle climbing diagonally up a mountain, with Naram-Sin at the top wearing a horned helmet, a sign of divinity. Victories like this carried Akkad's power into the Zagros on the empire's eastern edge. Over a thousand years later the Elamite king Shutruk-Nakhunte carried the stele off to Susa; it is now in the Louvre."},{"year":-2240,"text":"Naram-Sin crushes the Great Revolt and is proclaimed a god","lonlat":null,"detail":"At an uncertain point in Naram-Sin's reign, a huge coalition rose against Akkad, led by Iphur-Kish of Kish and Amar-Girid of Uruk and joined by Nippur, Sippar, Kutha, Borsippa and other cities, as well as Amorite highlanders. Naram-Sin claimed that he won nine battles in a single year and captured the kings the rebels had raised. Afterwards, his inscription says, the people of Akkad asked the great gods to make him the god of their city. He became the first Mesopotamian king to claim divinity, and the empire came through intact."},{"year":-2218,"text":"Shar-kali-sharri succeeds; wars with Gutians, Amorites and Elam","lonlat":null,"detail":"Naram-Sin's son Shar-kali-sharri reigned for about 25 years (c. 2218–2193 BCE). His year-names suggest a fairly peaceful reign with recurring clashes: a victory over the Amorites (MAR.TU) at Jebel Bishri in Syria, the capture of a Gutian king, and a battle against Elam and Zahara near Akshak. Economic texts suggest reasonable prosperity. Yet the Gutians were growing stronger and at some point made Adab, in Sumer, their capital. Later tradition held that the empire began to unravel during his reign, as outsiders and restless provinces tested Akkad's strength."},{"year":-2193,"text":"Shar-kali-sharri dies; anarchy: 'Who was king? Who was not the king?'","lonlat":null,"detail":"When Shar-kali-sharri died c. 2193 BCE, no successor could hold the empire together. The Sumerian King List sums up the chaos with a famous question, 'Then who was king? Who was not the king?', naming four rivals, Igigi, Imi, Nanum and Ilulu, who together ruled only three years. Southern cities such as Lagash and Uruk began to reassert their independence, while Gutians, Amorites and Elamites pressed in. Many historians also link the collapse to a severe drought, the '4.2-kiloyear event', that struck Upper Mesopotamia, as Akkad's territory shrank back towards its northern core."},{"year":-2154,"text":"Reign of Shu-turul ends; Akkad's empire is gone as Gutians dominate","lonlat":null,"detail":"After the anarchy, Dudu and then his son Shu-turul ruled a much-reduced kingdom of Akkad in northern Babylonia, including Kish, Tutub, Nippur and Eshnunna. Shu-turul, said to have reigned 15 years, is known only from a few seals and votive objects. With his death c. 2154 BCE the Sumerian King List says kingship passed to Uruk, while the Gutians, based at Adab, became the main regional power and southern cities such as Ur and Lagash ruled themselves. The first empire in Mesopotamian history disappeared from the map, but Sargon and Naram-Sin remained models for later kings."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Sargon","from":-2334,"to":-2279},{"name":"Rimush","from":-2279,"to":-2270},{"name":"Manishtushu","from":-2270,"to":-2255},{"name":"Naram-Sin","from":-2255,"to":-2218},{"name":"Shar-kali-sharri","from":-2218,"to":-2193},{"name":"Anarchy (Igigi, Imi, Nanum, Ilulu)","from":-2193,"to":-2189},{"name":"Dudu","from":-2189,"to":-2168},{"name":"Shu-turul","from":-2168,"to":-2154}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Akkadian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sargon of Akkad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rimush","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimush"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Manishtushu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manishtushu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Naram-Sin of Akkad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naram-Sin_of_Akkad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shar-Kali-Sharri","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shar-Kali-Sharri"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Victory Stele of Naram-Sin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Stele_of_Naram-Sin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shu-turul","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu-turul"}]},{"id":"ur-iii","name":"Third Dynasty of Ur (Neo-Sumerian Empire)","profile":"sumer","chain":[{"clio":"Sumerian City-States","from":-2100,"to":-2004}],"span":[-2112,-2004],"summary":"After the Gutian interlude, Ur-Nammu of Ur (r. c. 2112–2094 BCE) reunited Sumer and Akkad, and his son Shulgi built a centralised, bureaucratic state of some twenty provinces ringed by a military periphery along the Zagros. Amorite incursions, revolts and the breakaway of Isin weakened his successors, and c. 2004 BCE an Elamite coalition sacked Ur. Dates follow the middle chronology and are approximate.","events":[{"year":-2112,"text":"Ur-Nammu takes power at Ur and founds the Third Dynasty","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"After Akkad fell, Sumer was split between Gutian rulers and revived city-states, until Utu-hengal of Uruk defeated the Gutian king Tirigan. Ur-Nammu, who had governed Ur and may have been Utu-hengal's brother, then took power himself c. 2112 BCE, defeated his former masters at Uruk and conquered Lagash. Taking the title 'King of Sumer and Akkad', he reunited southern Mesopotamia, restored temples and canals, and began the Great Ziggurat of Ur. The oldest surviving law collection, the Code of Ur-Nammu, is linked to him or his son. Sumer was once again a single kingdom, now ruled from Ur."},{"year":-2094,"text":"Ur-Nammu dies in battle in the eastern highlands; Shulgi begins a 48-year reign","lonlat":null,"detail":"Ur-Nammu pushed his rule north-east towards the Diyala valley, probably defeating the Elamite king Puzur-Inshushinak along the way. After about 18 years on the throne he died on the battlefield in the eastern highlands; a later poem, the 'Death of Ur-Nammu', mourns him, and some read it as saying his army abandoned him. His son Shulgi succeeded c. 2094 BCE and reigned for about 48 years, roughly half the life of the whole dynasty. Shulgi would turn his father's kingdom into an empire on the model of Akkad, although his first twenty years are known mostly from temple-building."},{"year":-2074,"text":"Shulgi, a god by his 21st year, reforms weights, taxes and the bureaucracy","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"Around the middle of his reign Shulgi carried out reforms that reshaped the state, though some may have begun under his father and few can be dated exactly. He reorganised the army, standardised weights and measures, reformed writing and the scribal schools, and unified taxes, including the bala system in which each province took turns supplying the centre. A huge livestock and administrative hub was built at Puzrish-Dagan near Nippur. By his 21st year, and perhaps as early as his 12th, Shulgi had proclaimed himself a god. The result looked like a highly centralised state, at least in its Sumerian core."},{"year":-2070,"text":"Shulgi destroys Simurrum: first of many campaigns in the Zagros","lonlat":null,"detail":"Shulgi's later reign was dominated by wars in the Zagros foothills and along the upper Tigris, lands rich in pasture and trade routes. His 25th year-name records the destruction of Simurrum, a mountain kingdom north of the Diyala; later names boast of destroying it a second, a third and eventually a ninth time, showing how hard such enemies were to hold down. Conquered districts became a defensive, tribute-paying periphery with garrisons and military colonies, rather like the Roman frontier. On the map, Ur's power now reached north-east from Sumer towards the Zagros."},{"year":-2065,"text":"Shulgi's daughter marries the governor of Anshan in Elam","lonlat":[52.36,30.01],"detail":"Alongside war, Shulgi used marriage diplomacy with the kingdoms of the Iranian plateau. In his 18th year a daughter became queen of Marhashi, and the name for his 30th year records that the governor of Anshan, in Elam, married another daughter; others married rulers of Pashime. Such ties did not guarantee peace: by his 34th year Shulgi was campaigning against Anshan, and a year-name records its destruction. The kings of Ur also controlled Susa, where Shulgi built temples, so Elam's western lowlands were drawn firmly into Ur's orbit."},{"year":-2058,"text":"Shulgi builds a wall to keep out Tidnum (Amorite) nomads","lonlat":null,"detail":"Amorites (Martu), Semitic-speaking groups from Syria and Upper Mesopotamia often described as tribal and nomadic, had been moving into southern Mesopotamia since late Akkadian times. In his 37th year Shulgi built 'the wall of the land' in the north of Akkad to keep out the Tidnum, an Amorite group. The wall marked the empire's north-western frontier and showed that pressure from the steppe had become a lasting worry. His successors had to reinforce it, and Amorite incursions eventually played a major part in the empire's collapse."},{"year":-2050,"text":"One campaign defeats Urbilum, Simurrum, Lullubum and Karhar","lonlat":[44.01,36.19],"detail":"The climax of Shulgi's wars came near the end of his reign. The name for his 45th year boasts that he 'smashed the heads of Urbilum, Simurrum, Lullubum and Karhar in a single campaign'. Urbilum is Arbela (modern Erbil in northern Iraq), and the other lands lay in the Zagros foothills; around the same time he destroyed Kimash and Hurtum near Elam. These victories pushed Ur's ring of tribute-paying border lands to its widest, stretching along the Tigris and the Zagros from Urbilum to Susa, and made Ur the leading power of Mesopotamia."},{"year":-2037,"text":"Shu-Sin succeeds and builds a new wall against Amorite incursions","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Shulgi died, his son Amar-Sin reigned about nine years, followed by Amar-Sin's brother Shu-Sin (c. 2037–2029 BCE). Shu-Sin had to reassert control in the northern and eastern borderlands, where tribute was arriving less regularly, a sign that Ur's grip was loosening. The most threatening danger came from Amorites in the north-west, and after an open revolt he built a new fortified wall between the Euphrates and the Tigris, strengthening Shulgi's defences. Late in his reign much real power lay with his chancellor Aradmu. The borders held for now, but the outer lands were slipping."},{"year":-2028,"text":"Ibbi-Sin succeeds; within three years the central archives dry up","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"Ibbi-Sin, probably Shu-Sin's son, came to the throne c. 2028 BCE and reigned for 24 years while the empire fell apart. The archives of the main administrative centres in the heartland dry up after his third year, a sign that the central bureaucracy had lost control of the provinces. Eastern lands such as Anshan and Susa broke away, Eshnunna became independent, and Amorite raids grew more violent. In his seventh and eighth years the price of grain rose to some 60 times normal, pointing to famine. On the map, Ur's empire shrank towards the city of Ur itself."},{"year":-2021,"text":"Ishbi-Erra holds Isin under his own year-names, breaking from Ur","lonlat":[45.27,31.88],"detail":"Ishbi-Erra, an official described as a 'man of Mari', had been sent by Ibbi-Sin to buy grain at Isin and Kazallu. According to letters preserved as later school exercises, whose authenticity is uncertain, he complained that Amorite raids stopped him shipping it and asked to be made governor of Isin and Nippur. By Ibbi-Sin's eighth year he was dating documents by his own year-names, in effect declaring independence at Isin. His power grew as Ibbi-Sin's declined, splitting the former empire in two, and his dynasty of Isin would later present itself as Ur's heir."},{"year":-2004,"text":"Elamites under Kindattu sack Ur, ending the dynasty","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"By the end Ibbi-Sin held little beyond the city of Ur. Around 2004 BCE (middle chronology) an army from Elam and the Shimashki highlands of the Zagros, led by King Kindattu, sacked Ur and carried Ibbi-Sin off in chains to Elam, where he died. The disaster was remembered in the 'Lament for Sumer and Ur', which describes the city reduced to ruin mounds. The Elamites occupied Ur until Ishbi-Erra of Isin drove them out. The fall of Ur ended the last great Sumerian state, and Mesopotamia split into rival Amorite-led kingdoms such as Isin and Larsa."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Ur-Nammu","from":-2112,"to":-2094},{"name":"Shulgi","from":-2094,"to":-2046},{"name":"Amar-Sin","from":-2046,"to":-2038},{"name":"Shu-Sin","from":-2037,"to":-2029},{"name":"Ibbi-Sin","from":-2028,"to":-2004}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Third Dynasty of Ur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Dynasty_of_Ur"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shulgi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shulgi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ishbi-Erra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishbi-Erra"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sumer","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ur-Nammu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Nammu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shu-Sin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu-Sin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ibbi-Sin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibbi-Sin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kindattu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindattu"}]},{"id":"old-babylonian-empire","name":"Old Babylonian Empire (Hammurabi)","profile":"babylonia","chain":[{"clio":"Babylonia","from":-1800,"to":-1595}],"span":[-1792,-1595],"summary":"Hammurabi (r. c. 1792–1750 BCE) turned Babylon from one Amorite kingdom among many into the master of Mesopotamia, conquering Larsa, Mari and Eshnunna and issuing his famous law code. Under his son Samsu-iluna revolts wrecked the southern cities and the far south broke away as the Sealand dynasty; a shrunken kingdom lasted until the Hittite king Mursili I sacked Babylon c. 1595 BCE. Dates follow the middle chronology and are approximate.","events":[{"year":-1792,"text":"Hammurabi succeeds Sin-muballit as king of Babylon","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Since the fall of Ur, Mesopotamia had been divided among kingdoms ruled by Amorite dynasties. Babylon was a secondary city where an Amorite dynasty had taken root about a century earlier and built a modest kingdom including Kish, Sippar and Borsippa. When Hammurabi succeeded his father Sin-muballit in 1792 BCE (middle chronology), he was surrounded by stronger neighbours: Rim-Sin's Larsa in the south, Eshnunna in the Diyala valley, and Shamshi-Adad's kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, with whom Babylon kept good relations. For two decades he mostly built temples and canals."},{"year":-1763,"text":"Hammurabi conquers Larsa and annexes Rim-Sin's kingdom in the south","lonlat":[45.85,31.29],"detail":"After helping to repel an Elamite invasion of Mesopotamia, Hammurabi turned on Rim-Sin of Larsa, the long-reigning king who had earlier absorbed Isin and Uruk. Citing Rim-Sin's poor support against Elam and alleged raids, he launched a lightning war with help from his ally Zimri-Lim of Mari. Larsa was besieged until its defenders ran short of food; Babylonian troops took the walls and brought Rim-Sin out alive. With Larsa annexed in 1763 BCE (some accounts say 1764), Hammurabi controlled all of southern Mesopotamia and took the old title 'king of Sumer and Akkad'."},{"year":-1761,"text":"Hammurabi takes Mari on the Euphrates; its palace is destroyed by 1759","lonlat":[40.89,34.55],"detail":"Mari, on the middle Euphrates, was a rich trading kingdom whose palace archives of more than 25,000 tablets are a key source for this age. Its king Zimri-Lim had been Hammurabi's ally, but the two fell out, apparently over Babylonian ambitions in the Jebel Sinjar region. The course of the war is not recorded, but the outcome is clear: Mari was captured around 1761 BCE and destroyed by 1759, ending its archive. Babylon now controlled the Euphrates route towards Syria, and the map's Babylonian realm stretched far upstream."},{"year":-1760,"text":"Ekallatum in Assyria is subjugated; Eshnunna has already been beaten","lonlat":null,"detail":"North of Babylon, Eshnunna in the Diyala valley had been weakened by the Elamite war. Hammurabi first allied with its new king, Silli-Sin, who married one of his daughters, but then defeated it, a victory named in his 32nd year. The name for his next year boasts that he subjugated Mari and 'the many cities of Subartu', including Ekallatum on the Tigris, once the seat of Shamshi-Adad's son Ishme-Dagan, and Assyria was reduced to a vassal. Babylon was now master of almost all Mesopotamia, from the Gulf to the upper Tigris."},{"year":-1755,"text":"Code of Hammurabi set up late in his reign","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Near the end of his reign, Hammurabi had his laws inscribed on stone monuments. The best-preserved copy is a basalt stele 2.25 metres tall, topped by a relief of the king before Shamash, the sun god and god of justice. Its prologue says the gods chose him 'to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak', and its rulings, written as 'if this, then that' cases, cover crime, family, property and trade, including 'an eye for an eye'. The exact date is uncertain (often c. 1753 BCE). Taken to Susa as Elamite plunder centuries later, the stele was found in 1901 and is now in the Louvre."},{"year":-1750,"text":"Hammurabi dies; his son Samsu-iluna succeeds","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Hammurabi died around 1750 BCE, in the 43rd year of his reign, apparently after a long illness; his son Samsu-iluna seems to have been running the kingdom in his final months. In four decades Hammurabi had turned Babylon from one Amorite kingdom among many into the master of Mesopotamia, and the city would remain the region's leading centre for over a thousand years. But his empire had been won by conquest within a single lifetime, and many newly conquered cities still remembered independence. Samsu-iluna inherited a realm that would soon start to shrink."},{"year":-1741,"text":"Rim-Sin II's revolt spreads to 26 cities; first known Kassite attack repelled","lonlat":[45.85,31.29],"detail":"In Samsu-iluna's ninth year (c. 1741 BCE), a man calling himself Rim-Sin, perhaps a nephew of the king Hammurabi had defeated, led a revolt from Larsa. It spread to some 26 cities, including Uruk, Ur and Isin in the south and Eshnunna in the north. Within a year Samsu-iluna broke the northern rebels and had the king of Eshnunna executed. That same year he turned back an invading Kassite army, the earliest known mention of the people who would later rule Babylonia. The kingdom survived the shock, but the south remained at war."},{"year":-1737,"text":"Samsu-iluna retakes Larsa; Ur and Uruk sacked, the south largely abandoned","lonlat":[46.1,30.96],"detail":"For several years Samsu-iluna's armies fought Rim-Sin II's forces across the borderlands between Babylon, Sumer and Elam. Eventually he attacked Ur, pulled down its walls and sacked it, then did the same to Uruk and Isin, before finally defeating Larsa. Records from Ur and Uruk stop after his tenth year, and archaeology suggests these ancient cities were largely abandoned for centuries, until well into the Kassite period. Whether war alone was to blame, or Samsu-iluna made a deliberate retreat, is debated, but the old Sumerian south of the map was emptied."},{"year":-1725,"text":"Ilum-ma-ili's revolt founds the Sealand dynasty; Sumer lost for centuries","lonlat":null,"detail":"A few years later a new pretender, Ilum-ma-ili, claiming descent from the last king of Isin, raised another revolt across Sumer. After an indecisive first battle, he defeated Samsu-iluna in a second and founded the First Sealand Dynasty in the far south. Samsu-iluna turned to defence, rebuilding fortresses around Nippur, while Assyria and Elam also broke free of Babylon. The south stayed independent for roughly 270–300 years (estimates differ), and the Babylonian kingdom shrank back towards its northern core around Babylon and the middle Euphrates."},{"year":-1595,"text":"Mursili I of Hatti sacks Babylon, ending Hammurabi's dynasty","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Hammurabi's successors ruled a much smaller kingdom: Abi-eshuh failed to retake the Sealand, and the last king, Samsu-ditana, faced growing pressure from the Kassites. Then, around 1595 BCE (middle chronology; proposed dates vary by as much as 230 years), the Hittite king Mursili I marched some 2,000 kilometres from Anatolia, destroyed Aleppo and sacked Babylon, carrying captives and treasure back to Hattusa. The Hittites did not stay. Their raid ended Hammurabi's dynasty, which had ruled Babylon for about three centuries, and the Kassites took control of Babylonia for the next four centuries."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Hammurabi","from":-1792,"to":-1750},{"name":"Samsu-iluna","from":-1750,"to":-1712},{"name":"Abi-eshuh","from":-1712,"to":-1684},{"name":"Ammi-ditana","from":-1684,"to":-1647},{"name":"Ammi-saduqa","from":-1647,"to":-1626},{"name":"Samsu-ditana","from":-1626,"to":-1595}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Hammurabi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammurabi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Babylonian dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Babylonian_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Samsu-iluna","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsu-iluna"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Babylonia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Code of Hammurabi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mari, Syria","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari,_Syria"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mursili I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mursili_I"}]},{"id":"hittite-empire","name":"Hittite Empire","profile":"hittite-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Hittites","from":-1600,"to":-1180}],"span":[-1650,-1180],"summary":"From their capital Hattusa in central Anatolia, the Hittite kings Hattusili I and Mursili I raided as far as Aleppo and Babylon (c. 1595 BCE) before the Old Kingdom sank into court strife. Suppiluliuma I (c. 1350–1322 BCE) broke Mitanni and made the Hittites masters of Syria; his successors fought Egypt to a standstill at Kadesh and made peace. Around 1190 BCE, amid the wider Bronze Age collapse, Hattusa was abandoned and the empire vanished. All dates are approximate (middle chronology).","events":[{"year":-1650,"text":"Hattusili I (or Labarna) founds the kingdom with Hattusa as capital","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"detail":"The Hittites, speakers of an Indo-European language, had formed small kingdoms in central Anatolia around Kussara and Kanesh. Around 1650 BCE (middle chronology), Hattusili I, who may also have used the name Labarna, moved the capital from Nesha (Kanesh) to Hattusa, inside the great bend of the Kizilirmak (Halys) river, and took his throne name from it. His annals describe campaigns against Arzawa in the west and into northern Syria, where he attacked but did not take Aleppo, and a crossing of the Euphrates. Central Anatolia became the core of a kingdom that would last over four centuries."},{"year":-1595,"text":"Mursili I raids Aleppo and sacks Babylon","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Hattusili's grandson and chosen heir, Mursili I, renewed the wars in Syria. He destroyed Aleppo, capital of the kingdom of Yamhad, which had resisted his grandfather, then led an unprecedented march of some 2,000 kilometres down the Euphrates and sacked Babylon around 1595 BCE, ending Hammurabi's dynasty. Babylonia was far too distant to hold and passed to the Kassites. Back home, Mursili was murdered by his brother-in-law Hantili. Decades of royal murders followed, the Hurrians seized Aleppo and the south-eastern coast, and the Hittite realm shrank back towards central Anatolia."},{"year":-1525,"text":"Telipinu's reign closes the Old Kingdom after years of internal strife","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"detail":"By the time Telipinu took the throne (c. 1525 BCE), murders and coups had shaken the royal family, and the kingdom had lost its conquests to Arzawa in the west, Mitanni in the east, the Kaska in the north and Kizzuwatna in the south. Telipinu won back some ground by allying with Kizzuwatna. He is best known for the Edict of Telipinu, which set out who should inherit the throne (first-rank sons, then lesser sons, then the husband of a first-rank daughter) to end the bloodshed. After him the Hittites entered a poorly recorded 'Middle Kingdom' of about seventy years."},{"year":-1350,"text":"Suppiluliuma I takes Aleppo and overruns Mitanni's capital Washukanni","lonlat":[37.16,36.2],"detail":"After a long period of weakness and invasion, the Hittites recovered under Suppiluliuma I (c. 1350–1322 BCE), a successful general who seized the throne after supporters murdered the young heir Tudhaliya. His great rival was Mitanni, the Hurrian kingdom of northern Mesopotamia. In the so-called One-Year War he overran Mitanni's vassals, captured and plundered its capital Washukanni, and crossed into Syria, taking Aleppo, Alalakh, Qatna and other small kingdoms, while Ugarit became his ally. Mitanni was broken, and the map's Hittite realm now spread from Anatolia deep into northern Syria."},{"year":-1323,"text":"Carchemish captured; Egypt's widowed queen asks him for a son to wed","lonlat":[38.01,36.83],"detail":"The last Mitannian stronghold west of the Euphrates was Carchemish. While besieging it, Suppiluliuma received an astonishing letter from Egypt's widowed queen, most likely Tutankhamun's widow Ankhesenamun: she had no son and asked for one of his sons to marry, so that he would become king of Egypt. After some hesitation he sent his son Zannanza, who was killed on the way. Carchemish fell, and Suppiluliuma made his sons viceroys at Carchemish and Aleppo to rule Hittite Syria. Blaming Egypt for Zannanza's death, he attacked Egyptian territory, opening a long period of hostility."},{"year":-1322,"text":"Suppiluliuma I dies of a plague that ravages Hatti for two decades","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"detail":"Suppiluliuma's revenge raids into Egyptian territory brought back prisoners of war, and according to the 'Plague Prayers' of his son Mursili II, those prisoners carried an epidemic into Hatti. People went on dying for at least two decades; some historians suggest the disease was tularaemia. It is often considered the cause of Suppiluliuma's death c. 1322 BCE and of his eldest son and successor, Arnuwanda II, soon afterwards. Mursili II inherited a strong position in Syria but a stricken homeland, and blamed the gods' anger on his father's broken oaths."},{"year":-1274,"text":"Muwatalli II fights Ramesses II at Kadesh","lonlat":[36.51,34.57],"detail":"Egypt's new 19th Dynasty wanted to win back Syria, and Ramesses II invaded Amurru, a borderland both powers claimed. In May 1274 BCE (by the usual chronology), the Hittite king Muwatalli II ambushed the Egyptian army near Kadesh on the Orontes, after sending spies to mislead Ramesses. Some 5,000–6,000 chariots may have taken part, probably the largest chariot battle ever fought. Ramesses rallied his troops and reinforcements drove off the Hittites, but the battle ended in stalemate. Ramesses withdrew, while Muwatalli went on to seize the Egyptian province of Upi around Damascus, keeping Syria Hittite."},{"year":-1259,"text":"Hattusili III and Ramesses II make a peace treaty","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"detail":"After Muwatalli's death, his son Urhi-Teshub (Mursili III) was overthrown by his uncle Hattusili III, who wanted foreign recognition, while Assyria was seizing the former lands of Mitanni and threatening both empires. Around 1259 BCE, in Ramesses II's 21st year, the two powers agreed the 'Eternal Treaty', the oldest known surviving peace treaty, preserved in both an Egyptian version and Akkadian tablets from Hattusa. Each side promised not to invade the other, to help against attackers or rebels, and to return political refugees. A Hittite princess later married Ramesses, and the Syrian frontier stayed fixed."},{"year":-1207,"text":"Suppiluliuma II, the last known Great King, comes to the throne","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"detail":"Hattusili's son Tudhaliya IV lost ground to Assyria, which defeated him at Nihriya, though he briefly took Cyprus. Around 1207 BCE his younger son Suppiluliuma II succeeded his brother Arnuwanda III amid signs of disloyalty at court. He fought to restore control of southern Anatolia, crushing the rebel city of Tarhuntassa, and his fleet won the first recorded naval battle in history off Cyprus. But urgent grain shipments from Egypt point to famine, and enemies were advancing along the coasts from the west. He is the last Great King of Hatti known for certain."},{"year":-1190,"text":"Hattusa is gradually abandoned as the empire collapses","lonlat":[34.62,40.02],"detail":"Around 1190 BCE, as the Late Bronze Age collapse swept the eastern Mediterranean, the Hittite capital came to an end. Excavations suggest Hattusa was gradually abandoned over several decades, possibly amid regional drought; the court may have moved elsewhere, and fire destroyed what remained only after the elites had left. Suppiluliuma II's fate is unknown, and no Hittite king ever returned. The empire vanished as a state and disappears from the map. Only an offshoot survived at Carchemish, whose ruler Kuzi-Teshub, a descendant of Suppiluliuma I, later claimed the title 'Great King'."},{"year":-1185,"text":"Ugarit, a Hittite vassal on the Syrian coast, is destroyed","lonlat":[35.78,35.6],"detail":"Ugarit, a wealthy port on the Syrian coast, had been a Hittite vassal since the days of Suppiluliuma I, trading with Egypt, Cyprus and the Aegean and shipping grain around the region. Its last king, Ammurapi, sent his troops to help the Hittites and his ships to Lukka in Anatolia, leaving his own kingdom exposed. In a famous letter he described enemy ships arriving and his cities burned. Around 1185 BCE Ugarit was destroyed, one of many cities lost in the Late Bronze Age collapse, and with it the Hittites lost their last great ally on the Mediterranean coast."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Hattusili I","from":-1650,"to":-1620},{"name":"Mursili I","from":-1620,"to":-1590},{"name":"Hantili I","from":-1590,"to":-1560},{"name":"Telipinu","from":-1560,"to":-1500},{"name":"Suppiluliuma I","from":-1350,"to":-1322},{"name":"Arnuwanda II","from":-1322,"to":-1321},{"name":"Mursili II","from":-1321,"to":-1295},{"name":"Muwatalli II","from":-1295,"to":-1272},{"name":"Mursili III (Urhi-Teshub)","from":-1272,"to":-1267},{"name":"Hattusili III","from":-1267,"to":-1237},{"name":"Tudhaliya IV","from":-1237,"to":-1209},{"name":"Arnuwanda III","from":-1209,"to":-1207},{"name":"Suppiluliuma II","from":-1207,"to":-1180}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Hittites","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittites"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Hittite kings","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hittite_kings"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Šuppiluliuma I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppiluliuma_I"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Hittites","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Hittites/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ramesses II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Telipinu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telipinu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Kadesh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kadesh"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Šuppiluliuma II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Šuppiluliuma_II"}]},{"id":"egypt-new-kingdom","name":"Egypt's New Kingdom empire","profile":"ancient-egypt","chain":[{"clio":"Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt","from":-1549,"to":-1501},{"clio":"New Kingdom of Egypt","from":-1500,"to":-1077}],"span":[-1549,-1077],"summary":"Ahmose I expelled the Hyksos and reunited Egypt (c. 1549–1524 BCE); his successors, above all Thutmose III, built an empire from Nubia beyond the Fourth Cataract to the Euphrates. Egypt contested Syria with Mitanni and then the Hittites until the treaty of c. 1259 BCE, but after Ramesses III fought off the Sea Peoples its power ebbed, and by Ramesses XI's death in 1077 BCE the country was split between Tanis and Thebes. Reign dates follow the conventional low chronology and are approximate.","events":[{"year":-1549,"text":"Ahmose I becomes king at Thebes and continues the war on the Hyksos","lonlat":[32.65,25.7],"detail":"For about a century the Hyksos, kings of Near Eastern origin, had ruled northern Egypt from Avaris in the Delta, while a native dynasty held Thebes in the south. Ahmose's father, Seqenenre Tao, probably died fighting them, and his brother Kamose raided the lands around Avaris before dying after a short reign. Ahmose came to the throne as a boy of about ten, so the war paused under a regency. His reign, conventionally dated c. 1549–1524 BCE, would finish the struggle and is counted as the start of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the New Kingdom."},{"year":-1531,"text":"Ahmose takes Avaris, then Sharuhen after a 3-year siege: Egypt reunited","lonlat":[31.82,30.79],"detail":"Once grown, Ahmose moved down the eastern Delta and seized the border fortress of Tjaru, cutting Avaris off from help in Canaan. According to the tomb inscription of a soldier, Ahmose son of Ebana, the king attacked Avaris several times and took it on the fourth attempt, probably by his 18th or 19th regnal year. He then besieged the Hyksos stronghold of Sharuhen near Gaza for three years. With the Hyksos gone, Upper and Lower Egypt were one kingdom again, ruled from Thebes, and Egyptian armies stood on the edge of Canaan."},{"year":-1500,"text":"Thutmose I conquers Lower Nubia and reaches the Euphrates at Carchemish","lonlat":[38.01,36.83],"detail":"Thutmose I, a military man who came to power through marriage into the royal family, set out to push Egypt's borders further than ever. In Nubia he built a fortress at Tombos near the Third Cataract, and an inscription of his has been found at Kurgus, beyond the Fourth Cataract. In the Levant he marched to the Euphrates, becoming the first pharaoh to cross it, and set up a victory stele there. The Syrian princes stopped paying tribute after he left, but his campaigns marked out the frontiers, from Nubia to the Euphrates, that later kings tried to hold."},{"year":-1479,"text":"Child-king Thutmose III accedes; Hatshepsut rules, first as regent","lonlat":[32.65,25.7],"detail":"When Thutmose II died, his heir Thutmose III was a small child (estimates of his age range from two to 13). His stepmother and aunt Hatshepsut, Thutmose II's widow and a daughter of Thutmose I, acted as regent. By about the seventh year of the reign she had taken the full titles of a pharaoh and ruled as senior co-king, with Thutmose III as junior partner. Her roughly 20-year rule was mostly peaceful and prosperous, with major building at Karnak and trading expeditions. Thutmose III became sole ruler only at her death, c. 1458 BCE."},{"year":-1457,"text":"Thutmose III defeats a Canaanite coalition at Megiddo","lonlat":[35.18,32.58],"detail":"Soon after Hatshepsut died, the king of Kadesh led a coalition of Canaanite and Syrian rulers that gathered at Megiddo, a fortress controlling the main route north. Thutmose III marched from Egypt and, against his generals' advice, took his army through the narrow Aruna pass, surprising the enemy and routing them. The survivors fled into Megiddo, which surrendered after a siege of about seven months. The battle is usually dated 1457 BCE, though some place it in 1482 or 1479. Taking Megiddo gave Egypt control of northern Canaan and forced the Syrian princes to send tribute and hostages."},{"year":-1447,"text":"Thutmose III crosses the Euphrates to attack Mitanni","lonlat":[38.01,36.83],"detail":"Mitanni, a Hurrian kingdom in northern Syria and Mesopotamia, was Egypt's main rival for Syria. In his 33rd year (c. 1447 BCE), on his eighth campaign, Thutmose III had boats built at Byblos and carried them overland through Syria, past Aleppo and Carchemish. He crossed the Euphrates, catching the Mitannian king unprepared, pillaged towns on the far bank, and set up a stele beside the one left by his grandfather Thutmose I. The raid did not conquer Mitanni, but it showed Egypt's reach and brought gifts from distant kings, which Thutmose recorded as tribute."},{"year":-1430,"text":"Thutmose III campaigns in Nubia as far as the Fourth Cataract","lonlat":[32.33,18.95],"detail":"Egypt's southern empire in Nubia (Kush) supplied gold, ivory, ebony, cattle and soldiers, and was run by a viceroy. In his 50th year, about 1430 BCE, the aging Thutmose III led his last campaign, a march into Nubia as far as the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. No Egyptian king had taken an army so far south before, although Egyptian influence already reached the area around Gebel Barkal. By the end of his reign Egypt directly controlled the Nile valley up to the Fourth Cataract, its greatest southern extent."},{"year":-1351,"text":"Akhenaten promotes the Aten and moves the capital to Amarna","lonlat":[30.9,27.65],"detail":"Amenhotep IV came to the throne c. 1353 or 1351 BCE and in his fifth year renamed himself Akhenaten, 'beneficial to the Aten', the sun disc. He turned away from Amun and the traditional gods and founded a new capital, Akhetaten (modern Amarna), in Middle Egypt. The Amarna letters found there show his vassals in Syria and Canaan pleading for help as the Hittites under Suppiluliuma I replaced Mitanni as the great northern power. Egypt lost the province of Amurru when its ruler went over to the Hittites. After Akhenaten's death the old religion returned and Amarna was abandoned."},{"year":-1292,"text":"Ramesses I founds the 19th Dynasty","lonlat":null,"detail":"Horemheb, a general who became the last king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, had no surviving children. He chose as heir his vizier Paramessu, an army officer from a military family in the Delta, who had a son, Seti, and a grandson to secure the succession. Paramessu took the throne as Ramesses I. His reign lasted only a year or two (often dated 1292–1290 BCE, though 1295–1294 is also cited), but he founded the Nineteenth Dynasty, whose kings Seti I and Ramesses II set out to win back Egypt's lost lands in Syria."},{"year":-1274,"text":"Ramesses II fights the Hittites at Kadesh","lonlat":[36.51,34.57],"detail":"Seti I had briefly recaptured Kadesh and Amurru, but both seem to have slipped back under Hittite control. In his fifth year, generally dated May 1274 BCE, Ramesses II marched north to retake them and met the Hittite king Muwatalli II near Kadesh on the Orontes River. With perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 chariots in all, it may be the largest chariot battle ever fought. Ramesses was ambushed and surrounded, then rallied his troops and drove the Hittites back. The battle ended in stalemate, but Muwatalli kept Kadesh and pushed into Egyptian territory, leaving Egypt's Asian empire limited to Canaan."},{"year":-1259,"text":"Peace treaty with the Hittites settles the Syrian frontier","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Kadesh the fighting dragged on for years, while Egypt worried about the Sea Peoples and the Hittites about rising Assyria. Around 1259 BCE (some accounts give 1258, Ramesses II's 21st year), Ramesses and the Hittite king Hattusili III agreed what is the oldest surviving peace treaty. Both sides promised not to invade each other, to hand back political refugees, and to help each other against enemies. The treaty fixed the Syrian frontier where it stood, with Egypt keeping Canaan and the Hittites holding Kadesh and Amurru, and it kept the peace until the Hittite Empire collapsed decades later."},{"year":-1178,"text":"Ramesses III defeats the Sea Peoples on land at Djahy and at sea in the Delta","lonlat":[31.0,31.4],"detail":"Around 1200 BCE the Late Bronze Age world was falling apart, and groups that scholars call the Sea Peoples, among them the Peleset (Philistines) and Shardana, attacked the eastern Mediterranean. In his eighth year Ramesses III met them twice: on land at Djahy, on Egypt's frontier in the Levant, and in the Nile Delta, where his fleet ambushed their ships while archers lined the banks. Egypt survived when the Hittite Empire and many other states did not. But the cost was high, and the Philistines settled in southern Canaan as Egypt's hold on Asia faded."},{"year":-1077,"text":"Ramesses XI dies; Smendes (Tanis) and Amun's priests (Thebes) divide Egypt","lonlat":[31.88,30.98],"detail":"In the 20th Dynasty Egypt was hit by poor Nile floods, famine, unrest and corruption, and the loss of its empire in Asia. Under Ramesses XI, royal power weakened so far that the High Priests of Amun at Thebes became the real rulers of Upper Egypt, while Smendes controlled the north. When Ramesses XI died in 1077 BCE, Smendes buried him and founded the 21st Dynasty at Tanis in the Delta. The New Kingdom was over: Egypt entered the Third Intermediate Period, divided between Tanis and Thebes, with its foreign empire gone."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Ahmose I","from":-1549,"to":-1524},{"name":"Amenhotep I","from":-1524,"to":-1503},{"name":"Thutmose I","from":-1503,"to":-1493},{"name":"Thutmose II","from":-1493,"to":-1479},{"name":"Hatshepsut (with Thutmose III)","from":-1479,"to":-1458},{"name":"Thutmose III (sole rule)","from":-1458,"to":-1425},{"name":"Amenhotep II","from":-1427,"to":-1397},{"name":"Thutmose IV","from":-1397,"to":-1388},{"name":"Amenhotep III","from":-1388,"to":-1351},{"name":"Akhenaten","from":-1351,"to":-1334},{"name":"Tutankhamun","from":-1332,"to":-1323},{"name":"Ay and Horemheb","from":-1323,"to":-1292},{"name":"Ramesses I and Seti I","from":-1292,"to":-1279},{"name":"Ramesses II","from":-1279,"to":-1213},{"name":"Ramesses III","from":-1185,"to":-1154},{"name":"Ramesses IV–X","from":-1154,"to":-1106},{"name":"Ramesses XI","from":-1106,"to":-1077}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: New Kingdom of Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kingdom_of_Egypt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Dynasty_of_Egypt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Dynasty_of_Egypt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ahmose I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmose_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Thutmose III","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ramesses II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesses_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Thutmose I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Kadesh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kadesh"}]},{"id":"neo-assyrian-empire","name":"Neo-Assyrian Empire","profile":"assyria","chain":[{"clio":"Assyria","from":-911,"to":-901},{"clio":"Neo-Assyrian Empire","from":-900,"to":-609}],"span":[-911,-609],"summary":"From 911 BCE Assyrian kings reconquered northern Mesopotamia, and Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III made Assyria the dominant power of the Near East. After a long spell of weak kings, Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BCE) more than doubled the empire, and the Sargonid kings took Israel, Babylon and, in 671 BCE, Egypt. Within two decades of Ashurbanipal's death the Babylonians and Medes destroyed Assur (614), Nineveh (612) and the last Assyrian army at Harran (609).","events":[{"year":-911,"text":"Adad-nirari II becomes king and begins reconquering northern Mesopotamia","lonlat":[43.26,35.46],"detail":"In the late 11th century BCE Assyria had lost most of its earlier empire, and Aramean tribes had settled across northern Mesopotamia. Adad-nirari II, king from 911 BCE, continued a slow reconquest begun by his father. He defeated and deported Arameans after a battle where the Khabur meets the Euphrates in 910, subdued peoples in eastern Anatolia, twice beat the king of Babylonia and annexed land north of the Diyala River. His reign is counted as the start of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as Assyria began to win back the lands it had once ruled."},{"year":-879,"text":"Ashurnasirpal II makes Nimrud (Kalhu) his capital","lonlat":[43.33,36.1],"detail":"Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) made Assyria the leading power of the Near East again. His campaigns reached the Mediterranean, where Phoenician cities paid him tribute, and he was notorious for brutality towards rebels. In 879 BCE he made Kalhu (Nimrud), a ruined town on the Tigris, his capital instead of the old city of Assur, using thousands of workers and captives to build walls, temples and a great palace. An inscription claims 69,574 guests attended its inauguration feast. Kalhu stayed the imperial capital until 706 BCE, while Assur remained the religious centre."},{"year":-853,"text":"Shalmaneser III fights a Levantine coalition at Qarqar","lonlat":[36.33,35.8],"detail":"Shalmaneser III continued his father's wars and pushed west into Syria. In 853 BCE (854 in some reckonings) he met a coalition of about a dozen rulers at Qarqar on the Orontes River, led by Hadadezer of Damascus and including Ahab of Israel. His own inscription lists tens of thousands of enemy troops and thousands of chariots; the battle also contains the first known mention of Arabs. Shalmaneser claimed a great victory, but it was probably indecisive: the coalition kings kept their thrones and he had to fight them again several times. Assyria could not yet take the Levant."},{"year":-745,"text":"Tiglath-Pileser III seizes power after the 'age of the magnates'","lonlat":[43.33,36.1],"detail":"After Shalmaneser III died in 824 BCE, Assyria entered the 'age of the magnates', when powerful generals and officials held real power and the kings were weak. Rivals grew bolder: in 754 BCE Urartu, a kingdom to the north, defeated the Assyrian army at Arpad. In 746/745 a revolt broke out in Kalhu, and Tiglath-Pileser III, most likely a usurper from within the royal family, took the throne. He reformed the army and the provinces, deported conquered peoples on a huge scale, and more than doubled the empire's territory."},{"year":-729,"text":"Tiglath-Pileser III takes Babylon","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Babylonia, south of Assyria, was home to old cities and to Chaldean tribes whose chiefs fought over its throne. In 731 BCE the Chaldean chief Nabu-mukin-zeri made himself king of Babylon, which Tiglath-Pileser saw as a threat. After several years of war he captured Babylon in 729 BCE and proclaimed himself king of both Assyria and Babylon. From then on Assyria tried to rule Babylonia directly or through chosen kings, adding the rich south to the empire but also taking on a land that rebelled again and again."},{"year":-722,"text":"Samaria falls, ending the Kingdom of Israel; Sargon II takes the throne","lonlat":[35.19,32.28],"detail":"The Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, had rebelled against Assyrian overlordship. After a siege of several years, the Assyrians took Samaria in the 720s, ended the kingdom, deported much of its population and made it the province of Samerina. Sargon II later claimed the conquest, but historians think his predecessor Shalmaneser V more likely took the city. In 722 BCE Sargon, probably Shalmaneser's brother, seized the throne, most likely in a palace coup. He founded the Sargonid dynasty, which would rule Assyria at its height."},{"year":-714,"text":"Sargon II defeats Rusa I of Urartu near Lake Urmia and sacks Musasir","lonlat":[45.4,37.5],"detail":"Urartu, centred around Lake Van, was Assyria's great rival in the north. In 714 BCE Sargon II marched into the mountains by a long route to surprise King Rusa I, defeated the Urartian army after Rusa tried to drive him back, and on the way home plundered the holy city of Musasir, carrying off enormous spoils. Sargon treated it as one of the great events of his reign and had the sack carved on his palace walls. Urartu stayed powerful and Rusa retook Musasir, but there were no more direct clashes between the two for the rest of Sargon's reign."},{"year":-705,"text":"Sennacherib becomes king and makes Nineveh the capital","lonlat":[43.15,36.36],"detail":"In 705 BCE Sargon II was killed fighting in Anatolia and his body was never recovered, which Assyrians took as a sign of divine anger. His son Sennacherib abandoned Sargon's new capital at Dur-Sharrukin and moved the court to Nineveh, where he had lived as crown prince. There he launched one of the most ambitious building projects of the ancient world, with huge walls, temples, gardens and his 'Palace without Rival'. Nineveh remained the capital until the empire's fall. Sargon's death also set off revolts, above all in Babylonia, that Sennacherib spent years putting down."},{"year":-701,"text":"Sennacherib invades the Levant and besieges Jerusalem","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"detail":"Encouraged by Egypt and by the Babylonian rebel Marduk-apla-iddina, vassals in the Levant, including Hezekiah of Judah, stopped paying tribute. In 701 BCE Sennacherib marched west, took Sidon and Ashkelon, defeated an Egyptian army and captured most towns of Judah, including Lachish after a famous siege shown on his palace reliefs. He trapped Hezekiah in Jerusalem but did not take the city. The Bible tells of an angel destroying the Assyrian army, but Assyrian records show Hezekiah submitting, paying heavy tribute and losing land to Assyria's neighbouring vassals. Assyrian control of the Levant was restored."},{"year":-689,"text":"Sennacherib destroys Babylon","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Babylon rebelled against Sennacherib repeatedly, often with help from Elam. In 694 BCE the Elamites captured his son Ashur-nadin-shumi, whom he had made king of Babylon, and probably executed him. A new Babylonian king, Mushezib-Marduk, then fought Sennacherib at Halule in 691, a battle both sides claimed to have won. Sennacherib besieged Babylon for over fifteen months and in 689 BCE took it and destroyed it, seizing the property of its gods. The destruction shocked Babylonians, and Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon later rebuilt the city."},{"year":-671,"text":"Esarhaddon conquers Egypt: the empire's greatest extent","lonlat":[31.25,29.85],"detail":"Egypt, ruled by Kushite pharaohs, had long encouraged rebels against Assyria. Esarhaddon's first invasion, in 673 BCE, seems to have failed badly. In early 671 he marched again with a larger army, won three battles and captured and plundered Memphis, Egypt's capital. The conquest made the Assyrian Empire the largest the world had yet seen, reaching from the Nile across the Levant and Mesopotamia to the Zagros. It was hard to hold: Egypt rebelled repeatedly, and Psamtik I, at first an Assyrian vassal, had made it fully independent by 656 BCE."},{"year":-648,"text":"Babylon falls to Ashurbanipal after his brother's revolt (652–648)","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Esarhaddon arranged that his son Ashurbanipal would rule the empire, while another son, Shamash-shum-ukin, would be king of Babylon. Resenting his younger brother's control, Shamash-shum-ukin revolted in 652 BCE and gathered a coalition of Assyria's enemies against him. Ashurbanipal besieged Babylon for two years; according to his account, the starving citizens even ate their own children. Babylon fell in 648 BCE, Shamash-shum-ukin died during the siege, and the city was plundered. Assyria kept Babylonia, but the war left it bitter towards Assyrian rule."},{"year":-646,"text":"Ashurbanipal's army destroys Elam's centres and plunders Susa","lonlat":[48.25,32.19],"detail":"Elam, in south-western Iran, was Assyria's oldest enemy and had backed Babylonian rebels for decades. After earlier wars, Ashurbanipal's armies returned in 646 BCE, chased the Elamite king Humban-haltash into the mountains and crushed all of Elam's main centres. On the way home they plundered the ancient capital, Susa: according to Ashurbanipal's inscriptions they desecrated the royal tombs, looted the temples, carried off the statues of the gods and sowed salt in the ground. Elam's power was broken, and nearby peoples, including the Persians, began paying tribute to Assyria instead."},{"year":-612,"text":"Medes and Babylonians sack Nineveh","lonlat":[43.15,36.36],"detail":"After Ashurbanipal died, around 631 BCE, Assyria was weakened by succession struggles, and Nabopolassar made Babylonia independent. The Medes under Cyaxares joined the war, sacking Assur in 614 BCE. In 612 the Medes and Babylonians besieged Nineveh, one of the greatest cities in the world, for about three months, then broke in, plundered and burned it. King Sin-shar-ishkun is assumed to have died in the sack. Assyria's heartland was lost, and only a remnant of the army escaped west under a new king, Ashur-uballit II."},{"year":-609,"text":"Ashur-uballit II defeated at Harran: the empire ends","lonlat":[39.03,36.87],"detail":"Ashur-uballit II set himself up at Harran, in the west of the old empire, where he was backed by Egypt, which feared Babylonian power. Because Assur had fallen, he could not be crowned in the traditional way. In late 610 or early 609 BCE the Babylonians and Medes captured Harran, and a few months later an attempt by Ashur-uballit and an Egyptian army to retake it failed disastrously. Ashur-uballit then disappears from the records. The Neo-Assyrian Empire was gone, and its lands were divided between the Babylonians in the west and south and the Medes in the north and east."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Adad-nirari II","from":-911,"to":-891},{"name":"Tukulti-Ninurta II","from":-890,"to":-884},{"name":"Ashurnasirpal II","from":-884,"to":-859},{"name":"Shalmaneser III","from":-859,"to":-824},{"name":"Age of the magnates (Shamshi-Adad V to Ashur-nirari V)","from":-824,"to":-745},{"name":"Tiglath-Pileser III","from":-745,"to":-727},{"name":"Shalmaneser V","from":-727,"to":-722},{"name":"Sargon II","from":-722,"to":-705},{"name":"Sennacherib","from":-705,"to":-681},{"name":"Esarhaddon","from":-681,"to":-669},{"name":"Ashurbanipal","from":-669,"to":-631},{"name":"Ashur-etil-ilani","from":-631,"to":-627},{"name":"Sin-shar-ishkun","from":-627,"to":-612},{"name":"Ashur-uballit II","from":-612,"to":-609}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Neo-Assyrian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Assyrian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Assyrian kings","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Assyrian_kings"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sargon II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashurbanipal","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurbanipal"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Neo-Babylonian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Babylonian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Qarqar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qarqar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sennacherib","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennacherib"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Nineveh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Nineveh"}]},{"id":"neo-babylonian-empire","name":"Neo-Babylonian Empire (Nebuchadnezzar II)","profile":"babylonia","chain":[{"clio":"Babylonia","from":-626,"to":-601},{"clio":"Neo-Babylonian Empire","from":-600,"to":-539}],"span":[-626,-539],"summary":"Nabopolassar threw off Assyrian rule in 626 BCE and, allied with the Medes, destroyed Assyria by 609 BCE. His son Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE) won Syria and the Levant at Carchemish, destroyed Jerusalem in 587 BCE and rebuilt Babylon in splendour. After his death three short reigns ended in Nabonidus, whose long absence in Arabia left Babylon exposed; Cyrus of Persia took the city in 539 BCE.","events":[{"year":-626,"text":"Nabopolassar seizes Babylon and Nippur and is crowned king","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Babylonia had been ruled by Assyria for more than a century, and a civil war in Assyria after Ashurbanipal's death left the south unstable. Nabopolassar, a man of unclear origin who called himself 'son of a nobody', seized Babylon and Nippur in 626 BCE. The Assyrians struck back, retaking Nippur and besieging him at Uruk and in Babylon, but both sieges failed. On 22/23 November 626 BCE he was crowned king of Babylon. Babylonia was independent again, though it took nearly ten more years of fighting to push the Assyrians out completely."},{"year":-614,"text":"Medes take Assur; Nabopolassar allies with them","lonlat":[43.26,35.46],"detail":"By 616 BCE Nabopolassar was carrying the war into Assyria itself, but he could not break it alone. In 615 or 614 the Medes of western Iran under King Cyaxares invaded Assyria. In the summer of 614 BCE they besieged Assur, the ancient religious heart of Assyria, and sacked it brutally; even the hostile Babylonian chronicles were shocked. Nabopolassar arrived after the sack, met Cyaxares and signed an alliance against Assyria, sealed by the marriage of his son Nebuchadnezzar to Cyaxares's daughter Amytis. Together the two powers now had the strength to destroy the Assyrian Empire."},{"year":-612,"text":"Nineveh falls after a siege","lonlat":[43.15,36.36],"detail":"In 612 BCE the Babylonians and Medes joined forces against Nineveh, Assyria's capital and one of the largest cities in the world. After a siege of about three months, they broke through in August and plundered and burned the city, massacring many of its people. The Assyrian king Sin-shar-ishkun probably died defending it, and other Assyrian cities such as Nimrud were also attacked. The Assyrian heartland was lost; a remnant of the army fled west to Harran. Babylon now stood to inherit Assyria's lands in Mesopotamia, Syria and the Levant."},{"year":-609,"text":"Last Assyrian king defeated at Harran","lonlat":[39.03,36.87],"detail":"The last Assyrian ruler, Ashur-uballit II, held out at Harran in the west, backed by Egypt, which wanted Assyria to survive as a buffer against Babylon and the Medes. In late 610 or early 609 BCE the Babylonians and Medes took Harran. A few months later Ashur-uballit and an Egyptian army under Pharaoh Necho II tried to retake the city and failed, and Ashur-uballit disappears from history. Assyria was finished, but Egypt kept fighting, and Necho's army held Syria and the Levant as far as Carchemish on the Euphrates."},{"year":-605,"text":"Crown prince Nebuchadnezzar routs Egypt at Carchemish, then becomes king","lonlat":[38.01,36.83],"detail":"Necho II had made Carchemish, a key crossing and trading city on the Euphrates, his base in Syria. Around 605 BCE, Nabopolassar, perhaps ill, sent his eldest son and crown prince Nebuchadnezzar in sole command. Nebuchadnezzar crossed the river, crushed the Egyptian army and chased the survivors to the region of Hamath. News then came that Nabopolassar had died, and Nebuchadnezzar hurried back to Babylon, where he was proclaimed king in mid-August. The victory opened Syria and the Levant to Babylon and made it the dominant power of the Near East."},{"year":-604,"text":"Nebuchadnezzar II destroys Ashkelon","lonlat":[34.55,31.66],"detail":"After Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar marched west almost every year to make the cities of the Levant accept his rule; the rulers of Phoenicia swore loyalty to him. In 604 BCE he attacked Ashkelon (Ascalon), a Philistine port on the coast, which had looked to Egypt for support. According to the Babylonian Chronicle its king was captured and taken to Babylon, and the city was plundered and levelled; excavations at the site confirm that it was largely destroyed then. The harsh example warned other cities in the region what rebellion would cost."},{"year":-601,"text":"Invasion of Egypt ends in heavy losses on both sides","lonlat":null,"detail":"Even after its defeat at Carchemish, Egypt kept great influence in the Levant and encouraged cities there to resist Babylon. In 601 BCE Nebuchadnezzar took the risky step of marching across the Sinai to invade Egypt itself. According to the Babylonian Chronicle, both armies suffered huge numbers of casualties, and the invasion failed. Nebuchadnezzar spent the next year in Babylon rebuilding his chariot forces. Egypt was not conquered, and the setback may have encouraged Judah and others to rebel, though Necho II gave up his own ambitions in the Levant."},{"year":-597,"text":"Jerusalem taken; King Jehoiachin deported to Babylon","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"detail":"Jehoiakim, king of Judah, stopped obeying Babylon around 601 BCE, expecting help from Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar marched on Jerusalem in late 598 BCE, and the Babylonian Chronicle records that he took the city on 2 Addaru (March) 597 BCE and captured its king. Jehoiakim had died during the siege, and his young son Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) was taken to Babylon, where later records list him receiving food rations at the palace. Nebuchadnezzar installed Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah as king and carried off heavy tribute, keeping Judah as a vassal state."},{"year":-587,"text":"Jerusalem destroyed after Zedekiah's revolt; Babylonian captivity begins","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"detail":"Encouraged by Egypt, Zedekiah refused tribute to Babylon in 589 BCE. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, according to the Bible for 18 to 30 months, and in the summer of 587 BCE (some date it 586) took and destroyed the city and its temple. Zedekiah was captured, his sons were executed, and he was blinded and taken to Babylon. Much of the population was deported to Babylonia, beginning the Babylonian captivity, and archaeology confirms Jerusalem was destroyed and emptied. The Kingdom of Judah ended, and the southern Levant became a Babylonian province."},{"year":-573,"text":"Tyre submits after a siege begun c. 586","lonlat":[35.2,33.27],"detail":"Tyre, a rich Phoenician port, had rebelled around the same time as Judah. Part of the city stood on an island about 800 metres off the coast and could not be taken without a navy. Nebuchadnezzar's siege is said to have lasted 13 years, usually dated c. 586 to 573 BCE, though the length comes only from the historian Josephus and is debated. The Babylonians destroyed the mainland town but never took the island. In the end the Tyrians negotiated a surrender, and Tyre remained under its own vassal kings, more tightly controlled by Babylon."},{"year":-562,"text":"Nebuchadnezzar II dies in Babylon","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Nebuchadnezzar II ruled for 43 years, the longest of the Neo-Babylonian kings, and is remembered as the empire's greatest. Besides his wars, he rebuilt Babylon on a grand scale: the temple of Marduk (Esagila), the great ziggurat Etemenanki, palaces, the processional way and the Ishtar Gate. His later attacks on Egypt failed, and his empire's borders grew little after Carchemish. He died in Babylon in 562 BCE. His son Amel-Marduk followed, but was soon overthrown, the first of three short reigns that weakened the dynasty."},{"year":-556,"text":"Nabonidus takes the throne after Labashi-Marduk is assassinated","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Neriglissar, who had seized the throne from Amel-Marduk, died in 556 BCE, and his son Labashi-Marduk became king. Within one to three months he was deposed and murdered in a plot probably led by Belshazzar, son of an elderly official named Nabonidus, who was then proclaimed king. Nabonidus was not of Babylonian royal descent; his mother came from Harran in former Assyria and was devoted to the moon god Sin. His favour for Sin over Babylon's great god Marduk soon set him at odds with Babylon's priests and leaders."},{"year":-543,"text":"Nabonidus returns from about ten years at Tayma in Arabia","lonlat":[38.55,27.63],"detail":"In 553 BCE Nabonidus left Babylon on campaign in Arabia and then stayed at the oasis of Tayma in northern Arabia from 552 to 543/542 BCE. Why he went is unknown, but quarrels with Babylon's priests and elite may be the reason. His son Belshazzar ruled Babylonia as regent, while Nabonidus remained king. Babylon's great New Year festival was suspended while he was away. When Nabonidus returned, he pushed his favour for Sin harder, rebuilding Sin's temple at Harran, deepening the anger of the Marduk priesthood as Persia grew stronger on Babylon's borders."},{"year":-539,"text":"Cyrus wins at Opis; his army enters Babylon on 12 October","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"By 539 BCE Babylonia was the last great power in western Asia outside Persian control. In September or October of that year, Cyrus the Great invaded and defeated the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris, north of Babylon. Sippar then surrendered, and on 12 October Persian forces entered Babylon. Babylonian sources say they took it without a battle, while Greek historians describe a siege. Nabonidus was captured but, according to several sources, spared, and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the last kingdom ruled by native Mesopotamian kings, passed to Persia."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Nabopolassar","from":-626,"to":-605},{"name":"Nebuchadnezzar II","from":-605,"to":-562},{"name":"Amel-Marduk","from":-562,"to":-560},{"name":"Neriglissar","from":-560,"to":-556},{"name":"Labashi-Marduk","from":-556,"to":-556},{"name":"Nabonidus (with Belshazzar as regent)","from":-556,"to":-539}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Neo-Babylonian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Babylonian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nebuchadnezzar II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Neo-Assyrian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Assyrian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nabopolassar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabopolassar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nabonidus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabonidus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Opis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Opis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Babylon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Babylon"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Tyre (586–573 BC)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_(586–573_BC)"}]},{"id":"achaemenid-empire","name":"Achaemenid Persian Empire","profile":"achaemenid-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Achaemenid Empire","from":-550,"to":-330}],"span":[-550,-330],"summary":"Cyrus the Great overthrew the Medes in 550 BCE and took Lydia and Babylon; Cambyses added Egypt and Darius I pushed the frontier to the Indus and into Europe, ruling c. 5.5 million km², the largest empire yet seen. Defeats in Greece (490, 480–479 BCE) and the loss of Egypt (404–343 BCE) dented but did not break it; Alexander of Macedon destroyed it in 334–330 BCE.","events":[{"year":-550,"text":"Cyrus defeats the Medes and takes Ecbatana","lonlat":[48.52,34.8],"detail":"Cyrus, king of the small Persian realm of Anshan in south-western Iran from 559 BCE, was a vassal of his grandfather Astyages, king of the Medes, whose empire stretched across much of Iran and beyond. According to the Nabonidus Chronicle, Astyages attacked Cyrus, but part of the Median army mutinied; Herodotus says the general Harpagus defected to Cyrus. After fighting that lasted about three years (553–550 BCE), Cyrus captured Astyages and took the Median capital Ecbatana. The Median Empire's lands and vassals passed to Cyrus, turning Persia almost overnight into the leading power of Iran."},{"year":-547,"text":"Cyrus conquers Lydia and captures Sardis","lonlat":[28.04,38.49],"detail":"Croesus, the rich king of Lydia in western Anatolia, attacked Persian territory in Cappadocia and took the city of Pteria. Cyrus marched west; after an indecisive battle at Pteria, Croesus fell back to his capital, Sardis, expecting to wait for allies. Cyrus instead followed him in winter, routed the Lydian cavalry (Herodotus says the horses panicked at the smell of his camels) and captured Sardis and Croesus. The date is uncertain: 547 BCE was long accepted, but 546 is also given. Lydia and soon the Greek cities of Ionia came under Persian rule, carrying the empire to the Aegean."},{"year":-539,"text":"Cyrus takes Babylon and its empire","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Babylonia was the last great power in western Asia outside Persian rule, and its king Nabonidus was unpopular with Babylon's priests. In 539 BCE Cyrus defeated the Babylonian army at Opis on the Tigris, Sippar surrendered, and his forces entered Babylon in October, by Babylonian accounts without a battle. On the Cyrus Cylinder he presented himself as chosen by Babylon's god Marduk and claimed to have returned displaced peoples and restored temples; the Bible records his decree letting the Jewish exiles return to Jerusalem. Babylon's empire, probably including Syria and the Levant, became Persian."},{"year":-525,"text":"Cambyses II defeats Psamtik III at Pelusium and conquers Egypt","lonlat":[32.57,31.04],"detail":"Egypt, under the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, was the last great independent kingdom of the Near East. Cyrus's son Cambyses II built a navy from Phoenician and Anatolian ships and made a treaty with the Arabs who controlled the desert route. In spring 525 BCE he defeated the new pharaoh Psamtik III at Pelusium on Egypt's eastern border; one later story says he put animals sacred to the Egyptians in his front line. He then besieged and took Memphis. By summer all Egypt was under Persian rule, and the Libyans and the Greeks of Cyrene soon submitted too."},{"year":-522,"text":"Darius I seizes the throne after the disputed succession","lonlat":null,"detail":"In 522 BCE Cambyses died on his way back from Egypt to deal with a revolt by a man claiming to be his brother Bardiya. According to Darius's own Behistun Inscription, the real Bardiya had been secretly killed, and the rebel was an impostor named Gaumata. In September 522 Darius, a distant relative of Cyrus, and six other nobles killed the man at the fortress of Sikayauvati. Most modern historians doubt this story and suspect Darius invented it to justify seizing the throne. Darius then faced revolts across the empire and crushed them all, then reorganised the empire into satrapies with a common coinage."},{"year":-515,"text":"Darius conquers the lands around the Indus (Hindush)","lonlat":null,"detail":"Cyrus may already have taken Gandhara in the far east of the empire, and Darius's Behistun Inscription lists it as Persian by about 518 BCE. According to one reconstruction, in 516 BCE Darius campaigned through Central Asia and Afghanistan to Taxila, wintered in Gandhara, and in 515 conquered the lands around the Indus River. His inscriptions list a new province, Hindush, whose exact location is uncertain, and according to Herodotus he sent the Greek Scylax of Caryanda to sail down the Indus and back to Egypt. The Indus valley became the empire's eastern frontier and, according to Herodotus, a rich source of gold."},{"year":-513,"text":"Darius invades European Scythia and subdues parts of the Balkans","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Scythians were nomads living north of the Black Sea and Danube who threatened Persia's northern borders and trade. Around 513 BCE Darius crossed the Bosporus on a bridge of boats, marched through Thrace and crossed the Danube into Scythia. The Scythians refused battle, retreating and laying waste the land, and after a month of chasing them Darius's army, worn down by hunger and sickness, turned back. The campaign itself won no territory beyond the Danube, but it brought Thrace under Persian rule and made Macedonia a vassal, extending the empire into Europe."},{"year":-499,"text":"Ionian Revolt begins, the first great war between Greeks and Persia","lonlat":[27.28,37.53],"detail":"Persia ruled the Greek cities of Ionia, on Anatolia's west coast, through local tyrants. In 499 BCE Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, led a failed Persian expedition against Naxos and, fearing he would lose his power, stirred Ionia to revolt. With help from Athens and Eretria, the rebels burned Sardis in 498, and the revolt spread to Caria and Cyprus. Persia struck back, crushed the Ionian fleet at Lade in 494 and took Miletus, and by 493 the revolt was over. Darius then set out to punish Athens and Eretria, starting the Greco-Persian Wars."},{"year":-490,"text":"Persian expedition defeated at Marathon","lonlat":[23.97,38.12],"detail":"To punish Athens and Eretria for helping the Ionian Revolt, Darius sent a fleet under Datis and Artaphernes across the Aegean in 490 BCE. After subduing the Cyclades and sacking Eretria, the Persians landed at Marathon, near Athens. The Athenians, helped by Plataea and led by the general Miltiades, attacked and enveloped the Persian centre with their strengthened flanks. According to Herodotus, 6,400 Persians died against 192 Athenians. The Persians sailed back to Asia, and Darius began raising a new army, but a revolt in Egypt in 486 and his death delayed the next invasion."},{"year":-480,"text":"Xerxes invades Greece; his fleet is beaten at Salamis","lonlat":[23.57,37.95],"detail":"Darius's son Xerxes led a vast invasion of Greece by land and sea in 480 BCE. After the Spartan-led rearguard was destroyed at Thermopylae, the Persians took and burned Athens, whose people had been evacuated. The Athenian general Themistocles lured the larger Persian fleet into the narrow straits off the island of Salamis, where it was badly beaten. Xerxes returned to Asia with much of his army, and in 479 the force he left behind was defeated at Plataea and the fleet at Mycale. Persia never again tried to conquer mainland Greece."},{"year":-404,"text":"Egypt breaks away under Amyrtaeus","lonlat":null,"detail":"Egypt had rebelled against Persian rule several times. Amyrtaeus, probably a relative of the old Saite kings, had led a guerrilla war in the western Delta since about 411 BCE. When Darius II died in 404, the new king Artaxerxes II gathered an army to retake Egypt, but a struggle with his brother Cyrus the Younger kept it from marching. Amyrtaeus became pharaoh in 404, though Persian rule was still recognised in the far south until about 401. Egypt, one of the empire's richest provinces, stayed independent for roughly six decades."},{"year":-343,"text":"Artaxerxes III reconquers Egypt","lonlat":[31.25,29.85],"detail":"Artaxerxes III, who killed many of his own relatives to secure his throne, was determined to win Egypt back. His first invasion, around 351 BCE, was crushed by Pharaoh Nectanebo II, and revolts followed in Phoenicia and Cyprus. After crushing those, he led a huge army with Greek mercenaries into Egypt, forced Pelusium and Bubastis to surrender, and drove Nectanebo to flee. The reconquest is traditionally dated 343 BCE, though many scholars now place it in 340 or 339. Egypt was harshly treated, its temples looted, and it stayed Persian until Alexander arrived."},{"year":-334,"text":"Alexander invades and wins at the Granicus","lonlat":[27.3,40.2],"detail":"Philip II of Macedon had planned to invade Persia, and after his murder in 336 BCE his son Alexander took over the plan. In 334 Alexander crossed the Hellespont with an army of around 48,000 soldiers. In May he met the army of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor at the Granicus River and won, nearly losing his life in the cavalry fighting, then destroyed the Greek mercenaries in Persian service. Sardis surrendered with its treasury, and the Greek cities of the coast followed. Western Anatolia was lost to Persia."},{"year":-331,"text":"Alexander defeats Darius III at Gaugamela","lonlat":[43.45,36.56],"detail":"After defeating Darius III at Issus in 333 BCE, Alexander took the Levant and Egypt, then marched into Mesopotamia. Darius gathered a huge army and met him at Gaugamela, north of Arbela (modern Erbil), on 1 October 331 BCE. Though heavily outnumbered, the Macedonians won through better tactics, and Darius fled east. Babylon surrendered to Alexander, followed by Susa and the Persian capital Persepolis, with their vast treasuries. Darius would never raise another imperial army, and the empire's western and central heartlands now belonged to Alexander."},{"year":-330,"text":"Darius III is killed; the empire passes to Alexander","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Gaugamela, Darius III fled to Ecbatana and then east towards Bactria, hoping to raise another army, while Alexander burned Persepolis and pursued him. In 330 BCE, as Alexander closed in, Darius was murdered by his relative Bessus, satrap of Bactria, and other nobles. Alexander gave him a royal burial at Persepolis, then hunted down Bessus, who had claimed the throne, and had him executed. Most remaining satraps went over to Alexander. The Achaemenid Empire, which had lasted some 220 years, ended, and its lands became part of Alexander's empire."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Cyrus the Great (king of Persia from 559)","from":-550,"to":-530},{"name":"Cambyses II","from":-530,"to":-522},{"name":"Darius I the Great","from":-522,"to":-486},{"name":"Xerxes I","from":-486,"to":-465},{"name":"Artaxerxes I","from":-465,"to":-424},{"name":"Darius II","from":-423,"to":-405},{"name":"Artaxerxes II","from":-405,"to":-358},{"name":"Artaxerxes III","from":-358,"to":-338},{"name":"Artaxerxes IV (Arses)","from":-338,"to":-336},{"name":"Darius III","from":-336,"to":-330}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Achaemenid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Darius the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_the_Great"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Achaemenid Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Achaemenid_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alexander the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cyrus the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cambyses II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambyses_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Artaxerxes III","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artaxerxes_III"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bardiya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardiya"}]},{"id":"rome","name":"Roman Republic and Empire","profile":"roman-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Roman Republic","from":-500,"to":-32},{"clio":"Roman Empire","from":-31,"to":394},{"clio":"Western Roman Empire","from":395,"to":475}],"span":[-509,476],"summary":"The Roman Republic (from c. 509 BCE) conquered Italy, then defeated Carthage and the Hellenistic kingdoms to dominate the Mediterranean, before civil wars ended in one-man rule under Augustus (27 BCE). The Empire peaked under Trajan at about 5 million km² (117 CE), survived the crisis of the third century, and was split for good between East and West in 395. The Western half lost its provinces to Germanic peoples and ended when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus in 476.","events":[{"year":-509,"text":"Monarchy overthrown; the Republic, led by two annual consuls, begins","lonlat":[12.48,41.89],"detail":"According to Roman tradition, Rome was ruled by kings until the last of them, Tarquinius Superbus, was driven out after his son Sextus raped the noblewoman Lucretia. The rebels replaced the monarchy with a republic in which two consuls, elected every year, held the highest power, so that no single man could rule for life. The traditional date of 509 BCE comes from a chronology assembled centuries later, and many modern scholars treat the story as largely legendary. Whatever the details, the new Republic was still only a small city-state on the Tiber, one power among many in central Italy."},{"year":-338,"text":"Rome defeats the Latin League and dominates Latium","lonlat":[12.48,41.89],"detail":"In the 4th century BCE Rome led a league of neighbouring Latin cities, but the Latins resented its growing dominance and went to war in 340 BCE. After defeats at Trifanum and finally at Pedum in 338 BCE, the Latin League was dissolved. Rome did not simply crush the Latins: their territory was brought into the Roman sphere, and the cities received partial rights or varying levels of Roman citizenship that tied them to Rome. The settlement made Rome master of Latium and gave it a model for ruling conquered Italians that fuelled its expansion across the peninsula."},{"year":-272,"text":"Tarentum surrenders: Rome controls peninsular Italy","lonlat":[17.24,40.47],"detail":"The Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy feared Roman expansion, and in 281 BCE it invited King Pyrrhus of Epirus to fight on its side. Pyrrhus beat the Romans at Heraclea and Asculum, but at such cost that a 'Pyrrhic victory' became a byword, and after fighting at Beneventum in 275 BCE he withdrew to Greece. In 272 BCE Tarentum fell to Rome, and its Epirote garrison was allowed to sail home. Rome now controlled peninsular Italy, and its victory over a Hellenistic king showed that it had become a major Mediterranean power."},{"year":-241,"text":"First Punic War won; Sicily becomes the first province","lonlat":[14.1,37.5],"detail":"Rome's first war with Carthage, the great sea power of North Africa, began in 264 BCE over Messana in Sicily and lasted 23 years, the greatest naval war of antiquity. After immense losses on both sides, the Romans slowly occupied most of the island. In 241 BCE a Roman fleet destroyed a Carthaginian relief force off the Aegates Islands, leaving Carthage's army in Sicily cut off and forcing it to seek peace. Carthage paid large reparations and gave up Sicily, which became Rome's first province outside Italy and the start of an overseas empire."},{"year":-202,"text":"Rome defeats Carthage at Zama, winning the Second Punic War","lonlat":[8.36,36.22],"detail":"In the Second Punic War Hannibal invaded Italy, but Rome fought back in Spain, where Scipio cleared out the Carthaginians in five years, and then carried the war to Africa. Carthage recalled Hannibal from Italy to defend the homeland. At Zama in 202 BCE, in what is now Tunisia, Scipio's army of about 40,000, stronger in cavalry, defeated Hannibal's larger force and its 80 war elephants. The peace stripped Carthage of all its lands outside Africa and some within it. Spain passed to Rome, and Carthage was left a subordinate power, no longer a rival for the western Mediterranean."},{"year":-146,"text":"Carthage destroyed; Achaean League crushed at Corinth","lonlat":[10.32,36.85],"detail":"By the mid-2nd century BCE Rome dominated the Mediterranean but still crushed any sign of resistance. In the Third Punic War (149–146 BCE) a Roman army besieged Carthage; in 146 the city was stormed and systematically destroyed, and some 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. The same year, in Greece, the consul Lucius Mummius defeated the Achaean League at Corinth, burned the city and enslaved its women and children. Carthage's lands became the Roman province of Africa, and the rest of Greece fell under Roman control beside the new province of Macedonia."},{"year":-58,"text":"Caesar's Gallic Wars begin with the campaign against the Helvetii","lonlat":[6.14,46.2],"detail":"Julius Caesar, an ambitious general deep in debt, wanted military glory to boost his political career. In 58 BCE the migration of the Helvetii from what is now Switzerland gave him a reason to intervene in Gaul, and by 57 he had resolved to conquer all of it. Over the following years he fought Gallic, Germanic and British peoples, crossing twice to Britain, and in 52 BCE he crushed the great revolt led by Vercingetorix at the siege of Alesia. Rome's rule now extended over the whole of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium and Switzerland), pushing its frontier to the Rhine."},{"year":-31,"text":"Octavian defeats Antony and Cleopatra at Actium; Egypt annexed in 30","lonlat":[20.73,38.95],"detail":"After Julius Caesar's murder, his heir Octavian and the general Mark Antony shared power, but Antony allied himself with Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the two men became rivals. On 2 September 31 BCE Octavian's fleet, commanded by Marcus Agrippa, defeated Antony and Cleopatra off Actium in western Greece. Octavian pursued them to Alexandria, which fell on 1 August 30 BCE, and both took their own lives. Egypt, the last surviving kingdom of Alexander's successors, was annexed, and Octavian, given the name Augustus in 27 BCE, ruled as the first emperor: the Republic had given way to one-man rule."},{"year":9,"text":"Germanic coalition destroys three Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest","lonlat":[8.13,52.41],"detail":"Under Augustus, Rome tried to bring Germania, the lands beyond the Rhine, under its control. In 9 CE the governor Publius Quinctilius Varus led three legions and their auxiliaries into the Teutoburg Forest, where they were ambushed and destroyed by a Germanic alliance led by Arminius, a chieftain who had served as an officer in Varus's own auxiliary troops. Later campaigns under Tiberius and Germanicus took revenge but did not reconquer the region. The disaster ended Augustus's expansion in the north, and the Rhine became the lasting border between the Empire and free Germania."},{"year":117,"text":"Trajan dies with the empire at its greatest extent","lonlat":null,"detail":"Trajan, emperor from 98 to 117 CE, was a soldier-emperor who led one of Rome's greatest military expansions. He conquered Dacia north of the Danube and annexed Nabataea in Arabia, then attacked the Parthian Empire and made Armenia, Mesopotamia and Assyria into provinces. In August 117 he fell ill while sailing back to Rome and died at Selinus in Asia Minor, with the empire at its largest, about 5 million km². His successor Hadrian quickly abandoned Mesopotamia as too costly and distant to defend, so the eastern frontier pulled back again."},{"year":260,"text":"Valerian captured by Persia; the Gallic Empire breaks away","lonlat":[38.79,37.16],"detail":"The third century brought civil wars, invasions and economic trouble. Emperor Valerian left the West to his son Gallienus and marched east against the Sasanian Persians, but after the Battle of Edessa in 260 CE he was captured by Shapur I, the first Roman emperor ever taken prisoner in battle. With much of the eastern army lost, Postumus, the commander on the Rhine, declared himself emperor and founded the breakaway Gallic Empire, which at its height held Gaul, Britain, Hispania and the Germanies. By 268 the empire had split into three states, until Aurelian reunited it by 274."},{"year":395,"text":"Theodosius I dies; the empire is split between Arcadius and Honorius","lonlat":null,"detail":"Theodosius I, emperor from 379, won two civil wars and became the last emperor to rule the whole Roman world. He had already made his two young sons co-emperors, and when he died in January 395 they succeeded him jointly: Arcadius in the East, ruling from Constantinople, and Honorius, aged ten, in the West. The split followed a long practice of shared rule, but this time it proved permanent. From now on the map shows two separate empires: the Eastern half would survive for another thousand years, while the West entered its final decline."},{"year":410,"text":"Alaric's Visigoths sack Rome; Britain effectively abandoned","lonlat":[12.48,41.89],"detail":"After years of failed bargaining with the Western court at Ravenna over land and rank for his people, the Visigothic king Alaric besieged Rome and starved it into submission. On 24 August 410 his men entered the city and plundered it for three days, the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy. The same year Honorius refused Britain's appeal for military help: the last mobile troops had left the island with the usurper Constantine III in 407, and the Romano-British had expelled Roman officials. Britain slipped out of the Empire for good."},{"year":439,"text":"Vandals take Carthage and the rich African provinces","lonlat":[10.32,36.85],"detail":"The Vandals, a Germanic people, crossed from Spain to North Africa in 429 under their king Gaiseric (Geiseric) and conquered much of the coast of today's Algeria and Tunisia. In 439 Gaiseric broke a treaty with Rome and took Carthage, apparently without a fight while many of its people were at the races. North Africa had been a major source of tax revenue and of the grain that fed Rome, so its loss crippled the Western Empire. The Vandals went on to seize Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and sacked Rome itself in 455."},{"year":476,"text":"Odoacer deposes Romulus Augustulus at Ravenna: end of the Western Empire","lonlat":[12.2,44.42],"detail":"By the 470s the Western emperors were puppets of powerful generals and controlled little beyond Italy. In 475 the general Orestes drove out Julius Nepos and put his young son Romulus on the throne. When Orestes refused to give Italian land to the barbarian troops in Roman service, they rallied behind their officer Odoacer, who killed Orestes and took Ravenna on 4 September 476, deposing Romulus. Odoacer named no new emperor, ruled as king of Italy, and the imperial insignia were sent to the Eastern emperor Zeno: the Western Roman Empire was gone from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Republic: annually elected consuls","from":-509,"to":-44},{"name":"Civil wars: Octavian, Antony and Lepidus","from":-44,"to":-27},{"name":"Augustus and the Julio-Claudian dynasty","from":-27,"to":68},{"name":"Year of the Four Emperors","from":68,"to":69},{"name":"Flavian dynasty","from":69,"to":96},{"name":"Nerva–Antonine dynasty","from":96,"to":192},{"name":"Severan dynasty","from":193,"to":235},{"name":"Crisis of the Third Century","from":235,"to":284},{"name":"Diocletian and the Tetrarchy","from":284,"to":305},{"name":"Constantine I","from":306,"to":337},{"name":"Constantinian dynasty (sons and Julian)","from":337,"to":363},{"name":"Valentinianic dynasty","from":364,"to":392},{"name":"Theodosius I","from":379,"to":395},{"name":"Honorius (West)","from":395,"to":423},{"name":"Valentinian III (West)","from":425,"to":455},{"name":"Last western emperors (Petronius Maximus to Julius Nepos)","from":455,"to":475},{"name":"Romulus Augustulus","from":475,"to":476}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Roman Republic","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Timeline of Roman history","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Roman_history"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Western Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Roman emperors","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_emperors"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of the Western Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: End of Roman rule in Britain","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_Roman_rule_in_Britain"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pyrrhic War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_War"}]},{"id":"alexander","name":"Empire of Alexander the Great","profile":"macedonian-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Macedonian Empire","from":-359,"to":-301}],"span":[-359,-301],"summary":"Philip II (359–336 BCE) made Macedon the master of Greece; his son Alexander III conquered the whole Persian Empire and pushed on to the Indus before dying in Babylon in 323 BCE. His generals kept the empire nominally united under his half-brother and infant son, but after both were murdered they took royal titles, and the battle of Ipsus (301 BCE) fixed its partition into rival kingdoms.","events":[{"year":-359,"text":"Philip II becomes king of Macedon and reforms its army","lonlat":[22.52,40.76],"detail":"Macedon, in northern Greece, was a weak kingdom on the edge of Greek affairs when King Perdiccas III was killed fighting the Illyrians in 359 BCE. His brother Philip, who had spent years as a hostage in Thebes learning from its general Epaminondas, was named regent for Perdiccas's infant son but soon took the throne himself. He rebuilt the army around the Macedonian phalanx, combined it with cavalry, and made skilled use of siege engines, diplomacy and marriage alliances. In less than 25 years this reformed army turned Macedon into the dominant power in Greece."},{"year":-357,"text":"Philip takes Amphipolis, opening Macedon's eastward expansion","lonlat":[23.85,40.82],"detail":"Amphipolis, a city in Thrace, commanded the gold mines of Mount Pangaion, and Athens had long tried and failed to recover it. In 357 BCE Philip besieged and took the city after agreeing to hand it over to Athens in exchange for Pydna; instead he captured Pydna too and kept both, and Athens declared war. In 356 he also seized nearby Crenides, renamed it Philippi and garrisoned its mines. The gold from this region paid for much of Philip's later campaigning, and Macedon's power now reached east along the northern Aegean coast."},{"year":-338,"text":"Philip defeats Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea","lonlat":[22.84,38.49],"detail":"Philip's growing power alarmed the Greek city-states, and Athens and Thebes led an alliance against him. In August 338 BCE the armies met at Chaeronea in Boeotia; Philip, with roughly 30,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry according to Diodorus, commanded the right wing, while his 18-year-old son Alexander led the left. The Macedonian victory was decisive. Philip then created the League of Corinth, which bound the Greek states to Macedon as allies, and was chosen to lead a pan-Hellenic war against Persia. Mainland Greece was now under Macedonian leadership."},{"year":-336,"text":"Philip assassinated at Aegae; Alexander III becomes king","lonlat":[22.32,40.48],"detail":"In October 336 BCE Philip's court gathered at Aegae, the old Macedonian capital, for the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to King Alexander of Epirus. As Philip entered the theatre, unguarded so as to appear approachable to Greek visitors, he was stabbed to death by Pausanias of Orestis, one of his own bodyguards. His 20-year-old son Alexander took the throne at once. Alexander inherited not just Macedon and its control of Greece but also his father's army and his planned invasion of the Persian Empire, whose advance guard was already in Asia Minor."},{"year":-334,"text":"Alexander crosses into Asia; victory at the Granicus","lonlat":[27.3,40.2],"detail":"In 334 BCE Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia with the army of Macedon and its Greek allies, beginning his war on the Persian Empire. In May the Persian satraps (governors) of Asia Minor, with Greek mercenaries under Memnon of Rhodes, tried to stop him at the crossing of the Granicus river, the modern Biga in Turkey. Alexander forced the crossing and destroyed their army; the captured Greek mercenaries were sent to Macedon as slaves. Sardis and Ephesus soon fell, and the Persians were left defending isolated cities in Asia Minor."},{"year":-333,"text":"Alexander defeats Darius III at Issus","lonlat":[36.2,36.84],"detail":"After the Granicus, King Darius III took personal command of a huge Persian army and advanced into Syria to stop Alexander. On 5 November 333 BCE the armies met at Issus in southern Anatolia, where Darius had to fight on a narrow battlefield that favoured Alexander's smaller force. Alexander's attack broke the Persian line and Darius fled, leaving behind his treasury, his mother, his wife and his daughters, who were all captured. The victory gave Alexander complete control of southern Asia Minor and opened the road south into Syria and Phoenicia."},{"year":-331,"text":"Alexandria founded in Egypt; Darius beaten again at Gaugamela","lonlat":[43.45,36.56],"detail":"After taking Tyre and Gaza in 332 BCE, Alexander entered Egypt, where he was welcomed as a liberator from Persian rule. During a few months there he reorganised its taxes and founded Alexandria, later the capital of the Ptolemaic kingdom and a great centre of Greek culture. In 331 he marched north-east to the Tigris and, at Gaugamela near Arbela (modern Erbil), heavily outnumbered, defeated Darius again with superior tactics. Darius fled to Ecbatana, and Alexander took Babylon, Susa and Persepolis with their treasuries: the Persian heartland was now his."},{"year":-330,"text":"Darius III is killed by Bessus; the Persian Empire is Alexander's","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Gaugamela, Darius III fled east, but his authority was collapsing. In 330 BCE, as Alexander closed in, Darius was taken prisoner by Bessus, satrap of Bactria and his own kinsman, whose men stabbed the Great King to death; Bessus then proclaimed himself king as Artaxerxes V. Alexander gave Darius a royal burial and presented himself as his avenger and the rightful heir of the Achaemenids. The Persian Empire was now Alexander's, though he spent the next years fighting Bessus and rebels in Bactria and Sogdiana, founding cities such as Alexandria Eschate in modern Tajikistan."},{"year":-326,"text":"Alexander defeats Porus at the Hydaspes; his army mutinies at the Beas","lonlat":[73.73,32.93],"detail":"After conquering Persia, Alexander crossed into the Punjab, where King Porus of the Paurava kingdom blocked the Hydaspes (Jhelum) river with an army that included war elephants. In May 326 BCE Alexander crossed the monsoon-swollen river away from Porus's camp to catch him in the flank, and defeated him in what was possibly his costliest battle; he then made Porus a satrap, effectively restoring him as ruler. Pushing east, his exhausted army refused to go beyond the Hyphasis (Beas) river. The mutiny ended the expedition: Alexander turned back, and the Beas became the eastern limit of his empire."},{"year":-324,"text":"Alexander reaches Susa after a costly march through the desert","lonlat":[48.25,32.19],"detail":"On the way back from India, Alexander split his forces. Craterus led part of the army through Carmania, the admiral Nearchus explored the coast of the Persian Gulf by sea, and Alexander took the rest on the harder southern route through the Gedrosian Desert and Makran. Many men died in the desert before he reached Susa in 324 BCE, where he executed several satraps and governors who had misbehaved in his absence. Back in the heart of the empire, he tried to bind Persians and Macedonians together, and his veterans mutinied at Opis over his adoption of Persian customs."},{"year":-323,"text":"Alexander dies in Babylon; Perdiccas becomes regent of the empire","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Alexander returned to Babylon, which he had planned to make the capital of his empire, and was preparing an invasion of Arabia when he died there on 10 or 11 June 323 BCE, aged 32. He left no adult heir, and his officers argued over the succession. In the settlement known as the Partition of Babylon, his half-brother Arrhidaeus (as Philip III) and the child Roxana was expecting were named joint kings, with Perdiccas as regent. The provinces were shared out among senior officers as satraps, setting the stage for the wars of the Diadochi (successors)."},{"year":-317,"text":"Philip III Arrhidaeus executed; Alexander IV is sole king","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Perdiccas was murdered in 321 or 320 BCE, the veteran general Antipater became regent and took the two kings to Macedon. When he died in 319 he passed over his own son Cassander in favour of Polyperchon, and civil war broke out. Philip III's ambitious wife Eurydice sided with Cassander, while Polyperchon allied with Olympias, Alexander's mother. When Olympias invaded Macedon in 317, Eurydice's soldiers refused to fight the mother of Alexander and changed sides. Philip and Eurydice were captured and put to death, leaving the boy Alexander IV as sole king under Olympias's control."},{"year":-309,"text":"Cassander has Alexander IV murdered, ending the Argead line","lonlat":null,"detail":"Cassander struck back and retook Macedon in 316 BCE. He executed Olympias and held the young Alexander IV and his mother Roxana under guard in the citadel of Amphipolis. The peace of 311 promised that Alexander would succeed Cassander when he came of age, which made the boy a threat to Cassander's own power. Cassander had mother and son killed, poisoned according to the writer Pausanias, though the year is uncertain, with estimates from 311 to 304 BCE. With the last legitimate Argead king gone, nothing remained to hold Alexander's empire together."},{"year":-306,"text":"Antigonus and Demetrius take royal titles; other generals follow","lonlat":null,"detail":"With no Argead king left, the generals who held Alexander's provinces no longer needed to pretend to serve the royal family. In 306 BCE Demetrius, son of Antigonus the One-Eyed, destroyed Ptolemy's fleet off Salamis in Cyprus, and after this victory Antigonus and Demetrius both took the title of king. Ptolemy, Seleucus and Lysimachus soon did the same, and eventually Cassander. Alexander's empire had become a set of rival kingdoms whose rulers claimed royal rank in their own right, while Antigonus still hoped to rule it all."},{"year":-301,"text":"Ipsus: Seleucus and Lysimachus defeat and kill Antigonus; empire divided","lonlat":[31.0,38.6],"detail":"Antigonus, master of most of Asia Minor and Syria, was the strongest of the successors and the last who aimed to rule Alexander's whole empire. Cassander, Lysimachus and Seleucus joined forces against him, and in 301 BCE they met Antigonus and his son Demetrius near Ipsus in Phrygia. Seleucus's war elephants, obtained from Chandragupta Maurya, cut Demetrius's cavalry off from the battle, and Antigonus was surrounded and killed by javelins. The victors carved up his lands: Ptolemy kept Egypt, Seleucus gained northern Syria and eastern Asia Minor, and Lysimachus the rest of Asia Minor. Alexander's empire was permanently divided."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Philip II","from":-359,"to":-336},{"name":"Alexander III the Great","from":-336,"to":-323},{"name":"Philip III Arrhidaeus and Alexander IV (regents Perdiccas, Antipater, Polyperchon)","from":-323,"to":-317},{"name":"Alexander IV (under Olympias, then Cassander)","from":-317,"to":-309},{"name":"Rival Diadochi kings (Antigonus, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Cassander, Lysimachus)","from":-306,"to":-301}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Alexander the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Philip II of Macedon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Macedon"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Wars of the Diadochi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Diadochi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alexander IV of Macedon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_IV_of_Macedon"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Achaemenid Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Achaemenid_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ipsus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ipsus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of the Hydaspes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Hydaspes"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaeronea_(338_BC)"}]},{"id":"maurya-empire","name":"Maurya Empire","profile":"maurya-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Maurya Empire","from":-318,"to":-185}],"span":[-321,-185],"summary":"Chandragupta Maurya overthrew the Nanda dynasty of Magadha c. 321 BCE and, after war with Seleucus I, won the lands up to the Hindu Kush. Bindusara pushed into the Deccan and Ashoka conquered Kalinga c. 261 BCE, ruling nearly all of South Asia except the far south before turning to Buddhism. After Ashoka's death in 232 BCE weaker kings followed, and the general Pushyamitra Shunga killed the last, Brihadratha, c. 185 BCE.","events":[{"year":-321,"text":"Chandragupta overthrows the Nandas; Pataliputra becomes the capital","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"Alexander's invasion and early death left north-western India in turmoil. A young leader, Chandragupta Maurya, helped according to later tradition by his mentor Chanakya, rose against the unpopular Nanda dynasty of Magadha in the Ganges valley. He besieged and took the Nanda capital, Pataliputra (near modern Patna), and made it his own; the conquest is usually dated c. 322–319 BCE, though the order of events is debated. He also drove out the Greek garrisons Alexander had left in the Punjab, and by about 317 BCE his new empire reached from the Ganges basin to the Indus."},{"year":-305,"text":"War with Seleucus I begins (305–303 BCE)","lonlat":null,"detail":"Seleucus I, who had won the eastern half of Alexander's empire, wanted to recover the Indian provinces that Alexander had conquered. Sometime between 305 and 303 BCE he crossed the Indus to fight Chandragupta, whose army, it was said, could number hundreds of thousands of men and thousands of war elephants. Almost nothing is known about the fighting: the Greek writers name no clear victor, and no Indian source mentions the war at all. What is clear is that Seleucus did not win back the Indus lands, and chose to negotiate with his powerful neighbour instead."},{"year":-302,"text":"Peace: Seleucus cedes eastern lands for 500 war elephants","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"detail":"The war ended in a treaty, usually dated c. 303–302 BCE. Seleucus handed Chandragupta his easternmost satrapies, certainly Gandhara, the Paropamisadae and eastern Gedrosia, and possibly also Arachosia and Aria, and in return received 500 war elephants with their drivers. A marriage alliance was agreed as well, probably Chandragupta marrying a daughter of Seleucus, and the Greek envoy Megasthenes later lived at the Mauryan court. The Mauryan frontier moved west into what is now Afghanistan, while the elephants helped Seleucus win the battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE."},{"year":-298,"text":"Bindusara succeeds and extends rule into the Deccan","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"After Chandragupta's reign ended c. 298 BCE, his son Bindusara inherited an empire stretching across northern India. Greek writers called him Amitrochates, probably from a Sanskrit title meaning 'slayer of enemies'. A 16th-century Tibetan author claims his minister destroyed the kings of 16 towns and made him master of the land between the eastern and western seas. Some historians read this as a conquest of the Deccan, while others think Bindusara only crushed revolts and kept what his father had won. He also kept up friendly ties with the Seleucids, whose ambassador Deimachos lived at his court."},{"year":-268,"text":"Ashoka becomes emperor","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"Before becoming emperor, Bindusara's son Ashoka served as a royal governor, at Ujjain or in Gandhara according to different traditions, and is said to have put down a revolt at Taxila. Buddhist legends claim that his succession was disputed and that he killed his eldest brother, even 99 half-brothers, to take the throne, but these stories cannot be confirmed. He became emperor around 269–268 BCE, ruling from Pataliputra. His empire covered most of the Indian subcontinent, from present-day Afghanistan in the west to present-day Bangladesh in the east."},{"year":-261,"text":"Kalinga War; its carnage turns Ashoka towards Buddhism","lonlat":[85.84,20.19],"detail":"Kalinga was an independent kingdom on India's east coast, in present-day Odisha, whose ports and navy controlled trade across the Bay of Bengal. In his eighth regnal year, c. 261 BCE (some date it to c. 260), Ashoka conquered it in one of the largest and deadliest wars in Indian history. His own edict records that 150,000 people were deported and 100,000 killed, with many more dying afterwards, and says he felt 'deep remorse'. Kalinga was added to the empire, but Ashoka turned away from conquest towards dhamma (righteous conduct) and, gradually, Buddhism."},{"year":-232,"text":"Ashoka dies; a series of weaker rulers follows","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"Ashoka spent the rest of his reign promoting dhamma through edicts carved on rocks and pillars across his empire, and sent envoys westward to the Hellenistic kingdoms. When he died in 232 BCE, none of his sons took the throne; his grandson Dasharatha succeeded him. For about 50 years a series of weaker emperors followed, and the empire may have been divided in two. Many territories were lost under Dasharatha and partly regained by Samprati, but after him the Mauryas slowly lost more and more land, and the empire on the map shrinks back towards Magadha."},{"year":-185,"text":"Pushyamitra Shunga assassinates Brihadratha, ending the dynasty","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"By the early 2nd century BCE the Mauryan realm had shrunk to its heartland around Pataliputra, while the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius was invading the north-west. Brihadratha, the last Maurya emperor, was assassinated by his own army commander, Pushyamitra Shunga, during a military parade, according to a later literary account. The killing is usually dated 185 BCE, though some put it as late as 180. Pushyamitra founded the Shunga Empire in the old Mauryan heartland of the Ganges valley, while the Indo-Greeks took over the north-west: the Maurya Empire had come to an end."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Chandragupta Maurya","from":-321,"to":-298},{"name":"Bindusara","from":-298,"to":-272},{"name":"Ashoka","from":-268,"to":-232},{"name":"Dasharatha","from":-232,"to":-224},{"name":"Samprati","from":-224,"to":-215},{"name":"Shalishuka","from":-215,"to":-202},{"name":"Devavarman","from":-202,"to":-195},{"name":"Shatadhanvan","from":-195,"to":-187},{"name":"Brihadratha","from":-187,"to":-185}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Maurya Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Mauryan Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Mauryan_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chandragupta Maurya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandragupta_Maurya"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucid–Mauryan War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid–Mauryan_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bindusara","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindusara"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ashoka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kalinga War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinga_War"}]},{"id":"seleucid-empire","name":"Seleucid Empire","profile":"seleucid-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Seleucid Empire","from":-312,"to":-64}],"span":[-312,-63],"summary":"Seleucus I took Babylon in 312 BCE and, after Ipsus and Corupedium, ruled from the Aegean to the borders of India. Bactria and Parthia broke away in the mid-3rd century; Antiochus III restored much of the realm but lost Anatolia to Rome after Magnesia (190 BCE), and the Parthians took Mesopotamia in 141 BCE. Reduced to Syria and torn by dynastic wars, the kingdom was annexed by Pompey in 63 BCE.","events":[{"year":-312,"text":"Seleucus takes Babylon; the Seleucid era begins","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"After Alexander's death his officer Seleucus became satrap of Babylonia in 321 BCE, but Antigonus the One-Eyed, the most powerful of the successors, forced him to flee to Ptolemy in Egypt. In 312 BCE Seleucus helped Ptolemy defeat Antigonus's son Demetrius at Gaza and then returned to Babylon, arriving by spring 311 according to some accounts. His court later counted years from this return as the Seleucid era, whose first year began in autumn 312 BCE by Macedonian reckoning. Holding Babylon, Seleucus could now build a kingdom across the eastern half of Alexander's empire."},{"year":-305,"text":"Seleucus takes the royal title; war with Chandragupta Maurya (305–303)","lonlat":null,"detail":"From Babylon Seleucus defeated Antigonus's forces and took Persia and Media, until he ruled the whole eastern part of Alexander's empire. After Antigonus and Demetrius proclaimed themselves kings in 306 BCE, Seleucus too took the title of king (basileus). He then marched to the Indus to recover Alexander's Indian satrapies, but Chandragupta Maurya had already taken them. The war (305–303 BCE) is poorly recorded and ended in a treaty: Seleucus ceded his easternmost provinces, in parts of today's Afghanistan and Pakistan, in return for 500 war elephants and a marriage alliance."},{"year":-301,"text":"Ipsus: Seleucus gains northern Syria and eastern Anatolia","lonlat":[31.0,38.6],"detail":"With his eastern frontier settled, Seleucus marched west with his elephants to join Lysimachus and Cassander against Antigonus, the strongest of Alexander's successors. At Ipsus in Phrygia in 301 BCE the elephants kept Demetrius's cavalry from returning to the fight, and Antigonus was killed. In the division that followed, Seleucus took eastern Anatolia and northern Syria. There he founded a new capital, Antioch on the Orontes, named after his father, alongside Seleucia on the Tigris in Mesopotamia. The empire now reached the Mediterranean coast, and Syria would become its heartland."},{"year":-281,"text":"Victory at Corupedium brings the widest extent; Seleucus is assassinated","lonlat":[27.75,38.55],"detail":"Lysimachus, who ruled Thrace, western Asia Minor and, recently, Macedon, had his own heir Agathocles murdered, and the crisis drew him into war with Seleucus. In 281 BCE their armies met at Corupedium in Lydia, and Lysimachus died in the fighting, killed by a javelin according to one ancient account. The victory gave Seleucus nominal control of almost all of Alexander's empire except Egypt, from western Anatolia to the borders of India. But when he crossed into Europe to claim Thrace and Macedon, he was assassinated by Ptolemy Ceraunus, and Macedon became independent again."},{"year":-250,"text":"Bactria and then Parthia break away in the mid-3rd century","lonlat":null,"detail":"Under Antiochus II and his son Seleucus II the empire was weakened by wars against Ptolemaic Egypt and by a civil war between Seleucus II and his brother Antiochus Hierax. Taking advantage, the governors of the far east broke away: Diodotus in Bactria declared independence around 245 BCE (the date is very uncertain), founding the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and Andragoras did the same in Parthia. Soon after, c. 238, the nomad chief Arsaces invaded Parthia and founded the Arsacid dynasty. The empire lost its north-eastern provinces, and Parthia would grow into its deadliest rival."},{"year":-217,"text":"Antiochus III defeated by Ptolemy IV at Raphia","lonlat":[34.25,31.29],"detail":"Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucids fought a long series of Syrian Wars over Coele-Syria, the southern Levant. In the Fourth Syrian War, which began in 219 BCE, the young Antiochus III overran much of the region. On 22 June 217 BCE he met Ptolemy IV near Raphia (modern Rafah) in one of the largest battles of the ancient world: by Polybius's figures, 70,000 infantry and 73 African elephants against 62,000 infantry and 102 Indian elephants. Antiochus's elephants won their duel, but his army was beaten, and he had to give up his conquests and withdraw north of Lebanon."},{"year":-206,"text":"Antiochus III's eastern campaign reaches the Kabul valley","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"detail":"After Raphia, Antiochus III set out to restore Seleucid power in the east. In 209 BCE he invaded Parthia and took its capital Hecatompylos, and King Arsaces II apparently sued for peace. In Bactria he defeated Euthydemus I but could not take the capital Bactra, so he made an honourable peace that let Euthydemus keep his royal title. Following in Alexander's footsteps, he then crossed into the Kabul valley, renewed his friendship with the Indian king Sophagasenus and received more elephants, returning west c. 206–205 BCE. The campaign brought the east back under Seleucid supremacy and earned him the name 'the Great'."},{"year":-200,"text":"Antiochus III wins at Panium and takes Coele-Syria from the Ptolemies","lonlat":[35.69,33.25],"detail":"Coele-Syria had been fought over by the Seleucids and Ptolemies for a century. In 202 BCE its Ptolemaic governor defected to Antiochus III, who overran most of the province, including Gaza, by autumn 201. After the Aetolian general Scopas retook parts of it for Egypt, Antiochus brought him to battle in summer 200 BCE at Panium, near Mount Hermon, and annihilated the Ptolemaic army; some modern accounts date the battle to 198. Coele-Syria passed to the Seleucids, and the Ptolemaic kingdom never again acted as an independent great power."},{"year":-190,"text":"Rome crushes Antiochus III at Magnesia","lonlat":[27.43,38.61],"detail":"Antiochus III next expanded into Thrace and, encouraged by the Aetolian League, crossed into Greece in 192 BCE, bringing him into war with Rome. Beaten at Thermopylae in 191, he retreated to Asia Minor, where a Roman army under the consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio, with King Eumenes II of Pergamon, met him near Magnesia ad Sipylum. In the battle, fought in December 190 or January 189 BCE, Eumenes broke the Seleucid left and the centre collapsed while Antiochus was away pursuing on the right with his cavalry. The defeat shattered Seleucid power in the west."},{"year":-188,"text":"Treaty of Apamea: all land north and west of the Taurus surrendered","lonlat":[30.16,38.07],"detail":"The peace Rome imposed at Apamea in 188 BCE was harsh. Antiochus III had to abandon Europe and all of Asia Minor west of the Taurus Mountains, lands that Rome handed to its allies Pergamon and Rhodes. He had to surrender all his war elephants and keep none in future, limit his navy to twelve warships, give twenty hostages including one of his sons, and pay 15,000 talents of silver over twelve years. The Seleucids lost their Anatolian provinces for good, and the heavy payments strained the treasury for years."},{"year":-141,"text":"Parthians under Mithridates I take Seleucia and Mesopotamia","lonlat":[44.52,33.1],"detail":"After Antiochus IV died in 164 BCE, rival Seleucid claimants fought repeated civil wars, and the Parthian king Mithridates I seized his chance. He invaded Media and took Ecbatana in 148 or 147 BCE, then conquered Babylonia; in 141 he was minting coins at Seleucia on the Tigris, Seleucus's old eastern capital, and held a formal investiture there. When Demetrius II tried to win back the east, he was defeated and captured in 139. By then the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia were Parthian, and the Seleucid kingdom was shrinking towards Syria."},{"year":-129,"text":"Antiochus VII defeated and killed by the Parthians at Ecbatana","lonlat":[48.52,34.8],"detail":"Demetrius II's brother Antiochus VII Sidetes, sometimes called the last great Seleucid king, restored order in Syria and then marched east with the last great royal army, winning three battles and recovering Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Media. In the winter of 130–129 BCE his troops were spread out in winter quarters, and local people, angry at having to feed them, rose in revolt. The Parthian king Phraates II attacked, and Antiochus was killed in 129, at a battle near Ecbatana in some accounts or in an ambush in the Zagros in others. All the recovered lands returned to Parthia, and the kingdom was reduced to Syria."},{"year":-83,"text":"Tigranes of Armenia takes Syria","lonlat":[36.16,36.2],"detail":"After Antiochus VII's death, rival members of the dynasty fought one another for decades, and the kingdom shrank to a handful of Syrian cities. In 83 BCE, tired of the bloody strife, the Syrians offered their crown to Tigranes the Great of Armenia, who placed a governor in Antioch and went on to conquer Phoenicia and Cilicia, reaching as far south as Ptolemais (Acre). This effectively ended the Seleucid state, although a few cities still recognised a boy-king of the dynasty. Syria stayed under Armenian rule until the Roman general Lucullus defeated Tigranes in 69 BCE."},{"year":-63,"text":"Pompey makes Syria a Roman province","lonlat":[36.16,36.2],"detail":"After Lucullus's victory a rump Seleucid kingdom was restored under Antiochus XIII, but a rival Seleucid, Philip II, contested his rule, and Syria remained unstable. Rome, now dominant in the East after its wars against Mithridates of Pontus, grew alarmed at the disorder. The general Pompey annexed Syria and its wealthy cities in 64 BCE (63 in some accounts) and organised them as a new Roman province, before moving south to Damascus and Judea. The last remnant of the empire of Seleucus, which had once stretched to India, disappeared from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Seleucus I Nicator (king from 305)","from":-312,"to":-281},{"name":"Antiochus I Soter","from":-281,"to":-261},{"name":"Antiochus II Theos","from":-261,"to":-246},{"name":"Seleucus II Callinicus","from":-246,"to":-225},{"name":"Seleucus III Ceraunus","from":-225,"to":-223},{"name":"Antiochus III the Great","from":-223,"to":-187},{"name":"Seleucus IV Philopator","from":-187,"to":-175},{"name":"Antiochus IV Epiphanes","from":-175,"to":-164},{"name":"Antiochus V and Demetrius I","from":-164,"to":-150},{"name":"Alexander Balas and Demetrius II","from":-150,"to":-138},{"name":"Antiochus VII Sidetes","from":-138,"to":-129},{"name":"Rival claimants (Demetrius II to Antiochus XIII)","from":-129,"to":-63}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucid dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Antiochus III the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_III_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Parthian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemaic Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucus I Nicator","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucus_I_Nicator"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Apamea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Apamea"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tigranes the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigranes_the_Great"}]},{"id":"ptolemaic-kingdom","name":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","profile":"ptolemaic-kingdom","chain":[{"clio":"Ptolemaic Kingdom","from":-305,"to":-30}],"span":[-305,-30],"summary":"Ptolemy I, Alexander's satrap in Egypt from 323 BCE, made himself king in 305 BCE and added Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Coele-Syria; under Ptolemy III in the 240s the kingdom reached its height, campaigning as far as Babylonia. Native revolts, the loss of Coele-Syria (200 BCE) and dynastic feuds weakened it as Rome's influence grew; Cleopatra VII's defeat at Actium led to Egypt's annexation by Rome in 30 BCE.","events":[{"year":-305,"text":"Ptolemy I declares himself king, ruling from Alexandria","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"detail":"After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, his general Ptolemy became satrap (governor) of Egypt, nominally serving Alexander's heirs while building his own power. He beat off an invasion by the regent Perdiccas in 321 BCE and, during the wars between Alexander's successors, won Cyrenaica, Cyprus and Coele-Syria. When Antigonus and Demetrius took royal titles in 306 BCE, Ptolemy followed and proclaimed himself king in 305/304 BCE, ruling from Alexander's new city of Alexandria. Egypt became an independent Greek-ruled kingdom, and his dynasty would hold it for nearly three centuries."},{"year":-246,"text":"Ptolemy III's Third Syrian War reaches Babylonia: the kingdom's height","lonlat":[44.42,32.54],"detail":"Ptolemy III came to the throne in 246 BCE just as a succession crisis broke out in the rival Seleucid Empire. His sister Berenice, widow of the Seleucid king Antiochus II, was murdered with her infant son, and Ptolemy went to war against her rival's son, Seleucus II. In this Third Syrian War (246–241 BCE) he won victories in Syria and Anatolia, briefly held Antioch and, as a cuneiform tablet shows, even reached Babylon, while his fleets made conquests as far as Thrace. This was the height of Ptolemaic power, with Egypt controlling most of the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean."},{"year":-217,"text":"Ptolemy IV defeats Antiochus III at Raphia","lonlat":[34.25,31.29],"detail":"Antiochus III, the energetic young Seleucid king, wanted to win back Coele-Syria, the strip of land between Egypt and Syria that the Ptolemies had held for about eighty years. On 22 June 217 BCE the two kings met near Raphia (modern Rafah) in one of the largest battles of the Hellenistic age; Polybius gives about 70,000 infantry for Ptolemy IV and 62,000 for Antiochus. Antiochus's Indian elephants scattered Ptolemy's smaller African ones, but the Ptolemaic phalanx, in which native Egyptian soldiers played a major role, won the day. Coele-Syria stayed Egyptian, but the war strained the treasury and boosted native Egyptian confidence."},{"year":-205,"text":"Great Theban Revolt breaks out in Upper Egypt","lonlat":[32.65,25.7],"detail":"Under Ptolemy IV, misrule from Alexandria and the financial strain of war bred deep resentment among native Egyptians, especially in the south, far from the Greek capital. In 205 BCE a priest named Horwennefer proclaimed himself pharaoh, and rebels seized Thebes and much of Upper Egypt. After his death in 199 BCE his son Ankhwennefer carried on the fight, at times nearly driving the Ptolemies out of the country. For about twenty years the kings in Alexandria lost control of much of Egypt, just as foreign enemies were preparing to attack their overseas lands."},{"year":-200,"text":"Coele-Syria lost to the Seleucids","lonlat":[35.69,33.25],"detail":"When Ptolemy IV died, his heir Ptolemy V was a small child ruled by regents, and the Great Revolt was still raging in the south. Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire and Philip V of Macedon agreed to seize the Ptolemies' overseas possessions: Philip took islands and towns in Caria and Thrace, while Antiochus invaded Coele-Syria. At the Battle of Panium in 200 BCE Antiochus defeated the Ptolemaic army and took Coele-Syria and Judea. Egypt's lands in the Levant passed to the Seleucids, and the weakened kingdom turned to an alliance with the rising power of Rome."},{"year":-186,"text":"Theban revolt finally suppressed","lonlat":[32.65,25.7],"detail":"The native revolt in Upper Egypt, led since 199 BCE by Ankhwennefer, had dragged on for nearly twenty years and at times threatened to end Greek rule altogether. In 186 BCE the forces of the young Ptolemy V finally defeated the rebel dynasty and restored royal control over Thebes and the south. Egypt was reunited under one king again, and the Ptolemies kept courting the powerful Egyptian priesthood with gifts and temple building. But the long war had severely weakened their hold on the country, and the kingdom never fully recovered its earlier strength."},{"year":-168,"text":"Day of Eleusis: Rome orders Antiochus IV out of Egypt and Cyprus","lonlat":[29.95,31.2],"detail":"In the Sixth Syrian War (170–168 BCE) the Seleucid king Antiochus IV invaded Egypt, captured the young Ptolemy VI and set him up as a puppet king at Memphis, while Alexandria crowned his brother instead. In 168 BCE Antiochus invaded again, seized Cyprus and Memphis, and marched on Alexandria. At Eleusis, a suburb of the capital, the Roman envoy Gaius Popillius Laenas handed him the Senate's order to leave Egypt and Cyprus; according to Polybius, he drew a circle in the sand around the king and demanded an answer before he stepped out. Antiochus obeyed, so Egypt survived, but as a kingdom that now owed its independence to Rome."},{"year":-145,"text":"Death of Ptolemy VI; decades of dynastic feuding follow","lonlat":null,"detail":"Ptolemy VI Philometor had restored some strength, reasserting control over northern Nubia and intervening in the Seleucid civil wars in Syria. In 145 BCE he was killed in the Battle of Antioch, and his infant son was soon murdered by his uncle, who seized the throne as Ptolemy VIII. For more than a century afterwards, members of the dynasty fought one another: kings were driven out and restored, and one, Ptolemy XI, was lynched by the Alexandrian mob. These feuds left Egypt so weak that it became in effect a protectorate of Rome."},{"year":-96,"text":"Ptolemy Apion dies and bequeaths Cyrenaica to Rome","lonlat":[21.86,32.82],"detail":"Cyrenaica, the fertile coast of eastern Libya, had belonged to the Ptolemies since Ptolemy I, but at times it was ruled separately by rival members of the dynasty. Ptolemy Apion, an illegitimate son of Ptolemy VIII, was apparently given Cyrene as his own kingdom around 105–101 BCE, although almost nothing is recorded of his reign and some scholars doubt he ruled at all. When he died without heirs in 96 BCE, his will left Cyrenaica and his royal estates to the Roman Republic. The Ptolemaic realm shrank to Egypt and Cyprus, and Rome now stood on Egypt's western border."},{"year":-51,"text":"Cleopatra VII comes to the throne","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"detail":"Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, had kept his throne by paying vast sums to Rome and was even restored by the Romans after the Alexandrian mob drove him out in 58 BCE. When he died in 51 BCE, his will, with the Roman Senate as executor, left the kingdom jointly to Cleopatra VII, then in her late teens, and her 10-year-old brother Ptolemy XIII. Cleopatra soon fell out with her brother's advisers, was driven into exile and regained power only with Julius Caesar's help in 48–47 BCE. She would be the last ruler of an independent Egypt, trying to restore Ptolemaic power through alliances with Roman leaders."},{"year":-31,"text":"Antony and Cleopatra defeated by Octavian at Actium","lonlat":[20.73,38.95],"detail":"Cleopatra's partner Mark Antony and Octavian, Caesar's heir, had shared the Roman world, but by 32 BCE their rivalry turned into war, which Rome declared on Cleopatra. Octavian's admiral Agrippa cut Antony's supply lines in western Greece and trapped his army and fleet at Actium. On 2 September 31 BCE Antony's fleet tried to break out but was routed by Octavian's smaller, more agile ships, and Antony and Cleopatra escaped to Egypt. Their army in Greece deserted or surrendered, leaving Egypt with no real defence against a Roman invasion."},{"year":-30,"text":"Cleopatra dies; Egypt becomes a Roman province","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"detail":"In the summer of 30 BCE Octavian's forces invaded Egypt and beat Antony's remaining troops outside Alexandria, and Antony killed himself. Cleopatra, unwilling to be paraded in a Roman triumph, took her own life in August 30 BCE, by tradition through the bite of an asp, though poison is more likely. Octavian had her son by Caesar, Caesarion, executed and made Egypt a Roman province. The Ptolemaic Kingdom, the last independent Hellenistic state, vanished from the map, and Egypt's grain and wealth now served Rome."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Ptolemy I Soter","from":-305,"to":-282},{"name":"Ptolemy II Philadelphus","from":-282,"to":-246},{"name":"Ptolemy III Euergetes","from":-246,"to":-221},{"name":"Ptolemy IV Philopator","from":-221,"to":-203},{"name":"Ptolemy V Epiphanes","from":-203,"to":-181},{"name":"Ptolemy VI Philometor","from":-181,"to":-145},{"name":"Ptolemy VIII Physcon","from":-145,"to":-116},{"name":"Ptolemy IX and Ptolemy X","from":-116,"to":-80},{"name":"Ptolemy XII Auletes (Berenice IV 58–55)","from":-80,"to":-51},{"name":"Cleopatra VII","from":-51,"to":-30}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemaic Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemaic dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sixth Syrian War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Syrian_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Timeline of Roman history","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Roman_history"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Raphia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raphia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ptolemy Apion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_Apion"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Actium","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Actium"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Cleopatra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra"}]},{"id":"parthian-empire","name":"Parthian Empire","profile":"parthian-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Parthian Empire","from":-239,"to":224}],"span":[-247,224],"summary":"Arsaces I, leader of the Parni, founded the Arsacid state in Parthia c. 247 BCE; Mithridates I (c. 171–132 BCE) took Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids, and Mithridates II extended Parthian power from the Euphrates to Afghanistan. Astride the Silk Road, Parthia fought Rome for three centuries, destroying Crassus at Carrhae but losing Ctesiphon to Trajan, Avidius Cassius and Severus. Weakened by civil war, the last king, Artabanus IV, fell to Ardashir I of Persis in 224 CE.","events":[{"year":-247,"text":"Arsaces I begins the Arsacid era","lonlat":[58.2,37.95],"detail":"Arsaces I was chief of the Parni, a nomadic Iranian people of the Dahae confederation on the steppes north-east of Iran. Around this time the Seleucid governor of Parthia, Andragoras, rebelled against his king, and the Parni went on to conquer the province, probably overthrowing Andragoras in about 238 BCE. The Arsacid kings later counted their era from 247 BCE, although historians disagree about what actually happened that year. From this small base in north-east Iran grew an empire that would rule from the Euphrates to Afghanistan for almost five centuries."},{"year":-148,"text":"Mithridates I conquers Media","lonlat":[48.52,34.8],"detail":"For decades the Parthians held only north-eastern Iran, but Mithridates I (c. 171–132 BCE), whom one historian compares to Cyrus the Great, turned the kingdom into an empire. After seizing two provinces from the Greco-Bactrian kingdom to the east, he turned on the Seleucids, whose hold on Media had just been shaken by the rebellion of Timarchus. In 148 or 147 BCE he invaded Media and occupied its capital, Ecbatana (modern Hamadan). Parthia now held the western Iranian plateau and the road down to Mesopotamia, and Ecbatana became the kings' summer residence."},{"year":-141,"text":"Mithridates I takes Seleucia and Mesopotamia","lonlat":[44.52,33.1],"detail":"With Media secured, Mithridates I pushed down into Babylonia, the rich lowland heart of the Seleucid east. By 141 BCE he was minting coins at Seleucia on the Tigris, the great Greek city of Mesopotamia, and held an official investiture ceremony there. His forces then subdued Elymais and Characene and occupied Susa, and a Seleucid counter-attack ended with King Demetrius II taken prisoner. Parthian authority now ran from Mesopotamia as far east as the Indus, and Ctesiphon, across the river from Seleucia, would later become the royal capital."},{"year":-129,"text":"Phraates II defeats and kills the Seleucid Antiochus VII at Ecbatana","lonlat":[48.52,34.8],"detail":"The Seleucid king Antiochus VII set out in 130 BCE to win back Mesopotamia, defeating a Parthian general on the Great Zab and occupying Babylonia and Susa. He demanded that Phraates II give up everything except Parthia itself and pay heavy tribute. But his army wintered in Media and exhausted the countryside, and in spring 129 BCE the Medes revolted; the main Parthian army then attacked and killed Antiochus at the Battle of Ecbatana. It was the last great Seleucid attempt to recover the east: Mesopotamia remained Parthian, and the Seleucid kingdom shrank back to Syria."},{"year":-124,"text":"Mithridates II begins a reign of expansion; Armenia forced to submit","lonlat":null,"detail":"Victory over the Seleucids was followed by disaster in the east, where Saka nomads, pushed west by the Yuezhi, killed Phraates II and, according to Justin, his successor Artabanus I. Mithridates II (c. 124–91 BCE) restored the empire: he recovered lands lost to the Saka, made the kings of Characene his vassals and occupied Dura-Europos on the Euphrates in 113 BCE. In 97 BCE his forces deposed Artavasdes I of Armenia and took the young prince Tigranes hostage. Parthian power now reached from the Euphrates to Afghanistan, and a Parthian envoy met Rome's Sulla on the Euphrates."},{"year":-53,"text":"Surena destroys Crassus's Roman army at Carrhae","lonlat":[39.03,36.87],"detail":"Marcus Licinius Crassus, one of Rome's three ruling triumvirs and now governor of Syria, invaded Mesopotamia in 53 BCE. Near Carrhae (modern Harran in Turkey), his seven legions met the Parthian general Surena, whose army was entirely mounted: about 1,000 armoured cataphracts and 9,000 horse archers, kept supplied with arrows by a camel train. Though outnumbered roughly four to one, the Parthians shot the Roman infantry to pieces; some 20,000 Romans died, about 10,000 were captured, and Crassus was killed at a parley. It was one of Rome's worst defeats, and it fixed Parthia's reputation as Rome's equal in the east."},{"year":-40,"text":"Parthian forces overrun most of the Levant (40–39 BCE)","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Carrhae the Parthians tried to seize Rome's eastern provinces, and Rome's civil wars gave them their chance. In 40–39 BCE the crown prince Pacorus I, joined by the renegade Roman general Quintus Labienus, overran Syria; Labienus pushed into Anatolia while Pacorus took every city on the Levantine coast as far south as Ptolemais (Acre) except Tyre. In Judea they made their ally Antigonus king, and Herod fled. For a short time Parthian power reached the Mediterranean, until Mark Antony's general Ventidius drove them back, killing Pacorus at Mount Gindarus in 38 BCE."},{"year":-36,"text":"Mark Antony invades Parthia and suffers heavy losses","lonlat":null,"detail":"Phraates IV had secured the Parthian throne by killing or exiling his brothers, and one of them, Monaeses, persuaded Mark Antony to invade. In 36 BCE Antony led a huge army, put at 90,000–100,000 men with his allies, through Armenia into Media Atropatene (north-west Iran) and besieged its capital. Parthian cavalry destroyed his slow siege train, the Armenian king abandoned him, and the siege failed. On the long retreat, harassed all the way, Antony lost tens of thousands of men, though the ancient accounts disagree widely on the numbers. Parthia's territory remained intact."},{"year":116,"text":"Trajan captures Ctesiphon","lonlat":[44.58,33.09],"detail":"Rome and Parthia had long competed to control Armenia, and when the Parthian king Osroes I installed his own candidate there without consulting Rome, Emperor Trajan went to war. In 114 CE he made Armenia a Roman province, and in 115 he invaded Mesopotamia, meeting little resistance because Osroes was fighting a civil war in the east. In 116 Trajan marched down the Euphrates, took Dura-Europos, Seleucia and the capital Ctesiphon, and reached the Persian Gulf. Never again would the Roman Empire advance so far east, and for a moment Parthia's western heartland was in Roman hands."},{"year":117,"text":"Trajan withdraws; the Euphrates frontier is restored","lonlat":null,"detail":"Trajan's conquests proved fragile. While he was in the south, the cities of Babylonia rose against their Roman garrisons, and on his way north he failed to take the desert fortress of Hatra. In 117 CE he withdrew from Mesopotamia, intending to return the next year, but he died suddenly in August. His successor Hadrian, short of troops, chose not to hold Mesopotamia and confirmed the Euphrates as the frontier. Parthia regained its lowland heartland, though the war had shown how exposed Ctesiphon was to Roman armies marching down the rivers."},{"year":164,"text":"Avidius Cassius invades; Seleucia and Ctesiphon burned","lonlat":[44.58,33.09],"detail":"In 161 CE the Parthian king Vologases IV invaded Armenia and Syria, starting a new war with Rome. The co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus struck back: one army invaded Armenia in 163, and in 164 (some accounts say 165) the general Avidius Cassius led another down into Mesopotamia. The Romans captured Seleucia and Ctesiphon and burned them to the ground, but a deadly epidemic, possibly smallpox, broke out among the soldiers and forced them to retreat. Rome kept Dura-Europos on the middle Euphrates, and Parthia's great Mesopotamian cities lay in ruins."},{"year":197,"text":"Septimius Severus captures Seleucia and Ctesiphon","lonlat":[44.58,33.09],"detail":"Septimius Severus had just won Rome's civil war, and Parthia and its vassals had backed his rival Pescennius Niger. In 197 CE, during the reign of Vologases V, Severus crossed the Euphrates and, like Trajan, marched his army down the river to capture Seleucia and sack Ctesiphon, probably late in 197 or early in 198. He took the title Parthicus Maximus but, again like Trajan, failed to take Hatra after two long sieges. Rome annexed the northern half of Mesopotamia, pushing its frontier deeper into former Parthian lands."},{"year":212,"text":"Artabanus IV rebels against Vologases VI: civil war","lonlat":null,"detail":"Around 212–213 CE, a few years after Vologases VI succeeded his father, his brother Artabanus IV rebelled and took most of the empire, including Media and Susa, while Vologases kept a small realm around Seleucia. The Roman emperor Caracalla exploited the split, invading Mesopotamia and sacking the Parthian royal tombs at Arbela. Artabanus fought the Romans off at Nisibis in 217, and Rome paid a large indemnity for peace. But the long civil war drained Arsacid strength just as a new power was rising in Persis in the south-west."},{"year":224,"text":"Ardashir I defeats and kills Artabanus IV at Hormozdgan","lonlat":null,"detail":"In Persis (modern Fars), the local prince Ardashir I of the Sasanian family had begun conquering neighbouring regions such as Kerman in defiance of Arsacid rule. When Artabanus IV finally marched against him, the two armies met at Hormozdgan, a site still not located, on 28 April 224 CE; Artabanus was defeated and killed. Ardashir took the title King of Kings, and his Sasanian Empire replaced the Parthians across Iran and Mesopotamia, although Vologases VI held out at Seleucia until about 228. Almost five centuries of Arsacid rule had ended."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Arsaces I","from":-247,"to":-211},{"name":"Arsaces II to Phraates I","from":-211,"to":-171},{"name":"Mithridates I","from":-171,"to":-132},{"name":"Mithridates II","from":-124,"to":-91},{"name":"Phraates III","from":-71,"to":-58},{"name":"Orodes II","from":-57,"to":-38},{"name":"Phraates IV","from":-38,"to":-2},{"name":"Vologases I","from":51,"to":77},{"name":"Artabanus IV","from":213,"to":224}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Parthian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Seleucid dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sasanian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Antony's Atropatene campaign","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony's_Atropatene_campaign"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Septimius Severus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Artabanus IV of Parthia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artabanus_IV_of_Parthia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Hormozdgan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hormozdgan"}]},{"id":"qin-han","name":"Qin and Han China","profile":"han-dynasty","chain":[{"clio":"Qin","from":-221,"to":-219},{"clio":"Qin Dynasty","from":-218,"to":-209},{"clio":"Zhai","from":-208,"to":-207},{"clio":"Han Dynasty","from":-202,"to":5},{"clio":"Xin Dynasty","from":6,"to":29},{"clio":"Han Dynasty","from":30,"to":220}],"span":[-221,220],"summary":"The state of Qin conquered its last rivals in 221 BCE and its king became the First Emperor, standardising script, coinage and law, but the dynasty collapsed in revolts soon after his death and ended in 206 BCE. Liu Bang founded the Han in 202 BCE; under Emperor Wu (141–87 BCE) it drove back the Xiongnu and expanded into Central Asia, Korea and the far south. After Wang Mang's Xin interlude (9–23 CE) the Eastern Han ruled from Luoyang until rebellion and warlords ended it in 220 CE.","events":[{"year":-221,"text":"Qin conquers Qi, its last rival; King Zheng becomes the First Emperor","lonlat":[108.71,34.33],"detail":"For centuries the Warring States had fought for supremacy while the old Zhou kings faded into figureheads, and Qin, secure in the mountain-ringed Guanzhong basin in the west, had built the most efficient army and state. From 230 BCE King Zheng conquered the six remaining states one by one: Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu and finally Qi, whose capital Linzi fell in 221 BCE. He took the new title Shi Huangdi, 'First Emperor', and governed through appointed officials instead of royal relatives. For the first time the Chinese heartland, from the Yellow River plains to the Yangtze, was a single empire."},{"year":-215,"text":"Meng Tian takes the Ordos region from the Xiongnu","lonlat":[108.5,39.5],"detail":"Xiongnu herders in the Ordos, the grassland inside the great northern loop of the Yellow River, often raided Qin farmers. The First Emperor sent General Meng Tian north with an army said to number 300,000, and in 215 BCE he expelled the Xiongnu from the Ordos and drove them back onto the Mongolian Plateau. Qin settled farmers in the region and began the long chain of defences later remembered as the Great Wall. The empire's northern frontier now enclosed the Ordos, but after Qin fell the Xiongnu leader Modu retook it."},{"year":-210,"text":"Qin Shi Huang dies on tour; Huhai is made Second Emperor","lonlat":null,"detail":"Obsessed with immortality, the First Emperor died in 210 BCE while touring the eastern frontier, reportedly while seeking an elixir of eternal life. His chief eunuch Zhao Gao and chancellor Li Si hid his death, forged an order telling the heir, Prince Fusu, to kill himself, and had General Meng Tian put to death. They placed a younger son, Huhai, on the throne as the Second Emperor, hoping to rule through him. Huhai's purges, building projects and higher taxes soon set off revolts across the empire, and the newly united realm began to break apart."},{"year":-206,"text":"Xianyang destroyed after Ziying's surrender: the Qin dynasty ends","lonlat":[108.71,34.33],"detail":"Rebellions spread from 209 BCE, and rebel leaders declared themselves kings of the old states. In 207 BCE Zhao Gao forced the Second Emperor to kill himself and installed Ziying, who ruled only as a king; Ziying had Zhao Gao killed but, after just 46 days, surrendered to the rebel general Liu Bang when he reached the capital, Xianyang. The Chu leader Xiang Yu then had Ziying executed and Xianyang destroyed in 206 BCE. The Qin dynasty ended after only 15 years, and its empire split into some eighteen rival kingdoms."},{"year":-202,"text":"Liu Bang defeats Xiang Yu at Gaixia and founds the Han dynasty","lonlat":[117.55,33.54],"detail":"After Qin fell, Xiang Yu of Chu made himself overlord and gave Liu Bang, a man of humble birth, the small fief of Hanzhong. War between the two, the Chu–Han Contention, followed for four years. In the winter of 203–202 BCE Liu Bang's armies trapped Xiang Yu at Gaixia and destroyed his army, and Xiang Yu killed himself by the Wu River. A few months later Liu Bang proclaimed himself emperor of a new dynasty named Han, after his old fief; with one brief break, it would rule China for four centuries."},{"year":-200,"text":"Xiongnu trap the emperor at Baideng; a heqin truce follows (198)","lonlat":[113.3,40.08],"detail":"Modu Chanyu had united the Xiongnu into a powerful steppe empire, and when a Han vassal king, Xin, defected to him, they captured Jinyang in the north. Emperor Gaozu led a large army to drive them back, but near Pingcheng (modern Datong) he and his vanguard were surrounded on Mount Baideng and cut off for seven days. He escaped, reportedly after his envoys persuaded Modu's wife to urge a withdrawal. In 198 BCE the Han agreed the heqin treaty, sending a princess and gifts of silk, food and wine, and until the 130s BCE they bought peace on the northern frontier rather than fighting."},{"year":-154,"text":"Rebellion of the Seven States crushed; regional kings weakened","lonlat":null,"detail":"Liu Bang had given his relatives large semi-independent kingdoms covering a third to a half of the empire, and by the 150s BCE princes such as Liu Pi of Wu minted coins, collected taxes and largely ignored the court. When Emperor Jing, advised by Chao Cuo, began cutting their lands, seven kings rose in revolt in 154 BCE. The imperial general Zhou Yafu let the loyal kingdom of Liang absorb the rebel attack while his cavalry cut their supply lines, and the revolt was crushed within three months. The kingdoms were reduced and imperial power grew sharply, preparing the way for Emperor Wu's expansion."},{"year":-119,"text":"Battle of Mobei drives the Xiongnu north of the Gobi","lonlat":null,"detail":"After years of Han offensives under Emperor Wu, the Xiongnu chanyu Yizhixie pulled his people north of the Gobi Desert, hoping the barren land would protect them. In early 119 BCE Wu sent two columns of 50,000 cavalry each, backed by over 140,000 infantry and supply troops, across the desert under Wei Qing and Huo Qubing. Wei Qing routed the chanyu's army in a sandstorm, while Huo Qubing crushed the eastern Xiongnu and pushed far north, reportedly as far as Lake Baikal. The Xiongnu lost much of their manpower and livestock and were driven from the lands south of the Gobi, though Han lost some 80 per cent of its horses in a decade of war."},{"year":-111,"text":"Han conquers Nanyue in the far south","lonlat":[113.26,23.13],"detail":"As Qin collapsed, Zhao Tuo, a former Qin officer, had set himself up as king of Nanyue, covering modern Guangdong, Guangxi and northern Vietnam. In 113 BCE Nanyue's queen dowager, herself Chinese, proposed accepting Han overlordship, but the minister Lü Jia led the opposition and in 112 BCE had her executed. Emperor Wu sent six armies by sea, overland and down the Xi River, and in 111 BCE the capital Panyu (modern Guangzhou) fell and Nanyue surrendered. Han set up nine commanderies there, pushing its southern frontier to northern Vietnam and opening sea trade with Southeast Asia."},{"year":-108,"text":"Han conquers Gojoseon in Korea","lonlat":[125.75,39.02],"detail":"Wiman Chosŏn, the kingdom of Gojoseon in northern Korea and southern Manchuria, under King Ugeo blocked envoys from other Korean chiefs from reaching the Han court. In 109 BCE Emperor Wu invaded with two forces: 50,000 men by sea across the Bohai and another army overland through Liaodong. Both suffered early defeats, and the capital Wanggeom (near modern Pyongyang) held out for months. In 108 BCE leading ministers surrendered and King Ugeo was assassinated, and Han created four commanderies in the northern half of the peninsula. The most important, Lelang, remained under Chinese control until 313 CE."},{"year":-60,"text":"Protectorate of the Western Regions set up in the Tarim Basin","lonlat":[84.25,41.78],"detail":"After the wars with the Xiongnu, Han wanted to control the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim Basin, both to keep the Xiongnu away from China and to command the Silk Road trade that passed through them. In 60 or 59 BCE, after a Xiongnu prince, the Rizhu King, submitted to Han, the envoy Zheng Ji was made Protector-General of the Western Regions, overseeing both the northern and southern routes from a headquarters at Wulei near Kucha. It was the first direct rule by a Chinese government in the region. Han power now reached deep into what is today Xinjiang."},{"year":9,"text":"Wang Mang seizes the throne and founds the Xin dynasty","lonlat":[108.94,34.27],"detail":"In the last decades of the Western Han, the family of Empress Dowager Wang held the regency for a series of weak or child emperors. Her nephew Wang Mang became regent in 1 BCE and acting emperor for the infant heir Ruzi Ying in 6 CE, then in 9 CE claimed the Mandate of Heaven and founded his own Xin dynasty. His reforms, such as outlawing slavery, sharing out land and issuing new coins, met fierce opposition, and huge Yellow River floods drove peasants into rebel bands such as the Red Eyebrows. In 23 CE rebels stormed Chang'an and killed him, and Han control of the Tarim Basin was lost."},{"year":25,"text":"Emperor Guangwu restores the Han and moves the capital to Luoyang","lonlat":[112.45,34.62],"detail":"Liu Xiu, a distant descendant of the Han emperors, was one of several claimants who rose during the civil wars after Wang Mang's fall. He proclaimed himself emperor on 5 August 25 CE, taking the name Guangwu, and defeated the marauding Red Eyebrows and rival warlords, reunifying China by 36 CE. He made Luoyang, about 335 km east of the ruined Chang'an, his capital, which is why his dynasty is called the Eastern Han. His reforms gave the Han nearly two more centuries of rule over a restored empire."},{"year":184,"text":"Yellow Turban Rebellion; generals who crush it become warlords","lonlat":null,"detail":"By the 180s CE the Eastern Han court was paralysed by power struggles, while peasants suffered heavy taxes and forced labour. The Taoist faith healer Zhang Jue built a vast following, the Way of Supreme Peace, and when his plot was betrayed the rising broke out early, in 184 CE, across eight provinces; the rebels wore yellow headscarves. Han armies crushed the main revolt within a year, but smaller uprisings went on until 205. Many generals raised to fight the rebels kept their troops and became warlords, and the empire's central authority never recovered."},{"year":220,"text":"Cao Pi takes the throne from Emperor Xian, ending the Han","lonlat":null,"detail":"After 189 CE the warlord Dong Zhuo wrecked the Han court, and the empire split among rival warlords. Cao Cao took control of the young Emperor Xian in 196 and ruled in his name, but his drive to reunify China was stopped at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208–209. In 220 his son Cao Pi pressured Emperor Xian to abdicate and founded the Wei dynasty, formally ending the Han. Liu Bei proclaimed the Shu Han dynasty in 221 and Sun Quan founded Wu in 222, so China was divided into the Three Kingdoms until 280."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Qin Shi Huang (First Emperor)","from":-221,"to":-210},{"name":"Qin Er Shi and Ziying","from":-210,"to":-207},{"name":"Gaozu (Liu Bang)","from":-202,"to":-195},{"name":"Emperor Hui, Empress Lü, Emperors Wen and Jing","from":-195,"to":-141},{"name":"Emperor Wu","from":-141,"to":-87},{"name":"Emperor Xuan","from":-74,"to":-48},{"name":"Emperor Yuan","from":-49,"to":-33},{"name":"Emperor Cheng","from":-33,"to":-7},{"name":"Emperors Ai and Ping","from":-7,"to":6},{"name":"Wang Mang (Xin dynasty)","from":9,"to":23},{"name":"Emperor Guangwu","from":25,"to":57},{"name":"Emperor Zhang","from":75,"to":88},{"name":"Emperor He","from":88,"to":105},{"name":"Emperor Ling","from":168,"to":189},{"name":"Emperor Xian","from":189,"to":220}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Qin dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Eastern Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Han_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Han–Xiongnu War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han%E2%80%93Xiongnu_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Yellow Turban Rebellion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ziying of Qin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziying_of_Qin"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Gaixia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaixia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Protectorate of the Western Regions","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectorate_of_the_Western_Regions"}]},{"id":"xiongnu","name":"Xiongnu","profile":"xiongnu","chain":[{"clio":"Xiongnu","from":-208,"to":91}],"span":[-209,91],"summary":"Modu Chanyu (209–174 BCE) united the nomads of the Mongolian Plateau into a confederation that humbled the early Han and drove the Yuezhi west. Emperor Wu's wars from 133 BCE broke Xiongnu power; a succession war ended with Huhanye submitting to Han, and in 48 CE the confederation split into Southern and Northern Xiongnu. Han campaigns in 89–91 CE destroyed the Northern state, whose chanyu fled west.","events":[{"year":-209,"text":"Modu kills his father Touman and becomes chanyu","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Xiongnu were horse-riding nomads of the Mongolian Plateau, and in 215 BCE the Qin general Meng Tian had driven them out of their pastures in the Ordos. Their chief, Touman, favoured another son as heir and, according to Sima Qian, sent his eldest son Modu as a hostage to the Yuezhi, hoping he would be killed, but Modu escaped. Modu then trained his warriors to shoot wherever his whistling arrow flew, and in 209 BCE had them kill his father during a hunt. As chanyu (supreme ruler), he united the steppe tribes into a powerful confederation able to field large, coordinated armies."},{"year":-203,"text":"Modu defeats the Yuezhi","lonlat":[100.45,38.93],"detail":"Having seized power, Modu turned on the Xiongnu's neighbours. By 208 BCE he had crushed the Donghu of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria, whose survivors became the Xianbei and Wuhuan peoples, and he went on to subdue the Dingling and other peoples to the north. In 203 BCE he defeated the Yuezhi, the strong nomad people of the Gansu grasslands to the south-west who had once held him hostage. After these victories all the Xiongnu lords submitted to him, and his empire spread across the eastern steppe from Manchuria towards Gansu."},{"year":-200,"text":"Modu surrounds the Han emperor Gaozu at Baideng","lonlat":[113.3,40.08],"detail":"Modu had also retaken the Ordos from the collapsing Qin, and when the Han vassal king Xin defected to him, their forces raided northern China. Emperor Gaozu marched north with a huge army but pushed ahead to Pingcheng (modern Datong) with only part of it, and Modu's cavalry surrounded him on Mount Baideng for seven days. The chanyu then let him escape; Sima Qian suggests Modu's wife persuaded him. In 198 BCE the Han agreed a peace giving the chanyu a bride, regular gifts of silk, wine and grain, and equal status, a pattern that lasted about sixty years."},{"year":-178,"text":"Xiongnu overrun the Yuezhi and Wusun in Gansu and the Tarim Basin","lonlat":[100.45,38.93],"detail":"Modu followed up his success against China by making the Yuezhi and the Wusun his vassals. In 178 BCE the Xiongnu overran both peoples in Gansu and pushed into the Tarim Basin; according to later accounts, Modu's son Jizhu killed the Yuezhi king and made his skull into a drinking cup. Sources date this blow between 178 and 176 BCE. The Xiongnu now controlled the oasis kingdoms of the Western Regions and their trade routes, and by Modu's death in 174 BCE they were the most powerful of all the nomads bordering China."},{"year":-162,"text":"Laoshang Chanyu drives the Yuezhi from their homeland","lonlat":null,"detail":"Modu's son Jiyu, who ruled as Laoshang Chanyu from 174 BCE, kept up the pressure on both China and the Yuezhi, raiding within sight of the Han capital Chang'an in 166 and 165 BCE. During the 160s BCE his forces drove the remaining Yuezhi out of Gansu altogether; the sources date this final expulsion variously from c. 165 to 162 BCE. The Greater Yuezhi migrated far to the west, first to the Ili valley and later to Sogdia and Bactria, while the Lesser Yuezhi took refuge in the mountains to the south. The Xiongnu now held the Hexi Corridor without rivals."},{"year":-133,"text":"Failed Han ambush at Mayi starts full-scale war","lonlat":[112.43,39.33],"detail":"For some seventy years the Han had paid gifts under the heqin treaties, yet Xiongnu raids continued, and the ambitious Emperor Wu wanted a decisive blow. In 133 BCE a trader at the border town of Mayi pretended to offer the city to Junchen Chanyu, while about 300,000 Han troops lay in hiding to ambush him. The chanyu grew suspicious at the sight of herds left without herders, captured a Han soldier who revealed the plan, and withdrew before the trap could close. No battle was fought, but the peace was over: raids escalated, and Han began building a cavalry army to strike deep into the steppe."},{"year":-127,"text":"Wei Qing retakes the Ordos for Han","lonlat":[108.5,39.5],"detail":"After full-scale war broke out in 129 BCE, Emperor Wu's generals took the fight to the Xiongnu. In 127 BCE Wei Qing led 40,000 cavalry out of Yunzhong and outflanked the Xiongnu princes of Loufan and Baiyang, retaking full control of the Ordos, the grasslands inside the Yellow River loop that Modu had recovered after Qin's fall. Han settled about 100,000 people there, created the commanderies of Shuofang and Wuyuan, and repaired the old Qin walls. The Xiongnu lost a key base on the edge of the Chinese heartland."},{"year":-121,"text":"Huo Qubing defeats the Xiongnu and Han annexes the Hexi Corridor","lonlat":[102.64,37.93],"detail":"In 121 BCE Emperor Wu twice sent the young general Huo Qubing against the Xiongnu tribes holding the Hexi Corridor, the chain of oases leading west from the Yellow River towards Central Asia. In the spring he fought through five kingdoms in six days and killed nearly 9,000 enemy troops. Fearing punishment from the chanyu after these defeats, the Xiongnu Prince of Hunye surrendered to Han in the autumn, bringing some 40,000 people with him. The Xiongnu lost the whole corridor from Gansu to Lop Nur, which Han organised into commanderies, cutting the Xiongnu off from the Qiang peoples to the south."},{"year":-119,"text":"Battle of Mobei drives the Xiongnu from the Gobi","lonlat":null,"detail":"After losing the Ordos and Gansu, the chanyu Yizhixie pulled his court north of the Gobi Desert, hoping the barren land would keep the Han out. In 119 BCE Wei Qing and Huo Qubing each led 50,000 cavalry, with many more foot soldiers, across the desert: Wei Qing routed the chanyu's army, while Huo Qubing destroyed the eastern Xiongnu forces. According to official Han reports, the Xiongnu lost 80,000 to 90,000 men, though fewer than 30,000 of the 140,000 Han horses came home. The Xiongnu were driven from the lands south of the Gobi and never again seriously threatened the Han heartland under Emperor Wu."},{"year":-53,"text":"Succession war (60–53 BCE) ends with Huhanye submitting to Han","lonlat":null,"detail":"When Xulüquanqu Chanyu died in 60 BCE, a distant relative, Woyanqudi, seized power, and the succession broke down into civil war, with as many as five rival chanyus at one point. Huhanye, Xulüquanqu's son, came out on top but was challenged by his own elder brother, Zhizhi. In 53 BCE Huhanye moved south and submitted to Han China, sending a son as hostage, and in 51 BCE he went to Chang'an to pay homage in person. The Xiongnu fell from the Han's equals to an 'outer vassal', and their realm was split between the pro-Han Huhanye and Zhizhi, who withdrew westward."},{"year":-36,"text":"Huhanye's rival Zhizhi is killed by a Han army","lonlat":null,"detail":"Driven west by his brother's Han-backed power, Zhizhi allied with the Kangju people near Lake Balkhash around 44 BCE and forced them to build him a fortress, probably near Talas in modern Kazakhstan. In 36 BCE the Han deputy commander Chen Tang, forging an order in the name of the ailing Protector-General Gan Yanshou, led an army of Han and allied troops that stormed the fort. Zhizhi was killed and his head was sent to Chang'an. Huhanye was left as the only chanyu, and the Xiongnu remained loyal Han vassals until the upheavals of Wang Mang's reign."},{"year":48,"text":"Confederation splits into Southern (pro-Han) and Northern Xiongnu","lonlat":null,"detail":"During the chaos of Wang Mang's reign the Xiongnu under Huduershi regained the Western Regions and stopped paying tribute. But Huduershi broke the custom of passing power to brothers and named his son Punu as heir, angering Bi, the Rizhu King of the Right, who as eldest son of an earlier chanyu had a stronger claim. In 48 CE eight southern tribes with 40,000 to 50,000 fighters broke away and made Bi their chanyu. The Southern Xiongnu soon became Han allies settled along the frontier, while Punu's Northern Xiongnu kept the steppe around the Orkhon."},{"year":89,"text":"Dou Xian's Han army chases the Northern Chanyu into the Altai","lonlat":null,"detail":"By the 80s CE the Northern Xiongnu were weakened by famines and locust plagues, and in 87 the rising Xianbei killed their chanyu Youliu. The Han court seized the chance: in 89 the general Dou Xian, brother of the empress dowager, led three columns, including the main army of the Southern Xiongnu, deep into Mongolia. They chased the Northern Chanyu into the Altai Mountains, killing 13,000 and accepting the surrender of some 200,000 people from 81 tribes. Dou Xian carved a victory inscription on Mount Yanran, rediscovered by Mongolian and Chinese scholars in recent years, and the Northern state was broken."},{"year":91,"text":"Northern Chanyu defeated in the Altai Mountains and flees west","lonlat":null,"detail":"After the defeat of 89 CE the Northern Chanyu tried to negotiate, but the Southern Xiongnu wanted their rivals destroyed, and Han attacks continued. In February 91 Dou Xian's generals Geng Kui and Ren Shang struck again, defeating the Northern Chanyu in the Altai Mountains, capturing his mother and killing about 5,000 of his men. The chanyu fled west and was never heard of again, and a successor chosen near Lake Barkol was killed in 93. Most of the Northern Xiongnu were absorbed by the Xianbei, who now took over the Mongolian steppe."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Modu","from":-209,"to":-174},{"name":"Laoshang","from":-174,"to":-161},{"name":"Junchen","from":-161,"to":-126},{"name":"Yizhixie","from":-126,"to":-114},{"name":"Wuwei to Hulugu","from":-114,"to":-85},{"name":"Huyandi","from":-85,"to":-68},{"name":"Xulüquanqu and Woyanqudi","from":-68,"to":-58},{"name":"Huhanye (rival Zhizhi to 36 BCE)","from":-58,"to":-31},{"name":"Fuzhulei to Wuzhuliu","from":-31,"to":13},{"name":"Wulei","from":13,"to":18},{"name":"Huduershidaogao (Yu)","from":18,"to":46},{"name":"Northern chanyus (Punu, Youliu)","from":46,"to":87},{"name":"The last Northern Chanyu","from":88,"to":91}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Xiongnu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Modu Chanyu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modu_Chanyu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Han–Xiongnu War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han%E2%80%93Xiongnu_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chanyu","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanyu"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Laoshang","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laoshang"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Mayi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mayi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Zhizhi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zhizhi"}]},{"id":"kushan-empire","name":"Kushan Empire","profile":"kushan-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Kushan Empire","from":43,"to":237},{"clio":"Eastern Kushans","from":238,"to":346}],"span":[30,375],"summary":"Kujula Kadphises united the Yuezhi tribes of Bactria in the 1st century CE, and his successors pushed into north-western India. Under Kanishka I (c. 127–150) the empire stretched from Central Asia to the Ganges plain, ruled from Purushapura and Mathura and linking the Silk Road, India and Rome. After Vasudeva I (d. c. 225) Sasanian Persia took the west, and the eastern 'Little Kushans' faded under Gupta suzerainty and the Kidarites by c. 375.","events":[{"year":30,"text":"Kujula Kadphises unites the Yuezhi tribes in Bactria","lonlat":[66.9,36.76],"detail":"In the 2nd century BCE the Yuezhi, nomads from north-western China, had settled in Bactria (northern Afghanistan), where they formed five tribes. In the 1st century CE the Kushan tribe rose above the others, and its leader Kujula Kadphises welded them into one confederation. According to the later Chinese Book of Later Han, he then attacked the Indo-Parthians, took the Kabul region and conquered Gandhara. His dates are uncertain (c. 30–80 CE by one reckoning, c. 40–90 by another), but he counts as the founder of the Kushan Empire, which now reached from Bactria to the Indus."},{"year":90,"text":"Han general Ban Chao repels a Kushan army sent across the Pamirs","lonlat":[75.23,37.77],"detail":"Han China's general Ban Chao spent decades bringing the oasis kingdoms of the Tarim Basin under Chinese control, and in 84–85 CE the Kushans helped him against rebels around Kashgar and Turpan. In return the Kushan ruler asked for a Han princess as a bride. When the Han court refused, a Kushan army said to number 70,000 crossed the Pamirs to attack Ban Chao, in 90 CE according to most accounts (some say 86). Ban Chao's smaller force held out until the invaders ran short of supplies and withdrew. The Kushans then sent tribute to China, and the Tarim Basin stayed a Han sphere, limiting the empire's growth to the north-east."},{"year":113,"text":"Vima Kadphises expands into north-west India and issues gold coins","lonlat":null,"detail":"Vima Kadphises, grandson of the founder Kujula, ruled from about 113 to 127 CE, although other reckonings start his reign as early as c. 95. He pushed Kushan rule deeper into Afghanistan and north-western India, perhaps replacing the Indo-Scythian ruler of Mathura. He was the first Kushan king to strike gold coins, made to the weight standard of Roman coins from gold that came largely through trade with the Roman world. The coins show how rich the empire had grown as a middleman on the Silk Road, and his conquests carried Kushan territory onto the plains of northern India."},{"year":127,"text":"Kanishka I begins his reign; the empire peaks, reaching Pataliputra","lonlat":[71.58,34.01],"detail":"Kanishka I, son of Vima Kadphises, came to the throne around 127 CE; older scholars put his accession in 78 CE, a date now abandoned. He ruled from two capitals, Purushapura (Peshawar) and Mathura, and his Rabatak inscription claims cities across the Ganges plain as far as Pataliputra. He replaced Greek with Bactrian as the language of government and became a great patron of Buddhism, which spread from Gandhara towards China along Kushan trade routes. Under him the empire reached its greatest extent, stretching from Central Asia north of the Oxus to the middle Ganges."},{"year":151,"text":"Huvishka consolidates rule, tightening control of Mathura","lonlat":[77.67,27.49],"detail":"Kanishka's son Huvishka succeeded around 150 CE and ruled for about thirty years. Rather than launching new conquests, he spent his reign consolidating what his father had won, and early on he worked to tighten his grip on Mathura, the empire's great city in northern India. His coins were minted from Balkh in Bactria to Mathura, and his gold coins and amulets have been found as far east as Pataliputra and Bodh Gaya. His largely peaceful reign, sometimes called the golden age of Kushan rule, kept the empire close to its widest extent."},{"year":190,"text":"Vasudeva I, the last great Kushan emperor, comes to the throne","lonlat":[77.67,27.49],"detail":"Vasudeva I followed Huvishka around 190 CE and is remembered as the last of the 'Great Kushans'. Dated inscriptions show him ruling from at least 191, minting coins at Balkh in Bactria while governing northern India. His name is that of the Hindu god Vasudeva-Krishna, and he was the first Kushan king named after an Indian god, which suggests his centre of power lay in Mathura. During his long reign a new dynasty, the Sasanians, seized power in Persia (224) and began pressing on his north-western lands, the first step towards losing the empire's Bactrian heartland."},{"year":225,"text":"Vasudeva I dies; the empire splits","lonlat":null,"detail":"Vasudeva I died around 225 CE by the usual reckoning, although Chinese records of an embassy he sent in 229 suggest he may have lived a few years longer. After him the empire split into a western half in Afghanistan and Bactria and an eastern half based in the Punjab. Neither had the strength of the old empire, and both faced the new Sasanian kings of Persia, who had just overthrown the Parthians. Later Kushan rulers such as Kanishka II held on, but the single empire stretching from the Oxus to the Ganges was gone."},{"year":240,"text":"Sasanians take the western lands and set up the Kushano-Sasanian kingdom","lonlat":[66.9,36.76],"detail":"The Sasanians, who had replaced the Parthians in Iran in 224, soon turned east. Under Ardashir I (from about 230) and his son Shapur I (240–270) they took Bactria, Sogdiana and Gandhara from the western Kushans, and Shapur's inscription at Naqsh-e Rostam claims the 'domain of the Kushans' as far as Peshawar. The conquered lands were ruled by Sasanian governors who called themselves Kushanshah, 'King of the Kushans', and kept issuing Kushan-style coins. The Kushans had lost their homeland north of the Hindu Kush, and what remained of their power was confined to the Punjab."},{"year":350,"text":"Samudragupta brings the Little Kushans under Gupta suzerainty","lonlat":[72.83,33.75],"detail":"By the 4th century the 'Little Kushans' ruled only a local kingdom in the Punjab, with its capital at Taxila, having lost Mathura and the Ganges lands. In the mid-4th century the Gupta emperor Samudragupta, expanding from the east, claimed them as subordinates. His Allahabad pillar inscription lists the 'Daivaputra-Shahi-Shahanushahi', which many historians read as a garbled form of the Kushan royal titles, among rulers who offered him daughters in marriage and asked to keep governing their own districts. The Kushans still held the Punjab, but now under Gupta overlordship, and the Guptas became the leading power of northern India."},{"year":360,"text":"Kidarites overthrow the remaining Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian rulers","lonlat":null,"detail":"In the mid-4th century new nomads, the Kidarites, a Hun people named after their king Kidara, moved south from Central Asia. Around 360–370 CE Kidara overthrew the Kushano-Sasanian governors of Bactria and the remnants of the old Kushan dynasty. The Kidarites presented themselves as heirs of the Kushans, even striking Kushan-style coins, and by about 390–410 they had also moved into north-western India. The Sasanians were pushed back towards Merv, and Kushan rule survived only in small pockets under Gupta and Kidarite overlords."},{"year":375,"text":"Kushan rule fades out as Kidarites and Guptas hold its former lands","lonlat":null,"detail":"Historians usually date the end of the Kushan Empire to around 375 CE, though no single event marks it. The last known Little Kushan ruler, Kipunada, issued gold coins in the Punjab around 335–350 and was probably a subject of Samudragupta. After him, coins struck in the Punjab bear the name 'Samudra', and then those of Kidarite kings such as Kidara, who took over the old Kushan territory. The lands the Kushans had once ruled from the Oxus to the Ganges were now divided between the Kidarites in the north-west and the Gupta Empire in the east."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Kujula Kadphises","from":30,"to":80},{"name":"Vima Takto","from":90,"to":113},{"name":"Vima Kadphises","from":113,"to":127},{"name":"Kanishka I","from":127,"to":150},{"name":"Huvishka","from":151,"to":190},{"name":"Vasudeva I","from":190,"to":230},{"name":"Little Kushans of Punjab (to Kipunada)","from":230,"to":375}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Kushan Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushan_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kujula Kadphises","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kujula_Kadphises"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Vima Kadphises","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vima_Kadphises"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kanishka","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanishka"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Han dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ban Chao","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Chao"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushano-Sasanian_Kingdom"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kipunada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipunada"}]},{"id":"sasanian-empire","name":"Sasanian Empire","profile":"sasanian-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Sasanian Empire","from":224,"to":643}],"span":[224,651],"summary":"Ardashir I overthrew the Parthians in 224 and his son Shapur I humiliated Rome, capturing the emperor Valerian in 260. For four centuries the Sasanians rivalled Rome and Byzantium; Khosrow I (531–579) sacked Antioch and took Yemen, and Khosrow II briefly held the Levant and Egypt. Exhausted by the war of 602–628 and the civil war that followed, the empire fell to the Arab conquests, ending with Yazdegerd III's death in 651.","events":[{"year":224,"text":"Ardashir I defeats Artabanus IV at Hormozdgan, ending Parthian rule","lonlat":null,"detail":"In the early 3rd century the Parthian Empire was weakened by a long struggle between the brothers Vologases VI and Artabanus IV. Meanwhile Ardashir, a prince of the Sasanian family in Pars (Persis, south-western Iran), was conquering neighbouring provinces such as Kirman. On 28 April 224 Artabanus finally marched against him and was defeated and killed on the plain of Hormozdgan, whose exact site has never been found. The battle ended almost five centuries of Parthian rule, and Ardashir took the title 'King of Kings', founding a new Persian empire that soon held the Iranian plateau and Mesopotamia."},{"year":260,"text":"Shapur I captures the Roman emperor Valerian at Edessa","lonlat":[38.79,37.16],"detail":"Shapur I, Ardashir's son, repeatedly invaded Rome's eastern provinces and plundered Antioch in 253 or 256. The ageing emperor Valerian marched east to stop him, and in 260 the two armies met between Carrhae and Edessa (modern Urfa, in Turkey). The Romans were defeated and besieged, and when Valerian tried to negotiate he was captured: the first Roman emperor ever taken prisoner. He died in Persian captivity, while Shapur's troops raided Cilicia and Cappadocia and deported their people. The victory made the Sasanians the equal of Rome and left its eastern frontier open to Persian raids."},{"year":299,"text":"Peace of Nisibis after Narseh's defeat: Rome gains five provinces east of the Tigris","lonlat":[41.21,37.07],"detail":"In 296 or 297 the Sasanian king Narseh went to war with Rome and at first defeated the Caesar Galerius near Carrhae. In 298, however, Galerius surprised Narseh's camp at Satala in Armenia, capturing his treasury, wives and children, and then marched south to take the Persian capital Ctesiphon. To recover his family, Narseh accepted the terms agreed at Nisibis in 299. Persia handed over five provinces east of the Tigris, recognised the river as the border and gave up control of Iberia in the Caucasus. The frontier held for some forty years, and the Sasanian map shrank back from northern Mesopotamia and Armenia."},{"year":363,"text":"Shapur II repels Emperor Julian's invasion at Ctesiphon","lonlat":[44.58,33.09],"detail":"In 363 the Roman emperor Julian invaded Persia with a large army and a river fleet, aiming to take the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and humble Shapur II. He advanced quickly down the Euphrates and won a battle outside Ctesiphon, but the city's defences looked too strong and his northern army never arrived. Julian burned his fleet and marched inland, where Shapur's scorched-earth tactics and constant raids forced a retreat, and Julian died of wounds from a skirmish near Samarra. His successor Jovian bought peace by handing Nisibis, Singara and other frontier lands to Persia and abandoning Armenia, regaining much of what Narseh had lost."},{"year":484,"text":"Peroz I is killed by the Hephthalites","lonlat":null,"detail":"By the 5th century the Sasanians' greatest danger lay in the north-east, where the Hephthalites, a Hunnic people, had risen in Bactria in place of the Kidarites. Peroz I (459–484) had already been defeated and captured by them twice. Against the advice of his nobles and priests he launched a third campaign in 484; according to later accounts, the Hephthalite king Akhshunwar dug a hidden trench, and Peroz and much of his army fell into it and were killed. The Hephthalites seized Nishapur, Herat and Merv, and for years Persia paid them tribute, one of the lowest points in the empire's history."},{"year":540,"text":"Khosrow I invades Syria and sacks Antioch","lonlat":[36.16,36.2],"detail":"Khosrow I (531–579) had made a 'Perpetual Peace' with the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 532, but angered by Byzantium's Arab clients, the Ghassanids, and urged on by envoys from Ostrogothic Italy, he broke it in 540. In May he invaded Byzantine Syria, sacking Sura and Beroea (Aleppo) and taking silver from towns that paid to be spared. In June he reached Antioch, the greatest city of the Roman East; when it refused to pay, he captured and sacked it. Khosrow resettled its captives in a new city near Ctesiphon called 'Khosrow's Better Antioch', and the raid showed that Persia could again strike deep into Roman lands."},{"year":570,"text":"Khosrow I's forces under Vahriz occupy Yemen","lonlat":[44.21,15.35],"detail":"In the 6th century Yemen, at the southern end of the Red Sea trade routes, was ruled by Ethiopians from the Christian kingdom of Aksum, allies of Byzantium. When an exiled Yemeni prince asked for help, Khosrow I sent the general Wahrez (Vahriz) by sea in about 570 with a small force; the sources give anything from 800 to 7,500 men. Wahrez killed the Aksumite ruler Masruq in battle, took San'a and restored a Himyarite king, Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan, as a Persian vassal. After a second invasion in the later 570s Yemen became a Sasanian province, stretching Persian power to the southern tip of Arabia."},{"year":614,"text":"Khosrow II's armies take Jerusalem","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"detail":"The Byzantine emperor Maurice had helped Khosrow II regain his throne, so when Maurice was murdered by Phocas in 602, Khosrow declared war, ostensibly to avenge him. In 613 his general Shahrbaraz won victories at Antioch and Caesarea Maritima, and Jewish rebels, long persecuted under Byzantine rule, joined the advance; between 20,000 and 26,000 are said to have fought alongside the Persians. By mid-614 Jerusalem had fallen, after a siege of about three weeks according to one eyewitness account. The Persians carried the True Cross off to Ctesiphon, and with Palestine annexed, Persian rule now reached the Mediterranean coast."},{"year":619,"text":"Alexandria falls; Egypt is taken by 621","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"detail":"After taking Syria and Palestine, Khosrow II's armies turned on Egypt, one of the Byzantine Empire's richest provinces. The invasion began in 617 or 618; the governor Nicetas, a cousin of Emperor Heraclius, could not resist and fled to Cyprus. According to the Khuzistan Chronicle, Alexandria was betrayed to the Persians in June 619, and by 621 they securely held the Nile valley. Egypt stayed in Persian hands for about ten years, ruled by Shahrbaraz from Alexandria. It was the first time the Sasanians had ruled Egypt, and with the Levant and parts of Anatolia also theirs, the empire was at its widest."},{"year":626,"text":"Persian and Avar siege of Constantinople fails","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"By 626 the Byzantine emperor Heraclius had been raiding deep into Persian territory for several years, so Khosrow II tried to end the war by striking at Constantinople itself. A Persian army under Shahrbaraz camped at Chalcedon, across the Bosphorus, while the Avars and their Slav allies, perhaps 80,000 strong, attacked the city's land walls from the European side from 29 June. The defenders under Patriarch Sergius and the patrician Bonus held the walls, and on 7 August Byzantine ships destroyed the rafts meant to ferry Persian troops across the strait. The siege collapsed, and its failure saved the Byzantine Empire from collapse."},{"year":627,"text":"Heraclius defeats the Persians at Nineveh","lonlat":[43.15,36.36],"detail":"Heraclius now carried the war into the heart of Persia. In September 627, allied with Turkic (Göktürk) troops who soon deserted him, he invaded Sasanian Mesopotamia in a risky winter campaign. On 12 December, near the ruins of ancient Nineveh, he met the Persian army of Rhahzadh; after about eight hours of fighting Rhahzadh was dead and his troops fell back. Heraclius plundered Khosrow II's palace at Dastagird, and soon afterwards the Persian army overthrew Khosrow and his son Kavad II sued for peace. The Sasanians gave up their conquests, the frontier returned roughly to where it had been around 590, and Persia slid into civil war."},{"year":636,"text":"Arab armies win at al-Qadisiyyah","lonlat":[44.43,31.73],"detail":"Exhausted by the long Byzantine war and years of civil war, the Sasanians now faced the armies of the new Islamic state in Arabia, the Rashidun Caliphate. Caliph Umar sent Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas to Iraq with about 30,000 men, and from July 636 they faced a Persian army of perhaps 60,000, with war elephants, at al-Qadisiyyah, south of modern Kufa. In November 636, after several days of fighting, the Persian commander Rustam Farrokhzad was killed and his army collapsed. The defeat left the Sasanians unable to defend Mesopotamia and opened the road to their capital, Ctesiphon."},{"year":637,"text":"Ctesiphon falls to the Arabs","lonlat":[44.58,33.09],"detail":"After al-Qadisiyyah the Arab army of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas advanced on Ctesiphon, the Persian capital on the Tigris since Parthian times. They besieged it from January to March 637, and when the defenders abandoned the city, King Yazdegerd III had already withdrawn to Hulwan in the Zagros foothills with much of the imperial treasure. Arab columns caught many of the refugees and seized huge booty. The fall of Ctesiphon consolidated Muslim rule over all of Mesopotamia, the empire's richest farmland, and confined the Sasanian state to the Iranian plateau."},{"year":642,"text":"Defeat at Nahavand opens the Iranian plateau to the Arabs","lonlat":[48.37,34.19],"detail":"Yazdegerd III still hoped to win back Mesopotamia, and gathered a large army in the Zagros Mountains. In 642 (some accounts say December 641) it met the Rashidun army of an-Nu'man ibn Muqarrin near Nahavand in western Iran. The battle was a catastrophic defeat for the Persians and marks the end of organised Sasanian resistance. Isfahan and other cities soon fell, and Yazdegerd escaped to the Merv region but could never raise another large army. The Iranian plateau now lay open, and over the following years the Arabs conquered it province by province."},{"year":651,"text":"Yazdegerd III is murdered near Merv: the empire ends","lonlat":[61.84,37.66],"detail":"After his defeats Yazdegerd III fled from province to province, through Kirman and Sakastan (Sistan) to Khorasan, hoping to raise new armies; he even asked Tang China for help, without success. He quarrelled with the local governors whose support he needed, and in 651, beaten once more, he took refuge with a miller near Merv. The miller murdered him, either for his jewels or, by another account, on the orders of the governor Mahoe Suri. His death ended the Sasanian dynasty after more than four centuries, and its lands passed to the caliphate, though Tabaristan by the Caspian held out for about a century."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Ardashir I","from":224,"to":240},{"name":"Shapur I","from":240,"to":270},{"name":"Hormizd I and Bahram I–III","from":270,"to":293},{"name":"Narseh","from":293,"to":302},{"name":"Hormizd II","from":302,"to":309},{"name":"Shapur II","from":309,"to":379},{"name":"Ardashir II, Shapur III, Bahram IV","from":379,"to":399},{"name":"Yazdegerd I","from":399,"to":420},{"name":"Bahram V","from":420,"to":438},{"name":"Yazdegerd II","from":438,"to":457},{"name":"Peroz I","from":459,"to":484},{"name":"Balash","from":484,"to":488},{"name":"Kavad I","from":488,"to":531},{"name":"Khosrow I","from":531,"to":579},{"name":"Hormizd IV","from":579,"to":590},{"name":"Khosrow II","from":590,"to":628},{"name":"Civil war (Kavad II, Ardashir III, Boran and others)","from":628,"to":632},{"name":"Yazdegerd III","from":632,"to":651}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Sasanian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of monarchs of the Sasanian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_the_Sasanian_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Sasanian Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Sasanian_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Timeline of Roman history","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Roman_history"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine–Sasanian_War_of_602–628"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Khosrow I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khosrow_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Peace of Nisibis (299)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Nisibis_(299)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Julian's Persian expedition","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian's_Persian_expedition"}]},{"id":"gupta-empire","name":"Gupta Empire","profile":"gupta-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Gupta Empire","from":324,"to":550}],"span":[319,550],"summary":"From the Gangetic plain, Chandragupta I (c. 319–335) raised the Gupta dynasty to imperial rank; Samudragupta's conquests and Chandragupta II's defeat of the Western Satraps made it the dominant power of northern India, a 'Golden Age' of art and science. Skandagupta repelled the Huns c. 455, but after him the empire lost ground to feudatories and to the Alchon Huns under Toramana and Mihirakula, and it had faded by the mid-6th century.","events":[{"year":319,"text":"Chandragupta I raises the dynasty to imperial rank; the Gupta era begins","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"In the early 4th century the Guptas were a minor dynasty in the Ganges plain: the founder Gupta and his son Ghatotkacha were called only 'Maharaja', great king. Chandragupta I took the grander title 'Maharajadhiraja', great king of kings, and issued gold coins. Many historians link his rise to his marriage with the Licchavi princess Kumaradevi, who appears beside him on those coins. His accession is often placed in 319–320, the start of the Gupta era, though who founded that era is uncertain. From its capital at Pataliputra the dynasty now began its rise to imperial power."},{"year":335,"text":"Samudragupta begins the conquests recorded on the Allahabad Pillar","lonlat":[81.88,25.43],"detail":"Chandragupta I's son Samudragupta took the throne around 335 and turned a regional kingdom into an empire. His courtier Harisena recorded his campaigns in a long inscription added to the Allahabad Pillar, an old pillar of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka. It says he 'uprooted' many kings of the north and annexed their lands, captured and then released kings of the south as far as Kanchipuram, and made frontier kingdoms pay tribute. At its height his direct rule stretched from the Ravi river in Punjab to the Brahmaputra in Assam, and he performed the Ashvamedha horse sacrifice to proclaim his imperial power."},{"year":375,"text":"Chandragupta II succeeds; Kalidasa at court, Faxian visits","lonlat":[85.14,25.61],"detail":"Samudragupta's son Chandragupta II, also known as Vikramaditya, became emperor around 375; a later play claims he first had to remove an elder brother, Ramagupta, a story whose truth is disputed. He extended Gupta power by war and by marriage alliances, notably marrying his daughter Prabhavatigupta into the Vakataka dynasty of the Deccan. His reign is remembered as a high point of Gupta culture: the poet Kalidasa may have been his court poet, and the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian, who spent about six years in the Gupta lands, described them as peaceful and prosperous. Under him the empire reached its height."},{"year":405,"text":"Western Satraps conquered (between c. 397 and 409); Ujjain a second capital","lonlat":[75.78,23.18],"detail":"For more than two centuries the Western Satraps, Shaka (Indo-Scythian) rulers based at Ujjain, had held Gujarat and western Malwa, with ports such as Barygaza on the Arabian Sea. Chandragupta II campaigned in central India, and the Satraps' coins stop abruptly in the 390s, then reappear dated in the Gupta era, showing that he had conquered them. The exact date is unknown, somewhere between about 397 and 409. The victory carried Gupta rule to the western coast, and according to one theory Ujjain became a second Gupta capital under a royal prince, which may explain later legends of King Vikramaditya ruling there."},{"year":415,"text":"Kumaragupta I succeeds; Nalanda traditionally founded in his reign","lonlat":[85.44,25.14],"detail":"Chandragupta II's son Kumaragupta I ruled from about 415 to 455 and kept intact an empire reaching from Gujarat in the west to Bengal in the east. Little is known of his wars, but he performed the Ashvamedha horse sacrifice, a ritual claim to imperial sovereignty. He is usually identified with King Shakraditya, whom a seal found at the site and later Buddhist writers name as the founder of the monastery at Nalanda in Bihar, around 427. Nalanda grew into one of Asia's great centres of Buddhist learning, but late in his reign new enemies, perhaps the Pushyamitras or the Hunas, may already have threatened the empire."},{"year":455,"text":"Skandagupta repels the Hunas (455–457)","lonlat":[83.2,25.56],"detail":"Around 455 Skandagupta, son of Kumaragupta I, took the throne, possibly after a disputed succession. His Bhitari pillar inscription says he restored 'the fallen fortunes of his family', first against enemies usually read as the Pushyamitras and then in close conflict with the Hunas, probably the Kidarites, who had pushed into north-western India as far as the Indus. The date of the Huna war is uncertain, but his Junagadh inscription of about 457–458 already celebrates victory over foreigners. He kept the empire's inherited lands, though the cost of these wars drained its resources."},{"year":467,"text":"Skandagupta dies; decline sets in","lonlat":null,"detail":"Skandagupta's last known date is about 467–468, and he is generally considered the last of the great Gupta emperors. He was probably followed by his half-brother Purugupta and then by a run of short reigns, including Kumaragupta II and Budhagupta. Gupta coins show that the dynasty lost control of much of western India after about 467–469. Former feudatories and provincial rulers grew more independent, and the empire, though still holding the Ganges heartland, was shrinking and weakening just as a new wave of Huna invaders gathered in the north-west."},{"year":497,"text":"Toramana's Alchon Huns push into central India and sack Kausambi","lonlat":[81.39,25.34],"detail":"The Alchon Huns, one of the Huna peoples from Central Asia, had established themselves in Gandhara and the Punjab. In the late 490s their king Toramana broke through the Gupta defences in the north-west, and much of the empire there was overrun by about 500. His inscriptions show him ruling Malwa and reaching northern Gujarat, and seals bearing his name and the title 'Huna king' found at Kausambi, on the Yamuna, suggest the city was sacked around 497–500, though one seal's authenticity is questioned. The Huns had torn away the empire's western provinces and now threatened its Ganges heartland."},{"year":510,"text":"Battle of Eran (Bhanugupta); Malwa probably falls to Toramana","lonlat":[78.2,24.1],"detail":"Malwa in central India was a key Gupta province, and at Eran it was held by Bhanugupta, probably a local Gupta ruler or governor. An inscription at Eran, dated to Gupta year 191 (510 CE), records that he fought in 'a great battle' in which the noble Goparaja was killed and his wife burned herself on his funeral pyre, one of the earliest recorded cases of sati. The inscription does not say who the enemy was or who won. Many historians think Bhanugupta was defeated by Toramana and that Malwa passed to the Huns, although others read the battle as a Gupta victory."},{"year":528,"text":"Yashodharman of Malwa defeats the Hun king Mihirakula","lonlat":[75.07,24.07],"detail":"Toramana's son Mihirakula extended Alchon Hun power across northern India and was remembered, especially by Buddhist writers, for destroying monasteries and killing monks. In 528 he was defeated by Yashodharman, an Aulikara king of Malwa ruling from Dashapura (Mandsaur), possibly together with the Gupta emperor Narasimhagupta. Yashodharman celebrated the victory on pillars at Sondani, near Mandsaur, boasting that even Mihirakula had bowed at his feet. The defeat ended the Alchon Hun era in India, but the winner was a new regional power rather than the Guptas, whose authority kept shrinking."},{"year":543,"text":"Last known Gupta inscription","lonlat":null,"detail":"By the 540s the main Gupta line ruled only a reduced kingdom in the east, and Yashodharman of Malwa had occupied most of northern and central India around 532. The last known inscription of a Gupta emperor comes from the reign of Vishnugupta: the Damodarpur copper plate, which records a grant of land in the Kotivarsha district, at modern Bangarh in West Bengal, in 542 or 543. Royal land grants like this show where a king's authority was still recognised, so this one suggests that Gupta rule now survived mainly in the east, in Bengal."},{"year":550,"text":"Gupta rule has effectively ended; northern India fragments","lonlat":null,"detail":"Vishnugupta, reigning until about 550, is usually counted as the last recognised ruler of the main Gupta line, though the succession of the 6th-century Guptas is unclear. The empire had been worn down by the Huna invasions, by the rise of former feudatories and rivals such as Yashodharman of Malwa and the Vakatakas, and by the loss of trade and tax revenue. In the Ganges heartland its place was taken by the Maukhari and Pushyabhuti dynasties, who even copied Gupta-style silver coins. Northern India was once again divided among regional kingdoms."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Chandragupta I","from":319,"to":335},{"name":"Samudragupta","from":335,"to":375},{"name":"Chandragupta II","from":375,"to":415},{"name":"Kumaragupta I","from":415,"to":455},{"name":"Skandagupta","from":455,"to":467},{"name":"Later Guptas (Budhagupta, Narasimhagupta, Vishnugupta and others)","from":467,"to":550}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Gupta Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Gupta Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Gupta_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chandragupta II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandragupta_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alchon Huns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchon_Huns"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chandragupta I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandragupta_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Samudragupta","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudragupta"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Skandagupta","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandagupta"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Toramana","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toramana"}]},{"id":"hunnic-empire","name":"Hunnic Empire (Attila)","profile":"hunnic-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Huns","from":370,"to":425},{"clio":"Hunnic Empire","from":426,"to":469}],"span":[370,469],"summary":"Nomadic Huns crossed the Volga around 370, subdued the Alans and Goths and by the 420s were based on the Great Hungarian Plain, extorting tribute from both halves of the Roman Empire. Under Attila (sole ruler from c. 445) they ravaged the Balkans, Gaul and Italy, but after his death in 453 the subject peoples revolted at the Nedao and the empire fell apart; his son Dengizich was killed in 469.","events":[{"year":370,"text":"c. 370: Huns reach the Volga and conquer the Alans and Goths","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Huns were nomadic horse archers who first appear in Roman sources living east of the Volga river, on the steppe north of the Caspian Sea. Around 370 they crossed the Volga and fell on the Alans, a fellow steppe people, and then on the Gothic kingdoms of what is now Ukraine: first the Greuthungi (eastern Goths), then most of the Thervingi (western Goths). Many of the defeated were absorbed into the Huns' following. The rest fled west. This sudden move set off a chain of migrations that pushed peoples toward the Roman frontier, and it explains why the Huns first appear on the map north of the Black Sea."},{"year":376,"text":"Gothic refugees fleeing the Huns seek shelter on the Lower Danube","lonlat":[28.0,45.2],"detail":"In the summer of 376 a huge crowd of Goths, driven from their lands by the Huns, gathered on the north bank of the Danube, the Roman border. They were two groups, the Thervingi under Fritigern and Alavivus and the Greuthungi under Alatheus and Saphrax, and they asked the eastern emperor Valens for permission to settle inside the empire, and he let the Thervingi cross. Corrupt Roman officials mistreated the starving refugees, who rebelled. In 378 the Goths destroyed the Roman army and killed Valens at Adrianople. Without crossing the river themselves, the Huns had broken Rome's Danube frontier."},{"year":395,"text":"First large-scale Hun attack on the Eastern Roman Empire","lonlat":null,"detail":"By the 390s most Huns were probably living around the Volga and Don rivers. In 395, the year the Roman Empire was finally split between the sons of Theodosius I, they launched their first large-scale attack on the eastern half. Riding through the Caucasus passes, they overran Armenia, pillaged Cappadocia, entered parts of Syria and threatened Antioch, while others raided Thrace. The campaign showed how far and fast Hun horsemen could strike. It was a raid for loot and captives, not a conquest, so it added no lasting territory, but it made the Huns a feared name in the eastern provinces."},{"year":408,"text":"Uldin crosses the Danube and pillages Thrace","lonlat":[26.0,42.5],"detail":"Uldin is the first Hun leader named in contemporary sources. By about 400 his followers were living north of the lower Danube. At first he was useful to Rome, killing the rebel Gothic general Gainas and helping defend Italy against the Goth Radagaisus, but in 408, knowing that eastern troops had been moved to the Persian frontier, he crossed the Danube, took the fort of Castra Martis and pillaged Thrace. The eastern Romans could not meet his price for peace, so they bribed his subordinates instead, and many of his men deserted. Uldin fled back across the Danube and disappears from history."},{"year":433,"text":"Aetius cedes Pannonia to the Huns","lonlat":[19.5,47.0],"detail":"By the 420s the Huns had moved their centre to the Great Hungarian Plain, where the open grassland suited their herds. Under King Rugila they worked closely with the western Roman general Flavius Aetius, who had lived among them as a hostage and later used Hun troops against his rivals and against the Goths in Gaul. In return, parts of the Roman province of Pannonia, west and south of the Danube, were ceded to the Huns, probably in 433, though the exact date and extent are disputed. The cession gave the Huns a secure home base astride the Danube, the heart of their empire on the map."},{"year":435,"text":"Attila and Bleda impose the Treaty of Margus on Eastern Rome","lonlat":[21.19,44.62],"detail":"Rugila died around 434, and his nephews Attila and Bleda took joint power. The next year (435, according to the Attila article) they met envoys of the eastern emperor Theodosius II at Margus, near modern Požarevac in Serbia, all seated on horseback in the Hun manner. The treaty doubled Rome's yearly tribute from 350 to 700 pounds of gold. It also opened markets to the Huns, forbade Rome to ally with the Huns' enemies and required it to return Hun fugitives. Margus showed the new rulers' method: they would use threats of war to drain gold from Constantinople rather than conquer land."},{"year":441,"text":"Attila and Bleda invade the Balkans, sacking Margus and Viminacium","lonlat":[21.19,44.62],"detail":"In 440 the Huns accused the Romans of breaking the Treaty of Margus and attacked a market town on the Danube. The next year, with the eastern army away fighting in Sicily and Armenia, Attila and Bleda crossed the river in force. At Margus the local bishop, whom they had demanded be handed over, secretly opened the city to them. They sacked Margus and Viminacium, then took Singidunum (Belgrade) and Sirmium; using battering rams and siege towers for the first time, they also stormed Ratiara and Naissus (Niš). The northern Balkans now lay open to Hun armies."},{"year":443,"text":"Peace of Anatolius: Theodosius II pays heavier tribute","lonlat":null,"detail":"After a further campaign in 443 the Huns defeated a Roman army outside Constantinople, but they could not break the city's double land walls. Theodosius II, with no army left to resist, sent the general Anatolius to make peace. The terms were far harsher than at Margus. Rome paid a lump sum of 6,000 Roman pounds of gold, and the yearly tribute was tripled to 2,100 pounds. The treaty took no land, but it made the Eastern Roman Empire a tributary of the Huns and paid for the warriors and gifts that held Attila's empire together."},{"year":445,"text":"Bleda dies; Attila becomes sole ruler","lonlat":null,"detail":"After the Huns pulled back from the Balkans, Attila's older brother Bleda died, probably around 445. How he died is unknown. The chronicler Jordanes suggests that Attila had him murdered, perhaps on a hunting trip, and a later Hungarian legend claims Attila killed him and threw his body into the Danube. Whatever the truth, Attila was now sole ruler of a vast and loose empire of Huns, Ostrogoths, Gepids, Alans and other subject peoples, stretching from the steppe toward the Rhine. All decisions on war and tribute now rested with one man."},{"year":447,"text":"Attila invades the Balkans and Thrace again","lonlat":null,"detail":"In 447 Attila rode south again into the Eastern Roman Empire through Moesia. A Roman army under the Gothic general Arnegisclus met him at the Utus river and was defeated, though it inflicted heavy losses. With no field army left, the Huns rampaged through the Balkans as far south as Thermopylae in Greece. Constantinople survived because the prefect Constantinus quickly rebuilt walls damaged by a recent earthquake. The Romans had to pay again, and a strip of land south of the Danube was reportedly emptied as a buffer, bringing the Hun frontier deep into the Balkans."},{"year":451,"text":"Attila invades Gaul; checked at the Catalaunian Plains","lonlat":[4.36,48.96],"detail":"In 450 Honoria, sister of the western emperor Valentinian III, sent Attila a plea for help and her ring to escape a forced marriage. Attila treated this as a marriage proposal and demanded half the western empire as her dowry. In 451 he crossed the Rhine, took Metz and besieged Orléans, but Aetius allied with the Visigothic king Theodoric I and relieved the city. On 20 June 451 (traditional date) the armies clashed on the Catalaunian Plains, and Theodoric was killed. Attila withdrew, and Gaul stayed outside the Hun empire."},{"year":452,"text":"Invasion of Italy; Aquileia razed","lonlat":[13.37,45.77],"detail":"Attila returned in 452 to press his claim to Honoria, this time invading Italy over the Julian Alps. His army sacked many cities in the north and razed Aquileia so completely that its site was afterwards hard to recognise. Valentinian III sent envoys, including Pope Leo I, who met Attila near Mantua. Attila agreed to withdraw; his army was probably also weakened by famine and disease, and an eastern Roman force was attacking the Hun homeland. The invasion caused great destruction, but Italy stayed Roman and the Huns gained no territory there."},{"year":453,"text":"Attila dies; his sons divide the empire","lonlat":null,"detail":"Early in 453 Attila died on the night of his wedding to a young bride, Ildico. According to the historian Priscus he suffered a severe nosebleed and choked in a drunken stupor. His empire had depended on his personal authority over many subject peoples. Now his sons Ellac, Dengizich and Ernak quarrelled over the inheritance, and the subject kings were treated like property to be shared out. Jordanes wrote that in their eagerness to rule the sons destroyed the empire, which began to break apart almost at once."},{"year":454,"text":"c. 454: Subject peoples defeat the Huns at the Nedao","lonlat":null,"detail":"The subject peoples refused to be divided up like slaves. Led by Ardaric, king of the Gepids, who had been one of Attila's most loyal allies, a coalition of Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugii, Heruli, Suebi and others rose in revolt. In about 454 they defeated the Huns in Pannonia at the river Nedao, whose location is unknown. According to Jordanes some 30,000 men fell, and Attila's eldest son Ellac was killed. The Huns lost control of the Hungarian Plain, and by the early 460s the former subjects had become independent kingdoms, many of them allied to Rome."},{"year":469,"text":"Dengizich defeated and killed in Thrace; the Hunnic empire is gone","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Nedao the remaining Huns split into small groups near the lower Danube and the Black Sea steppe. Attila's son Dengizich tried to win back land and subsidies. Beaten by the Ostrogoths at Bassianae in 468, he then threatened Thrace and refused to negotiate with the Roman commander Anagast, so war dragged on until 469, when Dengizich was defeated and killed. According to the chronicler Marcellinus Comes his head was displayed in Constantinople. With his death, Hun rule in Europe was finished, and the empire disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Uldin","from":400,"to":408},{"name":"Rugila","from":430,"to":434},{"name":"Attila and Bleda (jointly)","from":435,"to":445},{"name":"Attila","from":445,"to":453},{"name":"Ellac","from":453,"to":454},{"name":"Dengizich (western Huns)","from":454,"to":469}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Huns","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Attila","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Attila the Hun","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Attila_the_Hun/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of the Catalaunian Plains","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Catalaunian_Plains"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Nedao","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nedao"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dengizich","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengizich"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Margus","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Margus"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Uldin","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uldin"}]},{"id":"byzantine-empire","name":"Byzantine Empire","profile":"byzantine-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Eastern Roman Empire","from":395,"to":632},{"clio":"Byzantine Empire","from":633,"to":1205},{"clio":"Nicaean Empire","from":1206,"to":1278},{"clio":"Byzantine Empire","from":1279,"to":1453}],"span":[395,1453],"summary":"The eastern half of the Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, outlived the West and under Justinian I reconquered North Africa, Italy and southern Spain, reaching its greatest extent in 565. The Arab conquests of the 630s–640s stripped away Syria and Egypt; the Macedonian emperors recovered ground up to Basil II's conquest of Bulgaria, before Manzikert (1071) opened Anatolia to the Turks. Sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and restored from Nicaea in 1261, the shrunken state fell to the Ottomans in 1453.","events":[{"year":395,"text":"Theodosius I dies; Arcadius rules the East from Constantinople","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"For decades the Roman Empire had often been ruled by more than one emperor, each with his own court. Theodosius I was the last man to rule both halves, and when he died at Milan on 17 January 395, his two young sons, already co-emperors, divided the empire between them. Arcadius took the East, ruling from Constantinople, and Honorius the West. The split was meant to be administrative, but it proved permanent. This is where the map begins: the Eastern Roman Empire, later called Byzantine, covering the Balkans, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt."},{"year":476,"text":"Last western emperor deposed; Constantinople is the sole Roman capital","lonlat":[12.2,44.42],"detail":"By the 470s the Western Roman Empire had shrunk to little more than Italy, run by Germanic generals who set up puppet emperors. In 476 the barbarian commander Odoacer deposed the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus at Ravenna and did not name a successor. Instead, the Senate sent the imperial regalia to the eastern emperor Zeno, and Odoacer ruled Italy as king while nominally accepting Zeno as his superior. From now on the emperor in Constantinople was the only Roman emperor, and the East carried on Rome's traditions alone."},{"year":533,"text":"Belisarius defeats the Vandals and retakes North Africa (533–534)","lonlat":[10.32,36.85],"detail":"Justinian I, emperor from 527, wanted to win back the western provinces lost to Germanic kingdoms. In 530 the pro-Roman Vandal king Hilderic was overthrown by his cousin Gelimer, giving Justinian his excuse. A fleet under the general Belisarius landed in North Africa in September 533, routed the Vandals at Ad Decimum, near Carthage, and took the city. After a second victory at Tricamarum in December, Gelimer surrendered in spring 534. Africa, roughly modern Tunisia and coastal Algeria and Libya, was restored to the empire, the first big step in Justinian's reconquest."},{"year":554,"text":"Gothic War ends; Italy is back under Roman rule","lonlat":[12.2,44.42],"detail":"Next Justinian turned to Italy, ruled by the Ostrogoths. Belisarius invaded in 535 and took the Gothic capital Ravenna in 540, but a Gothic revival under King Totila dragged the war on for years. The eunuch general Narses finally crushed the Goths in the early 550s and drove back a Frankish invasion in 554, the year Justinian issued a decree setting up Italy's new government. Italy was back under Roman rule, but the long war had left it devastated. Only 14 years later the Lombards invaded and seized much of the peninsula."},{"year":565,"text":"Justinian I dies with the empire at its greatest extent","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"Justinian died on 14 November 565, childless, after a 38-year reign. Besides Africa and Italy, his forces had also taken a strip of southern Spain, so the empire now ringed much of the Mediterranean again. He left lasting monuments too: the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and the Corpus Juris Civilis, a code of Roman law that is still the basis of civil law in many countries. But the wars, and the plague of the 540s, which Justinian himself caught and survived, had drained the treasury. The map shows the empire at its widest here, and it soon began to shrink."},{"year":627,"text":"Heraclius defeats the Persians at Nineveh","lonlat":[43.15,36.36],"detail":"After the Persian king Khosrow II went to war against the empire in 602, over twenty years the Persians took Syria, Jerusalem and, for the first time, Egypt. The emperor Heraclius fought back from 622, and in late 627 he invaded Mesopotamia in a risky winter campaign. On 12 December 627 near the ruins of Nineveh he defeated a Persian army whose general, Rhahzadh, was killed. The Persians overthrew Khosrow, and the peace that followed returned all the lost provinces and the True Cross. Both empires, though, were now exhausted."},{"year":636,"text":"Arab victory at the Yarmuk ends Byzantine rule in Syria","lonlat":[35.95,32.8],"detail":"Only a few years after defeating Persia, the empire faced a new enemy: Arab armies united under Islam. They invaded Syria in the 630s, and in May 636 Heraclius sent a huge army to drive them out. The Arabs pulled back and gathered on the plains by the Yarmuk river, near today's borders of Syria, Jordan and Israel. In six days of fighting in August 636 they defeated the larger Byzantine force, in what became the greatest victory of their commander Khalid ibn al-Walid. Byzantine rule in Syria effectively ended, and the empire's frontier fell back to the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia."},{"year":641,"text":"Alexandria surrenders to the Arabs; Egypt lost","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"detail":"In December 639 the Arab general Amr ibn al-As invaded Egypt, the empire's richest province and a main source of grain for Constantinople. He beat a Byzantine army at Heliopolis in 640 and took the Babylon Fortress, near modern Cairo, in 641. Alexandria, Egypt's capital, agreed to surrender by a treaty of November 641, and Arab troops entered the city the following September. The loss of Egypt cut off a huge share of the empire's revenue. The empire on the map was now reduced mainly to Anatolia, the Balkan coasts, parts of Italy and North Africa."},{"year":717,"text":"Leo III repels the Arab siege of Constantinople (717–718)","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"In 716 a huge Umayyad army under Maslama, the caliph's brother, invaded Anatolia, hoping to exploit a Byzantine civil war. The general Leo III seized the throne in 717, just before the Arabs began a land and sea blockade of Constantinople behind its massive Theodosian Walls. The Byzantine navy used Greek fire, an incendiary liquid, to destroy much of the Arab fleet, so the city could be supplied by sea. A harsh winter, famine and disease, plus Bulgar attacks, wrecked the besiegers, who withdrew on 15 August 718. The capital, and Anatolia behind it, survived."},{"year":1018,"text":"Basil II completes the conquest of Bulgaria","lonlat":[20.8,41.12],"detail":"Under its Tsar Samuel, the Bulgarian state had grown to stretch from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, and Emperor Basil II spent decades at war with it. On 29 July 1014 he trapped the Bulgarian army at Kleidion. According to chroniclers he blinded some 15,000 prisoners, leaving one man in every hundred with one eye to lead the rest home, and Samuel died of a stroke soon after. Bulgaria fought on until 1018, when it submitted. The empire's border reached the Danube again, and Basil earned the name 'Bulgar-Slayer'."},{"year":1071,"text":"Seljuks capture Romanos IV at Manzikert; Normans take Bari","lonlat":[42.53,39.14],"detail":"In 1071 the empire suffered two blows at opposite ends. In the west, Norman adventurers captured Bari, the last Byzantine stronghold in southern Italy, ending centuries of rule there. In the east, Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes marched against the Seljuk Turks and met Sultan Alp Arslan near Manzikert, in eastern Anatolia, on 26 August 1071. Many of his troops fled, and Romanos became the only Byzantine emperor captured by a Muslim commander. Civil war followed his release, and Turkish groups poured into Anatolia, the empire's heartland."},{"year":1204,"text":"Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople; empire splits into rump states","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"The Fourth Crusade set out in 1202 to attack Egypt but could not pay Venice for its fleet. In exchange, the crusaders first sacked the Christian city of Zara, then sailed to Constantinople to put a Byzantine claimant, Alexios IV, on the throne in return for huge payments he could not make. In April 1204 they stormed the city and plundered its enormous wealth. A Latin Empire was set up there, while Greek rulers held on in three rump states centred on Nicaea, Epirus and Trebizond. On the map the empire breaks apart, with the exiled court at Nicaea standing in for it."},{"year":1261,"text":"Michael VIII of Nicaea recaptures Constantinople","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"The Empire of Nicaea, in western Anatolia, became the strongest Greek successor state, and its ruler Michael VIII Palaiologos aimed to retake Constantinople. In July 1261 the general Alexios Strategopoulos was sent near the city with about 800 soldiers, mostly Cumans. On the night of 24–25 July they slipped in through the walls, and the Latin emperor Baldwin II fled by ship. Michael entered the city on 15 August and was crowned in Hagia Sophia. The Byzantine Empire was restored, but it was poorer and smaller than before 1204."},{"year":1369,"text":"Ottomans take Adrianople as they push into the Balkans","lonlat":[26.56,41.68],"detail":"The Ottoman Turks, from north-west Anatolia, crossed into Europe after seizing Gallipoli in 1354, helped by Byzantine civil wars. Sultan Murad I's forces then conquered much of Thrace, and Adrianople (Edirne), the main city between Constantinople and the Balkans, fell in the 1360s. The date is disputed (some historians say 1361 or 1362, others about 1369), and the city became the Ottoman capital. Constantinople was now surrounded by Ottoman land, and by the 1370s the shrunken empire had become an Ottoman vassal."},{"year":1453,"text":"Mehmed II takes Constantinople; Constantine XI dies","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"By 1453 the empire was little more than Constantinople and a few lands in Greece. The young Sultan Mehmed II besieged the city from 6 April with an army far larger than its defenders. Huge cannons battered the ancient walls, and on 29 May 1453, after a 53-day siege, the Ottomans broke in, and the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died in the fighting. Mehmed made Constantinople his new capital in place of Adrianople. The Byzantine Empire, the last direct heir of Rome, disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Arcadius","from":395,"to":408},{"name":"Theodosius II","from":408,"to":450},{"name":"Justinian I","from":527,"to":565},{"name":"Heraclius","from":610,"to":641},{"name":"Leo III","from":717,"to":741},{"name":"Basil I (Macedonian dynasty)","from":867,"to":886},{"name":"Basil II","from":976,"to":1025},{"name":"Alexios I Komnenos","from":1081,"to":1118},{"name":"John III Vatatzes (at Nicaea)","from":1221,"to":1254},{"name":"Michael VIII Palaiologos","from":1259,"to":1282},{"name":"Andronikos II Palaiologos","from":1282,"to":1328},{"name":"Manuel II Palaiologos","from":1391,"to":1425},{"name":"Constantine XI Palaiologos","from":1449,"to":1453}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Byzantine Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Byzantine emperors","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Byzantine_emperors"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Byzantine Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Byzantine_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of the Yarmuk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmuk"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fourth Crusade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Constantinople","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Vandalic War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalic_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Arab conquest of Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_conquest_of_Egypt"}]},{"id":"tang-dynasty","name":"Tang China","profile":"tang-dynasty","chain":[{"clio":"Tang Dynasty","from":623,"to":907}],"span":[623,907],"summary":"Founded in 618 by Li Yuan amid the collapse of the Sui (the map starts in 623), the Tang destroyed the Eastern Turks, conquered the Tarim Basin and, with Silla, Goguryeo, pushing protectorates as far as Central Asia. Defeat at Talas (751) and the An Lushan rebellion (755–763) ended this expansion, after which Tibet and regional governors ate into Tang power. The Huang Chao rebellion devastated the empire and the last emperor was deposed in 907.","events":[{"year":626,"text":"Xuanwu Gate Incident: Li Shimin seizes power as Emperor Taizong","lonlat":[108.94,34.34],"detail":"The Tang dynasty was founded in 618 by Emperor Gaozu. His eldest son, Li Jiancheng, was crown prince, but the second son, Li Shimin, had won most of the battles that brought the family to power, and their rivalry turned deadly. On 2 July 626 Li Shimin and his men ambushed Li Jiancheng and another brother, Li Yuanji, at the Xuanwu Gate of the palace in Chang'an and killed them both. About two months later Gaozu abdicated, and Li Shimin became Emperor Taizong. Under his rule the Tang began its great expansion beyond China's borders."},{"year":630,"text":"Tang armies destroy the Eastern Turkic Khaganate","lonlat":[109.0,39.5],"detail":"Early in Taizong's reign the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, a nomad power on the Mongolian steppe, threatened the Tang frontier. Its ruler, Illig Qaghan, faced revolts by subject tribes and the defection of his own nephew. In the winter of 629 the Tang general Li Jing launched a surprise attack and destroyed the khan's camp, and in 630 Illig was captured and handed over. The Eastern Turks were resettled along the Yellow River as a buffer, and Taizong took the title of 'Heavenly Khagan'. Tang power now reached across the steppe of Inner Mongolia."},{"year":640,"text":"Conquest of Gaochang (Turfan); Anxi Protectorate set up","lonlat":[89.53,42.85],"detail":"Gaochang (Karakhoja), near Turfan in today's Xinjiang, was an oasis kingdom on the Silk Road that had sided with the Western Turks against the Tang. In 640 Taizong sent the general Hou Junji, who defeated the kingdom, and it was annexed as a Chinese prefecture. That same year the Tang set up the Protectorate General to Pacify the West (Anxi), first at Turfan. Its army later took Karashahr and Kucha, and the Four Garrisons of Anxi were set up from 648 onwards. The Tang now controlled the Silk Road into the Tarim Basin."},{"year":657,"text":"Western Turks defeated at Issyk Kul; protectorates reach Herat","lonlat":[77.3,42.4],"detail":"The Western Turkic Khaganate ruled the steppes and oases between the Tarim Basin and Persia. In 657 the Tang general Su Dingfang crushed the army of its khagan, Ashina Helu, and captured him (one source places the victory at Issyk Kul, another on the Irtysh river). The Tang set up protectorates over the Western Turks' lands, extending Chinese influence as far as Herat in Afghanistan. By the end of 657 the Tang had reached its largest extent."},{"year":668,"text":"Goguryeo destroyed by Tang and Silla","lonlat":[125.75,39.03],"detail":"The Korean kingdom of Goguryeo had beaten back Tang invasions in 645–648. The Tang then allied with Silla, a rival Korean kingdom, and after conquering Baekje together in 660 they attacked Goguryeo from north and south. Weakened by years of war and by quarrels among the sons of its late dictator, Goguryeo finally fell in late 668, when its capital Pyongyang was taken. The Tang set up a protectorate in its lands, pushing the map into northern Korea. Silla soon fought the Tang over the spoils, and within a decade it had driven the Chinese out of most of the peninsula."},{"year":670,"text":"Tibet seizes the Tarim Basin garrisons (held until 692)","lonlat":[82.96,41.72],"detail":"The Tibetan Empire was expanding north from the high plateau and competing with the Tang for the Silk Road oases. In 670 the Tibetans defeated a large Chinese army at the Dafei river, near Koko Nur, and with Khotanese help attacked the Tang's garrisons in the western Tarim Basin. The Chinese abandoned the region, and Tibet took control of all Four Garrisons of Anxi, ending two decades of Chinese rule. The Tang only won them back in 692. On the map, the Tang's long western arm into Central Asia is cut off for over twenty years."},{"year":690,"text":"Wu Zetian proclaims her own Zhou dynasty (690–705)","lonlat":[112.45,34.62],"detail":"Wu Zhao rose from a junior concubine to become empress of Emperor Gaozong, and after his death in 683 she ruled through her sons as empress dowager. In 690 she pushed her son aside, proclaimed her own Zhou dynasty in place of the Tang and took the title of emperor. She is the only woman in Chinese history to do so. She ruled largely from Luoyang, which she raised to co-capital, until the Shenlong Coup of 705 forced her from power and restored the Tang. The empire's borders stayed largely the same, so on the map the change is in name only."},{"year":712,"text":"Xuanzong begins a 44-year reign, the height of the Tang","lonlat":[108.94,34.34],"detail":"Xuanzong (Li Longji) became emperor in 712, after helping to remove rivals at court. His reign of 44 years was the longest of the dynasty. Its first decades, the Kaiyuan era (713–741), are seen as a golden age of stability, prosperity and culture, the age of poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu. To defend the long frontiers, Xuanzong created powerful military governors (jiedushi) who commanded large armies. That system kept the empire at its height on the map, but it also gave generals like An Lushan the power to rebel later."},{"year":751,"text":"Abbasid army defeats Gao Xianzhi at Talas","lonlat":[71.37,42.9],"detail":"Tang armies under the general Gao Xianzhi had pushed deep into Central Asia, as far as the Pamirs and the Tashkent area. At the same time the new Abbasid Caliphate was taking control of Khurasan and Transoxiana. In 751, near the Talas river on the border of today's Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Abbasid army under Ziyad ibn Salih, joined by Karluk Turks, defeated Gao. The battle marked the western limit of Tang expansion. Chinese rule in Central Asia ended soon after, though mainly because of the An Lushan rebellion that began four years later."},{"year":755,"text":"An Lushan rebels; the court flees Chang'an","lonlat":[116.4,39.9],"detail":"An Lushan, a general of Sogdian and Turkic descent, commanded three frontier armies in the north and was a favourite at Xuanzong's court. On 16 December 755 he rebelled, marching out of Fanyang, near modern Beijing, and taking Luoyang the next month. He declared his own Yan dynasty, and in 756 his forces broke through the mountain passes, and Xuanzong fled Chang'an for Sichuan. On the way his guards forced the death of his beloved consort Yang Guifei, and Xuanzong soon abdicated. The Tang had lost both its capitals, and its armies were pulled back from the frontiers."},{"year":763,"text":"Rebellion ends; Tibetans briefly occupy Chang'an; the west is lost","lonlat":[108.94,34.34],"detail":"After An Lushan was murdered in 757, his ally Shi Siming and then Shi's son carried on the war. It finally ended in early 763, when the last rebel leader was defeated, with help from Uyghur allies. But the Tang had stripped its western garrisons to fight, and the Tibetans moved in, seizing the Hexi Corridor and the lands of Gansu and Qinghai. Late in 763 they even captured Chang'an for 15 days, and the Tang survived, but much weaker. On the map it loses its Central Asian lands for good, and its provinces fall into the hands of semi-independent military governors."},{"year":874,"text":"Huang Chao rebellion begins (874–884), sacking Chang'an and Luoyang","lonlat":null,"detail":"By the 870s the Tang faced famine, heavy taxes and widespread banditry. Huang Chao, a salt smuggler who had failed the state examinations, joined a rebellion led by Wang Xianzhi in the mid-870s and soon led his own army. He marched across China, sacking Guangzhou in the south in 878–879, then took Luoyang in 880 and Chang'an at the start of 881, where he declared himself emperor. Driven out in 883 by Tang forces led by the Shatuo Turk Li Keyong, he died in 884. The rebellion wrecked what was left of Tang authority, and warlords now held real power."},{"year":907,"text":"Zhu Wen deposes Emperor Ai and founds the Later Liang","lonlat":[114.31,34.8],"detail":"Zhu Wen was a former lieutenant of Huang Chao who changed sides in 882 and became a powerful military governor based at Kaifeng. By 903 he controlled the court, and he moved the emperor to Luoyang in 904, then had Emperor Zhaozong murdered and put the boy Emperor Ai on the throne. In 907 he forced Ai to give up the throne and declared himself emperor of a new Later Liang dynasty, and later had Ai killed. The Tang dynasty was over. China split into the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and the Tang disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Gaozu (r. 618–626)","from":623,"to":626},{"name":"Taizong","from":626,"to":649},{"name":"Gaozong","from":649,"to":683},{"name":"Wu Zetian (Zhou dynasty)","from":690,"to":705},{"name":"Xuanzong","from":712,"to":756},{"name":"Xianzong","from":805,"to":820},{"name":"Wenzong","from":826,"to":840},{"name":"Zhaozong","from":888,"to":904},{"name":"Ai","from":904,"to":907}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Tang Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Tang_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: An Lushan rebellion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Lushan_rebellion"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Talas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Xuanwu Gate Incident","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanwu_Gate_Incident"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tang campaigns against the Western Turks","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_campaigns_against_the_Western_Turks"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Protectorate General to Pacify the West","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectorate_General_to_Pacify_the_West"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhu Wen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhu_Wen"}]},{"id":"tibetan-empire","name":"Tibetan Empire","profile":"tibetan-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Tibetan Empire","from":623,"to":842}],"span":[623,842],"summary":"Under Songtsen Gampo (r. c. 618–650) the Yarlung kings united the Tibetan Plateau, moved their seat to Lhasa and absorbed Zhangzhung and the Tuyuhun. Tibet contested the Tarim Basin with Tang China for two centuries, briefly occupied Chang'an in 763 and reached its greatest extent in the early 800s. After the murder of Ralpachen (838) and the assassination of Langdarma in 842 the empire broke apart.","events":[{"year":640,"text":"Princess Wencheng leaves China to marry Songtsen Gampo","lonlat":[91.17,29.65],"detail":"Songtsen Gampo had united the clans of central Tibet and built a military power that threatened China's western frontier. After he attacked the Tuyuhun and the Chinese border town of Songzhou, demanding a royal bride, the Tang court agreed in 640 to a marriage alliance. Princess Wencheng, from a minor branch of the imperial family, then travelled to Tibet (sources date her departure to 640 or 641). The marriage brought peace and recognition for the young empire. Tibetan tradition credits her, with the king's Nepali wife Bhrikuti, with helping to bring Buddhism to Tibet."},{"year":645,"text":"c. 645: Songtsen Gampo overruns the kingdom of Zhangzhung","lonlat":null,"detail":"Zhangzhung was an ancient kingdom in western Tibet, around Mount Kailash, ruled by the Lig myi dynasty. Songtsen Gampo married his sister to its king, Lig-myi-rhya, and when the king neglected her, she helped her brother defeat him. The date is disputed: Chinese annals say Zhangzhung submitted by 634, the scholar Rolf Stein places the conquest in 645, and some think it came only under Trisong Detsen a century later. Its conquest extended the empire far to the west across the plateau."},{"year":663,"text":"Tibet conquers the Tuyuhun (Azha) kingdom around Koko Nur","lonlat":[100.2,36.9],"detail":"The Tuyuhun, or Azha, were a kingdom of Xianbei origin around Lake Koko Nur (Qinghai), controlling key trade routes between Tibet and China. Songtsen Gampo had already raided them in the 630s, and they served as a buffer between Tibet and the Tang. In 663, under the powerful minister Gar Tongtsen, who ran the government for the young king, the Tibetan army defeated the Tuyuhun, who were gradually absorbed. With Koko Nur in Tibetan hands, the empire now bordered China directly in the north-east, which set up decades of war with the Tang."},{"year":670,"text":"Tibet takes the Tang's Four Garrisons in the Tarim Basin","lonlat":[82.96,41.72],"detail":"Pushing north from the plateau, Tibet wanted the rich Silk Road oases of the Tarim Basin, guarded by the Tang's Four Garrisons of Anxi. Between 665 and 670 it brought Khotan under its control. In the spring of 670 Tibetan armies, with Khotanese troops, captured Aksu, and the Chinese abandoned the region. The same year Tibet routed a large Tang army at the Dafei river near Koko Nur. Tibet now held all Four Garrisons, ending two decades of Chinese control, and the map stretches north across the Kunlun Mountains into today's Xinjiang."},{"year":692,"text":"Tang China regains the Tarim Basin","lonlat":[82.96,41.72],"detail":"Tibet held the Tarim Basin for 22 years, but its grip depended on alliances with Western Turkic tribes and on the loyalty of the oasis cities. Under Empress Wu, the Tang sent a fresh army west, and in 692 Chinese forces retook the Four Garrisons of Anxi, including Kucha and Khotan. Tibet's northern frontier fell back to the Kunlun Mountains. The two empires went on fighting for these oases for another half century, and by 750 the Tibetans had lost almost all their Central Asian possessions."},{"year":750,"text":"Nanzhao in Yunnan comes under Tibetan control (to 794)","lonlat":[100.23,25.61],"detail":"Nanzhao was a kingdom in Yunnan, in south-western China, with its capital near Dali. In 750 its king Geluofeng quarrelled with the local Chinese governor and went to war with the Tang, and he defeated large Chinese armies in 751 and 754. To protect himself he allied with Tibet, which treated Nanzhao as a vassal. The Tibetan Empire article says Nanzhao remained under Tibetan control from 750 to 794. The alliance extended Tibetan influence far to the south-east and let the two powers fight China together."},{"year":756,"text":"Trisong Detsen is crowned; the empire grows again","lonlat":[91.17,29.65],"detail":"In 756 the prince Song Detsen, then about 13, was crowned with the name Trisong Detsen after a period of turmoil at court. He became one of Tibet's greatest rulers. With the Tang crippled by the An Lushan rebellion, he pushed deep into Chinese territory and won back influence in Central Asia. He also invited Indian Buddhist teachers such as Padmasambhava and Shantarakshita, who built Samye, Tibet's first monastery. Under him the empire grew larger than ever before, with Tibetan armies holding much of today's Gansu and Qinghai."},{"year":763,"text":"Tibetans capture the Tang capital Chang'an for 15 days","lonlat":[108.94,34.34],"detail":"The An Lushan rebellion forced the Tang to pull its frontier armies back to defend the heartland, and the Tibetans swept into the undefended lands of the north-west. In late 763 a Tibetan army under the general Takdra Lukhong reached the Tang capital Chang'an, which the emperor Daizong had fled. The Tibetans occupied the city for fifteen days and installed a puppet emperor before withdrawing. The raid showed how far the balance had shifted. Tibet went on to hold the Hexi Corridor, cutting the Tang off from Central Asia."},{"year":783,"text":"Treaty with the Tang defines the frontier","lonlat":null,"detail":"After decades of fighting, Tibet and the weakened Tang made a peace treaty in 783 that fixed the frontier between them, in Tibet's favour. It confirmed Tibetan control of large areas of today's Gansu, Qinghai and western Sichuan that the empire had taken since the 750s. The peace did not last long, as fighting broke out again within a few years. Still, the treaty marks the high point of Tibetan power. On the map the empire now reaches deep into what had been Chinese territory."},{"year":794,"text":"Nanzhao turns on Tibet and helps China defeat it at Shenchuan","lonlat":[100.23,25.61],"detail":"Nanzhao had been Tibet's ally and vassal since the 750s, but Tibetan demands for troops and tribute grew heavy. In 794 the Nanzhao king Yimouxun switched sides to the Tang. He attacked the Tibetans at Shenchuan and helped the Chinese inflict a serious defeat on them. Nanzhao and the Tang kept up the pressure, beating off Tibetan counterattacks in 799 and 801. Tibet lost its foothold in Yunnan, and its south-eastern frontier pulled back."},{"year":812,"text":"c. 812: Tibet's governor of Kabul submits to the Abbasids","lonlat":[69.18,34.53],"detail":"Under Tride Songtsen (Sadnalegs), Tibet fought a long war with the Abbasid Caliphate on its far western frontier. Tibetan forces were active as far west as Samarkand and Kabul, and the Tibetans had a governor in Kabul. As Abbasid forces gained the upper hand, this governor submitted to the caliphate and became a Muslim, in about 812 or 815 (the sources differ). Tibet lost its grip on Kabul and the Hindu Kush, and its western expansion came to an end."},{"year":821,"text":"Sino-Tibetan peace treaty (821/822), later inscribed in Lhasa","lonlat":[91.17,29.65],"detail":"Both Tibet and the Tang were worn down by more than a century of war, and both faced threats from the Uyghurs to the north. Under King Ralpachen (Tritsuk Detsen) the two empires agreed a peace treaty in 821–822. It confirmed the borders, and a bilingual text in Tibetan and Chinese was later carved on a stone pillar that still stands outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa. The treaty brought peace for more than two decades and fixed the empire's eastern frontier at its greatest extent."},{"year":838,"text":"Ralpachen is murdered; his brother Langdarma takes the throne","lonlat":null,"detail":"Ralpachen was a devoted patron of Buddhism who gave monks great privileges, which angered nobles loyal to the older Bön religion. In 838 he was murdered, either by his younger brother Langdarma or by two pro-Bön ministers who then placed Langdarma on the throne. Langdarma's reign was plagued by trouble. Tibetan Buddhists remember him for persecuting monks and nuns and destroying monasteries. Imperial patronage of Buddhism, which had lasted about eighty years, came to an end."},{"year":842,"text":"Langdarma assassinated; the empire disintegrates","lonlat":[91.17,29.65],"detail":"In 842 Langdarma was assassinated, traditionally by a Buddhist monk, Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje (some sources date the killing to 846). His death left a disputed succession between two young heirs, Yumtän and Ösung, backed by rival factions. Civil war broke out, and the empire dissolved into competing lordships, beginning Tibet's Era of Fragmentation. The Tibetan Empire disappears from the map, and its frontier lands in Gansu and Central Asia were lost over the following years."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Songtsen Gampo (r. c. 618–650)","from":623,"to":650},{"name":"Mangsong Mangtsen","from":650,"to":676},{"name":"Tridu Songtsen","from":677,"to":704},{"name":"Tride Tsuktsen (Me Agtsom)","from":704,"to":754},{"name":"Trisong Detsen","from":756,"to":797},{"name":"Tride Songtsen (Sadnalegs)","from":800,"to":815},{"name":"Ralpachen (Tritsuk Detsen)","from":815,"to":838},{"name":"Langdarma","from":838,"to":842}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Tibetan Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sadnalegs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadnalegs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tang dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Princess Wencheng","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Wencheng"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhangzhung","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nanzhao","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanzhao"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ralpachen","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralpachen"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Langdarma","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdarma"}]},{"id":"rashidun-umayyad","name":"Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates","profile":"umayyad-caliphate","chain":[{"clio":"Rashidun Caliphate","from":633,"to":660},{"clio":"Umayyad Caliphate","from":661,"to":750}],"span":[633,750],"summary":"After Muhammad's death in 632 the first caliphs, ruling from Medina, united Arabia and within twenty years took Syria and Egypt from Byzantium and destroyed the Sasanian Empire. From 661 the Umayyads ruled from Damascus and pushed the conquests to Spain, Sindh and Central Asia, creating one of the largest empires yet seen (c. 11 million km² by 720). Defeats at Constantinople (718) and Tours (732), the Berber revolt and civil wars sapped the dynasty, and the Abbasids overthrew it in 750.","events":[{"year":633,"text":"Ridda wars over; Arabia united under Abu Bakr","lonlat":[39.61,24.47],"detail":"When the Prophet Muhammad died in June 632, his companion Abu Bakr was chosen as the first caliph, or successor. Many Arabian tribes then refused to pay taxes to Medina, and several rival prophets, such as Musaylima, gathered followers. Abu Bakr sent armies, the most famous led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, which won every campaign, and Musaylima was killed at the Battle of Yamama. By June 633 the Ridda ('apostasy') wars were over and all of Arabia was united under Medina. The new state could now turn its forces outward, against the Byzantine and Persian empires."},{"year":636,"text":"Victory at the Yarmuk delivers Syria to the Muslims","lonlat":[35.95,32.8],"detail":"Arab armies invaded Byzantine Syria in the 630s and took Damascus. In 636 Emperor Heraclius sent a huge army to drive them out. The Muslims pulled back and gathered on the plains by the Yarmuk river, near today's borders of Syria, Jordan and Israel. In six days of fighting in August 636, commanded by Khalid ibn al-Walid, they defeated the larger Byzantine force. Byzantine rule in Syria was effectively over, and the caliphate's map now pushes north from Arabia through Palestine and Syria to the Taurus Mountains."},{"year":637,"text":"Jerusalem surrenders to Caliph Umar","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"detail":"After the Yarmuk, the Muslim commander Abu Ubayda besieged Jerusalem in November 636. After about six months the city's leader, Patriarch Sophronius, agreed to surrender, but only to the caliph in person. Caliph Umar travelled from Medina to receive the city's submission, in 637 or 638 (sources differ). According to tradition he guaranteed the safety of its Christian inhabitants and their churches. Jerusalem, holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, was now part of the caliphate, along with the rest of Palestine."},{"year":641,"text":"Alexandria surrenders; Egypt conquered","lonlat":[29.92,31.2],"detail":"In December 639 the general Amr ibn al-As invaded Egypt, Byzantium's richest province, with about 4,000 men, later reinforced. He defeated a Byzantine army at Heliopolis in 640 and took the great Babylon Fortress, near modern Cairo, in 641. Alexandria agreed to surrender by a treaty in November 641, and Arab troops entered it in September 642. Amr founded a new capital, Fustat, near the old fortress. Egypt's grain and taxes now flowed to the caliphate, whose map stretched along the Nile and toward North Africa."},{"year":642,"text":"Sasanian army crushed at Nahavand","lonlat":[48.37,34.19],"detail":"After losing Mesopotamia and his capital Ctesiphon to the Arabs, the Persian king Yazdegerd III raised a new army in the Iranian highlands. In 642 it met the Arab forces under al-Nu'man ibn Muqarrin at Nahavand, south of Hamadan. The Persians were crushed, although Nu'man was reportedly killed in the final melee. The Sasanian imperial army effectively dissolved, and cities such as Isfahan soon fell. Persia lay open, and Yazdegerd fled east toward Merv."},{"year":651,"text":"Conquest of Persia completed; Yazdegerd III killed in Khurasan","lonlat":[61.83,37.66],"detail":"After Nahavand, Arab armies conquered the Iranian provinces one by one through the 640s. The last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III, fled from city to city, alienating local governors with his demands, and appealed in vain to Tang China for help. In 651 he was killed by a miller near Merv, possibly on the orders of the local governor. With him the 400-year-old Sasanian Empire ended. The caliphate's map now reached across all of Iran to Khurasan, on the edge of Central Asia."},{"year":656,"text":"Uthman murdered in Medina; Ali's accession starts the First Fitna","lonlat":[39.61,24.47],"detail":"Uthman, the third caliph, ruled from 644 and oversaw new conquests, but he was accused of favouring his own Umayyad clan with governorships and wealth. Rebels from Egypt and Iraq came to Medina, besieged his house and murdered him on 17 June 656. Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, was then chosen caliph. But Muhammad's widow Aisha and other leaders refused to accept him, and Mu'awiya, the Umayyad governor of Syria, demanded revenge for Uthman. The First Fitna (civil war) split the caliphate."},{"year":661,"text":"Ali killed; Mu'awiya founds the Umayyad dynasty at Damascus","lonlat":[36.29,33.51],"detail":"During the civil war Ali defeated Aisha's supporters at the Battle of the Camel in 656, but his clash with Mu'awiya at Siffin in 657 ended in stalemate and arbitration. Some of his own followers, the Kharijites, broke away in protest. In 661 a Kharijite, Ibn Muljam, assassinated Ali at Kufa, and his son Hasan soon abdicated. Mu'awiya was accepted as caliph and ruled from Damascus. He founded the Umayyad dynasty and, by naming his son as heir, made the caliphate hereditary."},{"year":680,"text":"Husayn killed at Karbala; Second Fitna follows","lonlat":[44.03,32.62],"detail":"When Mu'awiya died in 680, many refused to accept his son Yazid as caliph. Ali's son Husayn, grandson of the Prophet, set out for Kufa, whose people had invited him to lead a revolt. Umayyad troops intercepted his small band of about 72 men at Karbala, in Iraq. On 10 October 680 (10 Muharram) Husayn and most of his followers were killed. His death, mourned every year at Ashura, became central to Shia Islam and fed the Second Fitna, in which Ibn al-Zubayr declared himself caliph at Mecca and most provinces recognised him."},{"year":692,"text":"Abd al-Malik wins the civil war; Dome of the Rock completed","lonlat":[35.24,31.78],"detail":"After Yazid's death in 683, Umayyad power collapsed outside Syria, and most of the empire recognised Ibn al-Zubayr. The caliph Abd al-Malik, who came to power in 685, fought back. His forces retook Iraq in 691, and in 692 his general al-Hajjaj besieged Mecca and killed Ibn al-Zubayr. The Umayyads now ruled the whole caliphate again. In the middle of this war Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed in 691–692, the oldest surviving great work of Islamic architecture."},{"year":711,"text":"Tariq ibn Ziyad invades Visigothic Spain; Sindh conquered","lonlat":[-5.35,36.14],"detail":"With the empire reunited, the Umayyads expanded at both ends at once. In 711 Tariq ibn Ziyad, probably a Berber client of the governor Musa ibn Nusayr, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and defeated the Visigothic king Roderic at Guadalete. Within a few years most of the Iberian Peninsula was under Muslim rule. In the same years (711–712) the young general Muhammad ibn al-Qasim conquered Sindh, in today's Pakistan, killing its king Dahir. The caliphate's map now stretched from the Atlantic to the Indus."},{"year":717,"text":"Siege of Constantinople (717–718) fails","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"The Umayyads wanted to capture Constantinople, the Byzantine capital. In 716 a huge army and fleet under Maslama, the caliph's brother, invaded Anatolia, and in summer 717 they blockaded the city by land and sea. The Byzantines, led by the new emperor Leo III, destroyed much of the Arab fleet with Greek fire and kept the city supplied by sea. A harsh winter, famine, disease and Bulgar attacks wrecked the besiegers, who withdrew on 15 August 718. Byzantium survived, and the Taurus Mountains remained the frontier."},{"year":732,"text":"Frankish victory at Tours halts expansion in the west","lonlat":[0.4,46.7],"detail":"From Spain, Umayyad forces raided north into Gaul (France). In 732 the governor of al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, defeated Duke Odo of Aquitaine and pushed toward Tours. On 10 October 732, somewhere between Poitiers and Tours, he met the Frankish army of Charles Martel and was killed, and his army withdrew. The battle is often said to have saved Western Europe, though historians debate how serious the threat was. Raids continued for some years, but the Pyrenees became the long-term northern limit of Muslim Spain."},{"year":739,"text":"Great Berber Revolt breaks out in North Africa","lonlat":null,"detail":"Berbers in North Africa had converted to Islam and fought in the Arab armies, but Umayyad governors taxed them heavily and treated them as second-class Muslims. Inspired by egalitarian Kharijite preachers, they rose in revolt in Tangier, led at first by Maysara (the Umayyad Caliphate article dates the outbreak to 739, the Berber Revolt article to 740). The rebels crushed Arab armies, ending Umayyad rule in the western Maghreb, though the Umayyads held on to Ifriqiya (Tunisia) and Spain. Morocco and western Algeria broke away and never returned."},{"year":750,"text":"Abbasids defeat Marwan II at the Zab; Umayyad caliphate falls","lonlat":[43.4,36.1],"detail":"In the 740s the Umayyads were weakened by another civil war, while in Khurasan the Abbasid family, descendants of the Prophet's uncle al-Abbas, led a revolt under black banners. In January 750 the Abbasid army defeated the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, at the Great Zab river in northern Iraq. Damascus fell in April, Marwan was killed in Egypt in August, and most of the Umayyad family were massacred. The Umayyad caliphate was over. Only in Spain did an Umayyad prince later found a separate state."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Abu Bakr (r. 632–634)","from":633,"to":634},{"name":"Umar","from":634,"to":644},{"name":"Uthman","from":644,"to":656},{"name":"Ali","from":656,"to":661},{"name":"Mu'awiya I","from":661,"to":680},{"name":"Yazid I","from":680,"to":683},{"name":"Abd al-Malik","from":685,"to":705},{"name":"al-Walid I","from":705,"to":715},{"name":"Sulayman","from":715,"to":717},{"name":"Umar II","from":717,"to":720},{"name":"Hisham","from":724,"to":743},{"name":"Marwan II","from":744,"to":750}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Rashidun Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Umayyad Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Umayyad Dynasty","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Umayyad_Dynasty/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of the Yarmuk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmuk"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Nahavand","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nahavand"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Constantinople (717–718)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(717%E2%80%93718)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Karbala","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karbala"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Berber Revolt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_Revolt"}]},{"id":"abbasid-caliphate","name":"Abbasid Caliphate","profile":"abbasid-caliphate","chain":[{"clio":"Abbasid Caliphate","from":750,"to":969},{"clio":"Abbasid Caliphate","from":1202,"to":1258}],"span":[750,1258],"summary":"The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750, founded Baghdad in 762 and under al-Mansur, Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun presided over a vast empire and a golden age of learning. From the 9th century provinces broke away (Aghlabids, Tahirids, Tulunids, then the Fatimids), and after 945 the caliphs were figureheads under the Buyids and then the Seljuks; the map shows no Abbasid territory between 970 and 1201. Caliph al-Nasir revived a small state in Iraq, but the Mongols sacked Baghdad and killed the last caliph in 1258.","events":[{"year":750,"text":"Abbasids defeat the Umayyads at the Zab; al-Saffah is caliph","lonlat":[43.4,36.1],"detail":"The Abbasids were descendants of al-Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, and claimed a better right to rule than the Umayyads. Their revolution began in Khurasan in June 747 under the Persian commander Abu Muslim, whose armies marched west under black banners. In Kufa they proclaimed Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah as caliph, and in January 750 his uncle Abdallah ibn Ali defeated the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II, at the Great Zab river. The Abbasids inherited almost the whole Umayyad empire, from North Africa to Central Asia, and moved its centre from Syria to Iraq."},{"year":751,"text":"Abbasid victory over Tang China at Talas","lonlat":[71.37,42.9],"detail":"While the Abbasids were taking power, Tang China had pushed its armies deep into Central Asia under the general Gao Xianzhi. In 751 an Abbasid army led by Ziyad ibn Salih, joined by Karluk Turks, defeated the Tang force near the Talas river, on today's Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan border. The battle confirmed Muslim control of Transoxiana, the lands around Samarkand and Bukhara. Chinese prisoners are said to have brought papermaking to the Islamic world, though some historians doubt this. Tang power in the region soon collapsed anyway because of the An Lushan rebellion."},{"year":756,"text":"Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman sets up an independent al-Andalus","lonlat":[-4.78,37.88],"detail":"Abd al-Rahman, a grandson of the Umayyad caliph Hisham, escaped the Abbasid massacre of his family in 750 and fled across North Africa, hiding among Berber tribes. In 755 he crossed to Spain, where many soldiers were still loyal to the Umayyads. In 756 he defeated the governor of al-Andalus and made himself emir at Córdoba, refusing to recognise the Abbasids. His dynasty ruled Muslim Spain for nearly three centuries. It was the first province to break away from the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Iberian Peninsula drops off the Abbasid map."},{"year":762,"text":"Al-Mansur founds Baghdad as the new capital","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"In the early years the Abbasids governed from Kufa and other towns in Iraq, but they distrusted Kufa's support for rival claimants. The second caliph, al-Mansur, chose a site on the Tigris and began building a new capital in 762, a round city with walls and four gates, based on Persian designs. Chroniclers report that 100,000 workers took part. The Round City was finished by 766, and Baghdad grew into one of the largest cities in the world. It became a centre of trade and learning, home to the famous House of Wisdom."},{"year":813,"text":"Al-Ma'mun's forces take Baghdad, ending the civil war","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"Caliph Harun al-Rashid named his son al-Amin as heir, with a second son, al-Ma'mun, to follow and to govern Khurasan. After Harun died in 809 the brothers fell out. In 811 al-Amin's army marched east, but al-Ma'mun's general Tahir ibn Husayn defeated it at Rayy and then besieged Baghdad. The city fell in September 813, al-Amin was killed, and al-Ma'mun became sole caliph. The main war was over, though unrest in Iraq went on until al-Ma'mun entered Baghdad in 819, and the long siege had badly damaged the capital."},{"year":836,"text":"Al-Mu'tasim moves the capital to Samarra","lonlat":[43.87,34.2],"detail":"Caliph al-Mu'tasim, ruling from 833, built his army around Turkic slave soldiers, whose presence caused clashes with the people of Baghdad. In 836 he founded a new capital and military base at Samarra, further up the Tigris. Later caliphs filled it with vast palaces and the Great Mosque with its spiral minaret, built in 847. Samarra remained the caliph's residence until 892, when the capital returned to Baghdad. The move kept the army apart from the city but left the caliphs dependent on their Turkic commanders."},{"year":861,"text":"Al-Mutawakkil murdered; the 'Anarchy at Samarra' begins","lonlat":[43.87,34.2],"detail":"In 861 Caliph al-Mutawakkil was murdered by his own Turkic guards. This began the 'Anarchy at Samarra' (861–870), when four caliphs in a row were made and unmade by rival army factions. Several were deposed or killed, and the Turkic troops even besieged Baghdad in 865–866. The anarchy ended in 870 with the accession of al-Mu'tamid. But the caliphs' prestige and treasury were badly damaged, and provincial governors began to act on their own, so that the empire on the map began to break up."},{"year":870,"text":"c. 870: Egypt becomes autonomous under Ahmad ibn Tulun","lonlat":[31.24,30.04],"detail":"Ahmad ibn Tulun was a Turkic slave-soldier sent to govern Egypt in 868. Within about four years he had made himself a virtually independent ruler, taking over Egypt's finances from the caliph's tax agent and built a large army loyal to himself. In 878 he also took control of Syria. His Tulunid dynasty ruled Egypt and Syria until 905, when the Abbasids briefly won them back. Egypt's wealth no longer flowed to Baghdad, and the caliphate's western provinces were slipping away."},{"year":909,"text":"Fatimids take Ifriqiya from the Aghlabids; North Africa lost","lonlat":[10.1,35.68],"detail":"The Fatimids were an Isma'ili Shia dynasty who claimed descent from the Prophet's daughter Fatima and rejected the Abbasids' right to rule. From 902 their missionary Abu Abdallah led Kutama Berber tribesmen against the Aghlabid emirs of Ifriqiya (Tunisia), who ruled in the Abbasids' name. In 909 he conquered Ifriqiya, and the Fatimid leader Abdallah al-Mahdi was proclaimed caliph. The Islamic world now had a rival Shia caliphate, and the last Abbasid foothold in North Africa west of Egypt was lost."},{"year":945,"text":"Buyids seize Baghdad; the caliphs become figureheads","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"The Buyids were a Shia family from Daylam, in the mountains south of the Caspian Sea, who had built a state in western Iran. In 945 the youngest brother, Ahmad ibn Buya, took Baghdad and was given the title Mu'izz al-Dawla. From then on the Buyid emirs held real power in Iraq, while the Sunni Abbasid caliphs kept only a religious and ceremonial role. The caliphs no longer controlled any territory of their own. This is why the Abbasid map soon goes blank for more than two centuries."},{"year":969,"text":"Fatimids conquer Egypt and found Cairo","lonlat":[31.24,30.04],"detail":"Egypt was ruled by the Ikhshidid dynasty in the Abbasids' name, but by the 960s it was weakened by famine and infighting. In 969 the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz sent his general Jawhar with a large army from Ifriqiya. Jawhar crossed the Nile and took Fustat, Egypt's capital, in July 969, and soon began building a new capital nearby, Cairo. The Fatimids now ruled Egypt, and soon Palestine and parts of Syria as well. A rival caliph in Cairo now challenged Baghdad for leadership of the Muslim world."},{"year":1055,"text":"Seljuk leader Tughril enters Baghdad, replacing the Buyids","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"The Seljuks were Turkish nomads who had conquered Iran in the 1040s. In 1055 their leader Tughril entered Baghdad, pushed aside the Buyids and took the title of sultan. The caliph, al-Qa'im, kept his religious authority, but the Seljuk sultans now ran the government and the army. As Sunni Muslims, the Seljuks presented themselves as protectors of the Sunni caliph against the Shia Fatimids. The caliph still had no territory of his own, so the Abbasid map stays blank in this period."},{"year":1180,"text":"Al-Nasir's long reign (to 1225) revives a caliphal state in Iraq","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"As the Seljuk Empire weakened in the 12th century, the caliphs began to rebuild their own power, regaining control of Iraq under al-Muqtafi (r. 1136–1160). Al-Nasir, who ruled for 45 years from 1180 to 1225, went further. He expanded the caliph's state, extending his rule into parts of western Iran, and used diplomacy and religious brotherhoods to raise the caliph's prestige across the Muslim world. For the first time in over two centuries the Abbasids again ruled a real territorial state, which reappears on the map centred on Iraq."},{"year":1258,"text":"Mongols under Hulagu sack Baghdad and execute al-Musta'sim","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"In 1252 the Mongol Great Khan Möngke sent his brother Hulagu west with a huge army. After destroying the Assassins in Iran, Hulagu demanded that Caliph al-Musta'sim submit, and the caliph refused. The Mongols attacked Baghdad at the end of January 1258, the caliph surrendered on 10 February, and the city was sacked, with huge loss of life, and al-Musta'sim was killed. The Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, which had lasted five centuries, came to an end."}],"reigns":[{"name":"al-Saffah","from":750,"to":754},{"name":"al-Mansur","from":754,"to":775},{"name":"al-Mahdi","from":775,"to":785},{"name":"Harun al-Rashid","from":786,"to":809},{"name":"al-Amin","from":809,"to":813},{"name":"al-Ma'mun","from":813,"to":833},{"name":"al-Mu'tasim","from":833,"to":842},{"name":"al-Mutawakkil","from":847,"to":861},{"name":"al-Mu'tadid","from":892,"to":902},{"name":"al-Muqtadir","from":908,"to":932},{"name":"al-Qa'im","from":1031,"to":1075},{"name":"al-Nasir","from":1180,"to":1225},{"name":"al-Musta'sim","from":1242,"to":1258}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Abbasid Caliphate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Abbasid Caliphate","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Abbasid_Caliphate/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Baghdad (1258)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_(1258)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Talas","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talas"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Round City of Baghdad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_City_of_Baghdad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fourth Fitna","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Fitna"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Anarchy at Samarra","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_at_Samarra"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fatimid conquest of Egypt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid_conquest_of_Egypt"}]},{"id":"carolingian-empire","name":"Carolingian Empire (Charlemagne)","profile":"carolingian-empire","chain":[{"clio":"(Carolingian Empire)","from":751,"to":888}],"span":[751,888],"summary":"Pepin the Short replaced the Merovingians as king of the Franks in 751, and his son Charlemagne conquered the Lombard kingdom, Saxony and the Avar lands, and was crowned emperor in Rome in 800. After the civil war that followed Louis the Pious's death, the Treaty of Verdun (843) split the empire among his three sons. Charles the Fat reunited it in 884, but he was deposed in 887 and the empire dissolved for good on his death in 888.","events":[{"year":751,"text":"Pepin the Short becomes king of the Franks","lonlat":[3.32,49.38],"detail":"For decades the Merovingian kings of the Franks had been figureheads, while real power lay with the 'mayors of the palace' of the Carolingian family. Pepin the Short, son of Charles Martel, held that office. In 751, with the support of Pope Zachary, he sent the last Merovingian king, Childeric III, to a monastery and had himself proclaimed King of the Franks, traditionally at Soissons. In 754 Pope Stephen II anointed him and his sons, and in return Pepin fought the Lombards and gave the pope lands in central Italy. This began the Carolingian dynasty."},{"year":768,"text":"Pepin dies; Charlemagne's rule begins","lonlat":null,"detail":"Pepin died in September 768, and as was Frankish custom his kingdom was divided between his two sons, Charles (later called Charlemagne) and Carloman. The brothers did not get on, and civil war seemed possible. When Carloman died in 771, Charles took over his lands and became sole king. Carloman's widow and children fled to the Lombard king Desiderius, which helped set the two kingdoms against each other. Charlemagne went on to spend most of his 46-year reign at war, greatly enlarging the Frankish realm."},{"year":772,"text":"Saxon Wars begin; they last until 804","lonlat":[8.9,51.5],"detail":"The Saxons were pagan peoples living between the Rhine and the Elbe, in what is now northern Germany, who often raided Frankish lands. In 772 Charlemagne invaded Saxony and destroyed the Irminsul, a sacred pillar or tree the Saxons worshipped. The wars dragged on for 32 years, with repeated revolts led by the chieftain Widukind, who finally submitted and was baptised in 785. In 782, after a Saxon victory over a Frankish army, Charlemagne ordered 4,500 Saxon rebels beheaded at Verden. The conquest pushed the Frankish border east to the Elbe and spread Christianity by force."},{"year":774,"text":"Charlemagne conquers the Lombard kingdom of Italy","lonlat":[9.16,45.19],"detail":"The Lombards ruled northern and central Italy from their capital Pavia, and their king Desiderius threatened the pope's lands and sheltered the family of Charlemagne's late brother. Pope Hadrian I called on Charlemagne for help. In 773 Charlemagne crossed the Alps and besieged Pavia, which surrendered in June 774 after a long blockade. Desiderius was sent to a monastery, and Charlemagne took the title King of the Lombards. Northern and central Italy now joined the Frankish realm, and the map reaches south toward Rome."},{"year":778,"text":"Rearguard ambushed by Basques at Roncevaux","lonlat":[-1.32,43.01],"detail":"In 778 Charlemagne accepted an invitation from Muslim governors in northern Spain who promised to submit to him if he helped them against the emir of Córdoba. His army crossed the Pyrenees, but the city of Zaragoza did not open its gates, and the campaign failed. On the way home he destroyed the walls of Pamplona, and in revenge Basques ambushed his rearguard in the Roncevaux Pass and wiped it out. Among the dead was the commander Roland, later the hero of the epic Song of Roland. Frankish expansion into Spain stalled for years."},{"year":791,"text":"Charlemagne campaigns against the Avars in Pannonia","lonlat":[19.0,47.0],"detail":"The Avars were a nomadic people who had ruled the Pannonian Basin (modern Hungary) since the 560s and grown rich on plunder and tribute. In summer 791 Charlemagne invaded their lands along the Danube while his son Pippin, King of Italy, attacked from the south-east. In 795 or 796 a Frankish force captured the khagan's fortified camp, the 'Ring', with much of its treasure, and in 796 the khagan submitted. By 803 the Avar khaganate was finished. Its western lands, in today's Austria and western Hungary, became part of the empire."},{"year":800,"text":"Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne emperor in Rome","lonlat":[12.45,41.9],"detail":"In 799 Pope Leo III, attacked by enemies in Rome, met Charlemagne at Paderborn to seek his protection, and Charlemagne later went to Rome, restored the pope, and on Christmas Day 800, in St Peter's Basilica, Leo crowned him emperor of the Romans. He was the first emperor in the West in over 300 years, which angered the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople, who saw themselves as the only Roman emperors. Though historians still debate its meaning, the coronation gave Charlemagne's realm the status of an empire, the Carolingian Empire."},{"year":804,"text":"Final Saxon campaign; Saxony absorbed","lonlat":[9.23,52.92],"detail":"Saxony had seemed conquered several times, but revolts kept breaking out, especially in the far north. In 798 Charlemagne's Slavic allies, the Obotrites, defeated the Nordalbingian Saxons north of the Elbe, and the Franks deported many Saxons to other parts of the empire. The last rising was put down in 804, more than 30 years after the first campaign. Saxony was now firmly part of the empire. The map's eastern frontier reached the Elbe, bordering Danes and Slavs."},{"year":814,"text":"Charlemagne dies at Aachen; Louis the Pious succeeds","lonlat":[6.08,50.78],"detail":"Charlemagne had made his son Louis co-emperor in 813, since two older sons had died. When Charlemagne died at his capital Aachen in January 814, Louis, later called 'the Pious', became sole emperor of the whole realm. Louis struggled to keep control, and his repeated plans to share the empire among his sons led to revolts in which they even imprisoned him. The empire kept its full size during his reign. Its unity, though, depended on a family that was already at war with itself."},{"year":843,"text":"Treaty of Verdun divides the empire among three brothers","lonlat":[5.38,49.16],"detail":"When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son Lothair claimed the whole empire. His brothers Louis the German and Charles the Bald refused and defeated him at Fontenoy in 841. By the Treaty of Verdun, agreed on 10 August 843, the empire was split three ways: West Francia went to Charles, East Francia to Louis, and a long middle kingdom from the North Sea to Italy to Lothair, who kept the title of emperor. The division roughly foreshadowed the later shapes of France and Germany."},{"year":870,"text":"Treaty of Meerssen splits Lotharingia between East and West","lonlat":[5.75,50.88],"detail":"Lothair's middle kingdom was itself divided among his sons in 855. The northern part, Lotharingia (Lorraine), went to Lothair II, who died in 869 with no legitimate heir. His uncles Charles the Bald of West Francia and Louis the German of East Francia then split Lotharingia between them by the Treaty of Meerssen in 870. The middle kingdom disappeared, and its lands were added to West and East Francia. Lotharingia stayed a disputed borderland between France and Germany for centuries."},{"year":884,"text":"Charles the Fat reunites all the Frankish kingdoms","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Charles the Bald died in 877, the Frankish kingdoms passed rapidly between short-lived kings, while Vikings raided in the north and west. Charles the Fat, a son of Louis the German, had inherited parts of East Francia and Italy and was crowned emperor in 881. When the young king of West Francia, Carloman, died in a hunting accident in 884, Charles inherited his lands as well. For the last time all the Frankish kingdoms were ruled by one man. On the map the empire of Charlemagne briefly reappears."},{"year":886,"text":"Charles buys off the Vikings besieging Paris","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"detail":"Viking armies had been raiding along the rivers of West Francia for decades. In November 885 a large Viking force sailed up the Seine and besieged Paris, which Count Odo defended with only a few hundred soldiers. The city held out for months, and when Charles the Fat finally arrived with an army in 886, he did not fight. Instead he promised the Vikings 700 livres of silver and let them sail on up the Seine to raid Burgundy. Many nobles saw this as cowardly, and Charles's standing collapsed, while Odo's grew."},{"year":887,"text":"Charles the Fat deposed; the empire dissolves on his death in 888","lonlat":null,"detail":"Charles the Fat was in poor health and was blamed for failing against the Vikings. In November 887 his nephew Arnulf of Carinthia rebelled, and the East Frankish nobles deposed Charles, who died in January 888. No Carolingian was strong enough to take the whole inheritance. Arnulf became king in East Francia, Count Odo of Paris was elected king of West Francia, and separate kings arose in Italy, Aquitaine and Burgundy. The Carolingian Empire dissolved for good and disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Pepin the Short","from":751,"to":768},{"name":"Charlemagne","from":768,"to":814},{"name":"Louis the Pious","from":814,"to":840},{"name":"Lothair I (emperor)","from":840,"to":855},{"name":"Louis II (emperor)","from":855,"to":875},{"name":"Charles the Bald (emperor)","from":875,"to":877},{"name":"Charles the Fat (emperor)","from":881,"to":887}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Carolingian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Charlemagne","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Carolingian Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Carolingian_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Holy Roman Emperor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Emperor"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Verdun","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Verdun"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pepin the Short","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepin_the_Short"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Saxon Wars","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Wars"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Paris (885–886)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Paris_(885%E2%80%93886)"}]},{"id":"ghana-empire","name":"Ghana Empire (Wagadu)","profile":"ghana-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Ghana Empire","from":793,"to":1201}],"span":[793,1201],"summary":"The Soninke kingdom of Ghana, between the Senegal and Niger rivers, grew rich on the trans-Saharan gold trade and was already known to Arab writers as the 'Land of Gold' in the 8th century. It peaked in the 10th–11th centuries, seized the trading town of Awdaghust in 990 and was described in detail by al-Bakri in 1068. Its rulers converted to Islam around 1076 (whether the Almoravids conquered it is disputed); weakened, it was overrun by the Sosso by 1203 and later absorbed into Mali.","events":[{"year":830,"text":"Al-Khwarizmi makes the first known written mention of Ghana","lonlat":null,"detail":"Ghana, or Wagadu, was a kingdom of the Soninke people in the western Sahel, in what is now south-eastern Mauritania and western Mali. 'Ghana' was really the title of its king, meaning war chief. Its origins may go back several centuries, but it had no writing of its own, so outsiders' accounts are our main sources. The first identifiable written mention of its ruling dynasty comes from the Baghdad scholar al-Khwarizmi in about 830, and Ghana appears on his world map. Arab writers already knew it as a wealthy 'land of gold' on the far side of the Sahara."},{"year":977,"text":"Ibn Hawqal calls Ghana's king the 'wealthiest king on earth'","lonlat":[-7.99,15.77],"detail":"Ghana's power rested on trade across the Sahara. It controlled the routes that carried gold from mines to the south toward North Africa, and it imported salt from the desert in return. The Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal, writing in the 970s, called the king of Ghana the 'wealthiest king on the face of the earth' because of his stocks of gold. He also noted that Ghana depended on the Berber town of Awdaghust, on the desert edge, for salt. The map shows Ghana at its height as a trading empire between the desert and the Niger."},{"year":990,"text":"Ghana conquers Awdaghust and installs a governor","lonlat":[-10.42,17.43],"detail":"Awdaghust (Aoudaghost), in what is now southern Mauritania, was a key caravan town at the southern end of a trade route across the Sahara, long controlled by Sanhaja Berbers. According to the Ghana Empire article, Ghana conquered it in 990, probably for commercial reasons, and installed its own governor. The article on the town says only that it became part of Ghana in the late 10th or early 11th century. Taking Awdaghust gave Ghana direct control of a northern trade terminus and pushed its power into the desert."},{"year":1054,"text":"Almoravids capture Awdaghust","lonlat":[-10.42,17.43],"detail":"In the early 1050s a new movement arose among the Sanhaja Berbers of the western Sahara: the Almoravids, led by the preacher Abdallah ibn Yasin and the Lamtuna chiefs, who preached a strict form of Islam. In 1054–55 they attacked and captured Awdaghust, then one of Ghana's royal seats. The Almoravids took control of the Saharan trade routes and soon conquered Morocco. Ghana lost its northern outpost, and a powerful, aggressive neighbour now stood on its desert frontier."},{"year":1063,"text":"Tunka Manin succeeds Bassi as king","lonlat":null,"detail":"Bassi, whom al-Bakri calls Ghana's king, died in 1063 and was succeeded by his nephew, Tunka Manin. Kingship traditionally passed to the son of the king's sister. Bassi and Tunka Manin are the only kings of Ghana known to us by name. Tunka Manin ruled a powerful state at war with the neighbouring kingdom of Silla, and he corresponded with the Almoravid leader Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Some historians think the succession caused a dispute with Bassi's son, which may have given the Almoravids a chance to meddle in Ghana's politics."},{"year":1068,"text":"Al-Bakri describes the capital's royal and Muslim towns","lonlat":[-7.99,15.77],"detail":"Al-Bakri, a scholar in Córdoba in Muslim Spain, completed his 'Book of Routes and Realms' in about 1068. He never visited Ghana but gathered information from earlier writers and travellers. He described the capital as two towns about six miles (10 km) apart: a large Muslim merchants' town with twelve mosques, and the king's town, al-Ghaba, where the king kept the traditional religion. Many of the king's ministers and interpreters were Muslims. The ruins of Koumbi Saleh in Mauritania are thought to be the merchants' town, although this is not certain."},{"year":1076,"text":"c. 1076: Rulers convert to Islam; Almoravid conquest disputed","lonlat":[-7.99,15.77],"detail":"An old tradition says the Almoravids conquered Ghana in 1076–77 and converted its people to Islam. Modern historians sharply question this. In 1982 the scholars Conrad and Fisher argued that no military conquest happened, and that the story comes from misreading Arabic sources written centuries later. What is clearer is that in this period Ghana's rulers became Muslims, perhaps under Almoravid pressure or influence. The kingdom survived, so the map keeps showing Ghana in the same place after this date."},{"year":1154,"text":"Al-Idrisi describes Ghana as a powerful, fully Muslim kingdom","lonlat":null,"detail":"The geographer al-Idrisi, working at the court of the Norman king Roger II of Sicily, completed his great description of the world in 1154. He described Ghana as a powerful, fully Muslim kingdom, whose rulers claimed descent from the Prophet's family. Some historians treat his account with caution because of errors in his geography. Still, it suggests Ghana had recovered and even enjoyed a second period of strength in the 12th century. That resurgence did not last: by about 1203 the Sosso had risen and conquered Ghana."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Soninke kings (names unrecorded; Bassi d. 1063)","from":793,"to":1063},{"name":"Tunka Manin (end of reign unknown)","from":1063,"to":1076},{"name":"Muslim kings of Ghana (names unrecorded)","from":1076,"to":1201}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ghana Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Koumbi Saleh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koumbi_Saleh"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Ghana Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Ghana_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aoudaghost","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aoudaghost"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Muhammad al-Idrisi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Idrisi"}]},{"id":"khmer-empire","name":"Khmer Empire","profile":"khmer-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Khmer Empire","from":802,"to":1431}],"span":[802,1431],"summary":"Jayavarman II's consecration as universal monarch on Phnom Kulen in 802 founded the Angkorian empire, and Yasovarman I built the first capital at Angkor. Suryavarman II (builder of Angkor Wat) and Jayavarman VII (Angkor Thom, the Bayon) led its high point, including the conquest of Champa after the Cham sack of Angkor in 1177. From the 14th century the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya pressed in, and Angkor was abandoned after its fall in 1431.","events":[{"year":802,"text":"Jayavarman II proclaims himself universal monarch on Phnom Kulen","lonlat":[104.1,13.57],"detail":"Before 802, Cambodia was divided among rival Khmer princedoms that grew out of the older state of Chenla. A prince named Jayavarman II brought them together under his rule. In 802, on the sacred mountain of Mahendraparvata, now Phnom Kulen, he held a Hindu consecration ritual and proclaimed himself chakravartin, 'universal ruler', and a god-king. He also declared his kingdom independent of 'Java', which may mean the island of Java or a neighbouring power. Historians date the Khmer Empire from this ceremony, and it appears on the map centred on north-western Cambodia."},{"year":889,"text":"Yasovarman I founds Yasodharapura, the first city at Angkor","lonlat":[103.86,13.43],"detail":"Indravarman I had expanded the kingdom and built temples and reservoirs near the Tonle Sap lake. His son Yasovarman I, who came to the throne in 889, founded a new capital, Yasodharapura, the first city at Angkor. Its central temple stood on Phnom Bakheng, a hill about 60 metres high. He also built the East Baray, a huge reservoir about 7 km long. Angkor stayed the heart of the empire for more than five centuries, and its waterworks fed the rice fields that supported its people and armies."},{"year":944,"text":"Rajendravarman II returns the court to Angkor from Koh Ker","lonlat":[103.86,13.43],"detail":"In the early 10th century the court was moved away from Angkor. King Jayavarman IV built a new capital at Koh Ker, some 100 km to the north-east. In 944 Rajendravarman II came to the throne and brought the royal palace back to Yasodharapura at Angkor. He resumed great building projects there, including the Hindu temples of Pre Rup and the East Mebon, on an island in the East Baray. In 950 he fought the first recorded war with Champa, the kingdom to the east in today's central Vietnam, beginning centuries of conflict between the two."},{"year":1006,"text":"Suryavarman I takes Angkor and reunites the kingdom","lonlat":[103.86,13.43],"detail":"After the death of Jayavarman V in 1001, rival kings fought over the throne. Suryavarman I defeated his opponents and took Angkor, becoming sole king (his reign is dated from 1002 or 1006, depending on the source). He made an alliance with the Chola Empire of south India against the Malay kingdom of Tambralinga. He pushed the empire west to Lopburi in the Chao Phraya basin of today's Thailand, and east along the Mekong, and began the West Baray, a reservoir 8 km long. The empire on the map now stretched well beyond Cambodia."},{"year":1113,"text":"Suryavarman II begins his reign; Angkor Wat is built","lonlat":[103.87,13.41],"detail":"Suryavarman II came to the throne in 1113 and ruled until about 1150. He was an ambitious warrior who attacked Dai Viet, in northern Vietnam, several times without success, and fought Champa. He is best known as the builder of Angkor Wat, a vast temple dedicated to Vishnu and probably meant as his own mausoleum. It was built during his reign and is today the largest religious monument in the world. His reign marks a high point of Khmer power and art."},{"year":1145,"text":"Suryavarman II sacks the Cham capital Vijaya","lonlat":[109.1,13.88],"detail":"Champa, the Cham kingdom on the coast of central Vietnam, was the Khmers' long-standing rival. Its king, Jaya Indravarman III, had refused to keep supporting Khmer attacks on Dai Viet. In 1145 Suryavarman II invaded Champa, defeated the king and sacked the Cham capital, Vijaya. He put a new king, Harideva, said to be his wife's younger brother, on the Cham throne. But the Chams soon fought back under Jaya Harivarman I, retook their capital and killed Harideva, and a final Khmer expedition in 1150 ended in a disastrous withdrawal."},{"year":1177,"text":"Cham fleet sails up the Tonle Sap and sacks Angkor","lonlat":[104.0,12.9],"detail":"After Suryavarman II died, the Khmer court was weakened by struggles over the throne. In 1177 the Cham king Jaya Indravarman IV took revenge for earlier wars. His fleet sailed up the Mekong, across the great Tonle Sap lake and up the Siem Reap river to Angkor. The Chams pillaged the capital and killed the Khmer king, Tribhuvanadityavarman. It was the worst disaster in the empire's history so far, and for a few years the Khmer state was in chaos."},{"year":1181,"text":"Jayavarman VII is crowned and builds Angkor Thom and the Bayon","lonlat":[103.86,13.44],"detail":"A Khmer prince, already in his fifties, led the fight to drive out the Cham invaders, including a naval battle carved on the walls of the Bayon temple. Having ended the factional fighting, he was crowned in 1181 as Jayavarman VII. He was the first Khmer king devoted to Buddhism. He rebuilt the capital as Angkor Thom, a walled city with the Bayon temple, famous for its giant stone faces, at its centre. He also built roads with rest houses and, according to inscriptions, 102 hospitals across the realm."},{"year":1190,"text":"Khmer conquest of Champa (1190–1191)","lonlat":[109.1,13.88],"detail":"Jayavarman VII wanted revenge for the Cham sack of Angkor in 1177. In 1190 he sent his armies into Champa, helped by Sri Vidyanandana, a Cham prince who had taken refuge at the Khmer court. They sacked and conquered Champa in 1190–1191. The Khmers then installed their own rulers, and Champa remained a dependency of the Khmer Empire for about 30 years. The empire now reached the coast of central Vietnam, near its greatest extent on the map."},{"year":1285,"text":"Jayavarman VIII begins paying tribute to the Mongols","lonlat":null,"detail":"Jayavarman VIII, who reigned from 1243 to 1295, was a follower of Hindu Shaivism who destroyed many Buddhist statues. In 1283 the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China threatened Cambodia. To avoid war with the Mongol general Sogetu, Jayavarman VIII began paying annual tribute in 1285. The tribute kept the Mongols out, and the empire avoided invasion. But it also showed that the Khmers now had to bow to a stronger power, and his rule ended in 1295 when his son-in-law Srindravarman deposed him."},{"year":1296,"text":"Chinese envoy Zhou Daguan finds Angkor ravaged by war with Siam","lonlat":[103.86,13.44],"detail":"In 1296 the Yuan emperor Temür Khan sent an embassy to Cambodia that included the diplomat Zhou Daguan. He arrived at Angkor in August 1296 and stayed until July 1297. He later wrote 'The Customs of Cambodia', the only detailed eyewitness account of daily life in Angkor. He recorded that in a recent war with the Siamese 'the country was utterly devastated'. The new Thai kingdoms to the west were beginning to eat into the empire's lands, which shrank on the map."},{"year":1352,"text":"Ayutthaya besieges Angkor, taking it the next year","lonlat":[103.86,13.44],"detail":"In the 14th century the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya, in the lower Chao Phraya valley, became the Khmers' main rival. In 1352 King Uthong of Ayutthaya besieged Angkor. The city was captured the next year, and the Khmer king was replaced with Siamese princes for several years. Ayutthaya also kept control of western Khmer provinces it had seized. The Khmers recovered their capital, but the balance of power had shifted west, and later Siamese attacks followed, including another capture of Angkor in the 1390s."},{"year":1431,"text":"Angkor falls to Ayutthaya; the court moves to the Phnom Penh area","lonlat":[103.86,13.44],"detail":"Ayutthaya's armies besieged Angkor again, and according to Thai chronicles the city fell in 1431 after a siege of about seven months. The Khmer king Ponhea Yat judged Angkor indefensible and moved his court south, eventually to the area of present-day Phnom Penh. Angkor was not completely abandoned, and its temples remained in religious use. But the Angkorian empire was over, and historians mark this as the start of Cambodia's post-Angkor period."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Jayavarman II","from":802,"to":835},{"name":"Indravarman I","from":877,"to":889},{"name":"Yasovarman I","from":889,"to":915},{"name":"Rajendravarman II","from":944,"to":968},{"name":"Jayavarman V","from":968,"to":1001},{"name":"Suryavarman I","from":1006,"to":1050},{"name":"Suryavarman II","from":1113,"to":1150},{"name":"Jayavarman VII","from":1181,"to":1218},{"name":"Jayavarman VIII","from":1243,"to":1295},{"name":"Srindravarman","from":1295,"to":1309}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Khmer Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Khmer Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Khmer_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Suryavarman II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suryavarman_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Jayavarman VII","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayavarman_VII"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Suryavarman I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suryavarman_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Angkor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Angkor"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Zhou Daguan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Daguan"}]},{"id":"chola-empire","name":"Chola Empire","profile":"chola-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Chola Empire","from":850,"to":1259}],"span":[850,1259],"summary":"Vijayalaya re-founded Chola power at Thanjavur around 848, and his successors overcame the Pandyas and Pallavas. Rajaraja I (985–1014) and Rajendra I (1014–1044) made it the leading power of South India and the Bay of Bengal, taking Sri Lanka and the Maldives, marching to the Ganges and raiding Srivijaya in 1025. The Later Cholas held most of the Tamil country after 1070, but Pandya attacks from 1215–16 broke the empire; the map ends in 1259, and the last king, Rajendra III, is last recorded in 1279.","events":[{"year":885,"text":"Aditya I and the Pallavas defeat the Pandyas","lonlat":[78.12,9.93],"detail":"Around 850 the Chola chief Vijayalaya took Thanjavur, in the Kaveri delta, during a war between the Pallava and Pandya kingdoms. His son Aditya I at first fought as an ally of the Pallavas, the dominant power in the north of Tamil country. Together with the Pallava king Aparajita and the Western Ganga king, the Cholas defeated the Pandyas of Madurai at Thirupurambiyam (dated c. 885 in the Chola Empire article, 878 in Aditya's own article). The Cholas gained land as a reward. Aditya later turned on the Pallavas, killing Aparajita in battle and annexing their kingdom."},{"year":925,"text":"Parantaka I invades Sri Lanka","lonlat":[80.4,8.31],"detail":"Aditya's son Parantaka I continued the expansion. Early in his reign he captured Madurai and defeated a combined Pandya and Sri Lankan army, and the Pandya king fled to Sri Lanka with his royal regalia. When the Sinhalese king refused to hand them over, Parantaka attacked the island. The Chola Empire article dates the conquest to 925, while the article on Parantaka places the main invasion, which sacked Anuradhapura, around 946–947. Either way the Cholas could not hold the island, and its army returned to Anuradhapura once they left."},{"year":949,"text":"Defeat by the Rashtrakutas at Takkolam; Tondaimandalam lost","lonlat":[79.73,13.03],"detail":"In the north the Cholas faced the Rashtrakutas, the strongest power in the Deccan. Around 948–949 the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III and his Western Ganga ally Butuga II invaded and met a Chola force under the crown prince Rajaditya at Takkolam, near Kanchipuram. Rajaditya was killed on the battlefield, according to some accounts while riding an elephant, and the Cholas were defeated. They lost the northern province of Tondaimandalam, around Kanchipuram, to the Rashtrakutas. For the next three decades Chola power shrank back toward the Kaveri delta."},{"year":985,"text":"Rajaraja I takes the throne","lonlat":[79.14,10.79],"detail":"Arulmozhi Varman became king in 985 after the death of his uncle Uttama Chola, taking the name Rajaraja, 'king of kings'. He inherited a small kingdom around Thanjavur and Tiruchirappalli that was still recovering from the Rashtrakuta wars. Over nearly thirty years he built a powerful army and navy and conquered the Pandya and Chera kingdoms, the Deccan lands of Vengi and Gangavadi, and northern Sri Lanka. He also organised a land survey in 1000. Under him the Chola kingdom became an empire, and the map begins to spread across south India."},{"year":993,"text":"Chola forces invade the Anuradhapura kingdom of Sri Lanka","lonlat":[80.4,8.31],"detail":"The Sinhalese kingdom of Anuradhapura, in northern Sri Lanka, had fallen into chaos. Around 982 its army, largely Tamil mercenaries, revolted against King Mahinda V, who fled to Rohana in the south. Rajaraja I took advantage of the eleven years of disorder and invaded in 993. The Cholas took the north of the island, made Polonnaruwa their provincial capital and renamed it Jananathamangalam. For the first time the Chola map stretched across the Palk Strait into Sri Lanka."},{"year":1010,"text":"Rajaraja dedicates the great Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur","lonlat":[79.13,10.78],"detail":"Rajaraja I built the Brihadisvara temple at his capital, Thanjavur, between 1003 and 1010, dedicating it to the god Shiva. It was the grandest temple of its age in south India. Its granite tower (vimana) over the shrine is one of the tallest in the region, and it houses one of the largest Shiva lingas in India. The temple displayed the wealth and power of the Chola state and served as a centre of worship, administration and the arts. Today it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site 'Great Living Chola Temples'."},{"year":1017,"text":"c. 1017: Rajendra completes the conquest of Sri Lanka's Rajarata","lonlat":[80.4,8.31],"detail":"Rajaraja's son Rajendra I, king from 1014, finished what his father began in Sri Lanka. According to the Sinhalese chronicle, the Mahavamsa, the conquest was completed in about 1017–1018. Rajendra's army marched into Rohana, the island's southern refuge, and captured King Mahinda V with his queen, his crown and great treasure, and also seized the Pandya regalia kept there. Mahinda died as a prisoner in India in 1029. All of Rajarata, the northern kingdom of Sri Lanka, was now a Chola province."},{"year":1018,"text":"Rajendra's forces take the Maldives and Lakshadweep","lonlat":[73.51,4.18],"detail":"The Cholas had a strong navy and wanted to control the trade routes of the Indian Ocean. In 1018 Rajendra's forces captured the Maldives and the Lakshadweep (Laccadive) islands off the west coast of India. Rajendra renamed the islands 'Twelve Thousand Islands and the Ocean Where Three Waters Meet'. His father Rajaraja had already extended Chola influence over parts of the Maldives. The conquest gave the Cholas bases on the sea lanes between Arabia and South-East Asia, and the map reaches out into the Arabian Sea."},{"year":1022,"text":"Ganges expedition returns; a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, follows","lonlat":[79.45,11.21],"detail":"Rajendra sent an army on a great campaign to the north, through Odisha and Bengal, where it defeated the Pala king and reached the river Ganges. The army returned around 1022 with water from the Ganges. Rajendra took the title Gangaikonda, 'he who took the Ganges', and built a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, with a great Shiva temple and a huge tank where the Ganges water was mixed. The northern lands were raided, not ruled. But the campaign showed Chola power from Sri Lanka to Bengal."},{"year":1025,"text":"Naval raids on Srivijaya and Kedah","lonlat":[100.42,5.74],"detail":"Srivijaya, based on Sumatra, controlled the Strait of Malacca, the main sea route between India and China, and forced passing ships to use its ports. In 1025 Rajendra launched a swift naval invasion that took Srivijaya by surprise. His fleet attacked its ports, including Kedah (Kadaram) on the Malay Peninsula, and captured its king, Sangrama Vijayatunggavarman. The raid did not create lasting rule. But it broke Srivijaya's grip on the strait for a time and spread Chola influence into South-East Asia."},{"year":1070,"text":"Kulottunga I founds the Later Cholas; overseas lands slip away","lonlat":[79.45,11.21],"detail":"In 1070 the Chola king Athirajendra was killed in a civil disturbance, leaving no heir. His cousin Kulothunga I, son of an Eastern Chalukya king of Vengi and grandson of Rajendra I through his mother, took the throne. He began the line known as the Later Cholas and ruled until 1122. He kept the core empire strong and claimed overlordship over Kedah, but the Cholas lost Sri Lanka to a revival of Sinhalese power, and they began to lose control of the Pandya lands. The map starts to shrink at its edges."},{"year":1118,"text":"c. 1118: Vengi lost to the Chalukyas, Gangavadi to the Hoysalas","lonlat":[81.1,16.71],"detail":"Late in Kulothunga I's reign, around 1118, the Cholas suffered losses on their northern frontiers. The Western Chalukyas of Kalyani occupied Vengi, the Telugu coastal lands the Cholas had controlled through marriage alliances, and the Hoysalas under Vishnuvardhana took Gangavadi, in what is now southern Karnataka. These were temporary setbacks. Kulothunga's son Vikrama Chola soon recovered Vengi and part of Gangavadi. Still, they showed that new regional powers were rising around the empire."},{"year":1216,"text":"c. 1216: Pandya king Maravarman Sundara defeats Kulottunga III","lonlat":[78.12,9.93],"detail":"Kulothunga III had defeated the Pandyas and in 1205 burned their coronation hall at Madurai. In 1216 a new Pandya king, Maravarman Sundara Pandyan, came to power determined to take revenge. He invaded the Chola kingdom, sacked Thanjavur and Uraiyur and drove the aged Kulothunga III and his heir into exile. Hoysala help won Kulothunga back his kingdom, but only as a Pandya vassal, and from now on the Cholas were weak and dependent. The Pandyas were the rising power in Tamil country, and they finally ended the Chola dynasty around 1279."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Vijayalaya (r. c. 848–871)","from":850,"to":871},{"name":"Aditya I","from":871,"to":907},{"name":"Parantaka I","from":907,"to":955},{"name":"Rajaraja I","from":985,"to":1014},{"name":"Rajendra I","from":1014,"to":1044},{"name":"Rajadhiraja I","from":1044,"to":1054},{"name":"Virarajendra","from":1063,"to":1070},{"name":"Kulottunga I","from":1070,"to":1122},{"name":"Rajaraja II","from":1146,"to":1175},{"name":"Kulottunga III","from":1178,"to":1218},{"name":"Rajaraja III","from":1218,"to":1256}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Chola Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chola dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rajaraja I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajaraja_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rajendra I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Takkolam","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Takkolam"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chola invasion of Srivijaya","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_invasion_of_Srivijaya"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Parantaka I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parantaka_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Maravarman Sundara Pandyan I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maravarman_Sundara_Pandyan_I"}]},{"id":"holy-roman-empire","name":"Holy Roman Empire","profile":"holy-roman-empire","chain":[{"clio":"(Holy Roman Empire)","from":962,"to":1806}],"span":[962,1806],"summary":"Otto I's imperial coronation in 962 joined the German kingdom to Italy, and Burgundy was added in 1032, making the empire the strongest monarchy in western Europe into the 13th century. Clashes with the papacy and the collapse of Hohenstaufen power after 1250 left the princes increasingly independent, a system fixed by the Golden Bull of 1356 and the reforms of 1495. The Reformation and the Thirty Years' War further weakened imperial authority; Westphalia (1648) recognised the loss of Switzerland and the Dutch Netherlands, and Francis II dissolved the empire in 1806.","events":[{"year":962,"text":"Pope John XII crowns Otto I emperor in Rome","lonlat":[12.45,41.9],"detail":"After the Carolingian Empire broke up, East Francia became a kingdom of German duchies. Otto I, Duke of Saxony and king from 936, made it the strongest power in Europe. In 955 he crushed the Magyars at the Lechfeld, ending their raids on the West, and by 961 he had conquered the Kingdom of Italy. Following Charlemagne's example, he was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope John XII in 962. Historians date the Holy Roman Empire from this coronation, which joined the German and Italian kingdoms under one emperor for centuries."},{"year":1032,"text":"Kingdom of Burgundy joins Germany and Italy under the emperor","lonlat":null,"detail":"Rudolph III, the childless king of Burgundy (a kingdom in the Rhône valley and western Alps, between France and Italy), had promised his throne to the German rulers. When he died in 1032, Emperor Conrad II, the first of the Salian dynasty, claimed the kingdom and conquered it with German and Italian troops, becoming its king in 1033. Burgundy, later known as the Kingdom of Arles, joined Germany and Italy as the third of the empire's 'three kingdoms'. On the map the empire now reached south to the Mediterranean coast of Provence."},{"year":1077,"text":"Henry IV's Walk to Canossa during the Investiture Controversy","lonlat":[10.46,44.58],"detail":"Popes and emperors clashed over who had the right to appoint bishops, who were also powerful landholders. This was the 'Investiture Controversy'. When Pope Gregory VII tried to ban lay investiture, the German king Henry IV had his bishops reject the pope in 1076, and Gregory excommunicated and deposed him. With German nobles threatening revolt, Henry crossed the Alps in winter and in January 1077 came to Canossa Castle, where the pope was staying. According to contemporary sources he waited three days in the snow, in a penitent's hair shirt, before Gregory lifted the excommunication."},{"year":1122,"text":"Concordat of Worms settles the investiture dispute","lonlat":[8.36,49.63],"detail":"The Investiture Controversy dragged on for decades after Canossa, through civil wars in Germany and fighting in Italy. Henry IV's son, Emperor Henry V, finally negotiated a compromise with Pope Callixtus II. By the Concordat of Worms, signed on 23 September 1122, the emperor gave up investing bishops with the ring and staff, the symbols of their spiritual office, and allowed church elections. In return he could attend elections and invest bishops with a sceptre for the lands they held from him. The dispute had weakened imperial authority and strengthened the German princes."},{"year":1157,"text":"'Holy' first used for the empire under Frederick I Barbarossa","lonlat":null,"detail":"Frederick I, called Barbarossa ('Red Beard'), became emperor in 1155 and set out to restore imperial power, especially over the rich cities of northern Italy and in relation to the pope. In 1157 the word sacrum ('holy') first appeared in a document in connection with his empire. It expressed the idea that the empire was sacred in its own right, not dependent on the pope. The full form 'Holy Roman Empire' is recorded from 1254. Barbarossa spent much of his reign fighting in Italy, and he drowned in 1190 while on the Third Crusade."},{"year":1250,"text":"Frederick II dies; Hohenstaufen power collapses, interregnum follows","lonlat":null,"detail":"Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen dynasty ruled Germany, Italy and the Kingdom of Sicily. Constantly in conflict with the papacy, which lay hemmed in between his lands, he was excommunicated four times, and Pope Innocent IV declared him deposed in 1245. When Frederick died in December 1250, his son Conrad IV fought on, but died in 1254, and the Hohenstaufen collapsed. Rival kings were elected, some of them foreigners with little power in Germany. This period, often called the Great Interregnum, let the German princes take over much of the king's power and lands."},{"year":1273,"text":"Rudolf of Habsburg elected King of the Romans","lonlat":null,"detail":"After two decades without an effective king, the German princes wanted a ruler who could restore order but would not threaten their own power. In 1273 they elected Rudolf, Count of Habsburg, a minor noble from what is now Switzerland, as King of the Romans. Rudolf, who was never crowned emperor, defeated the powerful King Ottokar II of Bohemia and took Austria, Styria and Carinthia for his own family. This was the start of Habsburg power in the empire. From the 15th century almost every emperor was a Habsburg."},{"year":1356,"text":"Charles IV's Golden Bull fixes the seven prince-electors","lonlat":[11.08,49.45],"detail":"Imperial elections had often led to disputes and rival kings. In 1356 Emperor Charles IV issued the Golden Bull at diets in Nuremberg and Metz. It named the seven prince-electors who would choose the king: the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony and the Margrave of Brandenburg. It also set majority voting, with Frankfurt as the place of election. The Bull fixed the empire's constitution for more than four hundred years and strengthened the electors as near-independent rulers."},{"year":1495,"text":"Diet of Worms launches the Imperial Reform","lonlat":[8.36,49.63],"detail":"By the late 15th century the empire was a patchwork of hundreds of territories with weak central institutions. In 1495 King Maximilian I asked the Diet (assembly) at Worms for taxes and troops for his wars against the Ottomans and France. The princes, led by the Archbishop of Mainz, agreed but demanded reforms in return. The Diet declared a Perpetual Public Peace banning private feuds and created an Imperial Chamber Court for the whole empire. It also agreed a general tax, the Common Penny, and these reforms gave the empire institutions that lasted until 1806."},{"year":1517,"text":"Luther's break with the pope starts the Reformation","lonlat":[12.65,51.87],"detail":"In 1517 Martin Luther, a monk and professor at Wittenberg in Saxony, wrote his Ninety-five Theses against the sale of indulgences, certificates said to reduce punishment for sins. On 31 October he sent them to the Archbishop of Mainz, and they soon spread across Germany in print. His challenge to the pope's authority grew into the Protestant Reformation, and he was excommunicated in 1521. Many German princes and cities adopted Lutheranism, splitting the empire along religious lines. The division led to decades of conflict between Catholic emperors and Protestant princes."},{"year":1555,"text":"Peace of Augsburg lets rulers choose Catholicism or Lutheranism","lonlat":[10.9,48.37],"detail":"After years of religious war in the empire, Emperor Charles V, through his brother Ferdinand, made peace with the Lutheran princes of the Schmalkaldic League. The Peace of Augsburg, signed on 25 September 1555, allowed each ruler to choose either Lutheranism or Catholicism as the official religion of his lands. This was later summed up as cuius regio, eius religio ('whose realm, his religion'). Calvinism was not included. The settlement made the religious division of the empire permanent and kept peace for over sixty years, until the Thirty Years' War."},{"year":1618,"text":"Bohemian revolt starts the Thirty Years' War","lonlat":[14.42,50.09],"detail":"Bohemia had a large Protestant population and feared losing its religious freedoms under the Catholic Habsburgs. In 1618 Protestant nobles in Prague threw two imperial officials out of a castle window, the Defenestration of Prague, and rebelled. They replaced Ferdinand II as their king with the Protestant Frederick V of the Palatinate. The revolt grew into the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which drew in Denmark, Sweden, France and Spain. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million people died from fighting, famine and disease, and parts of Germany lost more than half their population."},{"year":1648,"text":"Peace of Westphalia; Switzerland and the Dutch Republic leave","lonlat":[7.63,51.96],"detail":"The Thirty Years' War ended with two treaties signed in October 1648 at Münster and Osnabrück in Westphalia. Rulers could now choose Catholicism, Lutheranism or Calvinism. France gained lands in Alsace and Lorraine, and Sweden gained Western Pomerania and other territories on the Baltic and North Sea. The peace confirmed the legal independence of the Swiss Confederation, and the Dutch Republic, already recognised by Spain earlier that year, also left the empire. The empire survived, but its princes gained near-sovereign powers, and the emperor's authority was greatly weakened."},{"year":1678,"text":"Franche-Comté lost to France","lonlat":[6.02,47.24],"detail":"Franche-Comté, the 'Free County' of Burgundy around Besançon, belonged to the Spanish Habsburgs but was part of the empire. King Louis XIV of France conquered it during his wars, and the Treaties of Nijmegen (1678–1679), which ended the Franco-Dutch War, gave France control of the region. It was the only noticeable change to the empire's outer borders between 1648 and 1806. On the map, the empire's western edge pulls back from the Jura mountains, and France now reached the Swiss border."},{"year":1806,"text":"Francis II abdicates and dissolves the empire","lonlat":[16.37,48.21],"detail":"In 1804 Napoleon declared himself Emperor of the French, and Francis II responded by taking the extra title Emperor of Austria. After Austria's defeat at Austerlitz in December 1805, many of Francis's German vassals left the empire in July 1806 to form the Confederation of the Rhine under French protection. Fearing that Napoleon might claim the imperial title himself, Francis abdicated on 6 August 1806 and released all imperial states from their obligations. The Holy Roman Empire, which had lasted more than eight centuries, was dissolved and disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Otto I","from":962,"to":973},{"name":"Otto II","from":973,"to":983},{"name":"Conrad II","from":1027,"to":1039},{"name":"Henry IV","from":1084,"to":1106},{"name":"Frederick I Barbarossa","from":1155,"to":1190},{"name":"Henry VI","from":1191,"to":1197},{"name":"Frederick II","from":1220,"to":1250},{"name":"Rudolf I (king, never crowned emperor)","from":1273,"to":1291},{"name":"Henry VII","from":1312,"to":1313},{"name":"Charles IV","from":1355,"to":1378},{"name":"Sigismund","from":1433,"to":1437},{"name":"Frederick III","from":1452,"to":1493},{"name":"Maximilian I","from":1508,"to":1519},{"name":"Charles V","from":1519,"to":1556},{"name":"Ferdinand II","from":1619,"to":1637},{"name":"Leopold I","from":1658,"to":1705},{"name":"Charles VI","from":1711,"to":1740},{"name":"Joseph II","from":1765,"to":1790},{"name":"Francis II","from":1792,"to":1806}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Holy Roman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Holy Roman Emperor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Emperor"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Holy Roman Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Holy_Roman_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Otto the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Road to Canossa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Canossa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Concordat of Worms","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_Worms"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Golden Bull of 1356","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bull_of_1356"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Peace of Westphalia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia"}]},{"id":"seljuk-empire","name":"Great Seljuk Empire","profile":"seljuk-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Seljuk Dynasty","from":1037,"to":1039},{"clio":"Great Seljuk Empire","from":1040,"to":1194}],"span":[1037,1194],"summary":"Oghuz Turks led by Tughril and Chaghri took Merv and Nishapur in 1037–38, crushed the Ghaznavids at Dandanaqan and in 1055 entered Baghdad as protectors of the Abbasid caliph. Alp Arslan's victory at Manzikert (1071) opened Anatolia, and under Malik-Shah and his vizier Nizam al-Mulk the empire stretched from the Levant to Central Asia. After 1092 it fragmented among rival heirs; Sanjar's defeat at Qatwan (1141) and capture by the Oghuz (1153) ended Seljuk power in the east, and the last sultan fell to the Khwarazmians in 1194, leaving only the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia (to 1308).","events":[{"year":1037,"text":"Tughril and Chaghri take Merv and Nishapur (1037–38)","lonlat":[58.8,36.21],"detail":"The Seljuks were a family of Oghuz Turks, nomads from the steppes near the Aral Sea, named after their ancestor Seljuk. Driven out of Transoxiana in 1034, they moved with their herds into Khurasan, in north-eastern Iran, then ruled by the Ghaznavid Empire. Led by the brothers Tughril and Chaghri, they captured the great cities of Merv and Nishapur in 1037–1038, and in 1037 Tughril was proclaimed sultan. Historians date the Seljuk Empire from these conquests. For the first time the Turkmen nomads held major cities, and the empire appears on the map in Khurasan."},{"year":1040,"text":"Seljuks rout the Ghaznavids at Dandanaqan near Merv","lonlat":[61.83,37.66],"detail":"The Ghaznavid sultan Mas'ud, ruling from Ghazna in Afghanistan, marched with a large army to drive the Seljuks out of Khurasan. The Seljuks avoided open battle and harassed his columns with hit-and-run raids, so that his troops grew starving and demoralised. On 23 May 1040, around 16,000 Seljuk horsemen defeated the Ghaznavid army at Dandanaqan, near Merv. Mas'ud fled to India, where he was overthrown and later murdered. All of Khurasan passed to the Seljuks, who then turned west toward Iran."},{"year":1055,"text":"Tughril enters Baghdad and ends Buyid influence","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"After Dandanaqan, Tughril conquered much of Iran from the Buyids and made Isfahan his capital. The Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, al-Qa'im, was a figurehead under the Shia Buyid emirs, and he looked to the Sunni Seljuks for support. In 1055, invited by the caliph, Tughril entered Baghdad and ended Buyid rule there. The caliph recognised him as sultan, the ruler of the Muslim world's armies and government, while keeping religious authority himself. The Seljuk map now reached Iraq, and the Seljuks became protectors of Sunni Islam."},{"year":1064,"text":"Alp Arslan adds Armenia and Georgia","lonlat":[43.57,40.51],"detail":"Alp Arslan, Chaghri's son, became sultan in 1063 after Tughril died. In 1064 he led a campaign into the Caucasus and besieged Ani, the old capital of Armenia, then held by the Byzantines. After a 25-day siege the Seljuk army took the city on 16 August 1064, and the caliph honoured him with the title 'Father of Conquests'. He also invaded Georgia, and King Gagik II of Kars became his vassal. The Seljuk frontier now pressed against Byzantine Anatolia."},{"year":1071,"text":"Alp Arslan defeats and captures Romanos IV at Manzikert","lonlat":[42.53,39.14],"detail":"Turkmen raids into Byzantine Anatolia led Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes to march east with a large army. On 26 August 1071 he met Alp Arslan near Manzikert, north of Lake Van. Many of the emperor's mercenaries and levies fled, and Romanos himself was captured, the only Byzantine emperor ever taken prisoner by a Muslim commander. Alp Arslan released him in return for a ransom and a treaty. But Byzantium fell into civil war, and Turkish groups poured into central Anatolia, which they controlled as far as the Aegean within a few years."},{"year":1072,"text":"Malik-Shah I succeeds; with Nizam al-Mulk, the golden age","lonlat":[51.67,32.65],"detail":"Alp Arslan was fatally wounded on a campaign in Central Asia in 1072, and his son Malik-Shah I succeeded him. Real power lay with the great Persian vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who had served his father and ran the government for twenty years. He founded the Nizamiyya madrasas, colleges across the empire, and is credited with a famous book on government. Under Malik-Shah the empire reached the height of its power, stretching from Anatolia and Syria to Central Asia. Isfahan, the capital, flourished."},{"year":1092,"text":"Malik-Shah dies; the empire splits among his heirs","lonlat":[51.67,32.65],"detail":"In 1092 Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated near Baghdad by a man disguised as a Sufi (most accounts blame the Nizari Isma'ilis, or Assassins), and Malik-Shah died a few weeks later, on 19 November 1092, possibly poisoned. His brother and four sons then quarrelled over the throne, and the empire split. Syria broke into rival emirates such as Aleppo and Damascus, and in Anatolia the Sultanate of Rum and other Turkish states went their own way. On the map the empire still looks large, but in practice it was a loose collection of rival Seljuk princes and governors."},{"year":1099,"text":"First Crusade takes Jerusalem; Crusader states carved out","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"detail":"In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade to help Byzantium against the Turks and to take Jerusalem. The divided Seljuk rulers of Syria and Anatolia were more interested in fighting one another, and they failed to stop the crusader armies, which took Nicaea, Antioch and other cities. Jerusalem had already been retaken from the Seljuks' vassals by the Fatimids of Egypt in 1098. On 15 July 1099 the crusaders stormed the city and massacred many of its people. They set up Crusader states along the coast of Syria and Palestine."},{"year":1118,"text":"Ahmad Sanjar becomes sole sultan","lonlat":[61.83,37.66],"detail":"Ahmad Sanjar, a son of Malik-Shah, had governed Khurasan from his base at Merv since 1097. When his brother Sultan Muhammad I died in 1118, Sanjar defeated his young nephew Mahmud II and became supreme sultan, leaving Mahmud to rule western Iran and Iraq as his subordinate. He ruled for 41 years, mostly from Merv, and for much of that time he kept the borders of the empire largely intact. The Seljuk centre of power had moved east again, to Khurasan."},{"year":1141,"text":"Qara Khitai crush Sanjar at Qatwan; eastern lands lost","lonlat":[66.9,39.9],"detail":"In Central Asia a new power arose: the Qara Khitai, refugees from the fallen Liao dynasty of northern China led by Yelü Dashi. Invited by the Khwarazmians, Sanjar's own vassals, and by Karluk Turks, they attacked the Seljuks' vassals. On 9 September 1141 they crushed Sanjar's army on the Qatwan steppe north of Samarkand, encircling it in a valley. Sanjar escaped, but his wife and many commanders were captured. The Seljuks lost all their lands beyond the Amu Darya up to the Syr Darya, and Khwarazm became a vassal of the Qara Khitai."},{"year":1153,"text":"Oghuz tribes revolt and capture Sanjar","lonlat":null,"detail":"Oghuz Turkmen tribes grazing near Balkh paid Sanjar a yearly tribute in sheep, but after quarrels with his officials, including the killing of a tax collector, the sultan marched against them. In April 1153 the Oghuz defeated and captured him. They held Sanjar prisoner for about three years, while they plundered the cities of Khurasan. The empire's eastern heartland was left in chaos. The defeat by the Seljuks' own kin is seen as the moment when the Great Seljuk Empire effectively collapsed."},{"year":1157,"text":"Sanjar dies at Merv","lonlat":[61.83,37.66],"detail":"Sanjar escaped from his Oghuz captors in the autumn of 1156 and returned to Merv, but he died there on 8 May 1157. He was buried in a great domed tomb in Merv, and he was the last of the Great Seljuk sultans to rule the whole eastern empire. After his death Khurasan fell to local warlords and to the rising Khwarazmshahs, while the Seljuk sultans in western Iran became puppets of their own generals. On the map the empire shrinks to western Iran and Iraq."},{"year":1194,"text":"Khwarazmshah Tekish defeats Toghrul III; the Great Seljuks end","lonlat":null,"detail":"Tughril III became sultan in 1175, but power lay with the Eldiguzid atabegs, the commanders who ruled in his name. When Tughril tried to rule for himself, his rivals and the caliph al-Nasir called in the Khwarazmshah Tekish against him. In 1194 Tekish defeated and killed Tughril III near Rayy, and sent his head to the caliph in Baghdad. Tughril was the last Seljuk sultan of Iran. The Great Seljuk Empire ended, and its lands passed to the Khwarazmian Empire, while only the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum survived in Anatolia."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Tughril","from":1037,"to":1063},{"name":"Alp Arslan","from":1063,"to":1072},{"name":"Malik-Shah I","from":1072,"to":1092},{"name":"Mahmud I","from":1092,"to":1094},{"name":"Berkyaruq","from":1094,"to":1105},{"name":"Muhammad I Tapar","from":1105,"to":1118},{"name":"Ahmad Sanjar","from":1118,"to":1157},{"name":"Arslan-Shah","from":1160,"to":1176},{"name":"Toghrul III","from":1176,"to":1194}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Seljuk Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuk_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of sultans of the Seljuk Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sultans_of_the_Seljuk_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Dandanaqan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dandanaqan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Qatwan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qatwan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Manzikert","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Manzikert"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tughril I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tughril_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ahmad Sanjar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Sanjar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tughril III","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tughril_III"}]},{"id":"mongol-empire","name":"Mongol Empire","profile":"mongol-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Mongol Empire","from":1206,"to":1293}],"span":[1206,1293],"summary":"Proclaimed Genghis Khan in 1206, Temüjin united the steppe and conquered northern China and the Khwarazmian Empire; his successors took the Jin, Rus' and the Abbasid caliphate, creating the largest contiguous land empire in history. After Möngke's death in 1259 the Toluid civil war split the empire into the Yuan dynasty and three western khanates (the Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate and Ilkhanate). Kublai completed the conquest of Song China in 1279, but his attacks on Japan failed, and by his death in 1294 the four khanates went their own way.","events":[{"year":1206,"text":"Kurultai proclaims Temüjin Genghis Khan","lonlat":[109.0,48.8],"detail":"Temüjin was born around 1162, the son of a Mongol chieftain. After his father's death his family was abandoned and lived in poverty. Through skill in war and alliances, he defeated rival steppe leaders one by one, including his former allies Toghrul of the Kereits and Jamukha, and the Tatars, Merkits and Naimans. In 1206 an assembly of the steppe peoples, a kurultai, met near the Onon river and proclaimed him Genghis Khan, a title whose meaning is uncertain. For the first time the tribes of the Mongolian steppe were united under one ruler, and the Mongol Empire appears on the map."},{"year":1219,"text":"Invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire begins (1219–1221)","lonlat":[68.3,42.85],"detail":"The Khwarazmian Empire ruled Central Asia and Iran under Shah Muhammad II. In 1218 Genghis Khan sent a large trading caravan there, but the governor of Otrar seized its goods and executed the merchants as spies. When the shah refused to punish him and killed one of the Mongol envoys sent to complain, Genghis invaded in 1219. Over the next two years Bukhara, Samarkand and Urgench fell, and the shah fled and died on an island in the Caspian Sea. The war was one of the bloodiest in history, and the empire's map now stretched west across Central Asia."},{"year":1227,"text":"Genghis Khan dies during the campaign against Western Xia","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Western Xia, a kingdom of the Tangut people in what is now north-western China, had submitted to the Mongols after a raid in 1209, but it later refused to send troops for the war against Khwarazm. Genghis Khan returned from the west to punish it. In August 1227, while subduing the rebellious Tanguts, he died, after falling from his horse while hunting the previous winter and growing increasingly ill. His burial place was kept secret and has never been found. The Western Xia was destroyed, and his son Ögedei was later chosen as Great Khan."},{"year":1234,"text":"Mongols and Song finish off the Jin dynasty","lonlat":[114.36,33.01],"detail":"The Jin dynasty of the Jurchen people ruled northern China. The Mongols had attacked it since 1211, taking its capital Zhongdu (Beijing) in 1215 and forcing the Jin court to move south to Kaifeng. Under Ögedei the Mongols besieged Kaifeng in 1232, and the Jin emperor Aizong fled south to Caizhou. In 1233 the Southern Song dynasty allied with the Mongols, and their combined armies besieged Caizhou, which fell on 9 February 1234. The Jin dynasty ended, and the Mongols now ruled all of northern China, bringing them face to face with the Song."},{"year":1237,"text":"Batu attacks Ryazan, the first Rus' principality to fall","lonlat":[39.74,54.63],"detail":"In 1236 a huge Mongol army under Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, with the general Subutai, set out to conquer the lands west of the Volga. In late 1237 it invaded Ryazan, the first of the Rus' principalities to be attacked, whose prince's call for help from Vladimir went unanswered. The Mongols besieged the city from 16 December, stormed it on 21 December, killed the prince and nearly all the inhabitants and burned it. Batu then pushed on into Vladimir-Suzdal, destroying city after city in the north-east of Rus'."},{"year":1240,"text":"Kiev falls; nearly all Rus' under Mongol rule","lonlat":[30.52,50.45],"detail":"Kiev, the ancient capital of the Rus', had been the greatest city of Eastern Europe, though it was now weakened by quarrels among the princes. Batu's army, under the command of Subutai, besieged it from 28 November 1240 and stormed it on 6 December, after the defenders made a last stand in the Church of the Tithes. The fall of Kiev completed the conquest of the Rus' lands, which became tributaries of the Mongol khans, later known as the Golden Horde. The Mongol map now reached into Eastern Europe."},{"year":1241,"text":"Hungarians crushed at Mohi; Ögedei's death halts the invasion","lonlat":[20.95,47.97],"detail":"In 1241 the Mongols invaded Central Europe. One force defeated the Poles and Germans at Legnica, while the main army under Batu and Subutai entered Hungary. On 11 April 1241 it destroyed the army of King Béla IV at Mohi, near the Sajó river, and went on to ravage Hungary. Then news arrived that the Great Khan Ögedei had died in December 1241, and the Mongol armies withdrew from Central Europe, though historians doubt this was the only reason. They never returned in such force."},{"year":1251,"text":"Möngke elected Great Khan","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Ögedei's death, his widow ruled as regent, then his son Güyük reigned briefly until his death in 1248. Batu, the most senior prince, backed Möngke, the son of Genghis Khan's youngest son Tolui. On 1 July 1251 a kurultai in Mongolia proclaimed Möngke Great Khan. He purged rival princes and reorganised the empire's government and finances. He then launched two great new campaigns: his brother Hulagu was sent west against the Islamic lands, and his brother Kublai south against the Song."},{"year":1258,"text":"Hulagu sacks Baghdad and ends the Abbasid caliphate","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"Hulagu destroyed the Isma'ili Assassins' strongholds in Iran and demanded that the Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim submit, but the caliph refused. The Mongols attacked Baghdad at the end of January 1258, and on 10 February the caliph surrendered. The city was sacked and its people massacred, and al-Musta'sim was killed. A later story says so many books were thrown into the Tigris that it ran black, though some libraries reopened within two years. The five-century Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad was ended, and Iraq and Iran became the base of Hulagu's Ilkhanate."},{"year":1259,"text":"Möngke dies besieging Diaoyu; succession war follows","lonlat":[106.28,30.0],"detail":"Möngke personally led an army against the Southern Song in Sichuan, where the Song had fortified mountain strongholds such as Diaoyu. In 1259 the Mongols besieged Diaoyu fortress, near modern Chongqing, but disease swept through their camp. Möngke died there on 11 August 1259, from disease according to most accounts, though one source says he was killed in battle. He had not named a successor, and his brothers Kublai and Ariq Böke fought each other in the Toluid Civil War (1260–1264). The empire began to break into separate khanates."},{"year":1260,"text":"Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut","lonlat":[35.36,32.55],"detail":"Hulagu's army had taken Aleppo and Damascus and threatened Egypt, ruled by the Mamluks. After Möngke's death Hulagu withdrew with most of his army, leaving about 10,000 men under his general Kitbuqa. The Mamluk sultan Qutuz marched from Cairo, and on 3 September 1260 the two armies met at Ain Jalut, a spring in Galilee. Using a feigned retreat led by Baybars, the Mamluks defeated the Mongols and killed Kitbuqa. It was the first major halt to the Mongol advance, and Syria and Egypt stayed outside the empire."},{"year":1271,"text":"Kublai proclaims the Yuan dynasty","lonlat":[116.4,39.9],"detail":"After winning the civil war, Kublai Khan ruled from northern China and adopted Chinese ways of government to win over his Chinese subjects. In 1271 he proclaimed a new dynasty with the Chinese name Dai Yuan, 'Great Yuan', and claimed succession to earlier Chinese dynasties. He built a new capital, Dadu (Khanbaliq), on the site of modern Beijing. As Great Khan he still had influence over the Ilkhanate and less over the Golden Horde. In practice, though, his real power was limited to the Yuan realm, which now became the core of the empire."},{"year":1276,"text":"Song imperial court surrenders at Hangzhou","lonlat":[120.16,30.27],"detail":"Kublai's conquest of the Southern Song had stalled for years at Xiangyang, a fortress city on the Han river guarding the Yangtze plain. It fell in 1273, after the Mongols brought in Persian-designed counterweight trebuchets. The Mongol general Bayan then advanced down the Yangtze toward Hangzhou (Lin'an), the Song capital. In 1276 the Song court surrendered, and the boy emperor Gong was captured, while loyalists fled south with his younger brothers. Most of southern China was now in Mongol hands."},{"year":1279,"text":"Conquest of Song China completed","lonlat":[113.08,22.3],"detail":"Song loyalists carried on the fight from southern China, crowning two young princes in turn. Their last refuge was a fleet at Yamen, in Guangdong near the Pearl River delta. On 19 March 1279 the Yuan navy under Zhang Hongfan destroyed the Song fleet. With the seven-year-old emperor Zhao Bing lost in the defeat, the Song dynasty ended, and Kublai became the first non-Han emperor to rule all of China. The Mongol Empire reached its greatest extent on the map around this time."},{"year":1281,"text":"Second invasion of Japan fails, as the first did in 1274","lonlat":[130.4,33.59],"detail":"After the Korean kingdom of Goryeo submitted, Kublai demanded that Japan also become his vassal, but the Japanese ignored his envoys. In 1274 a Mongol and Korean force landed in Kyushu near Hakata but withdrew after a storm. The Japanese then built a defensive stone wall at Hakata Bay, and in 1281 Kublai sent a much larger invasion. It was held back by the samurai and then wrecked by a typhoon, which the Japanese called kamikaze, 'divine wind'. Japan stayed independent, and the failure marked one of the limits of Mongol expansion by sea."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Genghis Khan","from":1206,"to":1227},{"name":"Tolui (regent)","from":1227,"to":1229},{"name":"Ögedei","from":1229,"to":1241},{"name":"Töregene (regent)","from":1241,"to":1246},{"name":"Güyük","from":1246,"to":1248},{"name":"Oghul Qaimish (regent)","from":1248,"to":1251},{"name":"Möngke","from":1251,"to":1259},{"name":"Kublai (r. 1260–1294)","from":1260,"to":1293}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Mongol Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Mongol_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kublai Khan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kublai_Khan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol conquest of the Khwarazmian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_the_Khwarazmian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol invasions of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Division of the Mongol Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_the_Mongol_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Mohi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mohi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ain Jalut","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut"}]},{"id":"delhi-sultanate","name":"Delhi Sultanate","profile":"delhi-sultanate","chain":[{"clio":"(Delhi Sultanate)","from":1210,"to":1526}],"span":[1210,1526],"summary":"Founded in 1206 by Qutb ud-Din Aibak in the Indian lands of the Ghurids, the sultanate was ruled in turn by the Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid and Lodi dynasties. Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughluq pushed its armies deep into the south, briefly ruling most of the subcontinent, but rebellions created the Bahmani, Vijayanagara and other independent states. Timur's sack of Delhi in 1398 left a small kingdom that the Lodis partly revived, until Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat in 1526.","events":[{"year":1211,"text":"Iltutmish seizes the throne after Aibak's death","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"The Delhi Sultanate grew out of the Indian conquests of Muhammad of Ghor, whose Turkic slave-commander Qutb ud-Din Aibak ruled the Ghurid lands in India after 1206. Iltutmish had been sold into slavery as a boy and bought by Aibak, rising to govern Badaun. When Aibak died, Iltutmish overthrew his unpopular successor Aram Shah in 1211 and made Delhi his capital. India's former Ghurid lands were then split among rival commanders. Iltutmish spent the next years fighting them and bringing rebel Hindu chiefs back under Delhi's control."},{"year":1228,"text":"Iltutmish annexes much of Punjab and Sindh","lonlat":[71.47,30.2],"detail":"Since Aibak's death, Sindh and much of Punjab had been held by Nasir ad-Din Qabacha, another former Ghurid slave, based at Uch and Multan. In the early 1220s the Indus valley was fought over by Qabacha, Khwarazmian refugees and the Mongols, and Iltutmish kept out. In 1228 he invaded, defeated Qabacha and annexed large parts of Punjab and Sindh. Soon after, the Abbasid caliph recognised his authority in India. The Sultanate on the map now stretched from the Indus to Bengal."},{"year":1236,"text":"Razia becomes sultan, one of few female rulers in Islamic history","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"Iltutmish had chosen his daughter Razia as heir, saying she was more capable than his sons. But when he died in 1236 the nobles put her half-brother Ruknuddin Firuz on the throne. During a rebellion against him and his mother, Razia won over the people of Delhi and took power in 1236. The first female Muslim ruler of the Indian subcontinent, she disappointed the Turkic nobles, who had expected a figurehead, by ruling in her own right and promoting non-Turkic officers. They deposed her in 1240, and she was killed soon after."},{"year":1266,"text":"Balban takes power and breaks the 'Forty'","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"Balban had been a slave and one of the 'Forty', the powerful group of Turkic nobles at the Delhi court. After twenty years as chief minister to Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud, on Mahmud's death in 1266 Balban took the throne himself. Determined to restore the crown's authority, he broke up the Forty, set spies on his officials and insisted that the sultan was the 'shadow of God', requiring courtiers to prostrate themselves before him. He crushed rebels in Mewat and Bengal and held off the Mongols, keeping the Sultanate together."},{"year":1290,"text":"Khalji revolution ends the Mamluk dynasty","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"After Balban's death in 1287, his grandson Qaiqabad proved a weak ruler and was paralysed by illness. Nobles placed his infant son Kayumars on the throne and tried to kill Jalal-ud-Din Khalji, a senior commander. In 1290 Jalal-ud-Din deposed Kayumars and made himself sultan. His Khalji clan was of Turkic origin but had long lived in Afghanistan, and the old Turkic nobility saw them as outsiders. The 'Khalji revolution' ended the rule of the slave sultans, often called the Mamluk dynasty, and opened power to a wider group of nobles."},{"year":1299,"text":"Alauddin Khalji's armies invade Gujarat (annexed 1304)","lonlat":[72.12,23.85],"detail":"Alauddin Khalji seized the throne in 1296 by murdering his uncle Jalal-ud-Din, and he set out to conquer the rich kingdoms beyond the Sultanate. Gujarat, in western India, was a wealthy trading region ruled by the Vaghela king Karna. In 1299 Alauddin's generals Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan raided it and sacked its cities. It was finally annexed in 1304. Gujarat's ports and wealth now belonged to Delhi, and the map pushed west to the Arabian Sea."},{"year":1303,"text":"Chittor captured; a major Mongol invasion of Delhi is repelled","lonlat":[74.65,24.89],"detail":"Chittor, in Mewar, was a great hill fortress ruled by the Guhila king Ratnasimha. Alauddin set out in January 1303 and took it in August after a siege of nearly eight months. Later legends, especially the poem Padmavat, say he wanted Ratnasimha's beautiful queen Padmini, but most historians reject this story. While Alauddin was away, a Mongol army from the Chagatai Khanate under Taraghai invaded and besieged Delhi for over two months. Alauddin held out in a fortified camp at Siri until the Mongols withdrew, and he then strengthened his frontier defences."},{"year":1311,"text":"Malik Kafur's campaign sacks Madurai in the far south","lonlat":[78.12,9.93],"detail":"Alauddin's slave-general Malik Kafur led a series of campaigns south of the Vindhya mountains, against kingdoms that had never been ruled from Delhi. After forcing the rulers of Devagiri (1308) and Warangal (1310) to pay tribute, he set out in October 1310 for the far south. In 1311 he besieged the Hoysala capital, Dwarasamudra, and then raided the Pandya kingdom of Madurai, reaching almost to the southern tip of India. He returned with enormous treasure, elephants and horses. These were mostly raids, but they made Delhi the dominant power across the peninsula."},{"year":1320,"text":"Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq founds the Tughlaq dynasty","lonlat":[77.26,28.51],"detail":"After Alauddin's death in 1316, the Khalji dynasty collapsed amid murders and plots, and in 1320 the throne was seized by Khusrau Khan. Ghazi Malik, a veteran commander who had fought the Mongols on the north-western frontier, rose against him, defeated him and became sultan as Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq. He founded the Tughlaq dynasty and built the fortress city of Tughlaqabad near Delhi. His armies brought Warangal under direct rule in 1323. He died in 1325 when a pavilion built in his honour collapsed."},{"year":1327,"text":"Muhammad bin Tughluq moves the capital to Daulatabad","lonlat":[75.21,19.94],"detail":"Muhammad bin Tughluq ruled one of the largest areas of any Delhi sultan, reaching down to Madurai in the far south. In 1327 he ordered the capital moved from Delhi to Devagiri in the Deccan, which he renamed Daulatabad. It lay in a more central position for ruling both north and south, and Ibn Battuta says it was safer from Mongol attack. He even summoned nobles, officials and scholars to move there, causing great hardship. Soon after, revolts broke out in Madurai (1334), Bengal and elsewhere, and the empire began to shrink."},{"year":1347,"text":"Bahmani Sultanate breaks away in the Deccan","lonlat":[76.83,17.33],"detail":"As revolts against Muhammad bin Tughluq's harsh rule spread in the 1340s, rebel officers in the Deccan rose against Delhi in 1347. Their first leader, Ismail Mukh, stepped aside for Zafar Khan, founder of the Bahmani Sultanate with its capital at Gulbarga. Delhi lost its lands south of the Vindhyas, and the Bahmanis went on to fight the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire to the south. On the map the Sultanate retreats to northern India."},{"year":1398,"text":"Timur sacks Delhi","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"By the 1390s the Tughlaq dynasty was in decline, split by rival claimants to the throne. In 1398 Timur, the Turko-Mongol conqueror from Samarkand, invaded India and on 17 December defeated the army of Sultan Mahmud Shah II outside the city. Delhi, then one of the richest cities in the world, was sacked and left in ruins. Estimates of those killed range from 100,000 to 200,000. The Sultanate never recovered its former power, as provincial governors broke away."},{"year":1414,"text":"Khizr Khan founds the Sayyid dynasty","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"Khizr Khan had been governor of Multan and had dealt with Timur as an envoy and negotiator during his invasion. In 1414 he took Delhi and founded the Sayyid dynasty, which claimed descent from the Prophet, though historians doubt the claim. Afraid of offending Timur's successors, he never took a royal title and ruled with modest titles instead. The Sayyids controlled only a small area around Delhi and constantly fought rebellious governors. On the map the Sultanate is at its smallest in this period."},{"year":1451,"text":"Bahlul Lodi founds the Lodi dynasty","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"Bahlul Lodi was the chief of an Afghan tribe who governed Sirhind in Punjab. The last Sayyid ruler, Alam Shah, withdrew to Badaun, and in 1451 he abdicated in Bahlul's favour. Bahlul became the first Afghan sultan of Delhi and founded the Lodi dynasty. He crushed rebellions and in 1479 defeated and annexed the Jaunpur Sultanate to the east. Under the Lodis the Sultanate grew again across the Ganges plain, and the map expands to cover much of northern India."},{"year":1526,"text":"Babur defeats and kills Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat","lonlat":[76.97,29.39],"detail":"Ibrahim Lodi, sultan from 1517, quarrelled with his relatives and nobles. Daulat Khan Lodi, the governor of Punjab, invited Babur, a Timurid prince ruling Kabul, to invade. On 21 April 1526, at Panipat north of Delhi, Babur's army defeated Ibrahim's forces, using field cannon and firearms, among the first in India. Ibrahim was killed in the battle. The Delhi Sultanate came to an end, and Babur founded the Mughal Empire, which ruled most of the subcontinent for the next two centuries."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Qutb ud-Din Aibak (r. 1206–1210)","from":1210,"to":1210},{"name":"Iltutmish","from":1211,"to":1236},{"name":"Razia","from":1236,"to":1240},{"name":"Balban","from":1266,"to":1287},{"name":"Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji","from":1290,"to":1296},{"name":"Alauddin Khalji","from":1296,"to":1316},{"name":"Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq","from":1320,"to":1325},{"name":"Muhammad bin Tughluq","from":1325,"to":1351},{"name":"Firuz Shah Tughlaq","from":1351,"to":1388},{"name":"Nasir ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughlaq","from":1394,"to":1413},{"name":"Khizr Khan (Sayyid)","from":1414,"to":1421},{"name":"Bahlul Lodi","from":1451,"to":1489},{"name":"Sikandar Lodi","from":1489,"to":1517},{"name":"Ibrahim Lodi","from":1517,"to":1526}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Delhi Sultanate","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Sultanate"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of sultans of Delhi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sultans_of_Delhi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Iltutmish","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iltutmish"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alauddin Khalji","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alauddin_Khalji"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Muhammad bin Tughluq","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_bin_Tughluq"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Delhi Sultanate","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Delhi_Sultanate/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Razia Sultan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razia_Sultan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Chittorgarh (1303)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Chittorgarh_(1303)"}]},{"id":"mali-empire","name":"Mali Empire","profile":"mali-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Mali Empire","from":1236,"to":1610}],"span":[1236,1610],"summary":"Sundiata Keita's victory over the Sosso at Kirina (c. 1235) founded the Mali Empire, which absorbed old Ghana and controlled the gold and salt trade of the western Sahel. It peaked in the 14th century under Mansa Musa, whose 1324 pilgrimage through Cairo became legendary, and Sulayman, whose court Ibn Battuta visited. After 1360 weak rulers, Tuareg and Mossi raids and the rise of Songhai cost it Timbuktu, Gao and the north; a last attempt to take Djenné failed in 1599 and the empire broke up after Mahmud IV's death c. 1610.","events":[{"year":1240,"text":"c. 1240: Sundiata takes the old Ghana capital","lonlat":null,"detail":"Mali grew from small Mandinka kingdoms on the upper Niger that had once been vassals of the Ghana Empire. When the Sosso king Soumaoro Kanté conquered much of the region, the exiled prince Sundiata Keita returned and led an alliance of Mandinka and other states that defeated the Sosso at Kirina in about 1235. According to the World History Encyclopedia, Sundiata then captured the old Ghana capital in 1240. Ghana's lands, with their trade routes and gold, became part of Mali. Mali replaced Ghana as the great power of the western Sahel."},{"year":1255,"text":"c. 1255: Sundiata dies; his son Uli succeeds","lonlat":null,"detail":"Sundiata is remembered as Mali's founder and the hero of the Mandinka epic that bears his name. He was the first ruler to take the title mansa, meaning king or emperor, and his capital was at Niani. When he died, around 1255, he was succeeded by his son, called Uli in oral tradition and Wali in Arabic sources. Like later mansas, Uli made the pilgrimage to Mecca, showing the dynasty's links to the wider Muslim world."},{"year":1285,"text":"General Sakura, a former slave, seizes the throne","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Uli's reign, Mali went through a period of political instability among the Keita princes. Around 1285 (an estimate by the French scholar Delafosse), Sakura, who was not a member of the Keita family and may once have been a slave of the royal court, seized the throne. He was a successful general and led Mali to considerable expansion, west toward the Atlantic and east beyond Gao, according to Ibn Khaldun. He was killed in the early 1300s while returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the Keita dynasty was restored."},{"year":1312,"text":"c. 1312: Musa becomes mansa","lonlat":null,"detail":"Musa became mansa around 1312. According to his own account, his predecessor had sailed west into the Atlantic with a great fleet and never returned, leaving Musa as his deputy in charge. Some historians suspect Musa simply deposed him and invented the story. At his accession Mali already covered much of the former Ghana Empire. Musa went on to make Mali richer and larger than ever, and he became the best-known ruler in its history."},{"year":1324,"text":"Mansa Musa's pilgrimage passes through Cairo with lavish gold","lonlat":[31.24,30.04],"detail":"Mali was probably the largest gold producer in the world, and much of the gold used around the Mediterranean came from West Africa. In 1324 Musa made the pilgrimage to Mecca with a huge caravan and a vast supply of gold. In Cairo his lavish gifts were said to have noticeably lowered the value of gold in Egypt. Officials he met there passed information about Mali to Arab historians such as al-Umari. The journey made Musa famous across the Muslim world and Europe, and Mali appeared on later European maps, such as the Catalan Atlas."},{"year":1325,"text":"c. 1325: Musa, back from Mecca, builds mosques and palaces in Timbuktu","lonlat":[-3.0,16.77],"detail":"According to the Tarikh al-Sudan, Gao and Timbuktu submitted to Musa as he travelled home from Mecca, although modern historians doubt this account, and Gao may already have been taken by his general. What is clearer is that Musa brought scholars and architects back with him, including the Andalusian poet Abu Ishaq al-Sahili. He built mosques and palaces in Timbuktu, including part of the Djinguereber Mosque. Timbuktu grew into a famous centre of Islamic learning. With the Niger Bend cities in Mali's hands, the empire reached its greatest extent on the map."},{"year":1352,"text":"Ibn Battuta visits the court of Mansa Sulayman (1352–53)","lonlat":null,"detail":"Musa's son Maghan I was deposed in 1341 by his uncle Sulayman, who ruled for 19 years. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited Mali and stayed at Sulayman's court from 1352 to 1353. He wrote the first eyewitness account of a West African kingdom, describing the court ceremonies of Mansa Sulayman and praising the safety of the empire and its people's 'lack of oppression'. His account shows Mali at the height of its wealth and power."},{"year":1360,"text":"Sulayman dies, ending Mali's golden age","lonlat":null,"detail":"Sulayman died in 1360. His death marked the end of Mali's golden age, as quarrels over the succession among the Keita princes weakened the empire. In the following decades rival claimants and powerful officials struggled for control of the throne. Meanwhile pressure grew on the empire's northern frontier, where Tuareg Berbers from the Sahara fought Mali's forces and in the 1370s devastated the city of Gao. Mali stayed large on the map for some time, but its grip on its outer provinces began to slip."},{"year":1433,"text":"Timbuktu lost to the Tuareg (1433–34)","lonlat":[-3.0,16.77],"detail":"Timbuktu, on the Niger Bend, was Mali's great trading and learning centre where the Saharan caravan routes met the river. In 1433–1434 Mali lost control of the city to the Tuareg, led by Akil Ag-Amalwal. The Tuareg held it until the Songhai ruler Sonni Ali captured it in 1468. The loss cut Mali off from the main trans-Saharan trade route. Its northern frontier now pulled back from the desert edge, and the map shows the empire shrinking toward the south and west."},{"year":1465,"text":"Songhai conquers Mema, one of Mali's oldest provinces","lonlat":null,"detail":"Songhai, centred at Gao on the middle Niger, had once been a vassal of Mali but became independent and expanded rapidly under Sonni Ali. In 1465 Songhai conquered Mema, one of Mali's oldest possessions, whose king had sheltered the young Sundiata in exile. Songhai was now Mali's main rival, and within a few years it would take Timbuktu as well. On the map the Niger Bend passes from Mali to Songhai, and Mali's eastern lands begin to fall away."},{"year":1477,"text":"Mossi raiders conquer Macina","lonlat":null,"detail":"Mali's grip on its northern provinces was weakening, and the Mossi kingdoms to the south had been raiding the Macina region on the inner Niger Delta. In 1477 the Mossi emperor Naba Nasséré launched another raid into Macina, this time conquering it and the old province of BaGhana (Wagadu), Ghana's former heartland. Mali lost more of its northern territory. The empire was being squeezed between Songhai to the east and the Mossi to the south."},{"year":1487,"text":"Mansa Mahmud II receives Portuguese envoys","lonlat":null,"detail":"Portuguese ships had been trading along the West African coast since the mid-15th century. Their traders found that the peoples of the Gambia river region were still subjects of the mansa of Mali. Hoping to stop Mali's decline, Mansa Mahmud II opened diplomatic relations with Portugal, receiving the envoys Pêro d'Évora and Gonçalo Enes in 1487. The contact shows that Mali still controlled western lands near the Atlantic coast. Its future increasingly lay there, while Songhai dominated the Niger Bend."},{"year":1502,"text":"Askia Muhammad I of Songhai seizes the province of Diafunu","lonlat":null,"detail":"Under Askia Muhammad I, the Songhai Empire continued to expand westward at Mali's expense. In 1502 Songhai forces defeated the Malian general Fati Quali Keita and seized the province of Diafunu. Later, in 1544 or 1545, a Songhai army even sacked Mali's capital. Mali was now a regional power confined to the upper Niger and the lands toward the Gambia and Senegal rivers. On the map it is a much smaller kingdom."},{"year":1599,"text":"Mali army defeated outside Djenné by Moroccan troops","lonlat":[-4.56,13.91],"detail":"After Morocco invaded and destroyed the Songhai Empire in the 1590s, Mali tried to win back power along the Niger. Mansa Mahmud IV gathered allies and marched on Djenné, but the governor of Kala, Bukar, secretly went over to the Moroccans. On 26 April 1599 the Moroccan musketeers, helped by Bukar's support, defeated the Malian army outside Djenné, though Mahmud escaped. According to the Mali Empire article, this defeat marked the end of the empire. Mali's hopes of revival were over."},{"year":1610,"text":"c. 1610: Mahmud IV dies and the empire breaks up","lonlat":null,"detail":"Mahmud IV died around 1610. According to oral tradition, his three sons fought over what remained of Manden, the Mandinka heartland. The kingdom broke up into small rival states, and the Keita family retreated to the town of Kangaba, on the upper Niger, where they lived on as provincial chiefs, holding only a small part of the former empire. The Mali Empire, which had once stretched from the Atlantic to beyond the Niger Bend, disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Sundiata Keita (r. c. 1235–1255)","from":1236,"to":1255},{"name":"Uli","from":1255,"to":1270},{"name":"Abu Bakr","from":1275,"to":1285},{"name":"Sakura","from":1285,"to":1300},{"name":"Musa I","from":1312,"to":1337},{"name":"Maghan I","from":1337,"to":1341},{"name":"Sulayman","from":1341,"to":1360},{"name":"Mari Djata II","from":1360,"to":1374},{"name":"Musa II","from":1374,"to":1387},{"name":"Mahmud II","from":1481,"to":1496},{"name":"Mahmud III","from":1496,"to":1559},{"name":"Mahmud IV","from":1590,"to":1610}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mali Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Keita dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keita_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sundiata Keita","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundiata_Keita"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Musa I of Mali","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Mali Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Mali_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mansa Sakura","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Sakura"}]},{"id":"ottoman-empire","name":"Ottoman Empire","profile":"ottoman-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Ottoman Empire","from":1305,"to":1922}],"span":[1305,1922],"summary":"Founded c. 1299 by Osman I as a frontier principality in northwest Anatolia, the Ottoman state crossed into the Balkans, took Constantinople in 1453 and under Selim I and Suleiman I absorbed the Mamluk lands and most of Hungary. It reached its greatest extent around 1683, then lost ground to Habsburg Austria, Russia and Balkan nationalism over two centuries, and was dismantled after defeat in the First World War; the sultanate was abolished in 1922.","events":[{"year":1326,"text":"Orhan takes Bursa, which becomes the Ottoman capital","lonlat":[29.06,40.19],"detail":"The Ottomans began as a small Turkish frontier principality in northwest Anatolia, on the edge of the shrinking Byzantine Empire. Orhan, son of the founder Osman I, first took Mudanya, the port linking the wealthy Byzantine city of Bursa (ancient Prusa) to the Sea of Marmara, and in 1326 Bursa itself fell after its commander was persuaded to change sides. Bursa became the first real Ottoman capital, with the first Ottoman mint, new mosques and markets, and a thriving silk trade. Owning a major city helped turn a raiding beylik into a state; the capital moved on to Edirne, in Europe, in the 1360s."},{"year":1389,"text":"Victory over a Serbian-led coalition at Kosovo","lonlat":[21.1,42.72],"detail":"By the 1380s the Ottomans had crossed into Europe and were pressing on the Serbian principalities left divided after the death of Emperor Stefan Dušan. On 15 June 1389 Sultan Murad I met an army led by Prince Lazar of Serbia, with Bosnian troops and other allies, on the Kosovo field near modern Pristina. Much of both armies was destroyed and both leaders were killed; Murad's death is traditionally credited to the knight Miloš Obilić. Reliable accounts are scarce and early reports even disagreed on who had won, but Serbia could no longer raise large armies, and its princes became Ottoman vassals in the following years."},{"year":1402,"text":"Timur defeats and captures Bayezid I at Ankara; civil war to 1413","lonlat":[32.85,39.93],"detail":"Sultan Bayezid I had built an empire from the Danube to eastern Anatolia and was blockading Constantinople when he clashed with Timur, the Turco-Mongol conqueror of Central Asia and Persia. On 28 July 1402 the two armies met on the Çubuk plain near Ankara; Timur's larger, mostly cavalry force, perhaps 140,000 strong against no more than 85,000, won decisively after troops from the Anatolian beyliks deserted Bayezid. The sultan was captured and died in captivity months later. His sons then fought a civil war, the Ottoman Interregnum, until Mehmed I defeated his last rival at Çamurlu in 1413 and reunited the state."},{"year":1453,"text":"Mehmed II conquers Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"detail":"By 1453 the Byzantine Empire was little more than its capital, Constantinople, surrounded by Ottoman lands in Europe and Asia. The young Sultan Mehmed II besieged it from 6 April with an army that far outnumbered the defenders, and with giant cannons that blasted gaps in the ancient Theodosian walls. After 53 days the city fell on 29 May, and the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died in its fall. Mehmed made Constantinople (Istanbul) his capital in place of Edirne and styled himself Caesar of the Romans. The conquest joined the empire's Anatolian and Balkan halves around a single imperial city, and is often taken as the end of the Middle Ages."},{"year":1514,"text":"Selim I defeats Safavid Shah Ismail at Chaldiran","lonlat":[44.39,39.07],"detail":"The Shia Safavid dynasty under Shah Ismail I had won a fervent following among the Turkmen Qizilbash tribes of eastern Anatolia, a direct threat to the Sunni Ottomans. Sultan Selim I marched east, and on 23 August 1514 his army, estimated at 60,000 to 100,000 with heavy artillery and musket-armed Janissaries behind a barrier of carts, crushed Ismail's cavalry at Chaldiran in northwest Iran. Ismail was wounded and the Safavid capital, Tabriz, was briefly occupied. The Ottomans annexed eastern Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia, halting Safavid expansion to the west and opening 41 years of war that ended only with the Peace of Amasya in 1555."},{"year":1517,"text":"Mamluk Sultanate annexed: Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz become Ottoman","lonlat":[31.24,30.04],"detail":"After Chaldiran, Selim I turned on the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria, a rival for the spice trade and for leadership of the Muslim world. On 24 August 1516 his army routed the Mamluks at Marj Dabiq, north of Aleppo, where Sultan al-Ghawri was killed, and on 24 January 1517 it won again at Ridaniya outside Cairo. The last Mamluk sultan, Tuman Bay, was captured and hanged at a gate of Cairo, and the Sharif of Mecca accepted Ottoman overlordship. Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz, with Mecca and Medina, became Ottoman, turning a mainly Anatolian and Balkan state into an empire spanning the traditional heartlands of Islam."},{"year":1526,"text":"Suleiman I crushes Hungary at Mohács","lonlat":[18.68,45.99],"detail":"Suleiman I took Belgrade in 1521, opening the road into the Kingdom of Hungary, which was weakened by quarrelling nobles and a weak monarchy. On 29 August 1526 his army, with the grand vizier Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha, met the Hungarian royal army near Mohács on the Danube. The Hungarians charged too early and were encircled and destroyed by Ottoman troops and artillery; the young King Louis II drowned in a marshy stream while fleeing, and much of the nobility died. Hungary was left without a king or army, and by 1541 it was divided between the Ottomans, the Habsburgs and an eastern kingdom under Ottoman protection."},{"year":1669,"text":"Conquest of Crete completed after the long Cretan War","lonlat":[25.13,35.34],"detail":"Crete was the largest and richest overseas possession of the Republic of Venice. The Ottomans invaded in 1645 and quickly overran most of the island, but the fortified capital, Candia (modern Heraklion), held out in a siege that began in 1648 and lasted more than twenty years, supplied by sea with help from France, the Papacy and the Knights of Malta. A final great expedition under Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed broke Venetian resistance, and Candia surrendered on 5 September 1669. Venice kept only a few island fortresses off the coast, and Crete remained Ottoman until it became autonomous in 1897."},{"year":1683,"text":"Second siege of Vienna fails; the empire is at its greatest extent","lonlat":[16.37,48.21],"detail":"Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, hoping to succeed where Suleiman had failed in 1529, besieged the Habsburg capital of Vienna in the summer of 1683. After two months the city was close to falling, but on 12 September a relief army of Imperial German and Polish troops under King John III Sobieski of Poland attacked from the Kahlenberg heights and routed the besiegers. Kara Mustafa was executed in Belgrade on 25 December for the defeat. The empire was then at or near its greatest extent, but the failure opened the Great Turkish War against a Holy League of Austria, Poland, Venice and Russia, and Vienna was never besieged again."},{"year":1699,"text":"Treaty of Karlowitz: Hungary and Transylvania lost to the Habsburgs","lonlat":[19.93,45.2],"detail":"The Great Turkish War that followed the defeat at Vienna went badly for the Ottomans, ending in a crushing defeat by the Habsburg army at Zenta in 1697. At Karlowitz (Sremski Karlovci, in today's Serbia) the sultan signed peace with the Holy League on 26 January 1699, each side keeping the land it held. The Habsburgs gained most of Hungary, Croatia and Slavonia, with Transylvania under Austrian governors; Poland recovered Podolia; and Venice took the Morea (Peloponnese) and most of Dalmatia. It was the first major Ottoman loss of territory in Europe, reversing almost four centuries of expansion and making the Habsburgs the leading power in the region."},{"year":1774,"text":"Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca after defeat by Russia; Crimea made nominally independent","lonlat":[27.51,44.03],"detail":"Russia under Catherine II went to war with the Ottomans in 1768 and won a series of victories on land and sea. The peace signed at Küçük Kaynarca (now Kaynardzha in Bulgaria) on 21 July 1774 forced the sultan to recognise the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal, as independent; in practice the khanate depended on Russia, which annexed it in 1783. Russia also gained Azov, Kerch and land at the mouth of the Dnieper, giving it outlets to the Black Sea, plus the right to speak for Orthodox Christians in the empire. The Black Sea was no longer an Ottoman lake, and the Crimea was the first Muslim land the sultans lost."},{"year":1830,"text":"Greek independence formally recognised","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Greeks rose against Ottoman rule in 1821. Britain, France and Russia intervened, destroying the Ottoman fleet at Navarino in 1827, and Russia's victory in the war of 1828–29 forced the sultan to accept the Treaty of Adrianople. On 3 February 1830 the three powers signed the London Protocol, the first international act recognising Greece as a fully independent, sovereign state, with a northern border running from the mouth of the Achelous river to the mouth of the Spercheios. In 1832 the small new Kingdom of Greece received Prince Otto of Bavaria as king. It was the first Balkan nation to break away completely from the empire."},{"year":1878,"text":"Congress of Berlin confirms heavy losses in the Balkans","lonlat":[13.4,52.52],"detail":"In 1877–78 Russia defeated the Ottomans again and, by the Treaty of San Stefano, created a large Russian-aligned Bulgaria reaching the Aegean. Britain and Austria-Hungary objected, and Europe's great powers met in Berlin, with Otto von Bismarck as mediator, from 13 June to 13 July 1878. The Treaty of Berlin cut back Bulgaria and returned Macedonia to the sultan, but it recognised the full independence of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania, made Bulgaria an autonomous principality and Eastern Rumelia a self-governing province, let Austria-Hungary occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, and gave Britain Cyprus. The empire lost direct control of much of its Balkan land."},{"year":1912,"text":"Balkan Wars (1912–13) strip away almost all remaining European land","lonlat":null,"detail":"In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro formed the Balkan League to drive the Ottomans out of Macedonia and Thrace, where many of their own peoples still lived. The First Balkan War began on 8 October 1912; within weeks the League's armies had overrun Macedonia and Albania, and Bulgarian forces were stopped only at the Çatalca line outside Istanbul. By the Treaty of London (30 May 1913) the empire gave up almost everything in Europe, and Albania became independent. In the Second Balkan War the allies turned on Bulgaria, and the Ottomans regained Edirne, but only Eastern Thrace remained of nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule in Europe."},{"year":1922,"text":"Sultanate abolished on 1 November; the Ottoman state ends","lonlat":[32.85,39.93],"detail":"The Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on Germany's side in 1914; after its defeat, Allied troops occupied Istanbul and treaties carved up its lands. A Turkish national movement led by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk) set up a Grand National Assembly in Ankara in 1920 and won the War of Independence. On 1 November 1922 the Assembly abolished the sultanate, ending an empire that had lasted since about 1299, and the last sultan, Mehmed VI, left Istanbul on the British warship HMS Malaya on 17 November. The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, and the caliphate was abolished in March 1924."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Osman I (r. c. 1299–1324)","from":1305,"to":1324},{"name":"Orhan","from":1324,"to":1362},{"name":"Murad I","from":1362,"to":1389},{"name":"Bayezid I","from":1389,"to":1402},{"name":"Ottoman Interregnum","from":1402,"to":1413},{"name":"Mehmed I","from":1413,"to":1421},{"name":"Murad II","from":1421,"to":1451},{"name":"Mehmed II the Conqueror","from":1451,"to":1481},{"name":"Bayezid II","from":1481,"to":1512},{"name":"Selim I","from":1512,"to":1520},{"name":"Suleiman I the Magnificent","from":1520,"to":1566},{"name":"Murad IV","from":1623,"to":1640},{"name":"Mehmed IV","from":1648,"to":1687},{"name":"Ahmed III","from":1703,"to":1730},{"name":"Selim III","from":1789,"to":1807},{"name":"Mahmud II","from":1808,"to":1839},{"name":"Abdulmejid I","from":1839,"to":1861},{"name":"Abdul Hamid II","from":1876,"to":1909},{"name":"Mehmed V","from":1909,"to":1918},{"name":"Mehmed VI","from":1918,"to":1922}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ottoman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sultans_of_the_Ottoman_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ismail I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Annexation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_the_Crimean_Khanate_by_the_Russian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Constantinople","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Chaldiran","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaldiran"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Mohács","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Moh%C3%A1cs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Karlowitz","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Karlowitz"}]},{"id":"aztec-empire","name":"Aztec Empire","profile":"aztec-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Tenochtitlan","from":1326,"to":1428},{"clio":"Aztec Triple Alliance","from":1429,"to":1520}],"span":[1326,1520],"summary":"The Mexica founded Tenochtitlan on an island in Lake Texcoco, traditionally in 1325, and served the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco until they overthrew them in 1428 and formed the Triple Alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan. Under Itzcoatl, Moctezuma I, Axayacatl and Ahuitzotl the alliance built a tributary empire across central Mexico to the Gulf, Oaxaca and Soconusco, though it was halted by the Purépecha in the west. Cortés arrived in 1519 with Indigenous allies; after smallpox and a long siege, Tenochtitlan fell on 13 August 1521, after the map ends.","events":[{"year":1375,"text":"c. 1375: Acamapichtli becomes the first tlatoani of Tenochtitlan","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"detail":"The Mexica had settled on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico, where they founded Tenochtitlan, traditionally in 1325. It was a small city paying tribute to the powerful Tepanec city of Azcapotzalco. After the death of their leader Tenoch, the elders chose a king with prestigious connections: Acamapichtli, a noble from Culhuacan whose rulers claimed descent from the ancient Toltecs. He became the first tlatoani (king) of Tenochtitlan and founded its royal dynasty. The chronicles disagree on his dates, placing the start of his reign between 1350 and 1376."},{"year":1428,"text":"Tenochtitlan and allies defeat Azcapotzalco; Triple Alliance formed","lonlat":[-99.19,19.49],"detail":"For decades Tenochtitlan fought as a junior ally of Azcapotzalco, helping it build a tributary empire. When the Tepanec king Tezozomoc died in 1426, his son Maxtla seized power, turned on the Mexica and blockaded their city, and their king Chimalpopoca died, possibly murdered. The new Mexica king Itzcoatl allied with Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco, the city of Tlacopan and Huexotzinco. Together they defeated Azcapotzalco in 1428. Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan formed the Triple Alliance, and the Aztec Empire begins on the map."},{"year":1440,"text":"Moctezuma I succeeds Itzcoatl; expansion to the Gulf and Oaxaca","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"detail":"Moctezuma I, a nephew of Itzcoatl, had been one of his leading generals and was chosen as ruler on Itzcoatl's death in 1440. Early in his reign he conquered Oaxaca, and he went on to push the empire beyond the Valley of Mexico to the Gulf Coast for the first time, subduing the Huastec and Totonac peoples. This brought luxury goods such as cacao, rubber, cotton and feathers to Tenochtitlan as tribute. He also faced frost, drought and severe famine in the 1450s. By his death in 1469, the empire stretched from the Gulf toward the Pacific."},{"year":1472,"text":"Axayacatl retakes the Toluca Valley from the Purépecha","lonlat":[-99.66,19.29],"detail":"The Toluca Valley, west of the Valley of Mexico, was home to the Matlatzinca people and lay on the frontier with the Purépecha (Tarascan) Empire of Michoacán, the Aztecs' great western rival. According to the Aztec Empire article, the Purépecha had invaded the valley in 1455. Axayacatl, Moctezuma I's successor, retook it in 1472 and held it against Purépecha counterattacks. The article on Axayacatl dates his Toluca campaign to 1474. The valley became the Aztecs' heavily defended western frontier."},{"year":1479,"text":"Aztec invasion of the Purépecha Empire ends in heavy defeat","lonlat":[-101.58,19.63],"detail":"Encouraged by his success in the Toluca Valley, Axayacatl launched a major invasion of the Purépecha Empire. According to the Aztec Empire article, in 1479 he led 32,000 soldiers into Michoacán and met a Purépecha army of 50,000 just across the border, which killed or captured over 90% of his force. The article on Axayacatl dates the defeat to 1476. Axayacatl was wounded and never fought the Purépecha again. It was the Aztecs' first major defeat, and the Purépecha frontier, fortified afterwards, permanently blocked Aztec expansion to the west."},{"year":1486,"text":"Ahuitzotl takes power; conquests reach Oaxaca and Soconusco","lonlat":[-96.72,17.06],"detail":"After Axayacatl's brother Tizoc died, probably murdered by his own nobles, another brother, Ahuitzotl, took power in 1486. He first crushed rebellions, then launched a great wave of conquests. His armies took the Oaxaca Valley, conquered Mixtec and Zapotec peoples and pushed down the Pacific coast as far as Soconusco, near today's border with Guatemala. He also rebuilt the Templo Mayor, the great temple of Tenochtitlan, on a grander scale in 1487. Under Ahuitzotl the Aztec Empire reached close to its greatest extent on the map."},{"year":1502,"text":"Moctezuma II succeeds Ahuitzotl","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"detail":"When Ahuitzotl died in 1502, his nephew Moctezuma II, son of Axayacatl, was chosen as ruler. He set out to centralise power, creating new provinces and replacing many of his predecessors' advisers. He also widened the gap between nobles and commoners, barring commoners from serving in the royal palace or high office. He continued campaigns of conquest early in his reign and fought 'flower wars' against Tlaxcala, the Aztecs' unconquered enemy to the east. The empire was at its height, but many subject peoples resented its heavy tribute."},{"year":1515,"text":"Aztec armies invade the Purépecha Empire again","lonlat":[-101.58,19.63],"detail":"The Purépecha Empire to the west remained undefeated since Axayacatl's disaster decades earlier, and border clashes continued. In 1515 Aztec armies commanded by the Tlaxcalan general Tlahuicole invaded Purépecha territory again. They failed to take any land and were mostly limited to raiding, and the Purépecha defeated them and forced them to withdraw. The western frontier stayed where it was. Just four years later, Spanish ships would appear on the Gulf coast."},{"year":1519,"text":"Cortés lands and founds Veracruz; enters Tenochtitlan in November","lonlat":[-96.13,19.19],"detail":"In 1519 the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés sailed from Cuba with a small expedition. In April he landed on the Gulf coast, where he founded the settlement of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz and allied with the Totonac city of Cempoala. With the help of his interpreter, La Malinche, he gathered indigenous allies, above all the Tlaxcalans, who were the Aztecs' bitter enemies. On 8 November 1519 he entered Tenochtitlan and met Moctezuma II. Soon afterwards he took the emperor captive in his own city."},{"year":1520,"text":"Moctezuma dies; Spaniards flee on La Noche Triste; smallpox spreads","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"detail":"In May 1520 the Spaniard Pedro de Alvarado massacred Aztec nobles during the festival of Toxcatl, and the city rose against the Spaniards. In late June Moctezuma died in unclear circumstances, perhaps killed by the Spaniards, perhaps by his own people. On 30 June, La Noche Triste ('the Sad Night'), the Spaniards and Tlaxcalans fled Tenochtitlan with heavy losses. A smallpox epidemic then swept the city, killing the new ruler Cuitlahuac in December. Weakened by disease, Tenochtitlan fell to Cortés and his allies in August 1521."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Acamapichtli","from":1375,"to":1390},{"name":"Huitzilihuitl","from":1391,"to":1414},{"name":"Chimalpopoca","from":1415,"to":1427},{"name":"Itzcoatl","from":1427,"to":1440},{"name":"Moctezuma I","from":1440,"to":1469},{"name":"Axayacatl","from":1469,"to":1481},{"name":"Tizoc","from":1481,"to":1486},{"name":"Ahuitzotl","from":1486,"to":1502},{"name":"Moctezuma II","from":1502,"to":1520},{"name":"Cuitláhuac","from":1520,"to":1520},{"name":"Cuauhtémoc (r. 1520–1521)","from":1520,"to":1520}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Aztec Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of tlatoque of Tenochtitlan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tlatoque_of_Tenochtitlan"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Aztec Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Aztec_Civilization/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Moctezuma I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moctezuma_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Axayacatl","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axayacatl"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_Empire"}]},{"id":"timurid-empire","name":"Timurid Empire","profile":"timurid-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Timurid Empire","from":1375,"to":1507}],"span":[1375,1507],"summary":"Timur took control of the western Chagatai lands around 1370 (the map starts in 1375) and in three decades of campaigns conquered Iran and Iraq, broke the Golden Horde, sacked Delhi, Damascus and Baghdad and defeated the Ottomans at Ankara. After his death in 1405 his son Shah Rukh ruled from Herat over a smaller realm that saw the Timurid Renaissance. Civil wars, the Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu cost the dynasty western Iran, and the Uzbeks took Samarkand (1501) and Herat (1507); Babur, a Timurid, went on to found the Mughal Empire.","events":[{"year":1387,"text":"Timur takes Isfahan, massacring the city after it revolts","lonlat":[51.67,32.65],"detail":"Timur, a Turco-Mongol warlord from Transoxiana, had made himself master of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. After the collapse of the Ilkhanate, Persia was split among rival dynasties, and from 1383 Timur set out to conquer them. When he reached Isfahan in 1387, the city surrendered and was at first treated mercifully, but its people then rose up and killed his tax collectors and soldiers, and Timur ordered a massacre. The death toll is reckoned at 100,000 to 200,000, and an eyewitness counted towers of skulls. Central Persia now came under Timur's rule."},{"year":1389,"text":"Kartid rulers removed from Herat","lonlat":[62.2,34.35],"detail":"The Kartid dynasty ruled Herat, a great city of Khurasan in western Afghanistan. Timur began his Persian campaign there, and when Herat refused to surrender he reduced it to rubble and massacred most of its people. The Kartid rulers then became his vassals. In 1389, less than a decade later, Timur's son Miran Shah removed them and annexed their kingdom outright. Herat was now firmly part of Timur's empire, and in the next century it became one of its two great capitals, alongside Samarkand."},{"year":1393,"text":"Timur captures Shiraz and seizes Baghdad","lonlat":[52.53,29.59],"detail":"In 1393 Timur turned to southern Persia and Iraq. Shiraz, the capital of the Muzaffarid dynasty, surrendered, and when the Muzaffarid prince Shah Mansur rebelled he was defeated and the dynasty was annexed. In August the same year Timur took Baghdad by surprise, marching there from Shiraz in only eight days. Its Jalayirid ruler, Sultan Ahmad, fled to Syria, where the Mamluk sultan Barquq sheltered him. Timur's empire now reached across Iraq to the edge of Mamluk Syria."},{"year":1395,"text":"Timur crushes Tokhtamysh's Golden Horde (1394–95)","lonlat":null,"detail":"Tokhtamysh had become khan of the Golden Horde with Timur's help, but he turned against his former patron and invaded Timur's lands from 1385. After years of fighting, Timur launched a final assault in 1395 and routed Tokhtamysh at the Battle of the Terek River on 15 April. He then destroyed the Golden Horde's major cities, including its capital Sarai, Astrakhan and the Italian trading posts at Tana. The Golden Horde never recovered its former power. Timur did not keep the steppe lands, but he had broken his most dangerous rival in the north."},{"year":1398,"text":"Timur invades India and sacks Delhi","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"The Delhi Sultanate was weakened by quarrels within the Tughlaq dynasty. In 1398 Timur invaded India, crossing the Indus on 30 September with an army reported at 90,000. On 17 December 1398 he defeated the army of Sultan Mahmud Shah II outside Delhi. The city, one of the richest in the world, was sacked and reduced to ruins, and Timur soon returned to Samarkand with enormous plunder. He did not try to hold India, which stayed outside his empire on the map."},{"year":1401,"text":"Damascus taken; Baghdad destroyed","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"In 1399 Timur went to war with the Mamluk sultan of Egypt and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. In 1400 he invaded Armenia and Georgia, then turned to Syria and sacked Aleppo and Damascus, where he met the historian Ibn Khaldun in 1401. In June 1401 he attacked Baghdad, which had been retaken by its former rulers, and destroyed the city and massacred its people. Timur's armies now dominated the whole region from Syria to India, though he did not try to rule Syria directly."},{"year":1402,"text":"Timur defeats and captures the Ottoman sultan at Ankara","lonlat":[32.85,39.93],"detail":"Timur and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I were the two great powers of the Muslim world, and they quarrelled over vassals in eastern Anatolia. In 1402 Bayezid broke off his blockade of Constantinople to meet Timur. When the armies met on the Çubuk plain near Ankara on 28 July 1402, Timur's army of about 140,000 defeated Bayezid's smaller force, as the Black Tatars and Anatolian troops deserted Bayezid and joined Timur. Bayezid was captured, the only Ottoman sultan ever taken in battle, and he died in captivity. The Ottoman state fell into a decade of civil war."},{"year":1405,"text":"Timur dies at Farab (Otrar) on his way to invade China","lonlat":[68.3,42.85],"detail":"After his western victories Timur returned to Samarkand and prepared to invade Ming China. In December 1404 he set out east with a large army, despite the winter. He fell ill while camped beyond the Syr Darya and died at Farab, near Otrar, on 17 or 18 February 1405, before reaching the Chinese border. He was buried in the Gur-e-Amir in Samarkand. His sons and grandsons soon began fighting over his vast empire, and its western lands began to fall away."},{"year":1447,"text":"Shah Rukh dies; the Qara Qoyunlu drive Timurids out of western Iran","lonlat":[62.2,34.35],"detail":"Timur's son Shah Rukh emerged victorious from the struggle for succession and ruled from 1405 to 1447, moving the capital to Herat. His reign was a golden age of art and learning, the 'Timurid Renaissance'. When he died in March 1447, his empire lost its strong central ruler. The Qara Qoyunlu, a Turkmen confederation from Azerbaijan under Jahan Shah, drove the Timurids out of western Iran and later even briefly occupied Herat in 1458. The map shrinks sharply in the west."},{"year":1449,"text":"Ulugh Beg executed after his son's revolt; civil war follows","lonlat":[66.96,39.65],"detail":"Ulugh Beg, Shah Rukh's son, had governed Samarkand for decades and was a famous astronomer and mathematician, who built a great observatory and a madrasa there. He became ruler on his father's death in 1447, but he was a poor politician and could not control his relatives. His own son, Abd al-Latif, revolted, and in October 1449 Ulugh Beg was overthrown and killed. His death plunged the Timurid realm into civil war among rival princes. The empire was soon divided among competing branches of the family."},{"year":1469,"text":"Abu Sa'id killed by Uzun Hasan; Persia lost for good","lonlat":null,"detail":"Abu Sa'id Mirza, a great-grandson of Timur, reunited much of the empire in the 1450s, taking Herat in 1457. After the Qara Qoyunlu leader Jahan Shah was killed in 1467 by Uzun Hasan of the rival Aq Qoyunlu Turkmen, Abu Sa'id marched west to claim western Iran. In early 1469 Uzun Hasan defeated and captured him and handed him to a rival Timurid prince, who had him executed. The Timurids lost Persia permanently to the Aq Qoyunlu, and the empire was divided for good."},{"year":1501,"text":"Uzbeks under Shaybani Khan take Samarkand","lonlat":[66.96,39.65],"detail":"After 1469 the Timurid lands were split between rival princes in Transoxiana and Herat. The Uzbeks, nomads from the steppe north of the Syr Darya, were led by Muhammad Shaybani, a former soldier in Timurid service. He drove the Timurids from Samarkand in 1500. The young Timurid prince Babur briefly retook the city, but in 1501 Shaybani captured it again and took Bukhara, founding the Shaybanid dynasty. Transoxiana, the Timurids' homeland, was lost, and Babur was forced to seek a new kingdom further south."},{"year":1507,"text":"Herat falls to the Uzbeks; main Timurid rule ends","lonlat":[62.2,34.35],"detail":"Herat, ruled from 1469 by Husayn Bayqara, had become the last great centre of Timurid culture, home to artists and poets. Husayn Bayqara died in May 1506, and his sons were unable to resist the Uzbeks. In 1507 Muhammad Shaybani captured Herat, conquering almost all the surviving Timurid principalities. The main line of Timurid rule ended. One Timurid prince, Babur, survived in Kabul, and in 1526 he invaded India and founded the Mughal Empire."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Timur (r. 1370–1405)","from":1375,"to":1405},{"name":"Shah Rukh","from":1405,"to":1447},{"name":"Ulugh Beg","from":1447,"to":1449},{"name":"Abu Sa'id Mirza","from":1451,"to":1469},{"name":"Husayn Bayqara (at Herat)","from":1469,"to":1506}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Timurid Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timurid_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Timur","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Timur","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Timur/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tokhtamysh–Timur war","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokhtamysh%E2%80%93Timur_war"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ankara","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ankara"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shah Rukh","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah_Rukh"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abu Sa'id Mirza","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Sa%27id_Mirza"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Muhammad Shaybani","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Shaybani"}]},{"id":"ming-dynasty","name":"Ming China","profile":"ming-dynasty","chain":[{"clio":"Ming Dynasty","from":1375,"to":1644},{"clio":"Southern Ming","from":1645,"to":1662}],"span":[1375,1662],"summary":"The Hongwu Emperor proclaimed the Ming in 1368 after driving out the Mongol Yuan, and his successors pushed into Yunnan, Manchuria and, briefly, Vietnam, while Zheng He's fleets sailed to the Indian Ocean. After the Tumu disaster of 1449 the dynasty turned defensive behind the rebuilt Great Wall; fiscal crisis, rebellion and the rising Manchus brought the fall of Beijing in 1644, and Ming loyalist courts in the south held out until 1662.","events":[{"year":1381,"text":"Ming armies annex the southwest (Yunnan), former Dali lands","lonlat":[102.71,25.04],"detail":"Yunnan in the far southwest had been the Dali kingdom until the Mongols conquered it in the 1250s, and it was still held for the Mongol Northern Yuan by the Prince of Liang, Basalawarmi, after the Ming took the rest of China. In 1381 the Hongwu Emperor sent a large army under Fu Youde, Lan Yu and Mu Ying. The Ming forces overwhelmed the Yuan loyalists, Basalawarmi killed himself in January 1382, and the old Dali realm of the Duan family was crushed by early 1383. Mu Ying's troops stayed on as hereditary garrisons, binding Yunnan firmly to China, where it has remained."},{"year":1387,"text":"Campaign against Naghachu ends with Ming control of Manchuria","lonlat":null,"detail":"After the Mongols were driven from China in 1368, the Mongol commander Naghachu still held much of southern Manchuria with a large army, threatening the Ming's northeastern frontier. In 1387 the Hongwu Emperor sent a huge force under Feng Sheng, Fu Youde and Lan Yu, and a mix of military pressure and diplomacy persuaded Naghachu to surrender. He and thousands of his officers and relatives were sent to Nanjing, where he was given a noble title and estates. The surrender removed the last Yuan stronghold in the region and brought southern Manchuria under Ming control."},{"year":1402,"text":"Yongle Emperor seizes the throne after the Jingnan campaign","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"detail":"The founder Hongwu had made his grandson emperor, but his son Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, commanded the frontier armies at Beiping (Beijing). When the young Jianwen Emperor tried to cut back the princes' power, Zhu Di rebelled in 1399, calling his revolt the Jingnan ('pacifying the troubles') campaign. After three years of civil war his army crossed the Yangtze and took the capital, Nanjing, in 1402; the palace burned and Jianwen disappeared, probably dying in the fire. Zhu Di took the throne as the Yongle Emperor. He launched the dynasty's most ambitious period of expansion, overseas voyages and great building projects."},{"year":1405,"text":"Zheng He's first treasure-fleet voyage sets out","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"detail":"The Yongle Emperor wanted to display Ming power and bring foreign rulers into China's tribute system. In 1405 the court eunuch Zheng He, a Muslim from Yunnan, set sail from Nanjing with, according to Ming records, 317 ships, including some 62 giant 'treasure ships', and about 27,800 men. Between 1405 and 1433 seven voyages reached Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf, Arabia and the east coast of Africa. Dozens of states sent envoys and tribute in return. The voyages stopped after 1433 and were never resumed; the Ming turned to defending its northern frontier, and its influence at sea faded."},{"year":1406,"text":"Ming invasion and occupation of Đại Việt (Vietnam) begins","lonlat":[105.85,21.03],"detail":"In 1400 the minister Hồ Quý Ly overthrew the Trần dynasty of Đại Việt (northern Vietnam). The Yongle Emperor used the coup as a reason to intervene, claiming to restore the Trần, and in late 1406 two large Ming armies invaded from Guangxi and Yunnan. By mid-1407 they had captured Hồ Quý Ly and his sons and taken the country. Instead of restoring the old dynasty, the Ming annexed Đại Việt as the province of Jiaozhi, the first Chinese rule there since the 10th century. The occupation pushed the empire's southern frontier deep into Vietnam, but it faced constant revolts."},{"year":1420,"text":"Beijing designated the capital in place of Nanjing","lonlat":[116.4,39.9],"detail":"Since 1368 the Ming capital had been Nanjing, on the Yangtze. The Yongle Emperor had built his power in the north as Prince of Yan at Beiping, and he wanted to rule close to the Mongol frontier. From 1406 he had the city rebuilt on a vast scale, with the palace complex later known as the Forbidden City, and the Grand Canal was restored to carry grain north. In 1420 Beijing ('northern capital') was formally made the main capital, with Nanjing as a secondary one. Beijing has remained China's capital for most of the time since, and the move placed the court close to the dangerous northern border."},{"year":1427,"text":"Ming troops withdraw from Vietnam after Lê Lợi's war","lonlat":[105.85,21.03],"detail":"The Ming occupation of Vietnam was harsh, with heavy taxes, forced labour and efforts to spread Chinese culture. In 1418 the landowner Lê Lợi began a rising in Thanh Hóa, using guerrilla tactics in the hills. By 1426 his forces had defeated Ming armies and were besieging the capital, Đông Quan (Hanoi), and in 1427 they destroyed a large Ming relief army at Chi Lăng. The Ming commander swore to withdraw, and his army left at the end of 1427. Lê Lợi founded the Later Lê dynasty, Vietnam became independent again, and the Ming empire's southern frontier went back to roughly its old line."},{"year":1449,"text":"Tumu Crisis: the Zhengtong Emperor captured by the Oirats","lonlat":[115.53,40.38],"detail":"The Oirat Mongols under Esen Taishi had united the steppe and raided the Ming frontier in 1449 after a dispute over trade. The young Zhengtong Emperor, urged on by his eunuch adviser Wang Zhen, led a large but poorly prepared army out of Beijing. On its way back the army was caught at the post station of Tumu and destroyed in September 1449; Wang Zhen was killed and the emperor taken prisoner. The court quickly put his brother on the throne as the Jingtai Emperor, and the minister Yu Qian defended Beijing. The disaster ended Ming offensives into the steppe, and the dynasty turned to building walls along the north."},{"year":1592,"text":"Japanese invasion of Korea; Ming armies intervene (Imjin War, to 1598)","lonlat":[129.04,35.1],"detail":"In 1592 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had just unified Japan, sent a huge army into Korea, a Ming tributary, as the first step toward conquering China. The Japanese took Seoul and Pyongyang within weeks, while the Korean navy under Admiral Yi Sun-sin attacked their supply lines at sea. Ming armies crossed the Yalu River and retook Pyongyang in 1593, and peace talks failed. Japan invaded again in 1597, but after Hideyoshi's death in 1598 its forces withdrew. Korea was saved and stayed a Ming ally, but the long war drained the Ming treasury just as a new threat grew in Manchuria."},{"year":1619,"text":"Manchu Later Jin defeat a large Ming army at Sarhu","lonlat":[124.25,41.85],"detail":"Nurhaci, a Jurchen chieftain, had united many Jurchen tribes and in 1616 proclaimed the Later Jin state, then in 1618 declared war on the Ming. In spring 1619 the Ming sent a large army, with Korean and Yehe allies, in four separate columns to destroy him. Nurhaci concentrated his banner troops and defeated the columns one by one around Sarhu, in today's Liaoning, over a few days. Ming losses were very heavy. The battle gave the Jurchens the initiative in the northeast; within a few years they took Shenyang and Liaoyang, and the Ming lost most of Liaodong."},{"year":1644,"text":"Li Zicheng takes Beijing; the Chongzhen Emperor dies by suicide","lonlat":[116.4,39.9],"detail":"In the 1630s and 1640s famine, epidemics and heavy taxes drove huge peasant rebellions in northern China, while the best Ming armies were tied down against the Manchus. The rebel leader Li Zicheng proclaimed his own Shun dynasty at Xi'an and marched on Beijing, which he entered almost unopposed in April 1644. On 25 April the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself on a hill behind the palace, ending Ming rule in the north. Li held the capital for little more than a month. The Ming general Wu Sangui joined the Manchus at Shanhai Pass, and the Qing took Beijing in June, beginning their conquest of China."},{"year":1645,"text":"Qing forces take Nanjing; the Hongguang court collapses","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"detail":"After Beijing fell, Ming loyalists in Nanjing put the Prince of Fu on the throne as the Hongguang Emperor, the first of the Southern Ming rulers. His court was divided by factions, and its generals quarrelled. In 1645 Qing armies under Prince Dodo swept south, took Yangzhou after a brief siege and massacred many of its people, then crossed the Yangtze. Nanjing surrendered in June 1645 without a fight, and the Hongguang Emperor was captured and taken to Beijing, where he was executed in 1646. The Qing then took the wealthy Yangtze delta, and Ming resistance retreated to the far south."},{"year":1662,"text":"The last Southern Ming emperor, Yongli, is executed","lonlat":[102.71,25.04],"detail":"The Yongli Emperor, crowned in 1646, was the last and longest-lasting Southern Ming ruler, at times controlling much of southern China with the help of former rebel armies. Qing forces steadily pushed him west into Guizhou and Yunnan, and in 1659 he fled into Burma. In 1661 Wu Sangui, now a Qing general, invaded Burma, and the Burmese king handed Yongli over. He was executed in 1662. His death ended the Ming dynasty's claim on the mainland; only the Zheng regime on Taiwan still used the Ming name, until it surrendered to the Qing in 1683."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398)","from":1375,"to":1398},{"name":"Jianwen Emperor","from":1398,"to":1402},{"name":"Yongle Emperor","from":1402,"to":1424},{"name":"Xuande Emperor","from":1425,"to":1435},{"name":"Zhengtong Emperor (Yingzong)","from":1435,"to":1449},{"name":"Jingtai Emperor","from":1449,"to":1457},{"name":"Tianshun Emperor (Yingzong restored)","from":1457,"to":1464},{"name":"Chenghua Emperor","from":1464,"to":1487},{"name":"Hongzhi Emperor","from":1487,"to":1505},{"name":"Zhengde Emperor","from":1505,"to":1521},{"name":"Jiajing Emperor","from":1521,"to":1567},{"name":"Longqing Emperor","from":1567,"to":1572},{"name":"Wanli Emperor","from":1572,"to":1620},{"name":"Tianqi Emperor","from":1620,"to":1627},{"name":"Chongzhen Emperor","from":1627,"to":1644},{"name":"Hongguang Emperor (Southern Ming)","from":1644,"to":1645},{"name":"Longwu Emperor (Southern Ming)","from":1645,"to":1646},{"name":"Yongli Emperor (Southern Ming)","from":1646,"to":1662}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Ming dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of emperors of the Ming dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emperors_of_the_Ming_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Qing dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ming treasure voyages","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tumu Crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumu_Crisis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Imjin War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imjin_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Southern Ming","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ming"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Lam Sơn uprising","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lam_S%C6%A1n_uprising"}]},{"id":"portuguese-empire","name":"Portuguese Empire","profile":"portuguese-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Kingdom of Portugal","from":1415,"to":1501},{"clio":"(Portuguese Empire)","from":1502,"to":1910},{"clio":"Portuguese Republic","from":1911,"to":1925},{"clio":"Estado Novo","from":1926,"to":1975}],"span":[1415,1975],"summary":"Portugal's seizure of Ceuta in 1415 opened a century of exploration down the African coast that reached India in 1498 and Brazil in 1500, and a chain of fortified ports from Goa to Malacca. The Dutch took much of its Asian trade in the 17th century, and Brazil became independent in 1822; Portugal then turned to Africa and held on to Angola and Mozambique through the colonial wars of 1961–1974, decolonising after the Carnation Revolution (Macau was handed over in 1999).","events":[{"year":1415,"text":"Portugal conquers Ceuta in North Africa","lonlat":[-5.32,35.89],"detail":"In the early 15th century Portugal was a small kingdom whose rulers wanted gold, trade and crusading glory against the Muslim states of North Africa. Ceuta, a rich Marinid port facing Gibraltar across the strait, was a key end point of Saharan trade routes. On 21 August 1415 a fleet under King John I and his sons, including Prince Henry (later called the Navigator), landed and took the city in a carefully prepared attack. Ceuta became Portugal's first overseas possession and a base for further raids. Its conquest is often taken as the start of the Portuguese Empire and of European overseas expansion."},{"year":1488,"text":"Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope","lonlat":[18.47,-34.36],"detail":"Through the 15th century Portuguese captains sailed further down the coast of West Africa, seeking gold, slaves and a sea route around Africa to the spices of Asia. In 1487 King John II sent Bartolomeu Dias south with three ships. Storms carried him beyond the southern tip of Africa, and in February 1488 he reached Mossel Bay and sailed on to Kwaaihoek, near the Boesmans River, before his restless crew persuaded him to turn back. On the way home, in May 1488, he sighted the Cape of Good Hope. Dias had proved that the Atlantic and Indian oceans were connected, opening the sea route to India."},{"year":1498,"text":"Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut by sea","lonlat":[75.78,11.25],"detail":"King Manuel I sent Vasco da Gama with four ships to follow up Dias's discovery. Da Gama left Lisbon in July 1497, rounded the Cape, called at Mozambique, Mombasa and Malindi on the East African coast, and with the help of a local pilot crossed the Indian Ocean to reach Calicut, on India's Malabar Coast, in May 1498. Relations with the ruler, the Zamorin, were tense, but da Gama returned in 1499 with a cargo of spices that made the voyage highly profitable. It was the first direct sea voyage from Europe to India, and it made Portugal the first European power in the Indian Ocean trade."},{"year":1500,"text":"Cabral reaches the coast of Brazil","lonlat":[-39.06,-16.45],"detail":"In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral led a second, much larger fleet of 13 ships to India. Sailing far out into the Atlantic to catch favourable winds, he made landfall in April 1500. The land lay in Portugal's half of the world under the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), so he claimed it, naming it the Island of the True Cross, before continuing to India. Whether the landfall was an accident or planned is still debated. Brazil grew into Portugal's largest and richest colony, first for brazilwood and sugar, later for gold, and gave the empire its huge territory in South America."},{"year":1510,"text":"Afonso de Albuquerque conquers Goa","lonlat":[73.91,15.5],"detail":"To control the spice trade the Portuguese needed fortified bases in Asia, not just trading posts. Afonso de Albuquerque, governor of Portuguese India, took Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur in early 1510, lost it within months, and retook it with a larger force on 25 November 1510. Goa, an island port on India's west coast, became the capital of the Estado da Índia, Portugal's network of forts and trading towns from East Africa to East Asia. It stayed Portuguese for more than 450 years, until India annexed it in 1961."},{"year":1511,"text":"Malacca captured","lonlat":[102.25,2.19],"detail":"Malacca, on the strait between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, was the greatest trading port of Southeast Asia, where spices from the Moluccas and goods from China and India changed hands. After a Portuguese trading mission was attacked there, Albuquerque sailed from Goa with about 1,000 soldiers and some Indian allies. After weeks of fighting, the city fell in August 1511 and the sultan fled. The Portuguese built the fortress of A Famosa and controlled the strait for 130 years. Malacca gave Portugal a base for reaching the Spice Islands, China and Japan."},{"year":1580,"text":"Philip II of Spain becomes king: the Iberian Union (to 1640)","lonlat":[-9.14,38.72],"detail":"King Sebastian of Portugal was killed in Morocco at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578, leaving no heir, and his elderly great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, died in 1580. Philip II of Spain, a grandson of King Manuel I, pressed his claim with an army that defeated his rival, António, Prior of Crato, and in 1581 the Cortes of Tomar accepted him as Philip I of Portugal. Portugal kept its own laws and administration, but shared a king with Spain for 60 years. During the Iberian Union, Spain's enemies, above all the Dutch, attacked Portuguese trading posts and colonies around the world."},{"year":1641,"text":"Malacca falls to the Dutch","lonlat":[102.25,2.19],"detail":"After throwing off Spanish rule in 1640, Portugal was still at war with the Dutch, whose East India Company had been seizing its Asian trade. The Dutch, allied with the Sultanate of Johor, besieged Malacca from August 1640. After more than five months of blockade, starvation and disease, the Portuguese garrison surrendered on 14 January 1641. Malacca became a Dutch possession. The loss ended Portuguese control of the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and marked the shift of Asian sea power from Portugal to the Netherlands."},{"year":1822,"text":"Brazil declares independence","lonlat":[-46.61,-23.59],"detail":"When Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, the royal family and court fled to Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the empire; in 1815 Brazil was raised to a kingdom equal to Portugal. After King John VI returned to Lisbon in 1821, the Portuguese parliament tried to reduce Brazil to colonial status again. His son Pedro, left behind as regent, refused, and on 7 September 1822 declared Brazil independent, becoming its emperor. After a short war, Portugal recognised independence in 1825. The empire lost its largest and richest territory, leaving only scattered colonies in Africa and Asia."},{"year":1890,"text":"British Ultimatum blocks Portugal's plan to link Angola and Mozambique","lonlat":null,"detail":"In the 'Scramble for Africa', Portugal hoped to join Angola and Mozambique with a broad band of territory across central Africa, the 'Pink Map'. This clashed with British interests pressed by Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company and by British missionaries north of the Zambezi. On 11 January 1890 Britain sent an ultimatum demanding that Portuguese forces withdraw from the lands between the two colonies, in what became Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. Portugal gave way. The humiliation fed republican anger that helped bring down the monarchy in 1910, and Angola and Mozambique stayed separate."},{"year":1961,"text":"Colonial war begins in Angola; India annexes Goa, Daman and Diu","lonlat":[13.23,-8.84],"detail":"After the Second World War most European empires were giving up their colonies, but Portugal's dictatorship, the Estado Novo, insisted its colonies were overseas provinces of one nation. In February and March 1961 armed uprisings broke out in Angola, beginning the colonial wars that later spread to Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. In December 1961 India, after years of failed negotiations, sent its army into Goa, Daman and Diu and took them in about two days. Portugal lost its oldest colonies in Asia, and from 1961 it fought three wars in Africa for 13 years."},{"year":1974,"text":"Carnation Revolution in Lisbon ends the colonial war","lonlat":[-9.14,38.72],"detail":"By the early 1970s the colonial wars took a large share of Portugal's budget and kept many thousands of young men under arms, with no victory in sight. On 25 April 1974 junior officers of the Armed Forces Movement overthrew the Estado Novo dictatorship in an almost bloodless coup; crowds put carnations in the soldiers' rifles, giving the Carnation Revolution its name. The new government quickly agreed to end the wars and grant independence. Guinea-Bissau's independence was recognised in 1974, and Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola followed in 1975, ending Portugal's African empire."},{"year":1975,"text":"Angola becomes independent on 11 November","lonlat":[13.23,-8.84],"detail":"Angola was Portugal's largest and richest colony, but three rival independence movements fought there: the MPLA, the FNLA and UNITA. In January 1975 Portugal and the three signed the Alvor Agreement, setting 11 November 1975 as the date for independence under a shared transitional government, but the coalition soon collapsed into civil war, with foreign powers backing different sides. As the last Portuguese troops left, the MPLA, holding the capital Luanda, proclaimed the People's Republic of Angola on 11 November 1975. With Angola gone, almost nothing remained of the Portuguese Empire except Macau, returned to China in 1999."}],"reigns":[{"name":"John I (r. 1385–1433)","from":1415,"to":1433},{"name":"Afonso V","from":1438,"to":1481},{"name":"John II","from":1481,"to":1495},{"name":"Manuel I","from":1495,"to":1521},{"name":"John III","from":1521,"to":1557},{"name":"Sebastian","from":1557,"to":1578},{"name":"Philippine dynasty (Spanish Habsburg kings)","from":1580,"to":1640},{"name":"John IV","from":1640,"to":1656},{"name":"Peter II","from":1683,"to":1706},{"name":"John V","from":1706,"to":1750},{"name":"Joseph I","from":1750,"to":1777},{"name":"Maria I","from":1777,"to":1816},{"name":"John VI","from":1816,"to":1826},{"name":"Maria II","from":1834,"to":1853},{"name":"Luís I","from":1861,"to":1889},{"name":"Carlos I","from":1889,"to":1908},{"name":"Manuel II","from":1908,"to":1910},{"name":"First Portuguese Republic","from":1910,"to":1926},{"name":"António de Oliveira Salazar (prime minister)","from":1932,"to":1968},{"name":"Marcelo Caetano (prime minister)","from":1968,"to":1974}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Portuguese Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Portuguese monarchs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Portuguese_monarchs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Estado Novo (Portugal)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estado_Novo_(Portugal)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Portuguese Colonial War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Colonial_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Alvor Agreement","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvor_Agreement"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Vasco da Gama","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pedro Álvares Cabral","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_%C3%81lvares_Cabral"}]},{"id":"inca-empire","name":"Inca Empire","profile":"inca-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Inca Empire","from":1440,"to":1533}],"span":[1440,1533],"summary":"After defeating the Chanka, Pachacuti (traditionally from 1438) turned the kingdom of Cusco into Tawantinsuyu, and he and his son Topa Inca conquered the Andes from Ecuador to central Chile, including the coastal kingdom of Chimor. At its height under Huayna Capac it was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. Disease and a succession war between Huáscar and Atahualpa weakened it just as Pizarro arrived; Atahualpa was seized at Cajamarca in 1532 and executed in 1533, though Inca resistance continued at Vilcabamba until 1572.","events":[{"year":1470,"text":"c. 1470: The Incas conquer Chimor and its capital Chan Chan","lonlat":[-79.07,-8.11],"detail":"Chimor, the kingdom of the Chimú people, ruled the desert coast of northern Peru from its great capital, Chan Chan. Its people farmed irrigated river valleys and were famed for their pottery and fine work in gold, silver and copper. It was the last kingdom with any chance of stopping the Incas. Around 1470 the Inca prince Topa Inca Yupanqui, commanding for his father Pachacuti, defeated the Chimú ruler Minchançaman. Skilled Chimú artists were later brought to Cusco to work for the Inca rulers, and the Inca map now stretched along the northern coast of Peru."},{"year":1471,"text":"Topa Inca Yupanqui succeeds Pachacuti and doubles the empire","lonlat":[-71.97,-13.53],"detail":"Pachacuti had turned the small kingdom of Cusco into Tawantinsuyu, the 'land of four parts', and with his son Topa Inca brought much of Peru under Inca rule. When Pachacuti died in 1471, Topa Inca became Sapa Inca, or sole ruler, and reigned until 1493. He extended the empire north along the Andes through modern Ecuador, rebuilding Quito. In the south he pushed into what is now Chile, toward the Maule river, where the Mapuche resisted. Under him the empire roughly doubled in size, and it became the largest state in the pre-Columbian Americas."},{"year":1493,"text":"Huayna Capac succeeds and extends Inca rule into Ecuador","lonlat":[-78.47,-0.18],"detail":"Topa Inca died around 1493, and after a struggle over the succession his son Huayna Capac became Sapa Inca. He continued the empire's expansion. In the south he pushed further into what is now Chile and Argentina. In the north he campaigned through Ecuador into southern Colombia, and he became so attached to Ecuador that he spent most of his reign there, ruling from Tumebamba (Cuenca) and Quito. Under him the Inca Empire reached its greatest extent, stretching some 3,500 km from north to south."},{"year":1527,"text":"Push into the Amazon near the Chinchipe is stopped by the Shuar","lonlat":null,"detail":"From their highland base, the Incas also tried to expand east into the lowland forests of the Amazon basin, but these lands were very different from the Andean valleys they knew. In Ecuador, Huayna Capac's forces pushed into the Amazon lowlands as far as the Chinchipe river. There they were stopped and pushed back by the Shuar, a forest people of the eastern lowlands. The Inca Empire article dates this setback to 1527. It marked the eastern limit of Inca expansion in the north."},{"year":1527,"text":"c. 1527: Huayna Capac dies, possibly of a European disease","lonlat":null,"detail":"Huayna Capac died around 1527, after returning from campaigns in the far north with a fever. He may have died of a European disease such as smallpox or measles, which spread ahead of the Spaniards who had reached the Pacific coast, although some historians dispute this. His chosen heir, Ninan Cuyochi, died at about the same time. The deaths left no clear successor. Two of Huayna Capac's sons, Huáscar in Cusco and Atahualpa in the north, both claimed the throne."},{"year":1532,"text":"Atahualpa defeats his brother Huáscar in the civil war","lonlat":null,"detail":"Huáscar, crowned in Cusco, began a war against his half-brother Atahualpa, who commanded the veteran armies stationed in the north. The Inca Civil War lasted from 1529 to 1532 and devastated the empire. Atahualpa's generals Chalcuchimac and Quizquiz won a series of victories, and in 1532 they routed Huáscar's last army near Cusco and captured him. Atahualpa was now master of the empire. But the war had left it divided and exhausted just as a small band of Spaniards arrived."},{"year":1532,"text":"Pizarro seizes Atahualpa at Cajamarca (16 November)","lonlat":[-78.52,-7.16],"detail":"Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conquistador, had landed in Peru with a small force of about 168 men. Atahualpa, camped near Cajamarca with a large army, agreed to meet him. On 16 November 1532 he entered the town's plaza with thousands of attendants, mostly unarmed. After the friar Vicente de Valverde demanded that he accept Christianity and the Spanish king, the hidden Spaniards attacked with guns, cannon and horses. They killed thousands and captured Atahualpa, leaving the empire without its ruler."},{"year":1533,"text":"Atahualpa executed; Spaniards take Cusco in November","lonlat":[-71.97,-13.53],"detail":"In captivity Atahualpa offered a huge ransom of gold and silver for his release, and he arranged for his captive brother Huáscar to be killed. After the Spaniards had collected the ransom, they accused him of treason and of murdering Huáscar. He was baptised and then executed by garrotte, on 29 August 1533 according to most accounts. Pizarro then marched south with a puppet ruler and Inca allies, and on 15 November 1533 entered Cusco, the Inca capital. The Inca Empire had fallen, though resistance continued from Vilcabamba until 1572."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Pachacuti (r. 1438–1471, traditional dates)","from":1440,"to":1471},{"name":"Topa Inca Yupanqui","from":1471,"to":1493},{"name":"Huayna Capac","from":1493,"to":1527},{"name":"Huáscar","from":1527,"to":1532},{"name":"Atahualpa","from":1532,"to":1533}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Inca Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sapa Inca","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapa_Inca"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pachacuti","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachacuti"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Huayna Capac","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huayna_Capac"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Cajamarca","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Inca Civilization","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Inca_Civilization/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Chimor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimor"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Inca Civil War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Civil_War"}]},{"id":"russian-empire","name":"Russian Empire (Muscovy, Tsardom and Empire)","profile":"russian-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Grand Principality of Moscow","from":1462,"to":1546},{"clio":"Tsardom of Russia","from":1547,"to":1720},{"clio":"Russian Empire","from":1721,"to":1916},{"clio":"Russian Republic","from":1917,"to":1917}],"span":[1462,1917],"summary":"Ivan III gathered the Russian principalities under Moscow and threw off Tatar overlordship; Ivan IV took the title of tsar in 1547 and conquered the Volga khanates, opening the way for Cossacks and traders to cross Siberia to the Pacific within a century. Peter the Great's victory over Sweden made Russia an empire in 1721, and expansion into Poland, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Amur followed until it reached its greatest extent in the late 19th century, before defeat by Japan and the First World War brought revolution in 1917.","events":[{"year":1478,"text":"Ivan III annexes Novgorod","lonlat":[31.27,58.52],"detail":"In the 15th century Novgorod was a wealthy merchant republic ruling a vast territory stretching to the Arctic and the Urals, and Moscow's Grand Prince Ivan III wanted to bring all the Russian lands under his rule. When Novgorod's leaders turned towards Lithuania, Ivan defeated its army at the Shelon River in 1471. In 1478 he besieged the city again and forced its surrender; the republic's assembly was abolished and its famous bell taken to Moscow. Annexing Novgorod added its vast northern lands to Muscovy and made Moscow the dominant Russian state."},{"year":1480,"text":"Great Stand on the Ugra River ends Tatar overlordship","lonlat":[35.4,54.5],"detail":"For two centuries the Russian principalities had paid tribute to the Golden Horde, the Mongol-Tatar state of the steppe. Ivan III stopped paying, and in 1480 Khan Akhmat of the Great Horde marched north to force him, hoping to join his Lithuanian allies. The two armies faced each other across the Ugra River, southwest of Moscow, for weeks in October and November, but the Tatars never managed to cross, Lithuanian help did not arrive, and winter set in. Akhmat withdrew without a battle. The 'Great Stand' is traditionally taken as the end of the Tatar yoke, leaving Moscow a fully sovereign state."},{"year":1547,"text":"Ivan IV crowned the first Tsar of all Russia","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"Ivan IV, grand prince of Moscow since the age of three, took power in his own right as a teenager. On 16 January 1547 he was crowned in Moscow's Dormition Cathedral as 'Tsar of all Russia', a title derived from the Latin 'caesar' and meant as the equal of 'emperor'. The new title claimed a status equal to the greatest monarchs and marked the start of the Tsardom of Russia. Ivan, later known as 'the Terrible', went on to reform the law and the army and to begin Russia's expansion to the east."},{"year":1552,"text":"Kazan Khanate conquered (Astrakhan follows in 1556)","lonlat":[49.11,55.79],"detail":"The Khanate of Kazan, a successor state of the Golden Horde on the middle Volga, had fought Moscow on and off for more than a century. After failed campaigns, Ivan IV built a fortress at Sviyazhsk near Kazan and besieged the city in 1552 with a large army and siege engineers; on 2 October his troops blew up the walls with mines and stormed it. In 1556 Russian forces also took the Khanate of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga. Russia now controlled the whole Volga route to the Caspian Sea and opened the way to the Urals and Siberia."},{"year":1582,"text":"c. 1582: Yermak's Cossacks defeat the Khanate of Sibir","lonlat":[68.4,58.1],"detail":"The merchant Stroganov family, who held vast lands in the Urals, hired a band of Cossacks under the ataman Yermak Timofeyevich to protect them against the Siberian Khanate of Kuchum Khan. In about 1581–82 Yermak led some 840 men across the Urals along the rivers; with firearms against bows, they defeated Kuchum's forces near the Irtysh and took his capital, Qashliq (Sibir). Yermak was killed in an ambush by Kuchum's men in 1584 or 1585 (sources differ), but Russian forts followed. The conquest opened Siberia, and by 1639 Russian explorers and fur traders had reached the Pacific Ocean."},{"year":1613,"text":"Mikhail Romanov elected tsar, ending the Time of Troubles","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"After the old Rurikid dynasty died out in 1598, Russia fell into the 'Time of Troubles': famine, civil war, pretenders claiming to be the dead Tsarevich Dmitry, and invasion by Poland-Lithuania and Sweden. Polish troops even occupied Moscow until a volunteer army raised by Kuzma Minin and led by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky drove them out in 1612. In February 1613 an Assembly of the Land (Zemsky Sobor) elected 16-year-old Mikhail Romanov as tsar. The Romanov dynasty would rule Russia for over 300 years, until 1917, though peace with Sweden and Poland cost land to both."},{"year":1654,"text":"Treaty of Pereyaslav brings the Dnieper Cossacks under Moscow","lonlat":[31.45,50.07],"detail":"In 1648 the Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine under Bohdan Khmelnytsky rose against Polish-Lithuanian rule and, needing a powerful ally, turned to the Orthodox tsar. In January 1654 a council of Cossack officers at Pereiaslav agreed to accept the authority of Tsar Alexis, which brought Russia into a long war with Poland-Lithuania. The exact meaning of the agreement, alliance or submission, is still disputed by Ukrainian and Russian historians. By the Truce of Andrusovo (1667) Russia gained Smolensk and the Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper, plus the city of Kyiv, handed over at first for two years, a major shift of power in eastern Europe."},{"year":1689,"text":"Treaty of Nerchinsk fixes the border with Qing China","lonlat":[116.58,51.98],"detail":"As Russian explorers and fur traders pushed into the Amur River valley in the mid-17th century, they clashed with the Qing dynasty, which ruled Manchuria and besieged the Russian fort at Albazin in 1685–86. In 1689 envoys of the two empires met at Nerchinsk, with Jesuit priests acting as interpreters in Latin, and signed China's first treaty with a European state. Russia gave up the Amur basin and the border was set along the Argun River and the Stanovoy Mountains, but it gained the right to trade with China. The border held for about 170 years."},{"year":1721,"text":"Treaty of Nystad ends the Great Northern War; empire proclaimed","lonlat":[30.32,59.94],"detail":"Peter the Great wanted a 'window on the West' on the Baltic Sea, then dominated by Sweden. In the Great Northern War (1700–21) Russia, after an early disaster at Narva in 1700, crushed Charles XII's army at Poltava in 1709 and built a navy and the new capital of Saint Petersburg on conquered land. By the Treaty of Nystad, signed on 10 September 1721, Sweden ceded Livonia, Estonia, Ingria and part of Karelia. Russia became the leading power of northern Europe, and in 1721 Peter became the first Emperor of Russia, turning the tsardom into the Russian Empire."},{"year":1783,"text":"Catherine II annexes the Crimean Khanate","lonlat":[34.1,44.95],"detail":"The Crimean Khanate, long an Ottoman vassal that raided Russian and Ukrainian lands, had been declared independent by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, but it was really under Russian influence. After repeated unrest, Catherine the Great formally annexed the khanate by a manifesto on 19 April 1783 (8 April, Old Style), on the urging of her adviser Prince Grigory Potemkin. Work soon began on a port at Akhtiar, the future Sevastopol, as the base for a new Black Sea Fleet. Russia now had a firm hold on the northern coast of the Black Sea."},{"year":1795,"text":"Final partition of Poland-Lithuania","lonlat":[21.01,52.23],"detail":"In the late 18th century the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, weakened by a paralysed political system, was partitioned three times by its neighbours Russia, Prussia and Austria. After the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 was crushed by Russian and Prussian armies, the three powers agreed in 1795 to divide what remained, and Poland-Lithuania disappeared from the map for 123 years. In this third partition Russia took the rest of Lithuania. Over the three partitions Russia gained the largest share of the Commonwealth's people, and its border moved deep into central Europe."},{"year":1860,"text":"Convention of Peking: land north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri","lonlat":[131.89,43.12],"detail":"While Britain and France fought China in the Second Opium War, Russia pressed the Qing for the lands along the Amur River given up at Nerchinsk. By the Treaty of Aigun (1858) China ceded the left bank of the Amur, and after the Anglo-French capture of Beijing in 1860 the Russian envoy Nikolay Ignatyev obtained the Convention of Peking, which also gave Russia the land between the Ussuri River and the Pacific coast. Together the two treaties gave Russia roughly 1 million km² and a long Pacific coastline, where it founded Vladivostok, and cut China off from the Sea of Japan."},{"year":1867,"text":"Alaska sold to the United States","lonlat":[-135.33,57.05],"detail":"Russian Alaska was valued mainly for sea-otter furs, but by the 1850s the otters had been hunted almost to extinction, few Russians lived there, and Russia, short of money after its defeat in the Crimean War, could not easily defend it. On 30 March 1867 the United States agreed to buy Alaska for 7.2 million US dollars, about 2 cents an acre; the transfer took effect on 18 October 1867. Russia gave up its only lands in the Americas. Its eastward expansion now ended at the Bering Strait."},{"year":1905,"text":"Defeat by Japan; Treaty of Portsmouth cedes southern Sakhalin","lonlat":null,"detail":"Russia and Japan both wanted control of Manchuria and Korea, and Russia had leased Port Arthur in China as a naval base. In February 1904 Japan attacked the Russian fleet there, then besieged and took the port and won the land battle of Mukden; in May 1905 it destroyed Russia's Baltic Fleet at Tsushima. US President Theodore Roosevelt mediated peace, and on 5 September 1905 the Treaty of Portsmouth gave Japan the lease of the Liaodong Peninsula, Russia's railway in southern Manchuria and the southern half of Sakhalin. The defeat helped spark the Revolution of 1905 and checked Russian expansion in East Asia."},{"year":1917,"text":"February Revolution: Nicholas II abdicates; republic proclaimed","lonlat":[30.32,59.94],"detail":"Three years of the First World War brought Russia huge losses, food shortages and anger at Tsar Nicholas II's government. In late February 1917 (March, New Style) strikes and bread riots in Petrograd turned into revolution when soldiers of the garrison joined the crowds. On 2 March (15 March) Nicholas abdicated, ending more than 300 years of Romanov rule. A Provisional Government took power alongside the workers' and soldiers' soviets, and in September proclaimed Russia a republic. The empire's collapse let Finland, Poland and other borderlands break away, before the Bolsheviks seized power in October."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Ivan III the Great","from":1462,"to":1505},{"name":"Vasily III","from":1505,"to":1533},{"name":"Ivan IV the Terrible","from":1533,"to":1584},{"name":"Feodor I","from":1584,"to":1598},{"name":"Boris Godunov","from":1598,"to":1605},{"name":"Time of Troubles","from":1605,"to":1613},{"name":"Michael","from":1613,"to":1645},{"name":"Alexis","from":1645,"to":1676},{"name":"Feodor III","from":1676,"to":1682},{"name":"Peter I the Great (with Ivan V to 1696)","from":1682,"to":1725},{"name":"Anna","from":1730,"to":1740},{"name":"Elizabeth","from":1741,"to":1762},{"name":"Catherine II the Great","from":1762,"to":1796},{"name":"Paul I","from":1796,"to":1801},{"name":"Alexander I","from":1801,"to":1825},{"name":"Nicholas I","from":1825,"to":1855},{"name":"Alexander II","from":1855,"to":1881},{"name":"Alexander III","from":1881,"to":1894},{"name":"Nicholas II","from":1894,"to":1917}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Grand Duchy of Moscow","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Moscow"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Tsardom of Russia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsardom_of_Russia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Russian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Russian monarchs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_monarchs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Amur Annexation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amur_Annexation"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Portsmouth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Portsmouth"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Nerchinsk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nerchinsk"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Time of Troubles","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Troubles"}]},{"id":"songhai-empire","name":"Songhai Empire","profile":"songhai-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Songhai Empire","from":1464,"to":1591}],"span":[1464,1591],"summary":"From Gao, Sonni Ali (r. 1464–1492) turned Songhai into the Sahel's leading power, taking Timbuktu and Djenné and much of Mali's former territory. Askia Muhammad I, who seized power in 1493, reorganised the state, made a celebrated pilgrimage to Mecca and pushed its frontiers further. After his overthrow in 1528 civil wars weakened the empire, and in 1591 a Moroccan army with firearms routed the Songhai at Tondibi and sacked Gao, Timbuktu and Djenné.","events":[{"year":1464,"text":"c. 1464: Sonni Ali takes power at Gao","lonlat":[-0.04,16.27],"detail":"Songhai was a kingdom on the middle Niger river, centred on Gao, that had once been subject to the Mali Empire. As Mali weakened in the 15th century, the Sonni dynasty of Gao grew more powerful. Around 1464 Sonni Ali, later called Sonni Ali Ber ('the Great'), came to power. A brilliant general, he built a powerful army and a fleet of boats on the Niger. Over his 28-year reign he turned a small state into an empire, and Songhai appears on the map as the rising power of the Niger Bend."},{"year":1465,"text":"Songhai conquers Mema from the Mali Empire","lonlat":null,"detail":"Mema was a region west of Timbuktu and one of the oldest provinces of the Mali Empire. In the 1460s Sonni Ali's predecessor, Sulayman Dama, attacked it. According to the Mali Empire article, Songhai completed its conquest in 1465, early in Sonni Ali's reign. The article on Sonni Ali says Songhai already controlled the Niger valley as far as Mema when he came to power. The conquest pushed Songhai's frontier west into Mali's old heartland and marked the shift of power from Mali to Songhai."},{"year":1468,"text":"Sonni Ali takes Timbuktu from the Tuareg","lonlat":[-3.0,16.77],"detail":"Timbuktu, the great trading and learning city on the Niger Bend, had been held by Tuareg Berbers since Mali lost it in 1433–1434. Its leaders asked Sonni Ali for help against the Tuareg. He took the city in 1468 (the Sonni Ali article dates the request to 1469). Muslim chroniclers accused him of brutality toward its people and especially its scholars, whom he saw as allies of the Tuareg. Controlling Timbuktu gave Songhai the terminus of the trans-Saharan caravan routes, and with it great wealth."},{"year":1473,"text":"Djenné surrenders after a long siege","lonlat":[-4.56,13.91],"detail":"Djenné was a rich trading town in the inland Niger delta, linked by river to Timbuktu, and its people resisted Sonni Ali's attempts to take it. He used his fleet of river boats to lay siege to the town. According to tradition the siege lasted seven years, and in 1473 the starving townspeople finally surrendered (one passage in the Songhai Empire article gives 1475). With Djenné, Songhai controlled the trade of the whole middle Niger, from the gold-producing south to the Saharan routes."},{"year":1492,"text":"Sonni Ali dies; his son Sonni Baru succeeds","lonlat":null,"detail":"Sonni Ali died on 6 November 1492 in uncertain circumstances (the Tarikh al-Sudan says he drowned while crossing the Niger), and his son Sonni Baru succeeded him. Like his father, who had practised a mixture of Islam and traditional religion, Baru drew his support from the traditional religious leaders of the Songhai. Muslim leaders in the towns distrusted him, and within months one of Sonni Ali's generals used Baru's lack of Islamic faith as the reason for a rebellion."},{"year":1493,"text":"Askia Muhammad defeats Sonni Baru at Anfao and takes power","lonlat":[-0.04,16.27],"detail":"Muhammad Ture, one of Sonni Ali's generals, rose up against Sonni Baru in 1492, claiming that he was not a faithful Muslim. In April 1493 he defeated Baru at the Battle of Anfao, outside Gao, and took power with the title Askia. He founded the Askia dynasty and became known as Askia the Great. He reorganised the empire with a strong bureaucracy and a professional army, and he made Islam a pillar of his rule, inviting Muslim scholars to his court. Under him Songhai grew into one of the largest empires in African history."},{"year":1496,"text":"Askia Muhammad's pilgrimage to Mecca (dated 1496 or 1497–98)","lonlat":[39.83,21.42],"detail":"In 1496 Askia Muhammad set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca with 500 horsemen and 1,000 foot soldiers, carrying a great deal of gold (one source dates the journey to 1497–1498). He gave generously to charity, including a hostel in Medina for West African pilgrims, and returned nearly two years later with large debts. The titles of al-hajj and caliph that he brought back strengthened his religious prestige. He returned determined to spread Islam, building schools and mosques and bringing scholars to Timbuktu."},{"year":1502,"text":"Songhai defeats a Mali army and seizes Diafunu","lonlat":null,"detail":"After his pilgrimage, Askia Muhammad launched a series of campaigns to expand the empire in every direction. To the west, his armies attacked the shrinking Mali Empire. According to the Mali Empire article, in 1502 Songhai forces defeated the Malian general Fati Quali Keita and seized the province of Diafunu, though the article on Askia Muhammad dates its capture to 1501. His campaigns also brought the salt mines of Taghaza in the Sahara within its borders."},{"year":1528,"text":"Askia Muhammad deposed by his son Musa","lonlat":[-0.04,16.27],"detail":"By the 1520s Askia Muhammad was well over 70, ill and secretly blind, while his many sons quarrelled. In August 1528 his son Musa forced him to abdicate and took the throne. Musa ruled only three years before his own brothers killed him, and a later ruler exiled the old king to an island in the Niger. The empire entered a period of plots and civil wars, though it kept its territory. Askia Muhammad finally died in 1538."},{"year":1549,"text":"Askia Dawud's reign (to 1582) brings stability and victories","lonlat":[-0.04,16.27],"detail":"After years of succession disputes, Askia Dawud, another son of Askia Muhammad, became ruler in 1549 and reigned for 33 years until 1582. His reign brought stability and security, and a string of military successes. He fought the Mossi and Borgu, and in 1550 and 1558 he attacked Mali, whose mansa gave him his daughter in marriage. But his army did not adopt firearms, and it still relied on spears and arrows. Meanwhile Morocco began demanding the revenues of the Taghaza salt mines, a sign of trouble to come."},{"year":1590,"text":"Ahmad al-Mansur of Morocco sends Judar Pasha across the Sahara","lonlat":[-7.99,31.63],"detail":"Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur of Morocco wanted control of the trans-Saharan trade and believed, wrongly, that Songhai owned gold mines. When Askia Ishaq II refused his demand for payment for the Taghaza salt, he decided to invade. On 16 October 1590 an army left Marrakesh under Judar Pasha, a commander of Spanish origin, with thousands of soldiers, many armed with arquebuses (early muskets), and a train of 8,000 camels. Estimates of its size vary from 4,000 to 20,000 men. After a hard four-month crossing of the Sahara it reached the Niger in February 1591."},{"year":1591,"text":"Moroccan musketeers rout the Songhai at Tondibi; Gao sacked","lonlat":[-0.08,16.5],"detail":"On 13 March 1591 the Moroccan army met the much larger Songhai army of Askia Ishaq II near Tondibi, just north of Gao. The Songhai tried to break the Moroccan lines with a stampede of cattle, but the Moroccans' guns turned the tide, and the Songhai cavalry fled or were cut down. Judar Pasha went on to sack Gao, whose people had already fled, then moved on to Timbuktu and Djenné. The Songhai Empire collapsed. Moroccan soldiers ruled the Niger Bend from Timbuktu, and Songhai disappears from the map."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Sonni Ali","from":1464,"to":1492},{"name":"Sonni Baru","from":1492,"to":1493},{"name":"Askia Muhammad I","from":1493,"to":1528},{"name":"Askia Musa","from":1528,"to":1531},{"name":"Askia Muhammad Bonkana","from":1531,"to":1537},{"name":"Askia Ishaq I","from":1539,"to":1549},{"name":"Askia Dawud","from":1549,"to":1582},{"name":"Askia al-Hajj","from":1582,"to":1586},{"name":"Askia Muhammad Bani","from":1586,"to":1588},{"name":"Askia Ishaq II","from":1588,"to":1591}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Songhai Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhai_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Askiya dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askiya_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sonni Ali","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonni_Ali"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Askia Muhammad I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askia_Muhammad_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Tondibi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tondibi"},{"title":"World History Encyclopedia: Songhai Empire","url":"https://www.worldhistory.org/Songhai_Empire/"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Askia Daoud","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askia_Daoud"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_invasion_of_the_Songhai_Empire"}]},{"id":"spanish-empire","name":"Spanish Empire","profile":"spanish-empire","chain":[{"clio":"(Personal union of Crown of Aragon with Crown of Castile)","from":1492,"to":1515},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1516,"to":1872},{"clio":"First Spanish Republic","from":1873,"to":1876},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1877,"to":1931},{"clio":"Second Spanish Republic","from":1932,"to":1938},{"clio":"Francoist Spain","from":1939,"to":1975}],"span":[1492,1975],"summary":"Castile and Aragon completed the conquest of Granada and sponsored Columbus in 1492; within two generations Spain had overthrown the Aztec and Inca states and spread from the Americas to the Philippines, and from 1580 to 1640 its king also ruled Portugal. The empire reached its greatest extent in the late 18th century, lost the American mainland in the wars of independence (1808–1826), and lost Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898; its last African territories were given up in 1956–1976.","events":[{"year":1492,"text":"Granada conquered; Columbus reaches the Caribbean","lonlat":[-3.6,37.18],"detail":"The marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon had joined Spain's two largest kingdoms, and from 1482 they waged a ten-year war against Granada, the last Muslim state in Iberia. On 2 January 1492 its last sultan, Boabdil, surrendered the city, completing the Christian 'Reconquista'. That spring the monarchs agreed to sponsor Christopher Columbus, who sailed west hoping to reach Asia and on 12 October 1492 landed in the Bahamas, then reached Cuba and Hispaniola. In one year Spain was united under Christian rule and gained the first foothold of an empire in the Americas."},{"year":1521,"text":"Fall of Tenochtitlan: Spanish rule in Mexico begins","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"detail":"In 1519 Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico with a few hundred Spaniards and marched inland, gaining tens of thousands of allies among peoples who resented Aztec rule, above all the Tlaxcalans. Driven out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, in 1520, he returned with his allies and boats built for the lake and besieged the island city from late May, while smallpox devastated its people. On 13 August 1521 the last emperor, Cuauhtémoc, was captured and the city fell. Spain built Mexico City on its ruins, and New Spain became the core of its empire in North America."},{"year":1532,"text":"Pizarro captures Atahualpa at Cajamarca; conquest of the Inca begins","lonlat":[-78.52,-7.16],"detail":"The Inca Empire, the largest state in the Americas, had just been torn apart by a civil war between the brothers Atahualpa and Huáscar, and weakened by epidemics. Francisco Pizarro, with fewer than 200 Spaniards, met the victorious Atahualpa at Cajamarca in the Andes on 16 November 1532. In a surprise attack using guns, horses and steel, the Spaniards killed many of the emperor's unarmed attendants and took him prisoner. Atahualpa paid a huge ransom in gold and silver but was executed in 1533. Spain went on to take Cusco and the Inca lands, and Peru became a second great centre of its American empire."},{"year":1565,"text":"Legazpi arrives in the Philippines: the Spanish East Indies begin","lonlat":[123.89,10.32],"detail":"Ferdinand Magellan's expedition had reached the Philippines for Spain in 1521, but no lasting colony followed. In 1564 Miguel López de Legazpi sailed from New Spain (Mexico) with about 500 men, and in 1565 he founded the first Spanish settlement at Cebu. In the same year his navigator Andrés de Urdaneta found a route back across the Pacific to Mexico, which made regular trade possible. Legazpi founded Manila in 1571 and made it the capital. The Philippines became Spain's base in Asia for over 300 years, linked to Mexico by the Manila galleons carrying American silver to China."},{"year":1580,"text":"Philip II takes the Portuguese throne: the Iberian Union","lonlat":[-9.14,38.72],"detail":"In 1578 the young King Sebastian of Portugal died in battle in Morocco without an heir, and his successor, Cardinal Henry, died in 1580. Philip II of Spain, a grandson of King Manuel I, claimed the throne and sent an army under the Duke of Alba, which defeated the rival claimant, António, Prior of Crato, near Lisbon. In 1581 the Cortes of Tomar accepted Philip as king. Portugal kept its own laws, but the union under one king joined the Spanish and Portuguese empires. Philip ruled the largest collection of territories in the world, from the Americas to Africa and Asia."},{"year":1640,"text":"Portugal breaks away, ending the Iberian Union","lonlat":[-9.14,38.72],"detail":"Under Philip IV, Spain's chief minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares, pressed Portugal to pay more and send troops for Spain's wars, while the Dutch seized Portuguese colonies. In 1640, as Spain was also fighting a revolt in Catalonia, Portuguese nobles rose in Lisbon on 1 December and proclaimed the Duke of Braganza king as John IV. The Restoration War that followed lasted until 1668, when Spain recognised Portugal's independence in the Treaty of Lisbon. Spain lost Portugal and its empire in Brazil, Africa and Asia, though it kept Ceuta."},{"year":1713,"text":"Treaties of Utrecht: Philip V keeps Spain; Gibraltar and Menorca go to Britain","lonlat":[5.12,52.09],"detail":"When the childless Charles II of Spain died in 1700, he left his throne to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV of France. Fearing a union of Spain and France, Britain, the Dutch Republic and Austria went to war. The Peace of Utrecht in 1713 let Philip V keep Spain and its American empire, on condition that he gave up any claim to the French throne. Under the Utrecht treaties and the related Treaty of Rastatt, Spain's lands in Italy and the southern Netherlands went mostly to Austria, with Sicily to Savoy, and Gibraltar and Menorca were ceded to Britain. Spain lost its European possessions outside Iberia but kept its empire overseas."},{"year":1808,"text":"Napoleon invades; the wars of independence in America begin","lonlat":[-3.7,40.42],"detail":"In 1808 Napoleon forced Charles IV and his son Ferdinand VII to give up the Spanish crown and made his own brother Joseph king. Spaniards rose against the French on 2 May 1808 in Madrid, beginning the long Peninsular War, in which British troops fought alongside Spanish and Portuguese forces. With the king a prisoner in France, local juntas in the American colonies took over government in his name, and from 1810 many moved towards independence. The crisis broke Spain's hold on its American empire and began the wars of independence that ended it on the mainland by the mid-1820s."},{"year":1824,"text":"Royalist defeat at Ayacucho ends Spanish rule in South America","lonlat":[-74.13,-13.04],"detail":"After 1810 independence movements led by Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín and others gradually freed most of Spanish South America, but royalist armies still held the highlands of Peru. On 9 December 1824 a patriot army under Simón Bolívar's lieutenant Antonio José de Sucre defeated a royalist army of similar or larger size near Ayacucho in Peru. The wounded viceroy, José de la Serna, was captured, and the royal army of Peru capitulated. The battle effectively ended Spanish rule in South America; the last royalist strongholds, at Callao and Chiloé, held out until 1826, leaving only Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Americas."},{"year":1898,"text":"Spanish–American War: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam lost","lonlat":[-82.37,23.11],"detail":"In 1895 Cubans rose again against Spanish rule, and the harsh Spanish response angered the United States. After the US battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbour in February 1898, the United States declared war in April. The US Navy destroyed Spanish fleets at Manila Bay and off Santiago de Cuba, and US troops landed in Cuba and Puerto Rico. By the Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 December 1898, Spain gave up Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States. Spain's empire, once worldwide, was reduced to a few territories in Africa."},{"year":1912,"text":"Spanish protectorate in northern Morocco established","lonlat":[-5.37,35.57],"detail":"European powers were dividing North Africa, and France and Spain had agreed to share influence in Morocco. After France imposed a protectorate on the Sultan of Morocco in the Treaty of Fez in March 1912, a Franco-Spanish treaty in November 1912 gave Spain a protectorate over a strip of northern Morocco, including the Rif mountains, with its capital at Tetuán. Spain faced fierce resistance there, notably the Rif War of the 1920s led by Abd el-Krim. The protectorate was Spain's main new colony in the 20th century, and it was where Francisco Franco's army rose in revolt in 1936."},{"year":1956,"text":"Northern Morocco joins independent Morocco","lonlat":[-5.37,35.57],"detail":"After the Second World War, nationalist movements across North Africa demanded independence. France ended its protectorate in Morocco in March 1956, and Spain, under Franco, soon followed. On 7 April 1956 Spain recognised Morocco's independence and gave up its protectorate in the north, keeping the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. After the short Ifni War, Spain ceded the southern zone around Cape Juby in 1958, and it kept the enclave of Sidi Ifni until 1969. Spain's remaining African empire was now mainly the Spanish Sahara."},{"year":1975,"text":"Madrid Accords: Spain agrees to leave Western Sahara (withdrawal 1976)","lonlat":[-3.7,40.42],"detail":"Spanish Sahara, a desert colony on the Atlantic coast, was claimed by both Morocco and Mauritania, while the Polisario Front fought for independence. On 6 November 1975, with Franco dying, King Hassan II of Morocco sent some 350,000 unarmed marchers across the border in the 'Green March'. On 14 November Spain signed the Madrid Accords, agreeing to hand over administration to Morocco and Mauritania. Spain withdrew in early 1976, and Morocco and Mauritania moved in. The withdrawal ended Spain's colonial empire in Africa, though the status of Western Sahara remains disputed."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Isabella I and Ferdinand II, the Catholic Monarchs (r. from 1474/1479)","from":1492,"to":1504},{"name":"Ferdinand II (regent for Joanna)","from":1504,"to":1516},{"name":"Charles I (Emperor Charles V)","from":1516,"to":1556},{"name":"Philip II","from":1556,"to":1598},{"name":"Philip III","from":1598,"to":1621},{"name":"Philip IV","from":1621,"to":1665},{"name":"Charles II","from":1665,"to":1700},{"name":"Philip V","from":1700,"to":1746},{"name":"Ferdinand VI","from":1746,"to":1759},{"name":"Charles III","from":1759,"to":1788},{"name":"Charles IV","from":1788,"to":1808},{"name":"Joseph I (Bonaparte)","from":1808,"to":1813},{"name":"Ferdinand VII","from":1813,"to":1833},{"name":"Isabella II","from":1833,"to":1868},{"name":"Alfonso XII","from":1874,"to":1885},{"name":"Alfonso XIII","from":1886,"to":1931},{"name":"Second Spanish Republic","from":1931,"to":1939},{"name":"Francisco Franco (head of state)","from":1939,"to":1975}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Spanish monarchs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_monarchs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ayacucho","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ayacucho"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish protectorate in Morocco","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_protectorate_in_Morocco"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish Sahara","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Sahara"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Fall of Tenochtitlan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Peace of Utrecht","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Utrecht"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Spanish–American War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War"}]},{"id":"safavid-empire","name":"Safavid Empire","profile":"safavid-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Safavid Dynasty","from":1502,"to":1736}],"span":[1502,1736],"summary":"Ismail I, head of the Safavid Sufi order, was enthroned at Tabriz in 1501 and within a decade had conquered Iran and Iraq and imposed Twelver Shi'ism. Defeat at Chaldiran in 1514 fixed a long frontier war with the Ottomans; Abbas I (1587–1629) rebuilt the state from Isfahan and won back lost ground, but Afghan invaders took Isfahan in 1722 and Nader Shah ended the dynasty in 1736.","events":[{"year":1508,"text":"Ismail I takes Baghdad, ending the Aq Qoyunlu","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"Ismail, the young leader of the Safavid Sufi order backed by the Turkmen Qizilbash tribes, had seized Tabriz in 1501 and proclaimed himself shah, making Twelver Shia Islam the state religion of Iran. He then spent several years overthrowing the Aq Qoyunlu, the Turkmen dynasty that had ruled western Iran and Iraq. In 1508 Ismail and his commander Husayn Beg Shamlu took Baghdad, putting an end to the Aq Qoyunlu, and began destroying Sunni shrines there. With Mesopotamia added, the Safavids now ruled from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, though Baghdad would change hands several times in later wars with the Ottomans."},{"year":1510,"text":"Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani defeated and killed near Merv","lonlat":[61.83,37.66],"detail":"To the northeast, the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani Khan had conquered Transoxiana and the Timurid lands of Khorasan, and raided into Iran. In 1510 Shah Ismail marched east with great speed; Shaybani, short of troops, retreated behind the walls of Merv (in today's Turkmenistan). On 2 December 1510 the Safavid army feigned a retreat, drew the Uzbeks out of the fortress and ambushed them, and Shaybani was killed trying to escape. The victory gave the Safavids the rich province of Khorasan, including Herat, and pushed the frontier with the Uzbeks back towards the Oxus (Amu Darya), although the Uzbeks went on raiding Khorasan for a century."},{"year":1514,"text":"Ottoman victory at Chaldiran; eastern Anatolia lost","lonlat":[44.39,39.07],"detail":"Ismail's preaching among the Turkmen tribes of eastern Anatolia alarmed the Sunni Ottoman Sultan Selim I, who marched east in 1514. On 23 August the two armies met at Chaldiran, northwest of Lake Urmia. The Ottomans, with an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 men, heavy artillery and musket-armed Janissaries, crushed the Safavid cavalry, which had no artillery; Ismail was wounded and nearly captured. Selim briefly occupied the Safavid capital, Tabriz. The Ottomans annexed eastern Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia, ending Safavid expansion to the west, and Ismail never again led an army in battle."},{"year":1555,"text":"Peace of Amasya with the Ottomans after decades of war","lonlat":[35.83,40.65],"detail":"Under Ismail's son Tahmasp I, the Safavids fought a long war with Suleiman the Magnificent, who invaded Iran and took Baghdad in the mid-1530s. On 29 May 1555 the two empires signed the Peace of Amasya, the first formal peace between them. Armenia and Georgia were divided, with the western parts going to the Ottomans and the eastern parts staying with Iran, and the Ottomans kept most of Iraq, including Baghdad. The treaty set a frontier that brought about twenty years of peace."},{"year":1598,"text":"Abbas I makes Isfahan the capital","lonlat":[51.67,32.65],"detail":"Abbas I became shah in 1587 at a low point: the Ottomans held Tabriz and much of the northwest, and the Uzbeks had overrun half of Khorasan. After making peace with the Ottomans in 1590 and rebuilding his army, he decided to move the capital to a safer, more central place. In 1598 he moved it from Qazvin to Isfahan and rebuilt the city as one of the largest of the 17th century, around the vast Naqsh-e Jahan Square, with new mosques, palaces, bazaars and bridges. Isfahan became the political and cultural heart of Safavid Iran, and the saying went that 'Isfahan is half the world'."},{"year":1603,"text":"Abbas I retakes Tabriz from the Ottomans","lonlat":[46.29,38.08],"detail":"In the peace of 1590 Abbas had been forced to give the Ottomans large territories, including Tabriz, the old Safavid capital. With a reformed army that included musketeers, artillery and ghulams (slave soldiers recruited mainly from the Caucasus), he opened a new war in 1603. His troops retook Tabriz in 1603, then Erivan, Shirvan and other lands. By 1612 the Safavids had regained all the territory ceded in 1590, including Azerbaijan, Georgia and Shirvan. It was the first great Safavid victory over the Ottomans and restored the empire's northwest."},{"year":1622,"text":"Hormuz taken from the Portuguese with English help; Kandahar seized","lonlat":[56.46,27.06],"detail":"Since 1507 the Portuguese had held a fortress on the island of Hormuz, controlling the Persian Gulf trade between India and Europe. In 1622 Abbas I's general Imam Quli Khan besieged it, with ships of the English East India Company, which wanted Persian trade, providing naval support; after a siege from February to April the Portuguese surrendered. In the same year, from May, Safavid forces besieged and captured the fortress city of Kandahar from the Mughal emperor Jahangir. Both gains extended Safavid power: the empire controlled the gulf coast, while Kandahar became its eastern bastion against India."},{"year":1623,"text":"Abbas I recaptures Baghdad (1623–24)","lonlat":[44.37,33.31],"detail":"In a new war with Sultan Murad IV, which Abbas I presented as a defence of Shiism, a Safavid army besieged Baghdad, held by the Ottoman officer Bakr Subashi. It broke into the city on 12 January 1624 and had taken it two days later, and many Sunni inhabitants were massacred. Fighting spread to other cities of Ottoman Iraq, including Mosul, Kirkuk and Basra. Mesopotamia, with its Shia shrine cities such as Najaf and Karbala, was back in Safavid hands for the first time since the 1530s. The Ottomans repeatedly tried to recover Baghdad and finally retook it in 1638 under Sultan Murad IV."},{"year":1639,"text":"Treaty of Zuhab: Baghdad and Mesopotamia ceded to the Ottomans","lonlat":[45.58,34.52],"detail":"After Abbas I died in 1629 the Safavids faced renewed Ottoman offensives, and in 1638 Sultan Murad IV recaptured Baghdad. On 17 May 1639 the two empires made peace at Qasr-e Shirin, in western Iran, in the Treaty of Zuhab. It largely confirmed the Peace of Amasya: the Caucasus was permanently divided, with eastern Armenia, eastern Georgia, Dagestan and Shirvan staying Safavid, and Iran gave up all of Mesopotamia, including Baghdad. The treaty ended almost 150 years of intermittent war, and its line became the rough outline of today's frontier between Iran and Turkey and Iraq."},{"year":1722,"text":"Afghan Hotaki army takes Isfahan; Soltan Hoseyn deposed","lonlat":[51.67,32.65],"detail":"By the early 18th century the Safavid state was weak, with poor leadership and court intrigue. Afghan Ghilzai tribes in Kandahar, led by the Hotaki family, rebelled, and in 1722 Mahmud Hotak marched deep into Iran. On 8 March 1722 his much smaller army routed the Safavid army at Gulnabad, near Isfahan, and then besieged the capital. After months of famine, Shah Soltan Hoseyn capitulated on 23 October 1722 and abdicated in favour of Mahmud. The Afghans would hold much of Iran until 1729, while the Ottomans and Russians seized lands in the west and north."},{"year":1729,"text":"Nader recovers Iran for Tahmasp II after the Afghan occupation","lonlat":null,"detail":"After Isfahan fell, the shah's son Tahmasp escaped and claimed the throne as Tahmasp II, but he had little power. Nader, an Afshar Turkmen warlord from Khorasan and a brilliant general, became the commander of his army and recaptured Mashhad in late 1726. In September 1729 Nader defeated the Afghan ruler Ashraf at Damghan, then decisively in November at Murchakhort, and in December he handed Isfahan back to Tahmasp. The Safavids were restored in name, but real power lay with Nader, who went on to drive the Ottomans and Russians out of the lands they had taken."},{"year":1736,"text":"Nader Shah crowned; the Safavid dynasty ends","lonlat":null,"detail":"Nader steadily took control of the state: in 1732 he forced Tahmasp II to abdicate in favour of his infant son, Abbas III, and ruled as regent while winning wars against the Ottomans. In 1736, after recovering the empire's lost territories, he deposed the child and was crowned shah himself on 8 March 1736, founding the Afsharid dynasty. The Safavids, who had ruled Iran since 1501, lost the throne for good. Under Nader the empire briefly expanded again, invading Mughal India and sacking Delhi in 1739."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Ismail I (r. 1501–1524)","from":1502,"to":1524},{"name":"Tahmasp I","from":1524,"to":1576},{"name":"Ismail II","from":1576,"to":1578},{"name":"Mohammad Khodabanda","from":1578,"to":1587},{"name":"Abbas I the Great","from":1587,"to":1629},{"name":"Safi","from":1629,"to":1642},{"name":"Abbas II","from":1642,"to":1666},{"name":"Suleiman I","from":1666,"to":1694},{"name":"Soltan Hoseyn","from":1694,"to":1722},{"name":"Tahmasp II","from":1722,"to":1732},{"name":"Abbas III","from":1732,"to":1736}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Safavid Iran","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_Iran"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Safavid dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Ismail I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abbas the Great","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_the_Great"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Zuhab","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Zuhab"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Chaldiran","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaldiran"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Isfahan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Isfahan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nader Shah","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nader_Shah"}]},{"id":"mughal-empire","name":"Mughal Empire","profile":"mughal-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Mughal Empire","from":1529,"to":1857}],"span":[1529,1857],"summary":"Babur, a Timurid prince from Kabul, defeated the Delhi sultan at Panipat in 1526; his son Humayun lost the realm to Sher Shah Suri and won it back in 1555. Akbar and his successors built one of the largest states in Indian history, which reached its widest extent under Aurangzeb (d. 1707) after the conquest of the Deccan sultanates. It then fragmented under Maratha, Persian, Afghan and British pressure, and the British deposed the last emperor after the 1857 rebellion.","events":[{"year":1540,"text":"Sher Shah Suri drives Humayun out of India","lonlat":[79.92,27.06],"detail":"Babur had founded the Mughal Empire in 1526, but his son Humayun faced a powerful rival in Sher Shah Suri, an Afghan commander who had built up power in Bihar and Bengal. Sher Shah crushed Humayun's army at Chausa on 26 June 1539, and Humayun barely escaped by swimming the Ganges. On 17 May 1540 the two met again at Kannauj (Bilgram), and the Mughals were routed. Humayun fled through Lahore and Sindh and eventually took refuge at the court of the Safavid Shah Tahmasp I in Persia. Sher Shah founded the Sur Empire, ruling from Delhi, and Mughal rule in India collapsed for 15 years."},{"year":1555,"text":"Humayun returns from Persia and retakes Delhi","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"After Sher Shah's son Islam Shah died in 1554, the Sur Empire broke apart among quarrelling rivals. Humayun, who had spent years in exile in Persia and had won back Kandahar and Kabul with Safavid help, saw his chance and invaded the Punjab with his general Bairam Khan. On 22 June 1555 his army decisively defeated Sikandar Shah Suri at Sirhind, and on 23 July 1555 Humayun sat once again on the throne in Delhi. The Mughal Empire was restored, though Humayun died only six months later, in January 1556, leaving his 13-year-old son Akbar to rebuild it."},{"year":1556,"text":"Akbar's army wins the Second Battle of Panipat","lonlat":[76.97,29.39],"detail":"Soon after Humayun's death, Hemu (Hemchandra), a Hindu general of the Sur dynasty, defeated the Mughals at Delhi, took Delhi and Agra, and crowned himself king as Vikramaditya. Akbar, aged 13, and his guardian Bairam Khan marched to take them back. On 5 November 1556 the armies met at Panipat, near the site of Babur's victory 30 years earlier. Hemu seemed close to winning when an arrow struck him in the eye; he fell unconscious, his army fled, and he was captured and beheaded. The victory recovered Delhi and Agra and secured Akbar's throne, starting nearly 50 years of Mughal expansion."},{"year":1561,"text":"Malwa annexed","lonlat":[75.4,22.36],"detail":"Malwa, a rich plateau in central India, was ruled by Baz Bahadur, son of a former Sur governor, who had declared himself independent in 1555. Malwa controlled key routes between northern India, Gujarat and the Deccan. In 1561 Akbar sent an army under Adham Khan and Pir Muhammad Khan, which defeated Baz Bahadur at the Battle of Sarangpur on 29 March 1561. Baz Bahadur fled, and Mughal rule over Malwa was completed by 1562, when it became a Mughal province (subah). The conquest carried the empire's frontier south into central India, towards Gujarat and the Deccan sultanates."},{"year":1568,"text":"Chittorgarh falls after a long siege","lonlat":[74.64,24.89],"detail":"The Sisodia rulers of Mewar were the leading Rajput dynasty still refusing to accept Mughal overlordship, and their fortress of Chittorgarh, on a high rocky plateau, was one of the strongest in India. Akbar besieged it with a large army and artillery from 23 October 1567, while Rana Udai Singh withdrew to the hills and left the fort under Jaimal Rathore. After four months of mining and assaults, Jaimal was killed by a musket shot on 22 February 1568, and the fort fell the next day; many defenders and thousands of non-combatants were killed. The fall of Chittor led most other Rajput states to accept Mughal rule."},{"year":1573,"text":"Conquest of Gujarat completed","lonlat":[72.58,23.02],"detail":"Gujarat, on India's west coast, had rich farmland, a large textile industry and the busiest seaports in India, and it sheltered rebels against Akbar. In 1572 Akbar occupied Ahmedabad, the capital, and was proclaimed ruler of Gujarat, and by 1573 he had driven out the rebel Mirzas. The last sultan, Muzaffar Shah III, was taken prisoner to Agra, and Gujarat became a Mughal province in 1573. The conquest gave the empire its first outlet to the Arabian Sea, with ports such as Surat, and a link to the trade of Asia, Africa and Europe."},{"year":1576,"text":"Victory at Rajmahal secures Bengal","lonlat":[87.83,25.05],"detail":"Bengal, the rich delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, was ruled by the Afghan Karrani dynasty, whose last sultan, Daud Khan, had defied Akbar. Mughal armies under Khan Jahan and Todar Mal defeated Daud's forces at Rajmahal, on the Ganges at the gateway to Bengal, on 12 July 1576. Daud was captured and executed, and the Bengal Sultanate came to an end. Bengal became a Mughal province (subah), although Afghan and local chiefs went on resisting for years. Its wealth made it one of the empire's most valuable provinces, and it extended Mughal rule east to the Bay of Bengal."},{"year":1585,"text":"Kabul formally annexed","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"detail":"Kabul, the old base of Babur and Humayun, had been ruled almost independently by Akbar's half-brother, Mirza Muhammad Hakim, who more than once tried to seize the Mughal throne. In the early 1580s Akbar's forces occupied Kabul and forced his brother into submission. When Muhammad Hakim died on 10 October 1585, Akbar took direct control, and Kabul was formally made a province of the empire. Akbar then moved his court to Lahore and spent the next thirteen years in the northwest. The annexation secured the empire's frontier in Afghanistan and its routes to Central Asia, and pushed its border towards the Hindu Kush."},{"year":1601,"text":"Asirgarh taken after Ahmadnagar (1600): Mughals enter the Deccan","lonlat":[76.29,21.47],"detail":"With northern India secured, Akbar turned south against the Deccan sultanates, which had refused to submit. After earlier campaigns, his forces took the fortress of Ahmadnagar in August 1600, defended earlier by Chand Bibi. Akbar then besieged Asirgarh, a hill fortress called the 'key to the Deccan', held by Miran Bahadur Shah of Khandesh, and took it on 17 January 1601, by some accounts through trickery rather than assault. Akbar created the provinces of Ahmadnagar, Berar and Khandesh. The Mughals now had a firm foothold in the Deccan, beginning a southward push that lasted a century."},{"year":1687,"text":"Aurangzeb besieges and takes Golconda; Deccan sultanates absorbed","lonlat":[78.4,17.38],"detail":"Aurangzeb, emperor from 1658, spent the last decades of his reign in the Deccan, fighting the Marathas and the sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda. After conquering Bijapur in 1686, he personally besieged Golconda, the great fortress of the Qutb Shahi kings, from 28 January 1687. The siege dragged on for about eight months amid famine, monsoon floods and epidemic, until a defector let Mughal troops in by a back entrance and the main gate was opened on 22 September. The last king, Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, was imprisoned. Golconda became the province of Hyderabad, bringing almost all of southern India under Mughal rule."},{"year":1707,"text":"Aurangzeb dies; the empire is at its greatest extent","lonlat":[74.75,19.1],"detail":"Aurangzeb died on 3 March 1707, aged 88, at Bhingar in the Deccan, where he had spent his last years campaigning. Under his rule the Mughal Empire had reached its greatest extent, spanning nearly the entire Indian subcontinent. But the long wars against the Marathas had drained the treasury, and his strict policies had alienated many Hindu, Sikh and Rajput subjects. His sons fought a war of succession, and the emperors who followed were weak. Within a few decades governors in Bengal, Awadh and Hyderabad became independent in all but name, and the Marathas took over large parts of the empire."},{"year":1739,"text":"Nader Shah of Persia sacks Delhi","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"Nader Shah, the new ruler of Iran, invaded northern India in 1738, crossing the Indus at Attock. On 24 February 1739 his army routed the Mughals at Karnal, north of Delhi, and Emperor Muhammad Shah surrendered. The two entered Delhi together, but after riots on the night of 21 March in which some 3,000 Persian soldiers were killed, Nader ordered a massacre, and the city was sacked for several days. He carried off the Mughal treasury, the jewelled Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor diamond, and annexed all Mughal lands west of the Indus. The raid exposed the empire's weakness and stripped it of much of its wealth."},{"year":1757,"text":"British East India Company wins at Plassey and takes control of Bengal","lonlat":[88.25,23.8],"detail":"In 1756 Siraj ud-Daulah, the young Nawab of Bengal, a governor who was now in practice independent of the Mughal emperor, captured the British East India Company's base at Calcutta. A Company force under Robert Clive retook it and then plotted with Siraj's commander, Mir Jafar, and wealthy bankers. On 23 June 1757, at Plassey, Clive's army of about 3,000 faced a Bengal army of around 50,000, but Mir Jafar's troops held back, and Siraj's army broke. Mir Jafar became nawab as a British puppet. Bengal, the richest Mughal province, came under the Company's control, the start of British rule in India."},{"year":1857,"text":"Indian Rebellion; Bahadur Shah II deposed after the siege of Delhi","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"On 10 May 1857 Indian soldiers (sepoys) of the East India Company mutinied at Meerut and marched to Delhi, where they proclaimed the 81-year-old Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah II (Zafar), Emperor of Hindustan. The revolt spread across northern and central India. After a siege lasting from June to September 1857, British forces stormed Delhi; Bahadur Shah was captured at Humayun's Tomb on 20 September and later exiled to Rangoon in Burma, where he died in 1862. The Mughal dynasty, which had ruled since 1526, came to an end, and in 1858 the British Crown took over direct rule of India."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Babur (r. 1526–1530)","from":1529,"to":1530},{"name":"Humayun","from":1530,"to":1540},{"name":"Suri interregnum (Sher Shah Suri and heirs)","from":1540,"to":1555},{"name":"Humayun (restored)","from":1555,"to":1556},{"name":"Akbar","from":1556,"to":1605},{"name":"Jahangir","from":1605,"to":1627},{"name":"Shah Jahan","from":1628,"to":1658},{"name":"Aurangzeb","from":1658,"to":1707},{"name":"Bahadur Shah I","from":1707,"to":1712},{"name":"Farrukhsiyar","from":1713,"to":1719},{"name":"Muhammad Shah","from":1719,"to":1748},{"name":"Ahmad Shah Bahadur","from":1748,"to":1754},{"name":"Alamgir II","from":1754,"to":1759},{"name":"Shah Alam II","from":1760,"to":1806},{"name":"Akbar Shah II","from":1806,"to":1837},{"name":"Bahadur Shah II","from":1837,"to":1857}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Mughal Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Mughal emperors","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mughal_emperors"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Akbar","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aurangzeb","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurangzeb"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Second Battle of Panipat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Panipat"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Golconda","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Golconda"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Nader Shah's invasion of India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nader_Shah%27s_invasion_of_India"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Plassey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey"}]},{"id":"dutch-empire","name":"Dutch Colonial Empire","profile":"dutch-empire","chain":[{"clio":"(Dutch Republic)","from":1582,"to":1795},{"clio":"(Batavian Republic)","from":1796,"to":1810},{"clio":"(Netherlands)","from":1811,"to":1975}],"span":[1582,1975],"summary":"The newly independent Dutch Republic built a commercial empire through the East India Company (VOC, 1602) and West India Company (1621), seizing Portuguese posts from Malacca to Ceylon and founding Batavia, New Amsterdam and the Cape Colony; it was at its height around 1652. Wars with England and France eroded it, but in the 19th century the Netherlands turned its foothold in the East Indies into a vast colony, lost to Japanese occupation in 1942 and to Indonesian independence in 1945–1949.","events":[{"year":1602,"text":"Dutch East India Company (VOC) founded","lonlat":[4.9,52.37],"detail":"In the 1590s, while still fighting for independence from Spain, Dutch merchants began sending fleets to the East Indies for pepper and spices, and several rival companies competed for the trade. To end the competition and take on Portugal and England, the States General merged them on 20 March 1602 into the United East India Company (VOC), with a 21-year monopoly on Dutch trade in Asia. It was one of the world's first joint-stock companies, whose shares any Dutch citizen could buy and trade. The VOC could build forts, keep armies and make treaties, and it became the main engine of the Dutch empire in Asia."},{"year":1619,"text":"Coen takes Jakarta and refounds it as Batavia","lonlat":[106.81,-6.13],"detail":"The VOC needed a permanent base in Asia to control the spice trade. In 1619 Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen captured the Javanese port of Jayakarta and built a new fortified town on its ruins, which the company named Batavia. Batavia, on the north coast of Java, became the centre of the VOC's trading network across Asia for nearly two centuries. Coen was ruthless: in 1621 he led the conquest of the Banda Islands, killing or enslaving much of the population to secure a monopoly on nutmeg. Batavia, today's Jakarta, remained the capital of the Dutch East Indies until 1942."},{"year":1625,"text":"New Amsterdam founded in New Netherland","lonlat":[-74.01,40.7],"detail":"The Dutch also traded in North America, where the Dutch West India Company founded the colony of New Netherland to run the fur trade along the Hudson River. In 1624–25 it built Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan; the settlement around it, New Amsterdam, became the colony's capital in 1625. It grew slowly, to about 2,500 people by 1664. That year the English seized it and renamed it New York, and after the Second Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch kept Suriname instead, ending their mainland colony in North America."},{"year":1630,"text":"West India Company occupies Pernambuco: Dutch Brazil (to 1654)","lonlat":[-34.88,-8.05],"detail":"The Dutch West India Company, founded in 1621, aimed to attack the Atlantic empire of Spain and Portugal, then united under one king. In February 1630 its forces captured Olinda and Recife in Pernambuco, the heart of Brazil's sugar industry. Under Governor John Maurice of Nassau (1637–43) Dutch Brazil, with its capital at Recife, controlled almost half of Brazil's settled area, and artists and scientists recorded the land. But Portuguese settlers rose against Dutch rule and won battles at Guararapes in 1648 and 1649, and the Dutch surrendered Recife on 28 January 1654. In 1661 the Netherlands formally gave up Brazil."},{"year":1641,"text":"Malacca taken from the Portuguese","lonlat":[102.25,2.19],"detail":"After Portugal broke away from Spain in 1640, it remained at war with the Dutch in Asia. The VOC, allied with the Sultanate of Johor, besieged Portuguese Malacca from August 1640. After more than five months of blockade, starvation and disease, the garrison surrendered on 14 January 1641. Malacca, which controlled the strait linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, became a Dutch possession for over 150 years. Its fall broke Portuguese power in the region and left the VOC the leading European power in the East Indies."},{"year":1652,"text":"Cape Colony founded; the Dutch empire at its height","lonlat":[18.42,-33.92],"detail":"VOC ships sailing between Europe and Asia needed a place to take on fresh water, meat and vegetables on the long voyage. In 1652 a VOC expedition led by Jan van Riebeeck landed at Table Bay and built a fort, founding a supply station at the Cape of Good Hope. Much to the dismay of the company's shareholders, the Cape soon grew into a settler colony as farmers moved inland. By the mid-17th century the Dutch held trading posts and colonies from the Americas and Africa to India, Ceylon and the East Indies, the height of their overseas empire."},{"year":1658,"text":"Conquest of Portuguese Ceylon completed","lonlat":[79.86,6.93],"detail":"The coasts of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), with their valuable trade, were held by the Portuguese. The king of Kandy, in the interior, invited the Dutch to help drive them out. The VOC took Negombo and Galle in 1640, and after a long war captured Colombo in 1656; by 1658 it had taken the last Portuguese strongholds. Colombo became the capital of Dutch Ceylon. The Dutch controlled most of the island's coasts but never conquered the Kingdom of Kandy, and Dutch Ceylon came to an end in 1796 when the British took over."},{"year":1795,"text":"French-backed Batavian Republic; Britain occupies the Cape","lonlat":[18.42,-33.92],"detail":"In January 1795 French revolutionary armies overran the Dutch Republic, and Dutch revolutionaries, with French support, proclaimed the Batavian Republic on 19 January, ending the rule of the stadtholder, William V. As the Netherlands was now a French ally, Britain began seizing Dutch colonies, and in 1795 British forces occupied the Cape of Good Hope. Other Dutch posts in Asia soon followed. The VOC, already in deep debt, was nationalised and dissolved at the end of 1799. The Dutch empire overseas was falling into British hands."},{"year":1810,"text":"Kingdom of Holland annexed to Napoleon's French Empire (to 1813)","lonlat":[4.9,52.37],"detail":"In 1806 Napoleon turned the Batavian Republic into the Kingdom of Holland and made his brother Louis Bonaparte king. Louis tried to protect Dutch interests and did not strictly enforce Napoleon's Continental System against British trade, so smuggling continued. Losing patience, Napoleon sent troops, who took Amsterdam in early July 1810; Louis abdicated on 1 July, and on 9 July 1810 the kingdom was annexed to the French Empire. The Netherlands ceased to exist as a separate state until 1813, and with no Dutch government to defend them, the remaining Dutch colonies were exposed to British attack."},{"year":1814,"text":"Anglo-Dutch Treaty returns the East Indies; the Cape stays British","lonlat":[-0.13,51.51],"detail":"After Napoleon's defeat, Britain wanted a strong Netherlands as a buffer against France. By the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, signed in London on 13 August, Britain returned most of the Dutch colonies it had occupied, including the Dutch East Indies, Malacca, Suriname and the Dutch Caribbean islands. In return the Dutch ceded the Cape Colony and parts of Guiana (later British Guiana) to Britain. The treaty restored the East Indies, the heart of the Dutch empire, but the Cape stayed British, ending Dutch rule in southern Africa."},{"year":1873,"text":"Aceh War begins in northern Sumatra (to 1904)","lonlat":[95.32,5.55],"detail":"Aceh, a strong independent sultanate at the northern tip of Sumatra, controlled the approaches to the Strait of Malacca and traded with other powers. In 1873 the Dutch declared war; the first expedition, sent in March, failed after its commander, General Köhler, was killed, and a second, larger force followed. Acehnese resistance, led by sultans, nobles such as Teuku Umar and Cut Nyak Dhien, and Islamic scholars, turned into a long guerrilla war. Some 37,000 soldiers on the Dutch side and 60,000–70,000 Acehnese died, many from cholera. By 1904 Aceh was conquered, completing Dutch rule over almost all of today's Indonesia."},{"year":1942,"text":"Japan conquers the Dutch East Indies; Dutch surrender in March","lonlat":[107.67,-6.53],"detail":"The Dutch East Indies were one of the world's leading oil exporters, which made them a prime target for Japan once war began with the Western powers in December 1941. Japanese forces invaded from January 1942, and destroyed much of the Allied fleet; the Dutch Admiral Karel Doorman was killed in the Battle of the Java Sea. Japanese troops landed on Java, and the campaign ended with the Allied surrender on 9 March 1942, with more than 100,000 Allied soldiers captured. The Japanese occupation of more than three years ended Dutch rule in practice and fuelled the movement for Indonesian independence."},{"year":1949,"text":"Sovereignty transferred to Indonesia (independence proclaimed 1945)","lonlat":[106.81,-6.13],"detail":"Two days after Japan surrendered, on 17 August 1945, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed Indonesia's independence. The Netherlands tried to restore its rule by force, but after a Dutch military offensive in 1948–49 the UN Security Council demanded that it stop and restore the republican government. At a Round Table Conference in The Hague, held from August to November 1949, the Dutch agreed to hand over sovereignty, and on 27 December 1949 power passed to the United States of Indonesia. The Netherlands lost its largest and richest colony, keeping only western New Guinea in Asia."},{"year":1962,"text":"Dutch New Guinea handed to UN administration","lonlat":[140.72,-2.53],"detail":"The Netherlands had kept western New Guinea in 1949, but Indonesia claimed it and threatened to take it by force. With the United States hosting talks, the two sides signed the New York Agreement at the United Nations on 15 August 1962. The territory was handed to a temporary UN administration, which handed it to Indonesia on 1 May 1963, with a promise of an 'act of free choice' by the inhabitants before 1969. The transfer ended Dutch rule in Asia after more than three and a half centuries, leaving only Suriname and the Caribbean islands."},{"year":1975,"text":"Suriname becomes independent","lonlat":[-55.2,5.85],"detail":"Suriname, on the northern coast of South America, had been a Dutch colony since 1667, when the Dutch kept it in exchange for New Amsterdam, and its plantations were worked by enslaved Africans until 1863. In 1954 it became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. A left-wing Dutch government took the initiative for full independence, which was granted after negotiations on 25 November 1975, followed by years of Dutch aid. With Suriname gone, only the small Caribbean islands remained of the Dutch empire."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Maurice of Orange (stadtholder)","from":1585,"to":1625},{"name":"Frederick Henry (stadtholder)","from":1625,"to":1647},{"name":"William II (stadtholder)","from":1647,"to":1650},{"name":"First Stadtholderless Period (Johan de Witt)","from":1650,"to":1672},{"name":"William III (stadtholder)","from":1672,"to":1702},{"name":"Second Stadtholderless Period","from":1702,"to":1747},{"name":"William IV (stadtholder)","from":1747,"to":1751},{"name":"William V (stadtholder)","from":1751,"to":1795},{"name":"Batavian Republic","from":1795,"to":1806},{"name":"Louis Bonaparte (Kingdom of Holland)","from":1806,"to":1810},{"name":"French annexation","from":1810,"to":1813},{"name":"William I","from":1815,"to":1840},{"name":"William II","from":1840,"to":1849},{"name":"William III","from":1849,"to":1890},{"name":"Wilhelmina","from":1890,"to":1948},{"name":"Juliana","from":1948,"to":1975}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Stadtholder","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtholder"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of monarchs of the Netherlands","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_the_Netherlands"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch East Indies campaign","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies_campaign"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch%E2%80%93Indonesian_Round_Table_Conference"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch East India Company","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dutch Brazil","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Brazil"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Aceh War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceh_War"}]},{"id":"british-empire","name":"British Empire","profile":"british-empire","chain":[{"clio":"English Colonial Empire","from":1609,"to":1705},{"clio":"(British Empire)","from":1706,"to":1997}],"span":[1609,1997],"summary":"England's East India Company (1600) and its first American colonies grew into a worldwide empire of trading posts, settler colonies and conquests; the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783 was offset by India, Australia, the Cape and footholds across Asia. Victory in the First World War added League of Nations mandates and the empire reached its largest extent around 1921, but the Dominions became self-governing, India won independence in 1947, and most remaining colonies followed by the 1960s; the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 is often taken as its end.","events":[{"year":1655,"text":"England takes Jamaica from Spain","lonlat":[-76.79,18.0],"detail":"Oliver Cromwell, ruling England after the civil wars, planned a 'Western Design' to break Spanish power in the Caribbean and win new colonies. In April 1655 an English fleet under William Penn landed thousands of soldiers under Robert Venables near Santo Domingo on Hispaniola, but the attack failed with heavy losses. To salvage the expedition, they attacked poorly defended Spanish Jamaica and captured it in May 1655, though escaped slaves known as Maroons kept up resistance in the interior. Spain formally ceded the island in 1670. Jamaica became one of England's most valuable Caribbean colonies, and remained British until independence in 1962."},{"year":1707,"text":"Acts of Union create the Kingdom of Great Britain","lonlat":[-0.13,51.51],"detail":"England and Scotland had shared a monarch since 1603 but kept separate parliaments. Scotland's attempt to found its own colony at Darien in Central America in the late 1690s ended in disaster, costing a large share of Scottish capital and helping persuade its leaders to accept union. Both parliaments passed Acts of Union, and on 1 May 1707 the two kingdoms became a single state, the Kingdom of Great Britain, with Queen Anne as its sovereign and one parliament at Westminster. Scots gained full access to English trade and colonies, and from then on the empire was British rather than English."},{"year":1713,"text":"Treaty of Utrecht: Gibraltar, Menorca, Newfoundland and Acadia gained","lonlat":[-5.35,36.14],"detail":"The War of the Spanish Succession was fought largely to stop France and Spain uniting under one Bourbon king. In the Peace of Utrecht, signed in 1713, Britain did well: Spain ceded the strategic ports of Gibraltar and Menorca, and France ceded Nova Scotia (Acadia), its claims to Newfoundland, lands around Hudson Bay and its half of Saint Kitts. Britain also won the Asiento, the contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spain's American colonies. The treaty made Britain the leading commercial power in Europe and strengthened its hold on North America and the Mediterranean."},{"year":1757,"text":"East India Company victory at Plassey brings Bengal under its control","lonlat":[88.25,23.8],"detail":"The British East India Company traded in Bengal, India's richest province, whose Nawab, Siraj ud-Daulah, had seized its base at Calcutta in 1756. A Company force under Robert Clive retook the city and then plotted with the Nawab's commander, Mir Jafar. On 23 June 1757 at Plassey, Clive's army of about 3,000 faced a Bengal army of around 50,000, but Mir Jafar's troops held back and the Nawab's army broke. Mir Jafar was made nawab as a Company puppet. Bengal came under the Company's de facto control, the beginning of British rule in India."},{"year":1763,"text":"Treaty of Paris ends the Seven Years' War with large gains","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Seven Years' War (1756–63) was a global struggle between Britain and France, fought in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, West Africa and India. Britain won a string of victories and captured Canada, French islands in the Caribbean, French trading posts in India and Spanish Havana and Manila. By the Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 February 1763, Britain gave back some conquests but gained much of France's possessions in North America, including Canada, and Spain ceded Florida. The treaty marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe, and Britain now held all of eastern North America."},{"year":1783,"text":"Peace of Paris recognises the independence of the United States","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"detail":"Disputes over taxation and self-government led thirteen British colonies in North America to rebel in 1775 and declare independence in 1776. With help from France, the Americans forced a British army to surrender at Yorktown in 1781, and the British government fell. Peace talks began in Paris in 1782, and on 3 September 1783 the Treaty of Paris recognised the independence of the United States, with land stretching west to the Mississippi River. Britain lost its most populous colonies, but kept Canada, and turned its attention increasingly to Asia, Africa and the Pacific."},{"year":1788,"text":"First Fleet founds a penal colony at Sydney","lonlat":[151.21,-33.86],"detail":"After losing the American colonies, Britain needed somewhere new to send convicts, and the naturalist Joseph Banks, who had sailed with James Cook along Australia's east coast in 1770, urged a colony at Botany Bay. The First Fleet of eleven ships under Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 with over 1,400 convicts, marines, sailors and officials. It reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788, but Phillip chose Port Jackson to the north instead, arriving there on 26 January 1788 and founding a settlement at Sydney Cove. The penal colony of New South Wales was the start of British settlement in Australia, which spread across the continent and devastated its Aboriginal peoples."},{"year":1842,"text":"Treaty of Nanking: Hong Kong Island ceded by China","lonlat":[114.17,22.28],"detail":"British merchants smuggled opium from India into China to pay for tea, and when the Qing government enforced its ban by seizing British merchants' opium stocks in 1839, Britain went to war. British warships and troops defeated Qing forces along the coast and up the Yangtze, and threatened Nanjing. On 29 August 1842, aboard HMS Cornwallis, China signed the Treaty of Nanking: it paid an indemnity, opened five treaty ports to British trade, and ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity. Hong Kong became a key British base and trading port in East Asia, and remained British until 1997."},{"year":1858,"text":"After the 1857 rebellion, the Crown takes direct rule of India","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of the East India Company's Indian soldiers and spread across northern India before British forces crushed it. The British government decided the Company could no longer be trusted to rule. The Government of India Act, passed on 2 August 1858, abolished the Company's rule and transferred its territories, armies and powers to the Crown, with a Secretary of State for India in London and a viceroy in India. Queen Victoria's rule over India, the British Raj, lasted until 1947 and made India the centrepiece of the empire."},{"year":1882,"text":"British occupation of Egypt","lonlat":[31.24,30.04],"detail":"Egypt was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, but its ruler, the Khedive, owed huge debts to European banks, and the Suez Canal, opened in 1869, was Britain's main route to India. In 1881 an army officer, Ahmed 'Urabi, led a nationalist movement that took power. In July 1882 the British fleet bombarded Alexandria, and an army of over 40,000 under Garnet Wolseley landed in the Suez Canal zone and crushed 'Urabi's forces at Tel el-Kebir on 13 September. Britain occupied Egypt, ruling it in practice for decades while leaving the Khedive in place."},{"year":1921,"text":"Empire at its greatest extent, enlarged by League of Nations mandates","lonlat":null,"detail":"After the First World War the colonies of Germany and lands of the Ottoman Empire were shared out among the victors as League of Nations mandates. Britain gained control of Palestine, Transjordan, Iraq, Tanganyika and parts of Cameroon and Togoland, while the Dominions took others. By 1920 the British Empire covered about 35.5 million km², roughly a quarter of the world's land, and in 1913 it had ruled some 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world's population. It was the largest empire in history, though nationalist movements in Ireland, India and Egypt were already challenging it."},{"year":1931,"text":"Statute of Westminster makes the Dominions self-governing","lonlat":[-0.13,51.51],"detail":"The Dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and the Irish Free State had long governed themselves at home, and their sacrifices in the First World War strengthened demands for equal status. At the Imperial Conference of 1926 the Balfour Declaration described Britain and the Dominions as equal, autonomous communities. The Statute of Westminster, passed on 11 December 1931, put this into law, removing nearly all of the British Parliament's power to legislate for the Dominions. The Dominions became independent states linked by loyalty to the Crown, and the empire began to turn into the Commonwealth."},{"year":1947,"text":"India and Pakistan become independent on 15 August","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"The Indian independence movement, led by the Indian National Congress and figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, had grown in strength, and after the Second World War Britain could no longer hold India. With the Muslim League demanding a separate state, British India was divided along religious lines. At midnight on 14–15 August 1947 the independent dominions of India and Pakistan came into existence. Partition displaced between 12 and 20 million people, and somewhere between 200,000 and 2 million died in the violence. The loss of India, the empire's largest possession, began the rapid end of British rule in Asia and Africa."},{"year":1956,"text":"Suez Crisis exposes Britain's decline as a world power","lonlat":[32.55,29.97],"detail":"In July 1956 Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, still largely controlled by British and French shareholders. France, and then Britain, secretly agreed with Israel that it would invade Egypt, giving them a pretext to step in, as later revealed in the Protocol of Sèvres. Israel attacked on 29 October, and after issuing an ultimatum, Britain and France joined in on 31 October, later landing troops at Port Said. Under heavy pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations, they quickly halted and withdrew. The crisis showed that Britain could no longer act as a great power without American support, and it sped up decolonisation."},{"year":1997,"text":"Hong Kong handed over to China","lonlat":[114.17,22.28],"detail":"Hong Kong Island had been ceded to Britain in 1842 and Kowloon in 1860, but most of the territory, the New Territories, was leased from China in 1898 for 99 years. With the lease due to expire, Britain and China signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, agreeing that the whole colony would return to China under the principle of 'one country, two systems'. At midnight on 1 July 1997 sovereignty passed to the People's Republic of China, in a ceremony attended by Prince Charles and the last governor, Chris Patten. Although fourteen small overseas territories remain British, the handover symbolised for many the end of the British Empire."}],"reigns":[{"name":"James I (r. 1603–1625)","from":1609,"to":1625},{"name":"Charles I","from":1625,"to":1649},{"name":"Commonwealth and Protectorate","from":1649,"to":1660},{"name":"Charles II","from":1660,"to":1685},{"name":"James II","from":1685,"to":1688},{"name":"William III (with Mary II to 1694)","from":1689,"to":1702},{"name":"Anne","from":1702,"to":1714},{"name":"George I","from":1714,"to":1727},{"name":"George II","from":1727,"to":1760},{"name":"George III","from":1760,"to":1820},{"name":"George IV","from":1820,"to":1830},{"name":"William IV","from":1830,"to":1837},{"name":"Victoria","from":1837,"to":1901},{"name":"Edward VII","from":1901,"to":1910},{"name":"George V","from":1910,"to":1936},{"name":"George VI (after Edward VIII, 1936)","from":1936,"to":1952},{"name":"Elizabeth II (r. 1952–2022)","from":1952,"to":1997}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: British Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of English monarchs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of British monarchs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_monarchs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Nanking","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Plassey","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Paris (1763)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281763%29"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Partition of India","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Suez Crisis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis"}]},{"id":"qing-dynasty","name":"Qing China","profile":"qing-dynasty","chain":[{"clio":"Later Jin Dynasty","from":1619,"to":1644},{"clio":"Qing Dynasty","from":1645,"to":1911}],"span":[1619,1911],"summary":"Nurhaci united the Jurchen (Manchu) tribes as the Later Jin in 1616, and his son Hong Taiji renamed the state Qing in 1636; in 1644 Manchu armies entered Beijing and went on to conquer all of Ming China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang. At its peak around 1790 the Qing ruled roughly 14.7 million km², but the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, unequal treaties and defeat by Japan weakened it, and the 1911 revolution brought the abdication of the last emperor in 1912.","events":[{"year":1619,"text":"Manchu victory over the Ming at Sarhu","lonlat":[124.25,41.85],"detail":"The Qing began as the Later Jin, a state founded in 1616 by Nurhaci, a Jurchen chieftain who had united most Jurchen tribes and organised them into the Eight Banners. In 1618 he declared war on the Ming, and in spring 1619 the Ming sent a large army, with Korean (Joseon) allies, in four columns to destroy his capital at Hetu Ala. Nurhaci concentrated his cavalry and defeated the columns one by one around Sarhu, in today's Liaoning, over a few days. The victory gave the Jurchens the initiative in the northeast, and within a few years they took Shenyang and most of Liaodong."},{"year":1636,"text":"Hong Taiji renames his state the Great Qing","lonlat":[123.43,41.8],"detail":"Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji, who took power in 1626, conquered Inner Mongolia and the rest of Manchuria and invaded Korea, which became a Qing tributary. In 1635 he renamed his people from Jurchen to 'Manchu', and in 1636 he proclaimed himself emperor and changed the name of his dynasty from 'Great Jin' to 'Great Qing'. The Qing now claimed to rule as a rival to the Ming, with its capital at Mukden (Shenyang), and Hong Taiji prepared the way for the conquest of China."},{"year":1644,"text":"Qing and Wu Sangui defeat Li Zicheng at Shanhai Pass; Beijing taken","lonlat":[116.4,39.9],"detail":"In April 1644 the rebel Li Zicheng captured Beijing and the last Ming emperor killed himself. The Ming general Wu Sangui, guarding the Great Wall at Shanhai Pass, turned to the Manchus for help. On 27 May 1644 Li's army attacked the pass, and the combined forces of Wu Sangui and the Qing regent Dorgon routed it. Li abandoned Beijing, and the Qing entered the city on 6 June; the young Shunzhi Emperor was enthroned there as ruler of China. The battle opened China proper to the Manchus, who spent the next two decades conquering the Ming lands to the south."},{"year":1681,"text":"Revolt of the Three Feudatories crushed after eight years","lonlat":null,"detail":"To reward Wu Sangui and two other Chinese generals who had helped conquer the south, the Qing gave them vast hereditary fiefs in Yunnan, Guangdong and Fujian. By the 1670s these 'Three Feudatories' were almost independent and very costly. When the Kangxi Emperor moved to abolish them in 1673, Wu Sangui rebelled, and the other two feudatories and the Zheng regime on Taiwan joined him, taking much of southern China. The Qing gradually won back the provinces, and the revolt was crushed in 1681. Kangxi's victory secured Qing control over all of southern China."},{"year":1683,"text":"Zheng regime on Taiwan surrenders to the Qing","lonlat":[120.21,22.99],"detail":"After the Ming fell, the loyalist commander Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) drove the Dutch from Taiwan in 1662 and founded the Kingdom of Tungning there, which kept fighting the Qing. In July 1683 the Qing admiral Shi Lang attacked with a large fleet and destroyed the Zheng navy at the Battle of Penghu, killing or capturing thousands of men. With its fleet gone, the Zheng government under the young Zheng Keshuang surrendered on 5 September 1683. Taiwan was brought into the Qing empire for the first time, ending the last organised Ming loyalist resistance."},{"year":1689,"text":"Treaty of Nerchinsk with Russia","lonlat":[116.58,51.98],"detail":"As Russian explorers and Cossacks pushed into the Amur River valley, they clashed with the Qing, who besieged the Russian fort at Albazin in 1685–86. In 1689 envoys of the Kangxi Emperor and the Russian tsars met at Nerchinsk and, using Latin with Jesuit priests as interpreters, signed the first formal treaty China ever made with a Western power. Russia gave up the Amur basin, and the border was set along the Argun River and the Stanovoy Mountains, while Russia gained trading rights. The treaty secured the Qing's northern frontier in Manchuria for about 170 years."},{"year":1759,"text":"Conquest of Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang) completed","lonlat":[75.99,39.47],"detail":"For decades the Dzungar Khanate, the last great nomadic empire of the Mongol Oirats, had fought the Qing for control of Mongolia, Tibet and Central Asia. In the 1750s, amid a Dzungar succession crisis, the Qianlong Emperor sent armies that destroyed the khanate; a large part of the Dzungar population died in the slaughter and epidemics that followed, now described as a genocide. Qing forces then took the Tarim Basin, and by 1759 the conquest was complete. The new region became known as Xinjiang ('new frontier'), adding a vast territory in Central Asia to the empire."},{"year":1790,"text":"c. 1790: Qing at its greatest extent, about 14.7 million km²","lonlat":null,"detail":"Under the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors, the Qing fought a long series of wars, including Qianlong's 'Ten Great Campaigns', on its Inner Asian and southern frontiers. By about 1790 the empire stretched from Manchuria and Mongolia to Xinjiang and Tibet, about twice the size of the Ming state, and by scholarly estimates covered some 14.7 million km². It was the largest territory of any Chinese dynasty and laid the territorial base of modern China. In peace its population rose to around 400 million, but taxes stayed low and fixed, and costly wars and corruption soon strained the state."},{"year":1842,"text":"Treaty of Nanking ends the First Opium War; Hong Kong Island ceded","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"detail":"British merchants smuggled opium from India into China to pay for tea, and when the Qing official Lin Zexu enforced the ban by seizing their opium stocks in 1839, Britain went to war. British warships defeated Qing forces along the coast and up the Yangtze, threatening Nanjing. On 29 August 1842 the Qing signed the Treaty of Nanking, paying an indemnity, opening five treaty ports to British merchants and ceding Hong Kong Island to Britain. It was the first of the 'unequal treaties' that forced China open to Western powers and began what Chinese call the century of humiliation."},{"year":1850,"text":"Taiping Rebellion breaks out (crushed 1864)","lonlat":[110.08,23.39],"detail":"In the 1840s Hong Xiuquan, a failed civil-service candidate who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus, founded a religious movement in southern China. In late 1850 his followers rose in revolt and proclaimed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom; in 1853 they captured Nanjing and made it their capital. For over a decade they held much of the rich Yangtze valley. Regional armies raised by officials such as Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, later helped by Western-led forces, finally retook Nanjing in 1864. Estimates of the dead range from 20 to 100 million, and the war left the Qing government badly weakened."},{"year":1860,"text":"Outer Manchuria ceded to Russia (Convention of Peking)","lonlat":[131.89,43.12],"detail":"In the Second Opium War (1856–60) British and French forces fought the Qing again, captured Beijing in 1860 and burned the Old Summer Palace. Russia, which had already won the north bank of the Amur by the Treaty of Aigun in 1858, offered to mediate. In the Convention of Peking, signed in 1860, China also ceded Kowloon to Britain, and the Russian envoy Nikolay Ignatyev obtained the land between the Ussuri River and the Pacific. China lost all of Outer Manchuria, about 400,000 km² by this treaty alone, and its access to the Sea of Japan."},{"year":1895,"text":"Treaty of Shimonoseki: Taiwan and Penghu ceded to Japan","lonlat":[130.94,33.96],"detail":"Japan, modernising rapidly after 1868, and China clashed over influence in Korea, a Qing tributary state. In the war of 1894–95 Japan's army and navy defeated the Qing forces, defeating the Beiyang Fleet at the Yalu River and taking Port Arthur and Weihaiwei. By the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on 17 April 1895, China recognised Korea's independence, paid an indemnity of 200 million taels, and ceded Taiwan, the Penghu Islands and the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan. Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to return Liaodong a week later. The defeat by a smaller Asian neighbour showed the weakness of the Qing and set off a scramble by foreign powers for concessions in China."},{"year":1900,"text":"Boxer Rebellion; foreign armies occupy Beijing","lonlat":[116.4,39.9],"detail":"Anger at foreign influence and Christian missionaries fed a movement in northern China known in the West as the Boxers, whose followers attacked missionaries and Chinese Christians. In June 1900 the Qing court backed them and declared war on the foreign powers; Chinese troops and Boxers besieged the foreign legations in Beijing from 20 June to 14 August. An Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign armies relieved the legations and occupied Beijing, and the Empress Dowager Cixi fled to Xi'an. The Boxer Protocol of 1901 imposed an indemnity of 450 million taels of silver and foreign troops in Beijing, further weakening the dynasty."},{"year":1911,"text":"Wuchang Uprising starts the Xinhai Revolution (abdication Feb 1912)","lonlat":[114.31,30.55],"detail":"By 1911 many Chinese blamed the Manchu Qing for China's weakness, and revolutionary groups such as Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui had spread their ideas in the army. On 10 October 1911 units of the New Army rose in revolt at Wuchang, in today's Wuhan, starting the 1911 (Xinhai) Revolution, and one province after another renounced the Qing. On 1 January 1912 the Republic of China was proclaimed at Nanjing with Sun as provisional president. The court turned to Yuan Shikai, who negotiated the abdication of the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor (Puyi) on 12 February 1912, ending 267 years of Qing rule and over two millennia of imperial rule in China."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Nurhaci (r. 1616–1626)","from":1619,"to":1626},{"name":"Hong Taiji","from":1626,"to":1643},{"name":"Shunzhi Emperor","from":1644,"to":1661},{"name":"Kangxi Emperor","from":1661,"to":1722},{"name":"Yongzheng Emperor","from":1722,"to":1735},{"name":"Qianlong Emperor","from":1735,"to":1796},{"name":"Jiaqing Emperor","from":1796,"to":1820},{"name":"Daoguang Emperor","from":1820,"to":1850},{"name":"Xianfeng Emperor","from":1850,"to":1861},{"name":"Tongzhi Emperor","from":1861,"to":1875},{"name":"Guangxu Emperor","from":1875,"to":1908},{"name":"Xuantong Emperor, Puyi (r. 1908–1912)","from":1908,"to":1911}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Qing dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of emperors of the Qing dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emperors_of_the_Qing_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Nanking","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Amur Annexation","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amur_Annexation"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Shimonoseki","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Shimonoseki"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Shanhai Pass","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanhai_Pass"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Taiping Rebellion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Boxer Rebellion","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion"}]},{"id":"maratha-empire","name":"Maratha Empire","profile":"maratha-empire","chain":[{"clio":"Maratha Empire","from":1677,"to":1818}],"span":[1677,1818],"summary":"Shivaji, crowned Chhatrapati in 1674, carved a Maratha kingdom out of the Deccan and survived a long war with Aurangzeb (1680–1707). Under Chhatrapati Shahu the Peshwas of Pune led the confederacy north across Malwa to Delhi and Attock, reaching a peak of roughly 2.5 million km² around 1760, until the Afghan victory at Panipat in 1761. The Marathas recovered Delhi in 1771 but were defeated by the British East India Company in three wars, the last ending in 1818.","events":[{"year":1677,"text":"Shivaji's southern campaign takes Gingee and Vellore","lonlat":[79.4,12.25],"detail":"Shivaji had carved out a Maratha kingdom in western India from the lands of Bijapur and the Mughals, and was crowned Chhatrapati (king) in 1674. In 1677 he visited Hyderabad and made a treaty with the Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda to oppose the Mughals jointly. Backed by Golconda's artillery and money, he invaded the south with a large army of cavalry and infantry and seized the forts of Gingee and Vellore, along with much of his half-brother Venkoji's lands. The campaign gave the Marathas a vast territory on the Mysore plateau and the Madras Carnatic, and Gingee later served as their refuge from the Mughals."},{"year":1689,"text":"Sambhaji captured and executed by the Mughals","lonlat":[73.97,18.67],"detail":"After Shivaji's death in 1680 his son Sambhaji became Chhatrapati and fought the huge Mughal army that Aurangzeb had brought into the Deccan. Mughal pressure grew, key commanders died and troops deserted. In February 1689 Sambhaji and 25 of his advisers were captured by the Mughal commander Muqarrab Khan at Sangameshwar. He was paraded in humiliation, tortured and executed on Aurangzeb's orders on 11 March 1689. The Maratha kingdom fell into disarray, and Sambhaji's young son Shahu was held captive by the Mughals, but his half-brother Rajaram took the throne, moved the capital far south to Gingee and continued the war."},{"year":1707,"text":"Shahu released after Aurangzeb's death and claims the throne","lonlat":[74.0,17.68],"detail":"Shahu, Sambhaji's son, had grown up as a captive at the Mughal court since 1689. After Aurangzeb died in 1707, his son Azam Shah released Shahu, hoping to set off a civil war among the Marathas. Shahu's aunt Tarabai, ruling in the name of her own son, denounced him as an impostor, and the two sides fought for the throne. Shahu won wide support and was crowned Chhatrapati at Satara on 12 January 1708. The split weakened the Marathas for a time, but under Shahu, who reigned until 1749, the state grew from a regional kingdom into an empire."},{"year":1713,"text":"Shahu appoints Balaji Vishwanath Peshwa","lonlat":[74.0,17.68],"detail":"Shahu needed capable ministers to defeat Tarabai's faction and deal with the Mughals. On 16 November 1713 he appointed Balaji Vishwanath, a Chitpavan Brahmin administrator, as Peshwa (chief minister). Balaji won over powerful Maratha commanders to Shahu's side, and in 1718–19 he helped the Sayyid brothers, kingmakers at the Mughal court, march on Delhi in return for Maratha rights to collect chauth and sardeshmukhi (shares of revenue) in the Deccan. The office of Peshwa became hereditary in his family, and from then on the Peshwas, based in Pune, were the real rulers of the Maratha state."},{"year":1728,"text":"Baji Rao I defeats the Nizam at Palkhed","lonlat":null,"detail":"Balaji Vishwanath's son Baji Rao I became Peshwa in 1720 and soon clashed with Asaf Jah I, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who disputed the Maratha right to collect revenue in the Deccan. In 1728 Baji Rao's fast-moving cavalry outmanoeuvred the Nizam's army and trapped it near Palkhed, cutting its supplies and communications. Forced to make peace, the Nizam signed the Treaty of Mungi Shevgaon on 6 March 1728, recognising Shahu as king and the Maratha right to collect taxes in the Deccan. The campaign is often praised as a masterpiece of strategy, and it made the Marathas the dominant power in the Deccan."},{"year":1737,"text":"Baji Rao I raids Delhi and defeats the Mughals at Bhopal","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"Baji Rao I expanded Maratha power north into Malwa, Gujarat and Bundelkhand, demanding revenue from Mughal provinces. In 1737 he raided as far as the outskirts of Delhi and defeated a Mughal army there, the high point of his military career. On his way back, the Nizam, called in by the Mughal emperor, intercepted him with a combined army near Bhopal. The Marathas surrounded the Nizam's forces, cut off their water and supplies, and won the Battle of Bhopal on 24 December 1737. The victory showed that the Mughals could no longer protect even the lands near their capital."},{"year":1738,"text":"Treaty of Bhopal confirms Maratha control of Malwa","lonlat":[77.41,23.26],"detail":"Trapped and short of supplies after the Battle of Bhopal, the Nizam had to accept Baji Rao's terms. In the Treaty of Bhopal, signed on 7 January 1738, the Mughals ceded the large province of Malwa in central India to the Marathas and agreed to pay 50 lakh rupees as war expenses. Malwa became a Maratha territory, later ruled by Maratha families such as the Holkars and Scindias. By the time Baji Rao died in 1740, the Maratha Empire had reached its greatest extent yet and was one of the largest powers in India."},{"year":1758,"text":"Marathas win at Attock and take Peshawar","lonlat":[72.36,33.77],"detail":"After the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani plundered Delhi in 1756, the Peshwa's brother Raghunath Rao led a Maratha army north. In August 1757 he took Delhi, defeating the Afghan garrison, and then pushed into the Punjab, taking Lahore. In 1758 the Marathas won at Attock on the Indus, and on 8 May 1758 they defeated the Afghan troops at Peshawar and captured the city. Maratha power now stretched to the borders of Afghanistan, its furthest reach, but the advance provoked Ahmad Shah Durrani, who returned to India to fight them."},{"year":1761,"text":"Crushing defeat by Ahmad Shah Durrani at the Third Battle of Panipat","lonlat":[76.97,29.39],"detail":"Ahmad Shah Durrani invaded India again, backed by the Rohillas and the Nawab of Awadh, to drive the Marathas from the north. A large Maratha army under Sadashivrao Bhau, with the Peshwa's son Vishwasrao and tens of thousands of pilgrims and camp followers, marched north to meet him. On 14 January 1761, at Panipat north of Delhi, the Afghans crushed the Marathas; Sadashivrao and Vishwasrao were killed, along with tens of thousands of soldiers, and many non-combatants were massacred afterwards. Maratha authority in northern India collapsed for a decade."},{"year":1771,"text":"Mahadaji Shinde recaptures Delhi","lonlat":[77.21,28.61],"detail":"After Panipat, the Marathas slowly rebuilt their power in the north under leaders such as Mahadaji Shinde (Scindia) of Gwalior. In early 1771, ten years after Panipat, Mahadaji recaptured Delhi, and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II, who had spent six years in the fort at Allahabad, returned to his capital under Maratha escort. Shah Alam became in effect a Maratha puppet. Mahadaji was later made deputy regent of the empire, and the Marathas again controlled much of northern India, now competing with the British East India Company."},{"year":1782,"text":"Treaty of Salbai ends the First Anglo-Maratha War","lonlat":[78.17,26.22],"detail":"In the 1770s a succession dispute among the Peshwas led the former Peshwa Raghunath Rao to seek British help, starting the First Anglo-Maratha War. The Marathas held their own, forcing a British force to surrender at Wadgaon, and the war ended without major British gains. On 17 May 1782 Mahadaji Shinde and the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, signed the Treaty of Salbai, under which the Company kept Salsette and Broach, pensioned off Raghunath Rao and recognised Madhavrao II as Peshwa. The treaty brought twenty years of peace with the British, during which the Marathas remained the leading power in India."},{"year":1795,"text":"Victory over the Nizam at Kharda","lonlat":[75.48,18.64],"detail":"The Nizam of Hyderabad had long disputed the Marathas' claims to revenue in the Deccan. In 1795 the Maratha chiefs, united for the last time under the command of Parshuram Bhau Patwardhan, marched against him and won a decisive victory at Kharda on 11 March 1795. After a siege of his camp at Kharda fort, the Nizam made peace in April 1795, agreeing to pay a large indemnity and cede the territories of Daulatabad, Aurangabad and Solapur. It was the last great victory won jointly by the whole Maratha Confederacy, which soon fell into rivalry among its chiefs."},{"year":1802,"text":"Peshwa accepts British protection in the Treaty of Bassein","lonlat":[72.84,19.39],"detail":"After the deaths of strong leaders such as Mahadaji Shinde in 1794, the Maratha chiefs quarrelled. In 1802 Yashwantrao Holkar of Indore defeated the forces of Peshwa Baji Rao II and the Scindias at the Battle of Poona, and the Peshwa fled to the British. On 31 December 1802 at Bassein (Vasai) he signed a treaty accepting British protection: he agreed to host Company troops, exclude other Europeans from his service and conduct his foreign relations through the British. The Treaty of Bassein was a decisive step in the break-up of the Maratha Empire and soon led to war."},{"year":1803,"text":"Second Anglo-Maratha War against the East India Company (to 1805)","lonlat":null,"detail":"The Scindias of Gwalior and the Bhonsles of Nagpur refused to accept the Treaty of Bassein, and war with the East India Company broke out in August 1803. British armies under Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) and Gerard Lake won major battles, including Assaye in the Deccan and Laswari in the north, and took Delhi, bringing the Mughal emperor under British protection. Holkar joined the war later. By 1805 the Marathas had lost large territories, including the regions around Delhi and parts of Gujarat, to direct Company rule, and the British were now the strongest power in India."},{"year":1818,"text":"Third Anglo-Maratha War: Baji Rao II surrenders; Peshwa rule ends","lonlat":[73.86,18.52],"detail":"In 1817 Peshwa Baji Rao II, resenting British control, rose against the East India Company, supported by the Bhonsles of Nagpur and the Holkars of Indore, while the Company also campaigned against the Pindari raiders. Maratha armies were defeated at Koregaon and other battles, and the Peshwa was pursued across the Deccan until he surrendered in June 1818. He was pensioned off to a small estate at Bithur, near Kanpur, and the office of Peshwa was abolished. Most of his lands became part of the Bombay Presidency, and the end of the Maratha Empire left the British masters of most of India."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Shivaji I (r. 1674–1680)","from":1677,"to":1680},{"name":"Sambhaji","from":1680,"to":1689},{"name":"Rajaram I","from":1689,"to":1700},{"name":"Tarabai (regent for Shivaji II)","from":1700,"to":1707},{"name":"Shahu I (Chhatrapati, r. 1707–1749)","from":1707,"to":1713},{"name":"Peshwa Balaji Vishwanath","from":1713,"to":1720},{"name":"Peshwa Baji Rao I","from":1720,"to":1740},{"name":"Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao (Nanasaheb)","from":1740,"to":1761},{"name":"Peshwa Madhav Rao I","from":1761,"to":1772},{"name":"Peshwa Narayan Rao","from":1772,"to":1773},{"name":"Peshwa Raghunath Rao","from":1773,"to":1774},{"name":"Peshwa Madhav Rao II","from":1774,"to":1796},{"name":"Peshwa Baji Rao II","from":1796,"to":1818}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Maratha Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maratha_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Peshwa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshwa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shivaji","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shivaji"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Shahu I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahu_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Rajaram I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajaram_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Bajirao I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baji_Rao_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Third Battle of Panipat","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Panipat"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Bassein (1802)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Bassein_%281802%29"}]},{"id":"napoleonic-empire","name":"First French Empire (Napoleonic)","profile":null,"chain":[{"clio":"(First French Empire)","from":1805,"to":1814},{"clio":"Italian Republic","from":1805,"to":1813},{"clio":"Helvetic Republic","from":1805,"to":1813},{"clio":"Kingdom of Naples (Napoleonic)","from":1806,"to":1814},{"clio":"Batavian Republic","from":1806,"to":1810},{"clio":"Confederation of the Rhine","from":1809,"to":1813},{"clio":"Kingdom of Westphalia","from":1809,"to":1813},{"clio":"Duchy of Warsaw","from":1809,"to":1813}],"span":[1805,1814],"summary":"Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Emperor of the French in May 1804 and crowned that December. Victories over Austria, Prussia and Russia (1805–1807) let him annex territory directly to France and ring it with satellite kingdoms and confederations run by his relatives and allies, a system at its height around 1810–1812. The disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 and defeat at Leipzig in 1813 broke it, and he abdicated in April 1814; his return in the Hundred Days ended at Waterloo in 1815.","events":[{"year":1805,"text":"Victory over Austria and Russia at Austerlitz; Treaty of Pressburg","lonlat":[16.76,49.13],"detail":"Napoleon Bonaparte, who had crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804, faced a Third Coalition of Britain, Austria and Russia. After trapping an Austrian army at Ulm, he met the combined Russian and Austrian armies near Austerlitz in Moravia on 2 December 1805, with Emperors Alexander I and Francis II present, so that it was called the Battle of the Three Emperors. Napoleon lured the allies into attacking his weakened right and then broke their centre, winning a crushing victory. By the Peace of Pressburg on 26 December, Austria gave up Venetia, Istria and Dalmatia to Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy and Tyrol to Bavaria, and paid 40 million francs."},{"year":1806,"text":"Confederation of the Rhine formed; Prussia crushed at Jena–Auerstedt","lonlat":[11.59,50.93],"detail":"After Austerlitz, Napoleon reorganised western Germany. On 12 July 1806, 16 German states signed the treaty creating the Confederation of the Rhine, a league of French allies with Napoleon as its 'Protector', and on 6 August Francis II dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, which had existed since the Middle Ages. Alarmed, Prussia went to war, but on 14 October 1806 Napoleon at Jena and Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout at Auerstedt destroyed the two Prussian armies on the same day. The French soon entered Berlin, and Napoleon now dominated all of Germany."},{"year":1807,"text":"Treaties of Tilsit; Duchy of Warsaw and Kingdom of Westphalia created","lonlat":[21.88,55.08],"detail":"Napoleon pursued the Prussians and their Russian allies east, and in June 1807 he defeated the Russian army at Friedland. On 7 July he met Tsar Alexander I on a raft in the Neman River at Tilsit and made peace, and on 9 July a second treaty was imposed on Prussia, which lost about half of its territory. From these lands Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw, ruled by his ally the King of Saxony, and the Kingdom of Westphalia, under his brother Jérôme. Russia agreed to join his blockade of British trade. Napoleon's power in Europe was at its height."},{"year":1808,"text":"French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula; Joseph made King of Spain","lonlat":[-3.7,40.42],"detail":"To enforce his blockade of Britain, Napoleon sent troops through Spain to occupy Portugal in 1807, and in 1808 he turned on his Spanish ally. He forced King Charles IV and his son Ferdinand VII to give up the throne and made his brother Joseph King of Spain. On 2 May 1808 the people of Madrid rose against the French, starting the Peninsular War, in which Spanish armies and guerrillas, with British and Portuguese forces later led by Wellington, fought the French for six years. The war tied down large French armies and cost an estimated million or more military and civilian lives."},{"year":1809,"text":"Treaty of Schönbrunn after victory over Austria; Warsaw enlarged","lonlat":[16.31,48.18],"detail":"While Napoleon was busy in Spain, Austria went to war again in 1809, hoping to reverse its losses of 1805. Napoleon took Vienna and defeated the Austrians decisively at Wagram on 5–6 July. By the Treaty of Schönbrunn, signed on 14 October 1809, Austria ceded Salzburg to Bavaria, lost its access to the Adriatic when its coastal lands became the French-ruled Illyrian Provinces, and gave West Galicia to the Duchy of Warsaw, which grew much larger. Austria, weakened but still a great power, made peace with France, and in 1810 Napoleon married the Austrian emperor's daughter, Marie Louise."},{"year":1810,"text":"Kingdom of Holland annexed directly to France","lonlat":[4.9,52.37],"detail":"In 1806 Napoleon had made his brother Louis King of Holland. Louis tried to protect Dutch interests and did not strictly enforce the Continental System, Napoleon's ban on trade with Britain, so smuggling continued. Losing patience, Napoleon sent troops, and French forces took Amsterdam in early July 1810; Louis abdicated on 1 July in favour of his son, and on 9 July 1810 the kingdom was annexed directly to the French Empire. The Netherlands were now ruled directly from Paris, and by 1812 the French Empire had grown to 130 departments with more than 44 million people."},{"year":1812,"text":"Grande Armée invades Russia in June; catastrophic retreat","lonlat":[23.9,54.9],"detail":"Russia had stopped enforcing Napoleon's blockade of Britain, and Napoleon decided to force it back into line. On 24 June 1812 the Grande Armée, a multinational force of more than 600,000 men, crossed the Neman River into Russia. The Russians retreated, fought a bloody battle at Borodino, and abandoned Moscow, which Napoleon entered on 14 September to find it deserted and set ablaze on the orders of its governor. Alexander I refused to negotiate, and in October the French began a disastrous retreat through the Russian winter, harried by Cossacks. Most of the army was lost, and the campaign cost around a million military and civilian lives."},{"year":1813,"text":"Defeat at Leipzig; Confederation of the Rhine dissolved","lonlat":[12.37,51.34],"detail":"After the disaster in Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden joined Russia and Britain in the Sixth Coalition. Napoleon rebuilt his army and won early battles in Germany, but on 16–19 October 1813 the coalition armies trapped him at Leipzig in the 'Battle of the Nations', the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, involving about 560,000 soldiers. Saxon and other German troops changed sides during the fighting, and Napoleon was defeated and retreated across the Rhine. The Confederation of the Rhine dissolved, and France lost control of all its territory east of the Rhine."},{"year":1814,"text":"Paris capitulates; Napoleon abdicates at Fontainebleau","lonlat":[2.7,48.4],"detail":"In early 1814 the coalition armies invaded France itself. Napoleon won several battles but could not stop their advance on the capital. On 30 March 1814 Russian, Austrian, Prussian and other allied troops attacked Paris, and after a day of fighting Marshals Marmont and Mortier agreed to a ceasefire; the French evacuated the city on 31 March, and the allies entered it. Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau, and by the treaty agreed there on 11 April he was sent into exile on Elba. His rule as Emperor of the French was over, and the Bourbon King Louis XVIII took the throne."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Napoleon I (r. 1804–1814, and the Hundred Days of 1815)","from":1805,"to":1814}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: First French Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_French_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Confederation of the Rhine","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_of_the_Rhine"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Duchy of Warsaw","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Warsaw"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of monarchs of the Netherlands","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_the_Netherlands"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of Spanish monarchs","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_monarchs"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Austerlitz","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Austerlitz"},{"title":"Wikipedia: French invasion of Russia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Leipzig","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leipzig"}]},{"id":"empire-of-japan","name":"Empire of Japan","profile":"empire-of-japan","chain":[{"clio":"Empire of Japan","from":1868,"to":1945}],"span":[1868,1945],"summary":"The Meiji Restoration of 1868 created a modernising, centralised Japan that absorbed Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands and then won Taiwan from China (1895), southern Sakhalin and the Kwantung lease from Russia (1905), and Korea (1910). Seizing Manchuria in 1931 and invading China in 1937, it struck at the United States and European colonies in 1941 and briefly ruled an empire of about 7.4 million km² in 1942, before defeat and surrender in 1945.","events":[{"year":1868,"text":"Meiji Restoration restores imperial rule","lonlat":[135.77,35.01],"detail":"Since 1603 Japan had been ruled by the Tokugawa shoguns, military rulers who kept the emperor as a figurehead and limited contact with the outside world. After the American Perry Expedition of the 1850s forced Japan to open its ports, the shogunate faced economic and political crises and foreign pressure, and the domains of Satsuma and Chōshū led an alliance against it. On 3 January 1868 Emperor Meiji declared political power restored to the imperial house. The new government abolished the feudal domains and the samurai class and set out to industrialise and modernise Japan, creating the Empire of Japan."},{"year":1869,"text":"Shogunate loyalists of the Ezo Republic surrender at Hakodate","lonlat":[140.73,41.77],"detail":"Supporters of the Tokugawa fought on after the restoration in the Boshin War. When the new government's forces took the shogun's capital, Edo, the navy commander Enomoto Takeaki sailed north with part of the shogunate's fleet to the island of Ezo (Hokkaido). There his followers set up the Ezo Republic in January 1869, a short-lived state in which samurai elected their leaders. Imperial forces landed on the island and besieged Hakodate, and the republic was dissolved on 27 June 1869 after five months. Its surrender ended the Boshin War and left the Meiji government in control of all Japan, including Hokkaido."},{"year":1879,"text":"Ryukyu Kingdom abolished and annexed as Okinawa Prefecture","lonlat":[127.68,26.21],"detail":"The Ryukyu Kingdom, a chain of islands south of Japan, had long sent tribute to China while also being dominated by the Japanese domain of Satsuma. The Meiji government made it the Ryukyu Domain in 1872, with King Shō Tai as a vassal, and pressed it to cut its ties with China. In 1879 Japan abolished the kingdom and annexed it as Okinawa Prefecture, one of Japan's home prefectures. China protested, and talks brokered by the former US president Ulysses S. Grant led nowhere. The annexation extended Japan's territory south, towards Taiwan."},{"year":1895,"text":"Treaty of Shimonoseki: Taiwan and Penghu won from China","lonlat":[130.94,33.96],"detail":"Japan and Qing China competed for influence in Korea, a Chinese tributary state. In the war of 1894–95 the modernised Japanese army and navy defeated Chinese forces in Korea, destroyed the Beiyang Fleet's power at the Yalu River and took Port Arthur and Weihaiwei. By the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed on 17 April 1895, China recognised Korea's independence, paid an indemnity of 200 million taels and ceded Taiwan, the Penghu Islands and the Liaodong Peninsula. Russia, Germany and France forced Japan to give back Liaodong a week later. Taiwan became Japan's first colony, and Japan emerged as a major power in East Asia."},{"year":1905,"text":"Treaty of Portsmouth: southern Sakhalin and Kwantung lease from Russia","lonlat":[-70.74,43.08],"detail":"Japan and Russia both wanted control of Korea and Manchuria, and in February 1904 Japan attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Japan won a series of victories, including the capture of Port Arthur, the land battle of Mukden and the destruction of Russia's Baltic Fleet at Tsushima in May 1905. US President Theodore Roosevelt mediated peace talks, and on 5 September 1905 the Treaty of Portsmouth recognised Japan's dominance in Korea and gave it Russia's lease on the Liaodong Peninsula (the Kwantung Leased Territory), the South Manchuria Railway and the southern half of Sakhalin. The victory made Japan a great power and damaged Russia's prestige in Europe."},{"year":1910,"text":"Korea annexed","lonlat":[126.98,37.57],"detail":"After the war with Russia, Japan made Korea a protectorate in 1905 and took control of its foreign affairs and army. Korean resistance continued, while Japanese leaders such as Itō Hirobumi pressed for a full 'merger'. On 22 August 1910 representatives of the two empires signed the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, which came into force on 29 August, and the Korean Empire was abolished. Korea became a Japanese colony, ruled by a governor-general, for 35 years until Japan's defeat in 1945. The annexation gave Japan a foothold on the Asian mainland."},{"year":1914,"text":"Japan enters the First World War against Germany","lonlat":null,"detail":"Japan was allied with Britain, and when the First World War broke out it saw a chance to seize Germany's possessions in Asia. Japan sent Germany an ultimatum and declared war on 23 August 1914. Japanese troops besieged the German base at Tsingtao (Qingdao) in China, which surrendered on 7 November, and the navy seized Germany's Pacific islands, the Marianas, Carolines and Marshalls, with little resistance. In 1915 Japan pressed its Twenty-One Demands on China. After the war Japan kept the islands as a League of Nations mandate, extending its empire across the western Pacific."},{"year":1931,"text":"Mukden Incident: Japanese army seizes Manchuria","lonlat":[123.43,41.8],"detail":"Japan's Kwantung Army guarded the South Manchuria Railway, and its officers wanted to seize all of Manchuria, rich in coal and farmland, from China. On 18 September 1931 Japanese officers secretly set off a small explosion on the railway near Mukden (Shenyang) and blamed Chinese troops. Using this as a pretext, and despite Tokyo's attempts to curb the army's insubordination, the army attacked Chinese forces and within months occupied all of Manchuria. The invasion showed that the army could drive Japanese policy, and it began fourteen years of Japanese aggression in China."},{"year":1932,"text":"Puppet state of Manchukuo proclaimed","lonlat":[125.32,43.82],"detail":"To give its conquest a show of legitimacy, Japan created a new state in Manchuria. On 1 March 1932 Manchukuo was proclaimed, with Puyi, the last Qing emperor of China who had abdicated as a child in 1912, as its nominal head; in 1934 he was made emperor. Real power lay with Japanese officials and the Kwantung Army. When the League of Nations endorsed the Lytton Report, which called Manchukuo a Japanese puppet, Japan withdrew from the League in 1933. Manchukuo, enlarged by the annexation of Rehe in 1933, became an industrial base and a large addition to Japan's sphere of control."},{"year":1937,"text":"Full-scale war with China begins","lonlat":[116.22,39.85],"detail":"Japanese troops based near Beijing clashed with Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge (Lugou Bridge) on the night of 7 July 1937. Neither side backed down, and the incident escalated into a full-scale Japanese invasion of China. After a long battle for Shanghai, Japanese forces captured the Chinese capital, Nanjing, in December 1937 and carried out the Nanjing Massacre. Japan occupied much of eastern China, but the Chinese government retreated inland and kept fighting. The war in China, which killed millions, tied down much of Japan's army until 1945."},{"year":1941,"text":"Attack on Pearl Harbor; war with the United States and Britain","lonlat":[-157.95,21.35],"detail":"Japan, still heavily dependent on American oil and other imports, decided to seize the resources of Southeast Asia, held by the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. On 7 December 1941 Japanese carrier aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking or damaging many battleships and killing 2,403 Americans. Within hours Japan also attacked the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong. The United States and Britain declared war. The attack brought the US into the Second World War and began the Pacific War."},{"year":1942,"text":"Empire at its greatest extent, about 7.4 million km²","lonlat":null,"detail":"In the months after Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces overran Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Burma and many Pacific islands. In 1942 the empire and the lands it occupied covered about 7.4 million km², stretching from Manchuria and much of China to the borders of India and deep into the Pacific. But in June 1942 Japan lost four fleet carriers at the Battle of Midway, its navy's first decisive defeat and the turning point of the war. After Midway and the long fight for Guadalcanal, Japan was forced onto the defensive and steadily pushed back."},{"year":1945,"text":"Atomic bombings and Soviet invasion; surrender signed 2 September","lonlat":[139.75,35.35],"detail":"By mid-1945 Japan's navy was largely destroyed and its cities devastated by bombing, but its leaders refused to surrender. On 6 August the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; on 9 August the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria, and hours later a second bomb destroyed Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender on 15 August, and the Instrument of Surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. The Soviets took southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, Japan lost its empire overseas, and Allied occupation followed."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Meiji Emperor","from":1868,"to":1912},{"name":"Taishō Emperor","from":1912,"to":1926},{"name":"Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito (r. 1926–1989)","from":1926,"to":1945}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Empire of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Shimonoseki","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Shimonoseki"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Portsmouth","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Portsmouth"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Manchukuo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchukuo"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Surrender of Japan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Meiji Restoration","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Attack on Pearl Harbor","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93Korea_Treaty_of_1910"}]},{"id":"german-empire","name":"German Empire","profile":"germany","chain":[{"clio":"German Empire","from":1871,"to":1918},{"clio":"German Africa","from":1884,"to":1918}],"span":[1871,1918],"summary":"Proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871 after Prussia's victory over France, the German Empire united the German states outside Austria under the Prussian king as emperor. From 1884 it acquired colonies in Africa and the Pacific, the fourth-largest colonial empire of its day, and under Wilhelm II pursued world-power ambitions; defeat in the First World War, despite brief gains in the east in 1918, brought revolution, the emperor's abdication and the loss of all its colonies.","events":[{"year":1871,"text":"Empire proclaimed at Versailles on 18 January","lonlat":[2.12,48.8],"detail":"Prussia, led by its chief minister Otto von Bismarck, had defeated Denmark and Austria and formed the North German Confederation. In 1870–71 Prussia and its allies, including the southern German states, defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War. While German troops were still besieging Paris, on 18 January 1871 the German princes proclaimed King Wilhelm I of Prussia German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The new empire united the German states, apart from Austria, into a single nation under Prussian leadership, and it quickly became a leading power in Europe."},{"year":1884,"text":"Protectorates over South West Africa, Togoland and Kamerun","lonlat":[15.16,-26.65],"detail":"Bismarck had long preferred informal trade to colonies, but German merchants and nationalists pressed for an overseas empire. In 1882 the Bremen merchant Adolf Lüderitz asked for protection for a trading station in South West Africa, and in 1884 Germany declared protectorates there, and in Togoland (July) and Kamerun (August) on the West African coast, with the explorer Gustav Nachtigal raising the flag. Within a few months Germany had become a colonial power in Africa. With German South West Africa (now Namibia), Togoland and Kamerun, Germany began a colonial empire that by 1912 covered about 3.5 million km² in Africa and the Pacific."},{"year":1885,"text":"German East Africa established","lonlat":[39.28,-6.79],"detail":"In 1884 the adventurer Carl Peters and his Society for German Colonisation made treaties with chiefs in East Africa, and in 1885 the German government placed these lands under imperial protection, run at first by the German East Africa Company. The company's rule provoked a coastal revolt in 1888, and the German military was sent in to crush it, after which the state took direct control. German East Africa, covering present-day mainland Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, became Germany's largest and most populous colony, almost twice the size of Germany itself, with its capital at Dar es Salaam from 1890."},{"year":1888,"text":"Year of three emperors: Wilhelm II succeeds","lonlat":[13.4,52.52],"detail":"The founding emperor, Wilhelm I, died on 9 March 1888 after a reign of 17 years as emperor. His son, Frederick III, a liberal who might have changed Germany's direction, was already suffering from cancer of the larynx and reigned for only 99 days before he died on 15 June. His 29-year-old son became Emperor Wilhelm II. The 'Year of the Three Emperors' brought to power an ambitious young ruler who would build a powerful navy and follow an erratic foreign policy. Wilhelm II would reign until the empire's collapse in 1918."},{"year":1890,"text":"Bismarck dismissed; Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty with Britain","lonlat":[7.89,54.18],"detail":"Wilhelm II wanted to rule personally and clashed with the 75-year-old Bismarck, who had dominated German politics for nearly three decades. On 18 March 1890 Bismarck resigned at the emperor's insistence and was replaced as chancellor by Leo von Caprivi. On 1 July 1890 Caprivi's government signed the Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty with Britain: Germany gained the North Sea island of Heligoland, needed to protect its naval ports, and the Caprivi Strip linking South West Africa to the Zambezi, while recognising British authority over Zanzibar. The treaty settled colonial borders in Africa, and with Bismarck gone, Wilhelm II increasingly steered German policy himself."},{"year":1897,"text":"German forces occupy Jiaozhou Bay (Kiautschou) in China","lonlat":[120.38,36.07],"detail":"Wilhelm II and his naval planners wanted a base in China for the German navy. On 1 November 1897 two German Catholic missionaries were murdered in Shandong province, and Admiral Otto von Diederichs used the killings as a pretext: on 14 November his squadron landed troops and occupied Jiaozhou Bay. On 6 March 1898 China was forced to lease the bay to Germany for 99 years. Germany built the port and naval base of Tsingtao (Qingdao) there, and the seizure was part of the great powers' scramble for leases and spheres of influence in China."},{"year":1899,"text":"Micronesian islands bought from Spain; western Samoa annexed","lonlat":[-171.76,-13.83],"detail":"After Spain lost the Philippines and Guam to the United States in 1898, it decided to sell its remaining Pacific islands. By the German–Spanish Treaty of 12 February 1899, Germany bought the Caroline Islands, including Palau, and the Northern Mariana Islands for 25 million pesetas and placed them under German New Guinea. In December 1899 the Tripartite Convention with Britain and the United States ended a civil war in Samoa and divided the islands: Germany took the western islands, and the United States took Tutuila and the eastern islands. Germany's Pacific empire reached its greatest extent."},{"year":1904,"text":"Herero War begins in South West Africa, leading to genocide","lonlat":[17.08,-22.56],"detail":"In German South West Africa, settlers had taken much of the land and cattle of the Herero and Nama peoples. On 12 January 1904 the Herero chief Samuel Maharero launched an uprising. After reinforcements arrived from Germany under General Lothar von Trotha, the Herero were surrounded and routed at the Battle of Waterberg in August 1904, and many fled into the Omaheke desert, where most died of thirst and starvation; von Trotha ordered their extermination. The Nama also rose and were crushed. An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama died, in what is now recognised as a genocide."},{"year":1914,"text":"First World War; most colonies soon lost to Allied forces","lonlat":null,"detail":"When the First World War began in August 1914, Germany's colonies were isolated and lightly defended, and Britain controlled the seas. Togoland surrendered to British and French forces within weeks, Japan took Tsingtao in November, and Japanese, Australian and New Zealand forces seized the Pacific colonies. South African troops conquered South West Africa by July 1915, and Kamerun fell in 1916. Only in German East Africa did General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's force hold out until after the armistice in 1918. Germany lost nearly all its overseas empire early in the war."},{"year":1918,"text":"Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March); abdication of Wilhelm II (November)","lonlat":[13.4,52.52],"detail":"After the Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik government wanted peace at almost any price. By the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on 3 March 1918 with Germany and its allies, Russia gave up its claims to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, most of Belarus and Ukraine, which came under German influence, briefly giving Germany a huge empire in the east. But the German army's last offensives in the west failed, and in the autumn its allies collapsed. Amid naval mutinies and revolution at home, Chancellor Max von Baden announced Wilhelm II's abdication on 9 November 1918; Germany was proclaimed a republic, and the emperor fled to the Netherlands."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Wilhelm I","from":1871,"to":1888},{"name":"Frederick III","from":1888,"to":1888},{"name":"Wilhelm II","from":1888,"to":1918}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: German Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: German colonial empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_colonial_empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Proclamation of the German Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_German_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Herero and Nama genocide","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Nama_genocide"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heligoland%E2%80%93Zanzibar_Treaty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiautschou_Bay_Leased_Territory"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Abdication of Wilhelm II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdication_of_Wilhelm_II"}]},{"id":"soviet-union","name":"Soviet Union","profile":"soviet-union","chain":[{"clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics","from":1922,"to":1991}],"span":[1922,1991],"summary":"Formed in December 1922 by the Bolshevik-ruled republics that emerged from the Russian Civil War, the Soviet Union recovered most of the old empire's lands. The 1939 pact with Nazi Germany let it annex eastern Poland, the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania; it survived the German invasion of 1941, won in 1945 with further gains, and dominated Eastern Europe as a superpower. Economic stagnation, the Afghan war and Gorbachev's reforms led to the collapse of its satellites in 1989 and its own dissolution in December 1991.","events":[{"year":1922,"text":"Treaty on the Creation of the USSR approved on 30 December","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"After the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917 and won the Russian Civil War, several Soviet republics existed side by side, all ruled by the Communist Party. To bind them together, delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Transcaucasian SFSR approved the Declaration and Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 30 December 1922. The treaty set up a federal state with its government in Moscow. The Soviet Union inherited most of the former Russian Empire's territory and became the world's first communist state, lasting until 1991."},{"year":1924,"text":"Death of Lenin; Stalin wins the power struggle","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, was disabled by three strokes in 1922–23 and died on 21 January 1924, aged 53. A struggle for power followed among the party's leaders, including Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin. Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party since 1922, used his control of the party apparatus to outmanoeuvre his rivals one by one, and by the late 1920s he ruled the Soviet Union. Under his 'Socialism in One Country' and five-year plans, the country was forcibly industrialised and its farms collectivised, at the cost of millions of lives."},{"year":1939,"text":"Pact with Nazi Germany; Soviet invasion of eastern Poland","lonlat":null,"detail":"In August 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, dated 23 August, whose secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, including a partition of Poland. A week later Germany invaded Poland, starting the Second World War. On 17 September 1939 the Red Army invaded Poland from the east without a declaration of war, and the two powers divided the country. The Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland, today's western Belarus and western Ukraine, pushing its border far to the west."},{"year":1940,"text":"Annexation of the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania","lonlat":[24.11,56.95],"detail":"Using the secret protocol, the Soviet Union expanded further. It invaded Finland on 30 November 1939; the Finns resisted fiercely in the Winter War, but by the Moscow Peace Treaty of March 1940 they ceded the Karelian Isthmus, Ladoga Karelia and other areas. In June 1940 Soviet troops occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which were annexed as Soviet republics in August; most Western countries never recognised this. Between 28 June and 3 July 1940, after an ultimatum, the Soviets also occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from Romania. The USSR now reached the Baltic coast and the Danube delta."},{"year":1941,"text":"Germany invades the Soviet Union on 22 June","lonlat":null,"detail":"On 22 June 1941 Germany broke the pact and launched Operation Barbarossa, invading the Soviet Union with more than 3.8 million Axis troops along a front of about 2,900 kilometres. Soviet forces were caught largely unprepared, and in the first months the Germans encircled and captured whole armies and overran the Baltic states, Belarus and much of Ukraine, before they were stopped in the Battle of Moscow in late 1941. The Axis deliberately killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war and millions of civilians. The war on the Eastern Front, the largest theatre of the Second World War, killed over 26 million Soviet people."},{"year":1943,"text":"German 6th Army surrenders at Stalingrad","lonlat":[44.52,48.7],"detail":"In the summer of 1942 the German army advanced towards the Volga River and the Caucasus oil fields, and in July it began its assault on Stalingrad, the city bearing Stalin's name. After months of brutal street fighting, a Soviet counter-offensive, Operation Uranus, launched on 19 November 1942, encircled the German 6th Army under Friedrich Paulus. Relief attempts and airlifts failed, and on 2 February 1943 the starving 6th Army capitulated. Stalingrad is generally regarded as the turning point of the war in Europe: the Soviets took the strategic initiative and began to drive the Germans back west."},{"year":1945,"text":"Victory over Germany and Japan; southern Sakhalin and Kurils annexed","lonlat":[142.73,46.96],"detail":"After years of fighting, Soviet forces drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union and advanced through Eastern Europe, taking Berlin in May 1945; Germany surrendered on 8–9 May. As agreed with the Allies at Yalta, the Soviet Union then declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945 and invaded Manchuria, northern Korea, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The USSR annexed southern Sakhalin and the Kurils, as well as eastern Poland, the Baltic states and other lands, and Soviet-backed communist governments were soon installed across Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union emerged as one of two global superpowers."},{"year":1953,"text":"Death of Stalin","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"Joseph Stalin, who had ruled the Soviet Union for about a quarter of a century, died on 5 March 1953 at his dacha at Kuntsevo after a stroke, aged 74. Millions had died in his purges, labour camps and famines, but he was mourned at a huge state funeral on 9 March. His inner circle, including Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria and Nikita Khrushchev, competed to succeed him, and Khrushchev emerged as leader. Khrushchev went on to denounce his predecessor and launched a campaign of de-Stalinisation, freeing many political prisoners in what became known as the 'Khrushchev thaw'."},{"year":1979,"text":"Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (withdrawal 1989)","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"detail":"A communist government had seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution of 1978, but it faced a widespread rebellion; on 25 December 1979 Soviet troops entered the country, and its leader, Hafizullah Amin, was replaced by Babrak Karmal. The Soviet army spent nearly ten years fighting the mujahideen, guerrilla fighters backed mainly by Pakistan and the United States, along with Britain, China, Iran and Arab states. Between about 14,500 and 26,000 Soviet soldiers died, and far more Afghans. Gorbachev announced a withdrawal, and the last Soviet troops left on 15 February 1989. The costly war weakened the Soviet Union and damaged its standing in the world."},{"year":1985,"text":"Gorbachev comes to power: glasnost and perestroika","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"On 11 March 1985, after the death of the elderly Konstantin Chernenko, the Communist Party chose 54-year-old Mikhail Gorbachev as its General Secretary. Facing a stagnant economy and an expensive arms race, he launched glasnost ('openness'), allowing more freedom of speech and of the press, and perestroika ('restructuring'), which tried to decentralise economic decision-making. He also held summits with US President Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and began withdrawing from Afghanistan. His reforms unleashed forces he could not control, including nationalist movements in the Soviet republics."},{"year":1989,"text":"Soviet-backed regimes fall across Eastern Europe","lonlat":null,"detail":"Gorbachev made clear that the Soviet Union would no longer intervene to prop up communist governments in its Eastern European satellites, a policy jokingly called the 'Sinatra Doctrine'. In Poland the Solidarity movement won a landslide in elections on 4 June 1989, and a non-communist government took office. Over the following months communist regimes fell in Hungary, East Germany, where the Berlin Wall was opened in November, Czechoslovakia in the Velvet Revolution, Bulgaria and, violently, Romania. By the end of 1989 the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe had collapsed, ending the Soviet Union's empire beyond its borders."},{"year":1991,"text":"Failed August coup; the USSR is dissolved on 26 December","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"detail":"On 19 August 1991 hardline communists, including the defence minister and the KGB chief, tried to seize power, placing Gorbachev under house arrest in Crimea. Crowds led by Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, defended the parliament building in Moscow, and the coup collapsed within days. The republics rushed to declare independence. On 8 December the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belovezha Accords declaring that the Soviet Union no longer existed, and on 25 December Gorbachev resigned. On 26 December 1991 the USSR was formally dissolved into 15 independent states, with Russia as its successor."}],"reigns":[{"name":"Vladimir Lenin","from":1922,"to":1924},{"name":"Joseph Stalin","from":1924,"to":1953},{"name":"Georgy Malenkov","from":1953,"to":1955},{"name":"Nikita Khrushchev","from":1955,"to":1964},{"name":"Leonid Brezhnev","from":1964,"to":1982},{"name":"Yuri Andropov","from":1982,"to":1984},{"name":"Konstantin Chernenko","from":1984,"to":1985},{"name":"Mikhail Gorbachev","from":1985,"to":1991}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union"},{"title":"Wikipedia: List of leaders of the Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_leaders_of_the_Soviet_Union"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Stalingrad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet–Japanese War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet–Afghan War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Operation Barbarossa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Dissolution of the Soviet Union","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union"}]}],"wars":[{"id":"peloponnesian-war","name":"Peloponnesian War","moment":null,"span":[-431,-404],"dateLabel":"431 BCE – April 404 BCE","summary":"Thucydides blamed the war on the growth of Athenian power and the fear it caused in Sparta. Athens led the Delian League, a sea empire of Aegean cities paying it tribute; Sparta led the Peloponnesian League, the strongest land alliance in Greece. In the first ten years (the Archidamian War) Sparta ravaged Attica each summer while Athens sheltered behind its Long Walls and raided by sea; a plague killed perhaps a quarter of the crowded city. The Peace of Nicias in 421 BCE did not hold. In 415–413 BCE Athens lost almost its entire expedition against Syracuse in Sicily, and in the final phase Persian money let Sparta build a fleet. After Lysander destroyed the Athenian navy at Aegospotami, a besieged and starving Athens surrendered in April 404 BCE, gave up its walls, fleet and empire, and briefly fell under the Spartan-backed Thirty. Sparta became the leading power in Greece.","casualties":"No overall total survives; the plague alone is estimated to have killed 75,000–100,000 people in Athens, and the Sicilian expedition lost nearly all of its roughly 40,000 men, killed or enslaved.","sides":[{"name":"Athens and the Delian League","members":[{"clio":"Odrysian Kingdom","from":-431,"to":-429}]},{"name":"Sparta and the Peloponnesian League","members":[{"clio":"Peloponnesian League","from":-431,"to":-404},{"clio":"Achaemenid Empire","from":-412,"to":-404}]}],"events":[{"date":"-431","year":-431,"label":"4 Apr 431 BCE","text":"Thebes, Sparta's ally, attacks Athens' ally Plataea","detail":"Tension had built for years over Corcyra, Potidaea and Athenian trade sanctions on Megara, and in 432 BCE the Spartan assembly declared that Athens had broken the Thirty Years' Peace. The first blow came on 4 April 431 BCE from Thebes, Sparta's ally, which attacked Plataea, a small Boeotian city allied to Athens. The attack opened a war between the two great Greek alliances that would last, with one uneasy pause, for twenty-seven years.","lonlat":[23.27,38.22],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-431","year":-431,"label":"431 BCE","text":"Archidamus II leads the first Spartan invasion of Attica","detail":"Sparta's plan was to provoke a decisive land battle by burning the farms of Attica. Pericles instead persuaded the Athenians to abandon the countryside, crowd behind the Long Walls joining Athens to its port of Piraeus, and rely on the fleet and imported grain. The Spartans invaded almost every summer but stayed only weeks at a time, while Athenian ships raided the Peloponnesian coast. That first winter Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration.","lonlat":[23.73,38.08],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-430","year":-430,"label":"430 BCE","text":"Plague breaks out in overcrowded Athens","detail":"With the population of Attica packed inside the walls, an epidemic that probably entered through Piraeus swept the city in 430 BCE and returned in 429 and 427/426. Thucydides, who caught it and survived, described its symptoms; the cause is still debated. Estimates put the dead at 75,000–100,000, about a quarter of the population. Pericles, according to Plutarch, died of it in 429, leaving Athens without its leading statesman.","lonlat":[23.73,37.98],"kind":"other"},{"date":"-429","year":-429,"label":"429 BCE","text":"Athens' Thracian ally Sitalces invades Macedon","detail":"At the start of the war Sitalces, king of the Odrysian Thracians, allied himself with Athens. In 429 BCE he invaded Macedon, ruled by Perdiccas II, with a huge army that included warriors from independent Thracian and Paeonian tribes. Lacking supplies, he soon withdrew. The episode shows the war reaching far beyond the Greek cities, as both sides sought allies among neighbouring kingdoms.","lonlat":[22.55,40.95],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-425","year":-425,"label":"425 BCE","text":"Athenians force Spartans on Sphacteria to surrender","detail":"The Athenian general Demosthenes fortified Pylos on the Messenian coast, a base that attracted runaway helots. When Spartan troops were cut off on the island of Sphacteria and peace talks failed, Cleon and Demosthenes stormed it. Some 292 hoplites, about 120 of them full Spartan citizens, surrendered, shocking the Greek world. Athens threatened to kill the prisoners if Sparta invaded Attica again, and the annual invasions stopped.","lonlat":[21.66,36.94],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-424","year":-424,"label":"424 BCE","text":"Boeotians defeat the Athenian invasion at Delium","detail":"Hoping to knock Boeotia out of the war, Athenian generals planned a two-pronged invasion that went wrong. Hippocrates fortified the temple at Delium, but as his army turned for home the Boeotian commander Pagondas of Thebes attacked. Theban troops drawn up in an unusually deep formation broke the Athenians, who suffered heavy losses; the philosopher Socrates was among those who retreated. The defeat ended Athenian hopes on land in central Greece.","lonlat":[23.59,38.36],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-424","year":-424,"label":"Winter 424–423 BCE","text":"Spartan general Brasidas captures Amphipolis","detail":"Brasidas marched an army of helots and mercenaries the length of Greece to attack Athenian holdings in Thrace. In the winter of 424–423 BCE he took Amphipolis, an Athenian colony on the Strymon river whose region supplied silver to the Athenian war chest, by offering its people generous terms before help could arrive. The Athenian general sent to save it, the historian Thucydides, came too late and was exiled, which gave him time to write his history of the war.","lonlat":[23.84,40.82],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-422","year":-422,"label":"422 BCE","text":"Battle of Amphipolis: Brasidas and Cleon both killed","detail":"When a one-year armistice ran out in 422 BCE, Cleon, the most forceful advocate of war in Athens, sailed to Thrace and retook Torone and Scione before moving on Amphipolis. Fearing an attack before his reinforcements arrived, he began a badly organised retreat, and Brasidas struck the disordered column. About 600 Athenians died, among them Cleon, while Brasidas was mortally wounded. With the leading hawks on both sides dead, peace talks became possible.","lonlat":[23.85,40.83],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-421","year":-421,"label":"Mar 421 BCE","text":"Peace of Nicias ends the first ten years of war","detail":"Negotiated by the Spartan king Pleistoanax and the Athenian general Nicias, the treaty was sworn by seventeen representatives from each side and was meant to last fifty years, with both sides handing back most of their conquests and prisoners. Its terms were never fully carried out: Sparta did not return Amphipolis and Athens kept Pylos. Several of Sparta's allies rejected the peace, and fighting by proxy soon resumed in the Peloponnese.","lonlat":[23.73,37.98],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"-418","year":-418,"label":"418 BCE","text":"Sparta defeats Argos, Athens and their allies at Mantinea","detail":"Encouraged by Alcibiades, Athens backed a coalition of Argos, Mantinea, Elis and other Peloponnesian states against Sparta. Late in 418 BCE, at Mantinea, the largest land battle of the war, the Spartans under King Agis recovered from early setbacks and won a complete victory over Argos, Athens, Mantinea and their Arcadian allies. The coalition broke up, most of its members rejoined Sparta's alliance, and Spartan dominance of the Peloponnese was restored.","lonlat":[22.38,37.62],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-416","year":-416,"label":"416 BCE","text":"Athens besieges and destroys neutral Melos","detail":"Melos, a Dorian island with ties to Sparta, had stayed neutral. In summer 416 BCE Athens demanded that it submit and pay tribute; Thucydides' Melian Dialogue portrays the Athenian envoys arguing that the strong do what they can and the weak must suffer. The Melians refused. After a siege the city surrendered that winter, and the Athenians killed its men and sold the women and children into slavery.","lonlat":[24.42,36.72],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"-415","year":-415,"label":"415 BCE","text":"The great Athenian expedition sails for Sicily","detail":"Answering an appeal from its ally Segesta, and urged on by Alcibiades, Athens sent 134 triremes and thousands of soldiers to Sicily, aiming in practice at powerful Syracuse. On the eve of departure the herms, sacred statues of the god Hermes around the city, were mutilated. Alcibiades, accused of sacrilege, was recalled soon after landing; he fled to Sparta and advised it against Athens. Nicias, who had opposed the venture, was left in command.","lonlat":[15.28,37.07],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-413","year":-413,"label":"413 BCE","text":"Sparta fortifies Decelea in Attica","detail":"On Alcibiades' advice, Sparta reopened the war in mainland Greece by building a permanent fort at Decelea, within sight of Athens. Athenian farms could no longer be worked, overland supplies were cut, and the Laurion silver mines were crippled when, by one account, some 20,000 slaves fled. Athens now depended entirely on imports by sea while also fighting in Sicily.","lonlat":[23.78,38.17],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"-413","year":-413,"label":"Sep 413 BCE","text":"Athenian army in Sicily destroyed at the Assinarus river","detail":"Reinforced under Demosthenes but defeated around Syracuse, the Athenians delayed their departure after a lunar eclipse on 28 August, and the Syracusans then blockaded and beat their fleet in the Great Harbour. The army, about 40,000 people with camp followers, retreated overland and was cut down; Nicias's column was massacred at the Assinarus river. The 7,000 prisoners were kept in quarries, Nicias and Demosthenes were executed, and many survivors were sold as slaves.","lonlat":[15.05,36.85],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"-412","year":-412,"label":"412 BCE","text":"Persian satraps ally with Sparta as Ionia revolts","detail":"After the Sicilian disaster many of Athens' Aegean allies revolted. King Darius II of Persia ordered his satraps in Asia Minor, Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, to recover tribute from the Greek cities, and they made an alliance with Sparta. Persia regained most of Ionia and began paying for a Peloponnesian fleet, though Tissaphernes at first played the two Greek sides against each other.","lonlat":[27.28,37.53],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"-411","year":-411,"label":"Jun 411 BCE","text":"Oligarchs of the Four Hundred seize power in Athens","detail":"With the treasury nearly empty after Sicily, wealthy Athenians who disliked the democracy, in contact with officers at Samos and with Alcibiades, overthrew it. A council of Four Hundred took power in June 411 BCE and sought peace with Sparta. The fleet at Samos refused to accept the regime and kept fighting in Athens' name; the Four Hundred fell within months and full democracy was restored by 410.","lonlat":[23.73,37.98],"kind":"political"},{"date":"-410","year":-410,"label":"May–Jun 410 BCE","text":"Alcibiades destroys the Spartan fleet at Cyzicus","detail":"Recalled by the fleet at Samos, Alcibiades led a combined Athenian force with Thrasybulus and Theramenes against the Spartan admiral Mindarus, who had taken Cyzicus in the Sea of Marmara with the help of the Persian satrap Pharnabazus. The Athenians routed the Peloponnesian fleet and Mindarus was killed. The victory restored Athenian control of the Hellespont, the route of the city's grain supply, and Sparta offered peace, which Athens rejected.","lonlat":[27.89,40.39],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-406","year":-406,"label":"406 BCE","text":"Athens wins at Arginusae, then executes six of its generals","detail":"After the Spartan Lysander won a small victory at Notium and Alcibiades went into exile, Athens melted down golden statues and enlisted slaves and resident foreigners to man a new fleet and rescue a squadron blockaded at Mytilene. Off the Arginusae islands it defeated the Spartans under Callicratidas. A storm prevented the rescue of crews from 25 disabled ships, and in the uproar that followed the Assembly tried and executed six of the victorious generals.","lonlat":[26.85,39.05],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-405","year":-405,"label":"405 BCE","text":"Lysander destroys the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami","detail":"Funded by the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger, Lysander rebuilt the Spartan fleet and sailed to the Hellespont, through which Athens' grain passed. At Aegospotami he caught the Athenian ships beached and their crews ashore foraging. About 168 ships were destroyed and only a handful escaped; some 3,000 Athenian prisoners were killed. Without a fleet Athens could no longer feed itself or hold its empire.","lonlat":[26.58,40.33],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-404","year":-404,"label":"25 Apr 404 BCE","text":"Starving Athens surrenders to Sparta","detail":"Blockaded by land and sea, Athens surrendered. Corinth and Thebes wanted the city destroyed, but Sparta refused. Athens had to pull down its Long Walls and harbour fortifications, give up all but a few ships and its overseas possessions, and follow Sparta in foreign policy. A pro-Spartan oligarchy known as the Thirty ruled until democrats led by Thrasybulus restored democracy in 403 BCE.","lonlat":[23.73,37.98],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Peloponnesian War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Plague of Athens","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Athens"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sicilian Expedition","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Melos","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Amphipolis","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amphipolis"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Aegospotami","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aegospotami"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Sitalces","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitalces"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Athenian coup of 411 BC","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_coup_of_411_BC"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"second-punic-war","name":"Second Punic War","moment":null,"span":[-218,-201],"dateLabel":"Spring 218 BCE – spring 201 BCE","summary":"After losing the First Punic War in 241 BCE, Carthage built a new power base in Iberia under the Barca family. In 219 BCE Hannibal besieged and sacked Saguntum, a city allied to Rome, and in spring 218 Rome declared war. Hannibal marched from Iberia over the Alps into Italy and destroyed Roman armies at the Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae, and much of southern Italy, including Capua, went over to him. Philip V of Macedon and Syracuse also joined Carthage. But Rome refused to make peace, raised new legions and fought a long war of attrition. It retook Syracuse and Capua, while Publius Cornelius Scipio drove the Carthaginians out of Iberia and Hasdrubal's relief army was destroyed at the Metaurus. In 204 Scipio invaded Africa; Hannibal was recalled and defeated at Zama in 202. The peace of 201 stripped Carthage of its overseas lands, its fleet and its freedom to make war, leaving Rome dominant in the western Mediterranean.","casualties":"No reliable total survives; by ancient figures more than 100,000 Roman and allied soldiers were killed or captured at the Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae alone in 218–216 BCE, with estimates for Cannae ranging from about 48,000 (Livy) to 70,000 (Polybius) killed.","sides":[{"name":"Rome and allies","members":[{"clio":"Roman Republic","from":-218,"to":-201},{"clio":"Aetolian League","from":-211,"to":-206},{"clio":"Kingdom of Pergamon","from":-209,"to":-208}]},{"name":"Carthage and allies","members":[{"clio":"Carthage","from":-218,"to":-201},{"clio":"Antigonid Macedonia","from":-215,"to":-205}]}],"events":[{"date":"-218","year":-218,"label":"Spring 218 BCE","text":"Rome declares war on Carthage after the fall of Saguntum","detail":"Carthage had expanded across south-east Iberia after the First Punic War, and a treaty of 226 BCE set the Ebro as the limit of its sphere. Rome, however, had an understanding with Saguntum, well south of the Ebro. In 219 Hannibal besieged the city and took it after eight months. Rome sent an embassy led by Quintus Fabius Maximus to the Carthaginian senate with peremptory demands; when these were rejected, Rome declared war in spring 218 BCE.","lonlat":[-0.27,39.68],"kind":"political"},{"date":"-218","year":-218,"label":"May–Jun 218 BCE","text":"Hannibal leaves New Carthage and marches for Italy","detail":"Rome planned to fight in Iberia and Africa, but Hannibal struck first. He assembled his army at New Carthage (Cartagena) and led it north along the coast in May or June, then through southern Gaul by an inland route to avoid Rome's allies. He fought his way across the Rhône and evaded a Roman army that had landed at Massalia (Marseille) on its way to Iberia.","lonlat":[-0.98,37.6],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-218","year":-218,"label":"Autumn 218 BCE","text":"Hannibal crosses the Alps into Italy","detail":"Reaching the foot of the Alps in late autumn, Hannibal's army crossed in fifteen days, battling cold, terrain and attacks by local tribes; the exact pass is still debated, so the pin here is approximate. He reached Cisalpine Gaul in November with about 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry and the survivors of the 37 elephants he had set out with. His surprise arrival forced Rome to cancel its planned invasion of Africa.","lonlat":[6.9,45.2],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-218","year":-218,"label":"Late Nov 218 BCE","text":"Carthaginian cavalry routs the Romans at the Ticinus","detail":"The consul Publius Scipio led his cavalry and light infantry against Hannibal's cavalry near the Ticinus river and was soundly beaten; Scipio himself was wounded. The Romans fell back to Placentia. The victory persuaded most of the Gallic tribes of northern Italy to side with Carthage, and Hannibal's army grew to more than 40,000 men. The Senate ordered the army in Sicily under the other consul, Sempronius Longus, to march north and join Scipio, abandoning the planned invasion of Africa.","lonlat":[9.1,45.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-218","year":-218,"label":"Late 218 BCE","text":"Romans land in north-east Iberia and win at Cissa","detail":"The Roman army Hannibal had evaded at Massalia sailed on and landed in north-east Iberia in the autumn of 218, winning support among local tribes. A Carthaginian attack late in the year was beaten off at Cissa, near Tarraco. The Roman foothold between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, which the Carthaginians never managed to remove, made it very hard to send reinforcements from Iberia to Hannibal.","lonlat":[1.25,41.12],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-218","year":-218,"label":"22 or 23 Dec 218 BCE","text":"Hannibal traps and destroys a Roman army at the Trebia","detail":"The army from Sicily under the consul Sempronius Longus joined Scipio's near Placentia. On a cold, snowy morning Hannibal's Numidian cavalry provoked the Romans into crossing the Trebia river to fight on ground of his choosing, while 2,000 men hidden overnight in a watercourse under his brother Mago struck their rear. The Romans were encircled and only about 10,000 of some 40,000 fought their way to safety.","lonlat":[9.6,45.0],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-217","year":-217,"label":"21 Jun 217 BCE","text":"Roman army ambushed and destroyed at Lake Trasimene","detail":"In early spring 217 BCE Hannibal crossed the Apennines by an unguarded route and ravaged Etruria to lure the consul Gaius Flaminius into a hasty pursuit. On a misty morning Flaminius's army marched along the narrow north shore of Lake Trasimene into an ambush laid in the hills above. About 15,000 Romans, including Flaminius, were killed and 10,000 captured. Hannibal treated captured Roman citizens harshly but freed many of Rome's Latin allies, hoping to turn Rome's allies against it.","lonlat":[12.1,43.17],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-217","year":-217,"label":"217 BCE","text":"Fabius Maximus made dictator; adopts a strategy of delay","detail":"In the panic after Trasimene the Roman Assembly elected Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator. He adopted what became known as the Fabian strategy: avoiding pitched battle and using low-level harassment to wear the invader down until Rome could rebuild its strength. His army shadowed Hannibal and attacked his foragers while the Carthaginians ravaged some of Italy's richest land. The strategy was unpopular, and Romans mocked Fabius as Cunctator, 'the Delayer'; for 216 BCE they elected new consuls who sought a decisive battle.","lonlat":[12.48,41.89],"kind":"political"},{"date":"-216","year":-216,"label":"2 Aug 216 BCE","text":"Hannibal annihilates the largest Roman army yet at Cannae","detail":"The consuls Paullus and Varro led some 86,000 men against Hannibal on the open plain near Cannae in Apulia. The Roman infantry pushed into Hannibal's deliberately weak centre, African infantry on the wings closed in on their flanks, and Carthaginian cavalry, having routed the Roman horse, attacked from behind. Surrounded, the Roman army was slaughtered; at least 67,500 were killed or captured. It remains a classic example of a double envelopment.","lonlat":[16.13,41.31],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-216","year":-216,"label":"216 BCE","text":"Capua and much of southern Italy defect to Hannibal","detail":"After Cannae, Capua, the second-largest city in Italy, made an alliance with Hannibal when his army marched into Campania. Other southern city-states and two of the major Samnite tribes also joined him; so did the major port of Tarentum. By 214 BCE most of southern Italy had turned against Rome, but most of its allies in central Italy stayed loyal, and Hannibal had to defend his new friends from Roman retribution.","lonlat":[14.25,41.08],"kind":"political"},{"date":"-215","year":-215,"label":"Summer 215 BCE","text":"Philip V of Macedon allies with Hannibal","detail":"Hearing of Cannae, Philip V sent ambassadors to Hannibal's camp in Italy, and in summer 215 BCE they agreed a treaty of mutual support. The envoys were captured on their way home by a Roman fleet, which revealed the alliance. Rome reinforced its Adriatic fleet and sent a legion to guard against a Macedonian landing in Italy, beginning the First Macedonian War, which never produced a decisive battle.","lonlat":[22.52,40.76],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"-215","year":-215,"label":"215 BCE","text":"Romans defeat Hasdrubal in Iberia at Dertosa","detail":"Ordered to take his army from Iberia to join Hannibal in Italy, Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal first attacked the Romans near the Ebro. At Dertosa he tried to envelop the Roman centre with his infantry while his cavalry cleared their flanks, but the Romans broke through his centre and then beat each wing in turn. After this defeat Hasdrubal could not reinforce Hannibal for years.","lonlat":[0.52,40.81],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-212","year":-212,"label":"Autumn 212 BCE","text":"Rome takes Syracuse after a long siege; Archimedes killed","detail":"After the death of Hiero II, Rome's long-standing ally, in 215, Syracuse's new rulers went over to Carthage. A Roman army under Claudius Marcellus besieged the city from 213, delayed by war machines devised by Archimedes. In spring 212 the Romans stormed part of the city in a night attack, plague crippled a Carthaginian relief army, and the rest of Syracuse fell in the autumn. Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier.","lonlat":[15.28,37.07],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-211","year":-211,"label":"211 BCE","text":"Rome allies with the Aetolian League against Macedon","detail":"To keep Philip V busy in Greece, the Roman commander Laevinus offered an alliance to the Aetolian League, which had fought Macedon before. Under the treaty of 211 BCE the Aetolians fought on land and the Romans at sea; Pergamon, Elis, Messenia and Sparta later joined. The Aetolians made a separate peace with Philip in 206, and Rome ended the war in 205.","lonlat":[21.67,38.6],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"-211","year":-211,"label":"211 BCE","text":"Hannibal marches on Rome but fails to save Capua","detail":"The Romans had besieged Capua, Hannibal's most important ally in Italy, since 212. Hannibal attacked their siege lines without success, then marched toward Rome itself, hoping to draw the besiegers away. The besieging armies stayed in place, and Capua surrendered soon afterwards. It lost its self-government and was put under Roman officials, a warning to other cities that had defected.","lonlat":[12.55,41.93],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"-211","year":-211,"label":"211 BCE","text":"Roman armies in Iberia destroyed at the Upper Baetis","detail":"Strengthened by 20,000 Celtiberian mercenaries, the Romans in Iberia split their forces to attack three separate Carthaginian armies. Hasdrubal bribed the mercenaries to desert, and in two battles, known together as the battle of the Upper Baetis, both Roman armies were completely defeated. The survivors fell back to their coastal base north of the Ebro, which the Carthaginians again failed to take.","lonlat":[-3.63,38.04],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-209","year":-209,"label":"Early 209 BCE","text":"Scipio storms New Carthage, the Carthaginian capital in Iberia","detail":"Publius Cornelius Scipio, sent to Iberia in 210 BCE, struck at the centre of Carthaginian power rather than at its armies. In early 209 his troops attacked New Carthage by land and from the harbour and took the lightly defended city, seizing a vast booty of gold, silver and siege engines. He freed the Iberian hostages held there to win the loyalty of their tribes.","lonlat":[-0.98,37.6],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-207","year":-207,"label":"207 BCE","text":"Hasdrubal's relief army destroyed at the Metaurus","detail":"Hasdrubal crossed the Alps with about 35,000 men in 207 BCE to join his brother, but Hannibal did not learn he was coming. The consul Claudius Nero secretly marched north from facing Hannibal to join his colleague Livius Salinator. At the Metaurus river the combined Romans outflanked and routed the Carthaginians, killing Hasdrubal. Hannibal, left without reinforcements, withdrew into Bruttium, the toe of Italy.","lonlat":[12.95,43.75],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-206","year":-206,"label":"206 BCE","text":"Scipio's victory at Ilipa ends Carthaginian rule in Iberia","detail":"Near Ilipa, north of modern Seville, Scipio with about 48,000 men, half Italian and half Iberian, faced a Carthaginian army of some 54,500 and 32 elephants. A surprise change in his battle order, often called a reverse Cannae, won a crushing victory. Gades, the last Carthaginian city in Iberia, soon went over to Rome, and Carthage lost the silver and recruits Iberia had provided.","lonlat":[-5.98,37.52],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-205","year":-205,"label":"205 BCE","text":"Peace of Phoenice ends the war with Macedon","detail":"After the Aetolians made a separate peace with Philip V in 206, Rome, with no more allies fighting in Greece, was ready to end the First Macedonian War. The treaty drawn up at Phoenice in Epirus in 205 BCE ended it without a decisive result. Rome had achieved its main aim: Philip had been kept from sending help to Hannibal in Italy.","lonlat":[20.07,39.92],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"-204","year":-204,"label":"204 BCE","text":"Scipio invades Africa and besieges Utica","detail":"Made consul in 205 BCE, Scipio trained an army in Sicily, partly of volunteers, for an invasion of Africa. In 204 he landed near the Carthaginian port of Utica with four legions and besieged it. The Numidian prince Masinissa, who had lost his kingdom to the Carthaginian-backed king Syphax, joined him with cavalry, while Syphax and the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal Gisco camped nearby.","lonlat":[10.06,37.06],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"-203","year":-203,"label":"203 BCE","text":"Victory at the Great Plains forces Carthage to recall Hannibal","detail":"After burning the enemy camps outside Utica, Scipio defeated the Carthaginian and Numidian armies of Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax at the Great Plains. Syphax was pursued and captured by Masinissa, who took most of his kingdom with Roman help. Carthage opened peace talks and recalled Hannibal and Mago from Italy; Hannibal landed with 15,000–20,000 veterans, and Carthage repudiated the draft treaty.","lonlat":[9.0,36.6],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-202","year":-202,"label":"Oct 202 BCE","text":"Scipio defeats Hannibal at Zama","detail":"For once the Romans, helped by Masinissa's Numidians, were stronger in cavalry, and Hannibal relied on his infantry and 80 war elephants. The elephants were turned back through his own lines, and the Roman and Numidian cavalry drove the Carthaginian horse from the field, then returned to strike the rear of the Carthaginian infantry, which collapsed. Hannibal escaped, and Carthage sued for peace. The exact battlefield is uncertain, so the pin is approximate.","lonlat":[9.4,36.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"-201","year":-201,"label":"Spring 201 BCE","text":"Carthage accepts Rome's peace terms","detail":"The treaty stripped Carthage of all its overseas territories and some of its African lands, imposed an indemnity of 10,000 silver talents over fifty years, limited its fleet to ten warships, banned war elephants and forbade it to make war without Rome's permission. Hannibal urged acceptance, and the treaty was agreed in spring 201 BCE. Scipio took the name Africanus, and Rome was now the leading power of the western Mediterranean.","lonlat":[10.32,36.85],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Second Punic War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Punic_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of the Trebia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trebia"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Lake Trasimene","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Trasimene"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Cannae","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Macedonian War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Macedonian_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ilipa","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ilipa"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Zama","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Zama"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"first-crusade","name":"First Crusade","moment":"first-crusade","span":[1096,1099],"dateLabel":"1096 – 12 August 1099","summary":"In 1095 the Byzantine emperor Alexios I asked the West for help against the Seljuk Turks, who had overrun most of Anatolia. At the Council of Clermont that November, Pope Urban II called for an armed pilgrimage to aid the Eastern Christians and recover Jerusalem. The first, poorly organised bands attacked Jewish communities in the Rhineland and were destroyed by the Turks in Anatolia. The main armies, led by princes from France, Lorraine and Norman Italy and numbering perhaps 100,000 with non-combatants, gathered at Constantinople, took Nicaea with Byzantine help, beat the Seljuks at Dorylaeum and endured an eight-month siege of Antioch. Divisions and rivalries among the Muslim rulers of Syria helped them. In July 1099 they stormed Jerusalem, then held by Fatimid Egypt, and killed many of its inhabitants. Four crusader states, Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem and later Tripoli, were founded, and a Fatimid counter-attack was beaten at Ascalon.","casualties":"No reliable total exists; tens of thousands of crusaders and pilgrims died of battle, hunger and disease, perhaps only about 12,000 fighting men reached Jerusalem, and modern estimates put the dead of the Jerusalem massacre alone at 3,000–10,000.","sides":[{"name":"Crusaders and Byzantine allies","members":[{"clio":"Byzantine Empire","from":1097,"to":1098},{"clio":"County of Edessa","from":1099,"to":1099},{"clio":"Principality of Antioch","from":1099,"to":1099},{"clio":"Kingdom of Jerusalem","from":1099,"to":1099}]},{"name":"Seljuk Turks","members":[{"clio":"Sultanate of Rum","from":1096,"to":1097},{"clio":"Danishmendids","from":1097,"to":1097},{"clio":"Great Seljuk Empire","from":1097,"to":1098}]},{"name":"Fatimid Caliphate","members":[{"clio":"Fatimid Caliphate","from":1099,"to":1099}]}],"events":[{"date":"1096-05","year":1096,"label":"May 1096","text":"Crusading bands massacre Jews in the Rhineland","detail":"Urban II's call at Clermont on 27 November 1095 set off popular preaching across Europe. Months before the official departure date, unofficial bands turned on Jewish communities: in May 1096 followers of Emicho of Flonheim attacked the Jews of Speyer and Worms and destroyed the community of Mainz, and violence followed in Cologne, Trier, Metz and elsewhere. Some bishops tried to protect the Jews. The massacres were never church policy, but they left a lasting scar.","lonlat":[8.27,50.0],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1096-10","year":1096,"label":"Oct 1096","text":"People's Crusade destroyed by the Turks at Civetot","detail":"Thousands of mostly poor pilgrims, with some knights, followed the preacher Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans Avoir to Constantinople, pillaging along the way. Alexios quickly ferried them across the Bosporus, where they raided towards Nicaea, the capital of Kilij Arslan's Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. In October 1096 Turkish archers ambushed and annihilated the main body at Civetot; Walter was killed and only a few survivors later joined the princes' armies.","lonlat":[29.5,40.7],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1096-11","year":1096,"label":"Nov 1096 – Apr 1097","text":"The princes' armies gather at Constantinople","detail":"The main armies left in late summer 1096 under Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond of Taranto, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders and others, and reached Constantinople between November and April. Alexios wanted them in Asia Minor quickly and, in return for supplies, required the leaders to swear fealty and promise to return former Byzantine lands. Most did, after tense clashes outside the city; Raymond only promised to do the empire no harm.","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1097-06-19","year":1097,"label":"14 May – 19 Jun 1097","text":"Nicaea surrenders to the Byzantines after a crusader siege","detail":"The crusaders besieged Nicaea while Kilij Arslan was away fighting the Danishmendids; his relief attack on 16 May was driven off. Because the city was supplied across Lake Iznik, Alexios had boats hauled overland to close the lake. Fearing a storm, the Turkish garrison surrendered to the Byzantines instead of the crusaders, who were barred from looting it. The emperor rewarded them with money, but the episode planted distrust between Franks and Greeks.","lonlat":[29.72,40.43],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1097-07-01","year":1097,"label":"1 Jul 1097","text":"Crusaders defeat Kilij Arslan at Dorylaeum","detail":"Marching across Anatolia in two groups, the crusaders were attacked near Dorylaeum by Kilij Arslan and his Danishmendid ally with a larger army of mounted archers. Bohemond's vanguard formed a tight defensive camp around its non-combatants and held out until the rear division under Godfrey and Raymond arrived and the legate Adhemar struck the Turks from behind. The Turks fled, burning the country as they went, and the crusaders crossed Anatolia almost unopposed but suffered badly from heat and hunger.","lonlat":[30.52,39.78],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1097-10-20","year":1097,"label":"20 Oct 1097","text":"Siege of Antioch begins","detail":"Antioch, a huge walled city held for the Seljuks by its governor Yaghi-Siyan, was too large to surround completely. The siege dragged on through the winter; hundreds or thousands of crusaders died of hunger and many deserted. Relief armies sent separately by the Seljuk brothers Duqaq of Damascus and Ridwan of Aleppo in December and February were beaten, helped by divisions among the Muslim rulers, while supplies arrived through captured ports and by sea.","lonlat":[36.16,36.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1098-03-10","year":1098,"label":"10 Mar 1098","text":"Baldwin of Boulogne becomes the first Count of Edessa","detail":"Baldwin had left the main army and was invited by the Armenian lord Thoros of Edessa to help him against the Seljuks; Thoros adopted him as son and co-ruler. When local nobles rose and murdered Thoros and his wife on 9 March, Baldwin did nothing to stop them, and the next day the townspeople accepted him as ruler. The County of Edessa, the first crusader state, protected the flank of the army at Antioch and supplied it.","lonlat":[38.79,37.16],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1098-06-03","year":1098,"label":"3 Jun 1098","text":"Crusaders take Antioch by treachery and sack it","detail":"Bohemond arranged with Firouz, an Armenian commander of a stretch of wall, to let a small party in during the night. On 3 June they opened a gate, the city's Christian majority opened others, and the crusaders poured in. In the sack they killed most of the Muslim inhabitants and many Greek, Syrian and Armenian Christians in the confusion. The citadel held out, and within a day a huge relief army was approaching.","lonlat":[36.17,36.21],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1098-06-28","year":1098,"label":"28 Jun 1098","text":"Crusaders break Kerbogha's siege of Antioch","detail":"Kerbogha, the Turkish ruler of Mosul, arrived with a coalition army of perhaps 40,000 from Syria, Iraq and Anatolia and trapped the starving crusaders inside Antioch. Morale was lifted by the claimed discovery of the Holy Lance. On 28 June the crusaders marched out in four divisions; Kerbogha's coalition, divided by rivalries, attacked in disorder and broke. Alexios, told by deserters that all was lost, had turned back, and Bohemond kept Antioch for himself.","lonlat":[36.2,36.24],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1098-12","year":1098,"label":"Dec 1098","text":"Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan; reports of cannibalism","detail":"The leaders argued for months over Antioch while plague killed many, including the legate Adhemar on 1 August. In December, after besieging and taking Ma'arrat al-Numan in northern Syria, starving crusaders, by the accounts of Latin chroniclers, ate the bodies of the dead; no contemporary Muslim chronicle records this. Restless soldiers threatened to march on without their quarrelling leaders, and in January 1099 Raymond resumed the march south, barefoot as a pilgrim.","lonlat":[36.67,35.65],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1099-02-14","year":1099,"label":"14 Feb – 13 May 1099","text":"Crusaders fail to take Arqa and march down the coast","detail":"Raymond besieged Arqa in northern Lebanon, hoping to win a state of his own around Tripoli, but after three months the crusaders left empty-handed. Local rulers, such as the emir of Tripoli, preferred to supply them rather than fight. The Fatimids of Egypt, who had retaken Jerusalem from the Seljuks the year before, offered free passage to pilgrims if the crusaders stayed out of their lands; the offer was refused, and the army passed Beirut and Tyre in May.","lonlat":[36.05,34.53],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1099-06-07","year":1099,"label":"7 Jun 1099","text":"Crusaders begin the siege of Fatimid Jerusalem","detail":"The Fatimid governor Iftikhar al-Dawla expelled the city's Christians and poisoned wells around it. With perhaps 12,000 men and 1,500 cavalry left, the crusaders could not blockade Jerusalem and had to storm it. A first assault on 13 June failed. Genoese sailors arriving at Jaffa on 17 June brought engineers and timber for siege towers, and on 8 July the army made a barefoot procession around the walls.","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1099-07-15","year":1099,"label":"15 Jul 1099","text":"Jerusalem stormed; much of its population massacred","detail":"After two days of assault the crusaders captured the inner wall on the north side and the defenders abandoned the walls. Muslims were killed indiscriminately, including people who had sought refuge on the Temple Mount, and Jews died when their synagogue was burned. The governor surrendered the citadel for safe passage. Some inhabitants escaped or were ransomed; modern estimates put the dead at 3,000–10,000, far below the figures in later chronicles.","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1099-07-22","year":1099,"label":"22 Jul 1099","text":"Godfrey of Bouillon chosen to rule Jerusalem","detail":"A council in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre met on 22 July to decide how the city would be governed. Raymond of Toulouse refused a crown, saying only Christ could wear one there, and Godfrey of Bouillon, backed by the large army from Lorraine led by him and his brothers, was elected with the title Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. Raymond, angered, tried to hold on to the Tower of David. Pope Urban II died on 29 July, before news of the victory reached Rome.","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1099-08-12","year":1099,"label":"12 Aug 1099","text":"Crusaders rout the Fatimid army at Ascalon","detail":"The Fatimid vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah landed an army of about 20,000 at Ascalon to retake Jerusalem. Godfrey led some 10,200 crusaders south and attacked the Egyptian camp at dawn, catching it unprepared, and the Fatimid army fled. Quarrels between Godfrey and Raymond meant Ascalon itself stayed in Fatimid hands. Most crusaders now went home, leaving only a few hundred knights to hold the new kingdom.","lonlat":[34.55,31.66],"kind":"battle"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: First Crusade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Nicaea","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Nicaea"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Dorylaeum (1097)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dorylaeum_(1097)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Antioch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antioch"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Jerusalem (1099)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_(1099)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ascalon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ascalon"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"third-crusade","name":"Third Crusade","moment":null,"span":[1189,1192],"dateLabel":"May 1189 – 9 October 1192","summary":"In July 1187 Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, destroyed the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at Hattin and went on to take Jerusalem and nearly every crusader town except Tyre. Pope Gregory VIII called a new crusade, and three of Europe's most powerful rulers took the cross: Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Philip II of France and Richard I of England. Frederick marched overland, fought his way through Byzantine territory and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, but drowned in Anatolia in June 1190, and most of his army went home. Richard and Philip came by sea, conquering Cyprus on the way, and in July 1191 joined the two-year siege of Acre, which surrendered. Philip then went home. Richard beat Saladin at Arsuf and twice came close to Jerusalem but did not besiege it. The Treaty of Jaffa (September 1192) left Jerusalem in Muslim hands, restored a coastal crusader kingdom from Tyre to Jaffa and opened the holy places to Christian pilgrims.","casualties":"No reliable total exists; the two-year siege of Acre alone is estimated to have cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides, many from disease, and about 2,700 Muslim prisoners were executed there in August 1191.","sides":[{"name":"Crusaders","members":[{"clio":"Holy Roman Empire","from":1189,"to":1191},{"clio":"Kingdom of Jerusalem","from":1189,"to":1192},{"clio":"Angevin Empire","from":1190,"to":1192},{"clio":"Kingdom of France","from":1190,"to":1191}]},{"name":"Ayyubid Sultanate (Saladin)","members":[{"clio":"Ayyubid Sultanate","from":1189,"to":1192}]},{"name":"Sultanate of Rum (fought the German army)","members":[{"clio":"Sultanate of Rum","from":1190,"to":1190}]}],"events":[{"date":"1189-05","year":1189,"label":"May 1189","text":"Frederick Barbarossa's crusade sets out from Regensburg","detail":"Saladin's victory at Hattin on 4 July 1187 and his capture of Jerusalem that October left the crusaders holding little but Tyre. Pope Gregory VIII called a new crusade, and Frederick took the cross at the 'Court of Christ' in Mainz in March 1188. The first of the three monarchs to leave, he mustered his army at Regensburg in May 1189 and chose the overland route through Hungary, the Balkans and Anatolia.","lonlat":[12.1,49.02],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1189-08","year":1189,"label":"Aug 1189","text":"King Guy of Jerusalem begins the siege of Acre","detail":"Released by Saladin, King Guy found Conrad of Montferrat in control of Tyre and turned instead to the rich port of Acre. His small army, reinforced by fleets of crusaders from northern Europe and Italy, besieged the city, but Saladin's army in turn surrounded the besiegers. Both sides were supplied by sea, and the siege dragged on for nearly two years amid disease, hunger and repeated battles.","lonlat":[35.07,32.92],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1189-11-22","year":1189,"label":"Aug–Nov 1189","text":"German crusaders clash with Byzantium in Thrace","detail":"Emperor Isaac II Angelos distrusted Frederick, refused him the imperial title and held his envoys, while an Ayyubid ambassador was at his court. The crusaders broke with Byzantium, seized Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and its supplies on 26 August and occupied much of the surrounding country into November. Around 22 November they routed a Byzantine force under Manuel Kamytzes that had been sent to ambush their supply train, before eventually crossing into Asia.","lonlat":[24.75,42.15],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1190-05-18","year":1190,"label":"18 May 1190","text":"Barbarossa takes Iconium, capital of the Sultanate of Rum","detail":"Although promised safe passage by the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, the Germans faced constant Turkish hit-and-run attacks as they crossed Anatolia. Short of food and horses, Frederick decided to seize the Seljuk capital, Iconium (Konya), ruled by Kilij Arslan II. On 18 May 1190 the crusaders defeated the Turkish army there and sacked the city, gaining the supplies they needed to continue toward Armenian Cilicia.","lonlat":[32.49,37.87],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1190-06-10","year":1190,"label":"10 Jun 1190","text":"Frederick Barbarossa drowns in the Saleph river","detail":"While crossing the Saleph (Göksu) river in Cilicia, the elderly emperor was thrown from his horse and drowned. Much of his army returned to Germany by sea, partly because an imperial election was expected. His son Frederick of Swabia led the remaining few thousand men to Antioch, where fever thinned them further, and then to Acre, where he died in the winter of 1190–91.","lonlat":[33.93,36.38],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1190-07-04","year":1190,"label":"4 Jul 1190","text":"Richard I and Philip II set out together from Vézelay","detail":"Henry II of England and Philip II of France had made peace in January 1188 to go on crusade and raised the 'Saladin tithe', a tax on income and movable goods, to pay for it. Henry died in July 1189 and his son Richard took his place. The two kings left Vézelay together on 4 July 1190 and parted at Lyon, Richard heading for Marseille and Philip for Genoa, agreeing to meet in Sicily.","lonlat":[3.75,47.47],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1190-10-04","year":1190,"label":"4 Oct 1190","text":"Richard captures Messina and winters in Sicily","detail":"King Tancred of Sicily had imprisoned Richard's sister Joan, widow of the previous king. Richard seized Messina on 4 October 1190 and secured her release. The crusaders wintered in Sicily, where Richard and Philip fell out after Richard broke off his betrothal to Philip's half-sister Alys to marry Berengaria of Navarre. Philip sailed for the Holy Land on 30 March 1191; Richard followed on 10 April.","lonlat":[15.55,38.19],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1191-05-06","year":1191,"label":"May 1191","text":"Richard conquers Byzantine-ruled Cyprus","detail":"A storm scattered Richard's fleet, and ships carrying Joan, Berengaria and crusade treasure were driven to Cyprus, whose ruler Isaac Komnenos seized the treasure. Richard landed at Limassol on 6 May, married Berengaria there and, when Isaac turned hostile, conquered the whole island within weeks. Cyprus became a lasting Latin kingdom and a base for the crusader states; Richard later sold it to Guy of Lusignan.","lonlat":[33.04,34.68],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1191-07-12","year":1191,"label":"12 Jul 1191","text":"Acre surrenders to the crusaders after a two-year siege","detail":"Leopold V of Austria arrived with the remaining German forces in spring 1191 and Philip with the French in April. Richard reached Acre on 8 June and pressed the siege with new siege engines, and the garrison surrendered on 12 July. The victors quarrelled over the spoils: Richard threw down Leopold's banner, and the kings backed rival claimants, Guy and Conrad, for the crown of Jerusalem.","lonlat":[35.07,32.92],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1191-08","year":1191,"label":"Aug 1191","text":"Philip II and Leopold of Austria leave the crusade","detail":"Frustrated with Richard and, in Philip's case, in poor health, the French king and Duke Leopold of Austria took their forces home in August 1191. Philip left behind 7,000 French crusaders and 5,000 silver marks to pay them, under the command of the duke of Burgundy. Richard was left as the sole royal leader of the crusade, with the dispute over the crown of Jerusalem settled for the moment: Guy would reign, and Conrad would succeed him.","lonlat":[35.08,32.93],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1191-08-20","year":1191,"label":"20 Aug 1191","text":"Richard executes about 2,700 Muslim prisoners at Acre","detail":"Saladin tried to negotiate the release of the captured Acre garrison, which included women and children, but the talks dragged on. On 20 August Richard, judging that Saladin was stalling, had about 2,700 Muslim prisoners beheaded in full view of Saladin's army, which tried in vain to rescue them. Saladin responded by killing the Christian prisoners he held. The memory of the massacre embittered the rest of the war, and Muslim soldiers took revenge when they stormed Jaffa a year later.","lonlat":[35.1,32.9],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1191-09-07","year":1191,"label":"7 Sep 1191","text":"Richard defeats Saladin at Arsuf","detail":"Richard marched south along the coast toward Jaffa, the port he needed for any attack on Jerusalem, with his fleet alongside. Saladin harassed the column for days, then committed his army on the plain north of Arsuf. The crusaders kept their formation until the Hospitallers charged, and Richard turned it into a general counter-attack that routed the Ayyubid army. Saladin's army survived, but his reputation suffered and Richard took Jaffa.","lonlat":[34.82,32.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1191-12","year":1191,"label":"Dec 1191 – Jan 1192","text":"First advance on Jerusalem stops at Beit Nuba","detail":"Talks with Saladin's brother al-Adil, including a proposal that he marry Richard's sister Joan, came to nothing. In winter the crusaders advanced inland, spent Christmas at Latrun and reached Beit Nuba, about 12 miles from Jerusalem, after Saladin had been forced to dismiss much of his army. Cold, rain and hail, and the fear of being trapped by a relief army during a siege, led the leaders to retreat to the coast.","lonlat":[35.03,31.86],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1192-04","year":1192,"label":"Apr 1192","text":"Conrad of Montferrat elected king, then murdered in Tyre","detail":"The nobles of the kingdom chose Conrad of Montferrat as king, and Richard had to accept it, compensating Guy with Cyprus. Before he could be crowned, Conrad was stabbed to death by two Assassins in the streets of Tyre. Eight days later Richard's nephew Henry of Champagne married the heiress Queen Isabella and became ruler. Many suspected that Richard had arranged the killing.","lonlat":[35.2,33.27],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1192-05-22","year":1192,"label":"22 May 1192","text":"Crusaders capture Darum on the road to Egypt","detail":"Through the winter Richard's men refortified Ascalon, which Saladin had demolished, and in spring negotiations and skirmishing continued. On 22 May the crusaders took the fortified town of Darum on the frontier of Egypt after five days of fierce fighting. Richard and most of his council saw Egypt as the base of Saladin's power and favoured attacking it rather than Jerusalem.","lonlat":[34.35,31.42],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1192-06","year":1192,"label":"Jun 1192","text":"Second advance comes within sight of Jerusalem, then retreats","detail":"The army again marched inland and came within sight of Jerusalem in June 1192. The leaders were split: Richard and most of the council wanted to strike at Egypt, while the duke of Burgundy, leading the French, insisted on attacking Jerusalem directly. Neither faction was strong enough on its own, and the crusaders withdrew once more without laying siege to the city.","lonlat":[35.05,31.84],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1192-08","year":1192,"label":"Jul–Aug 1192","text":"Richard saves Jaffa from Saladin's surprise attack","detail":"In July Saladin suddenly attacked and took Jaffa, though he lost control of soldiers still angry over the Acre massacre. Richard, about to leave for England, sailed down with a little over 2,000 men, stormed ashore and drove the Ayyubids out. When Saladin counter-attacked at dawn, Richard's crossbowmen inflicted heavy losses on his lightly armoured troops and the attack failed, strengthening the coastal crusader states.","lonlat":[34.75,32.05],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1192-09-02","year":1192,"label":"1 or 2 Sep 1192","text":"Treaty of Jaffa: a three-year truce ends the crusade","detail":"Negotiated with the help of Balian of Ibelin, the truce left Jerusalem under Muslim rule but allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims and merchants to visit it, and guaranteed safe passage through Palestine for Christians and Muslims. The crusaders kept the coast from Tyre to Jaffa, while Ascalon, its walls demolished, went back to Saladin. Richard sailed for home on 9 October 1192, leaving Jerusalem in Muslim hands until a later crusade briefly regained it by treaty in 1229.","lonlat":[34.87,31.93],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Third Crusade","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Crusade"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Acre (1189–1191)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Acre_(1189%E2%80%931191)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Iconium (1190)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iconium_(1190)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Arsuf","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arsuf"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Jaffa (1192)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Jaffa_(1192)"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"mongol-conquests","name":"Mongol conquests (1206–1260)","moment":"genghis-khan","span":[1206,1260],"dateLabel":"1206 – 3 September 1260","summary":"In 1206 an assembly on the Onon river proclaimed Temüjin Genghis Khan, ruler of the united Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppe. His cavalry armies, disciplined in decimal units and quick to adopt Chinese and Muslim siege engineers, forced the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia to submit in 1210 and then attacked the Jurchen Jin dynasty, taking its capital Zhongdu (Beijing) in 1215. When the governor of Otrar killed a Mongol caravan, Genghis destroyed the Khwarazmian Empire of Central Asia and Iran in 1219–1221, while his generals Jebe and Subutai rode round the Caspian and beat the Rus' and Cumans on the Kalka. After his death in 1227 his sons finished off the Jin (1234), Batu and Subutai conquered the Rus' principalities (1237–1240) and routed Polish and Hungarian armies in 1241, and Hulagu destroyed the Assassins and sacked Baghdad (1258). The advance was halted in 1260, when the Mamluks of Egypt defeated a reduced Mongol army at Ain Jalut. By then the empire stretched from Korea to Hungary, but it was splitting into four khanates.","casualties":"No reliable count exists; a total of 40–60 million deaths from war, massacre, famine and flight is often cited (from McEvedy and Jones, 1978) but is disputed, and chroniclers' figures of over a million dead at single cities such as Merv and Nishapur are greatly exaggerated.","sides":[{"name":"Mongol Empire","members":[{"clio":"Mongol Empire","from":1206,"to":1260}]},{"name":"States the Mongols attacked (not allied with one another)","members":[{"clio":"Western Xia","from":1209,"to":1210,"toDate":"1210-02-01"},{"clio":"Great Jin","from":1211,"to":1234,"toDate":"1234-02-09"},{"clio":"Kara-Khitans","from":1218,"to":1218},{"clio":"Khwarezmid Empire","from":1219,"to":1231,"toDate":"1231-08-15"},{"clio":"Kingdom of Georgia","from":1220,"to":1222},{"clio":"Kievan Rus'","from":1223,"to":1223},{"clio":"Western Xia","from":1225,"to":1226,"toDate":"1227-09-15"},{"clio":"Principality of Ryazan","from":1237,"to":1238},{"clio":"Principality of Rostov-Suzdal","from":1238,"to":1238},{"clio":"Principality of Chernigov","from":1238,"to":1239},{"clio":"Principality of Pereyaslavl","from":1239,"to":1239},{"clio":"Principality of Kiev","from":1240,"to":1240},{"clio":"Principality of Galicia-Volhynia","from":1240,"to":1240},{"clio":"(Duchies of Poland)","from":1241,"to":1241},{"clio":"Kingdom of Hungary","from":1241,"to":1242},{"clio":"Abbasid Caliphate","from":1257,"to":1258,"toDate":"1258-02-10"}]},{"name":"Mamluk Sultanate","members":[{"clio":"Mamluk Sultanate","from":1260,"to":1260}]}],"events":[{"date":"1206","year":1206,"label":"1206","text":"Temüjin is proclaimed Genghis Khan at a great assembly on the Onon","detail":"After two decades of wars against rival clans and confederations, the Tatars, Keraites, Merkits and Naimans, Temüjin had united the peoples of the Mongolian plateau. At a kurultai, an assembly of the steppe nobility, held near the source of the Onon river in 1206, he took the title Genghis Khan. He reorganised the tribes into a single army of decimal units of tens, hundreds, thousands and ten-thousands led by loyal companions, and set up a personal guard, laws and a script, the base for all later conquests.","lonlat":[108.9,48.8],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1210-01","year":1210,"label":"1209 – Jan 1210","text":"Western Xia submits after a long siege of its capital","detail":"Genghis's first major invasion of a settled state was aimed at the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia, which guarded the road from the steppe into China. In 1209 his army broke through the passes and besieged the capital Zhongxing (Yinchuan) for months, even trying to flood it by diverting the Yellow River's canals. In January 1210 Emperor Xiangzong submitted, gave a daughter in marriage and promised tribute and troops. Western Xia became a Mongol vassal, securing Genghis's flank for war on the Jin.","lonlat":[106.27,38.47],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1211-08","year":1211,"label":"Aug–Oct 1211","text":"Genghis Khan invades the Jin and wins at Yehuling (Badger's Mouth)","detail":"In 1211 Genghis refused tribute to the Jurchen Jin dynasty, which ruled northern China, and invaded with about 65,000 men and allies. In the mountain passes of Yehuling, north-west of the Jin capital Zhongdu, his army routed a much larger Jin field army in the autumn of 1211. The Mongols then ravaged the plains of northern China and its horse pastures, though without siege skills they could not yet take the great walled cities. The war with the Jin would last 23 years.","lonlat":[114.6,40.9],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1215-06","year":1215,"label":"Jun 1215","text":"The Jin capital Zhongdu (Beijing) surrenders and is sacked","detail":"In 1214 Genghis besieged Zhongdu and accepted a rich tribute and a Jin princess to withdraw, but Emperor Xuanzong then moved his court south to Kaifeng, which Genghis treated as a breach of the peace. His armies returned and blockaded the capital; famine and disease raged inside, and the commanders fled or killed themselves. In June 1215 the defenders opened the gates. The city was plundered and burned and many of its people killed. The Jin were left holding only the south of their empire around Kaifeng.","lonlat":[116.35,39.88],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1218","year":1218,"label":"1216–1218","text":"Jebe overruns Qara Khitai and hunts down Kuchlug","detail":"Kuchlug, a Naiman prince defeated by the Mongols in 1208, had fled west and seized the throne of Qara Khitai, the Khitan-ruled empire in Central Asia, where he persecuted Muslims. Genghis sent his general Jebe after him. Jebe won over the towns of the Tarim basin by proclaiming freedom of worship, and in 1218 Kuchlug was caught in the mountains of Badakhshan and beheaded. The Mongol Empire now bordered the Khwarazmian Empire along the Syr Darya.","lonlat":[75.99,39.47],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1220-02","year":1220,"label":"Dec 1219 – Mar 1220","text":"Otrar, Bukhara and Samarkand fall to the Mongols","detail":"In 1218 Inalchuq, governor of the Khwarazmian border town of Otrar, executed the merchants of a Mongol caravan as spies, and Shah Muhammad II killed one of Genghis's envoys. Genghis invaded in 1219. While his sons besieged Otrar, he crossed the Kyzylkum desert and appeared before Bukhara, which surrendered on 10 February 1220; its citadel was stormed and the city burned. Otrar's inner citadel fell in February, and Samarkand's garrison surrendered on 16 March. The shah, who had spread his army among the cities, fled west.","lonlat":[64.42,39.77],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1220-12","year":1220,"label":"Dec 1220","text":"Shah Muhammad II dies, a fugitive on a Caspian island","detail":"Genghis sent Jebe and Subutai with about 20,000 horsemen to hunt the shah. Muhammad fled across Khorasan and northern Iran, while the pursuers took or plundered towns such as Tus, Qazvin and Ardabil. He found refuge on an island in the Caspian Sea, where he died, probably of pleurisy, in December 1220. His son Jalal al-Din took up the fight. Jebe and Subutai, instead of returning, rode on into the Caucasus, where they routed a Georgian army at Khunan.","lonlat":[53.9,36.9],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1221-04","year":1221,"label":"Apr 1221","text":"Gurganj is destroyed; Tolui sacks Merv and Nishapur","detail":"In the spring of 1221 the Mongols destroyed the great cities of the Khwarazmian heartland and Khorasan. Genghis's sons Jochi, Chagatai and Ögedei ended a long siege of Gurganj (Urgench), the old capital, and flooded its ruins. His youngest son Tolui took Merv after a few days in April and killed most of its people, then took Nishapur, where his brother-in-law had been killed, and destroyed it. Chroniclers' death tolls of over a million per city are impossible, but the slaughter was immense.","lonlat":[62.19,37.66],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1221-09","year":1221,"label":"Sep 1221","text":"Jalal al-Din defeats a Mongol army at Parwan","detail":"Shah Muhammad's son Jalal al-Din gathered a new army around Ghazni in what is now Afghanistan. Near Parwan, north of Kabul, he defeated a Mongol army of about 30,000 under Shigi Qutuqu, one of the few Mongol defeats of the war. His victory raised revolts across Khorasan, but his Turkic and Afghan allies quarrelled over the spoils and many left him. Genghis himself marched south to destroy him.","lonlat":[69.2,35.1],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1221-11-24","year":1221,"label":"24 Nov 1221","text":"Genghis Khan crushes Jalal al-Din at the Indus","detail":"Genghis caught Jalal al-Din's army with its back to the Indus river. On 24 November 1221 the Mongols broke the Khwarazmian wings and surrounded the centre; most of the army was killed. Seeing the battle lost, Jalal al-Din rode his horse off a cliff into the river in full armour and reached the far bank. The Khwarazmian Empire was finished, and Khwarazm and Khorasan were annexed, though Jalal al-Din fought on in India and western Iran until 1231.","lonlat":[72.18,33.77],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1223-05-31","year":1223,"label":"31 May 1223","text":"Jebe and Subutai rout the Rus' princes and Cumans on the Kalka","detail":"After crossing the Caucasus, Jebe and Subutai defeated the Alans and the Cumans (Kipchaks) of the steppe, who asked the Rus' princes for help. A coalition led by Mstislav of Kiev, Mstislav of Galich and the princes of Chernigov and Smolensk advanced against the Mongols, who retreated for days and then turned on them by the Kalka river on 31 May 1223. The disunited Rus' and Cuman armies were destroyed, and Mstislav of Kiev was killed after surrendering. The Mongols then rode back east.","lonlat":[37.6,47.3],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1226","year":1226,"label":"1226","text":"Genghis Khan invades Western Xia a second time","detail":"Western Xia had refused to send troops for the war against Khwarazm and then allied with the Jin. In 1226 Genghis led a punitive invasion, his last campaign. His armies took the cities of the Hexi corridor, including Ganzhou and Wuwei, destroying towns and countryside, and in the winter of 1226 defeated the Tangut field army near the Yellow River. Early in 1227 they laid siege to the capital Zhongxing (Yinchuan), while other columns attacked Jin territory to the south.","lonlat":[102.64,37.93],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1227-08","year":1227,"label":"Aug 1227","text":"Genghis Khan dies during the siege of the Tangut capital","detail":"In August 1227, on either 18 or 25 August, Genghis Khan died during the campaign in the Liupan mountains; the cause is uncertain, with accounts ranging from illness to injuries from a fall from his horse. His death was kept secret so as not to endanger the siege. He left his empire to his sons, with his third son Ögedei chosen as successor; after a regency by his youngest son Tolui, Ögedei was elected Great Khan in 1229.","lonlat":[106.3,35.6],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1227-09","year":1227,"label":"Sep 1227","text":"Western Xia surrenders and is destroyed","detail":"Unaware of Genghis's death, the last Tangut ruler, Li Xian (Emperor Mo), surrendered his besieged capital Zhongxing in September 1227. In keeping with Genghis's orders he was executed, and much of the population was massacred. The Western Xia state, which had ruled north-west China for nearly two centuries, disappeared, and its lands were absorbed into the Mongol Empire. The Tangut people and their writing survived, but their kingdom was never restored.","lonlat":[106.27,38.47],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1232-02-09","year":1232,"label":"9 Feb 1232","text":"Tolui destroys the last Jin field army at Sanfengshan","detail":"Ögedei renewed the war on the Jin in 1230. While he attacked across the Yellow River, Tolui led a wide flanking march through Song territory and into Henan. The main Jin army of about 150,000 pursued him through snow and freezing rain, and at Sanfeng mountain, south-west of Yuzhou, on 9 February 1232 the exhausted Jin troops were surrounded and wiped out. The battle destroyed the Jin dynasty's last field army and left Kaifeng exposed.","lonlat":[113.35,34.1],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1233-05-29","year":1233,"label":"Apr 1232 – 29 May 1233","text":"Kaifeng, the last Jin capital, surrenders to Subutai","detail":"Subutai laid siege to Kaifeng in April 1232. Its defenders used gunpowder bombs and fire lances against the Mongol siege works, but plague and famine killed vast numbers inside the crowded city. Emperor Aizong slipped out early in 1233 and fled to Caizhou, and on 29 May 1233 Kaifeng surrendered. Subutai wanted to massacre the population, as was usual after long resistance, but the Khitan adviser Yelü Chucai persuaded Ögedei to spare it.","lonlat":[114.3,34.8],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1234-02-09","year":1234,"label":"9 Feb 1234","text":"Caizhou falls to the Mongols and the Song; the Jin dynasty ends","detail":"The Southern Song, long-time enemies of the Jin, allied with the Mongols, and in late 1233 a joint Mongol and Song army besieged Emperor Aizong in Caizhou. As the walls fell on 9 February 1234 Aizong passed the throne to a kinsman and killed himself; the new emperor was killed in the fighting the same day. The Jin dynasty was over. Within a year the Song tried to seize the old capitals Kaifeng and Luoyang, beginning a Mongol–Song war that lasted until 1279.","lonlat":[114.36,33.0],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1237-12-21","year":1237,"label":"16–21 Dec 1237","text":"Batu's army storms and destroys Ryazan","detail":"In 1235 Ögedei ordered a great western campaign under Genghis's grandson Batu, with Subutai in command in the field. After crushing the Volga Bulgars and the Cumans, the Mongols attacked the Rus' principalities in winter, when frozen rivers served as roads. Ryazan, refused help by the other princes, was besieged from 16 December 1237 and stormed on 21 December. Prince Yuri Igorevich was killed, and the city was burned and its people massacred.","lonlat":[40.43,54.41],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1238-02-08","year":1238,"label":"8 Feb 1238","text":"Vladimir, capital of Vladimir-Suzdal, falls","detail":"After Ryazan the Mongols took Kolomna and Moscow and marched on Vladimir, capital of the Grand Prince Yuri II, who had gone north to raise an army. The city fell on 8 February 1238 after a short siege, and the grand prince's family died in the burning cathedral. Mongol columns sacked Suzdal and a dozen other towns that month, and on 4 March they destroyed Yuri's army on the Sit river, where he was killed. The spring thaw stopped them short of Novgorod.","lonlat":[40.4,56.13],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1240-12-06","year":1240,"label":"28 Nov – 6 Dec 1240","text":"The Mongols storm Kiev","detail":"After resting on the steppe and taking Pereyaslavl and Chernigov in 1239, the Mongols crossed the frozen Dnieper in late 1240 and besieged Kiev, the old capital of Rus', defended by the voivode Dmytro for Daniel of Galicia. Battering rams broke the walls and the last defenders fell in the Church of the Tithes on 6 December 1240. Much of the city was destroyed. The Mongols went on through Galicia and Volhynia towards Poland and Hungary.","lonlat":[30.52,50.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1241-04-09","year":1241,"label":"9 Apr 1241","text":"A Mongol army defeats Henry II of Silesia at Legnica","detail":"To protect the main attack on Hungary, a Mongol force under Baidar, Orda and Kadan raided Poland, sacking Sandomierz and Kraków. At Legnica in Silesia on 9 April 1241 it met an army of Polish knights, local levies and a few Templars and Teutonic knights under Duke Henry II the Pious. The Mongols drew the knights into pursuit, broke them and killed Henry. They then rode south through Moravia to join the main army in Hungary.","lonlat":[16.16,51.21],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1241-04-11","year":1241,"label":"11 Apr 1241","text":"Batu and Subutai destroy the Hungarian army at Mohi","detail":"In March 1241 the main Mongol armies broke through the Carpathian passes into Hungary. King Béla IV gathered his army at Pest and advanced to the Sajó river near Mohi. On the night of 10–11 April the Mongols forced the bridge and forded the river upstream, surrounded the Hungarian camp and left a gap through which the fleeing army was cut down. Tens of thousands died. Béla escaped, and the Mongols occupied the Hungarian plain east of the Danube.","lonlat":[20.98,47.98],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1242-03","year":1242,"label":"Mar 1242","text":"The Mongols withdraw from Hungary","detail":"Over the winter the Mongols crossed the frozen Danube, destroyed Esztergom at Christmas 1241 and chased King Béla to the Dalmatian coast. In late March 1242 they began to withdraw through Serbia and Bulgaria to the steppe. Great Khan Ögedei had died in December 1241, and the princes wanted to be present at the election of his successor; historians also point to heavy losses, poor pasture and the stone castles that held out. The Mongols never returned in force to central Europe.","lonlat":[19.75,46.0],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1256-12","year":1256,"label":"Nov–Dec 1256","text":"Hulagu forces the Nizari Assassins to surrender their castles","detail":"In 1253 Great Khan Möngke sent his brother Hulagu west with a large army to subdue Iran and the caliphate. Its first target was the Nizari Ismaili state, whose mountain castles in northern Iran had defied all rulers and whose agents were blamed for assassinations. The young imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah surrendered at Maymun-Diz on 19 November 1256, and Alamut capitulated in December. The castles were dismantled, and the imam was later killed.","lonlat":[50.58,36.44],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1258-02-10","year":1258,"label":"29 Jan – 10 Feb 1258","text":"Hulagu captures and sacks Baghdad; the Abbasid caliph is killed","detail":"When Caliph al-Musta'sim refused to submit and sent no troops, Hulagu's army, with Georgian, Armenian and Chinese contingents, advanced on Baghdad from several sides. It routed the caliph's army on 17 January 1258 by flooding its camp, besieged the city from 29 January and broke through the walls; Baghdad surrendered on 10 February. For days the city was sacked, its people slaughtered and its libraries burned, and about 20 February the caliph was executed. The Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad, five centuries old, was ended.","lonlat":[44.4,33.3],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1260-01-24","year":1260,"label":"Jan–Feb 1260","text":"Hulagu takes Aleppo and massacres its people","detail":"Hulagu next invaded Ayyubid Syria, joined by King Hethum I of Cilician Armenia and Prince Bohemond VI of Antioch. His army crossed the Euphrates in January 1260 and stormed Aleppo after a week-long siege; the citadel held out for another month. For six days the inhabitants were massacred. The fall of Aleppo spread panic across Syria, and the Ayyubid ruler an-Nasir Yusuf abandoned Damascus.","lonlat":[37.16,36.2],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1260-03-01","year":1260,"label":"1 Mar 1260","text":"Damascus surrenders to Kitbuqa","detail":"Damascus opened its gates without a fight, and on 1 March 1260 the Mongol general Kitbuqa, a Nestorian Christian, entered the city. Mongol raiders went on south through Palestine as far as Gaza, and an-Nasir Yusuf was captured. Then news arrived that Great Khan Möngke had died in China in 1259. Hulagu withdrew most of his army towards Azerbaijan, leaving Kitbuqa in Syria with perhaps 10,000–20,000 men.","lonlat":[36.3,33.51],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1260-09-03","year":1260,"label":"3 Sep 1260","text":"The Mamluks defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut","detail":"The Mamluk sultan Qutuz executed Hulagu's envoys and marched out of Egypt; the crusaders of Acre let his army pass through their land. On 3 September 1260 at Ain Jalut, the Spring of Goliath, in the Jezreel valley, the Mamluk vanguard under Baybars made a feigned retreat that drew Kitbuqa's army into the hills, where the main Mamluk force surrounded it. Kitbuqa was killed, and within weeks the Mamluks took back Damascus and Aleppo. It was the first decisive defeat of a Mongol army in the west.","lonlat":[35.35,32.55],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Genghis Khan","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_the_Jin_dynasty"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_the_Khwarazmian_Empire"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus'","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Kievan_Rus%27"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Mongol invasion of Europe","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Baghdad (1258)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Ain Jalut","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ain_Jalut"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Destruction under the Mongol Empire","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"hundred-years-war","name":"Hundred Years' War","moment":null,"span":[1337,1453],"dateLabel":"May 1337 – 19 October 1453","summary":"The kings of England held the Duchy of Aquitaine (Gascony) as vassals of the French crown, a long source of friction. When Philip VI confiscated it in 1337, Edward III answered by claiming the French throne through his mother. The war that followed was a series of campaigns broken by long truces. In the Edwardian phase England won at Sluys, Crécy and Poitiers, captured King John II and gained an enlarged Aquitaine at Brétigny in 1360. Under Charles V the French recovered almost everything. Henry V reopened the war, won at Agincourt in 1415, conquered Normandy and, allied with Burgundy during a French civil war, was named heir to France by the Treaty of Troyes. Joan of Arc's relief of Orléans in 1429 and Burgundy's return to the French side in 1435 turned the tide; with better artillery and a professional army, France took Normandy and Gascony, leaving England only Calais after Castillon in 1453.","casualties":"Estimates are very uncertain: one widely repeated compilation counts about 185,000 soldiers killed in battle and some 556,000 military deaths in all, while raiding, famine and the Black Death killed far more civilians, especially in France.","sides":[{"name":"England and allies","members":[{"clio":"Kingdom of England","from":1337,"to":1453},{"clio":"Duchy of Burgundy","from":1419,"to":1435}]},{"name":"France and allies","members":[{"clio":"Kingdom of France","from":1337,"to":1453},{"clio":"Kingdom of Scotland","from":1337,"to":1453},{"clio":"Crown of Castile","from":1369,"to":1389}]}],"events":[{"date":"1337-05","year":1337,"label":"May 1337","text":"Philip VI confiscates Aquitaine; Edward III claims France","detail":"Edward III held Gascony, the remnant of the Duchy of Aquitaine, as a vassal of the French king, and the French crown had long sought to assert its sovereignty there. In May 1337 Philip VI's Great Council declared the duchy forfeit, citing Edward's breach of his duties as vassal and his shelter of Philip's enemy Robert of Artois. Edward replied by reviving his claim to the French throne through his mother Isabella, sister of the last Capetian king.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1340-01-26","year":1340,"label":"26 Jan 1340","text":"Flemish towns proclaim Edward III King of France","detail":"The cloth towns of Flanders depended on English wool, and Edward courted them and other Low Countries princes as allies. On 26 January 1340 he received homage as king of France from Guy, half-brother of the count of Flanders, and the civic authorities of Ghent, Ypres and Bruges proclaimed him their king. Adopting the French title let his Flemish supporters claim they were loyal to the true king of France rather than rebels against their overlord.","lonlat":[3.72,51.05],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1340-06-24","year":1340,"label":"24 Jun 1340","text":"English fleet destroys the French navy at Sluys","detail":"Edward sailed from England with a fleet of some 120–150 ships and found the much larger French fleet drawn up in defensive formation in the inlet off Sluys in Flanders. Attacking in the afternoon with the wind and sun behind them, the English almost destroyed the French fleet. England dominated the Channel for the rest of the war, which kept the fighting on French soil and made a French invasion of England impractical.","lonlat":[3.4,51.31],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1341","year":1341,"label":"1341","text":"War of the Breton Succession becomes a second front","detail":"With Edward's money running out, the war might have ended, but the death of the duke of Brittany in 1341 started a succession dispute between John of Montfort and Charles of Blois, nephew of Philip VI. Edward backed Montfort and Philip backed Blois, and for years the war centred on Brittany, where towns such as Vannes changed hands several times. The English-backed Montfort finally won the duchy in 1364.","lonlat":[-2.76,47.66],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1346-07-12","year":1346,"label":"12 Jul 1346","text":"Edward III invades Normandy and sacks Caen","detail":"Edward landed at Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue on the Cotentin peninsula with complete surprise and marched south, his soldiers razing towns and looting as they went. The army captured the rich city of Caen in a single day, then turned north-east, pillaging toward the Low Countries. Finding the Seine bridges destroyed, Edward crossed at Poissy near Paris and then forded the Somme at Blanchetaque, slipping away from Philip's pursuing army.","lonlat":[-1.27,49.59],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1346-08-26","year":1346,"label":"26 Aug 1346","text":"English longbowmen rout the French at Crécy","detail":"Unable to outmarch Philip VI, Edward chose a defensive position near Crécy. Genoese mercenary crossbowmen were driven back in an archery duel by English and Welsh longbowmen, and the French knights then launched a series of disordered cavalry charges into arrow fire and dismounted men-at-arms. The French suffered heavy losses, including many nobles, and Philip had allowed the attack to begin before his army was ready.","lonlat":[1.88,50.25],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1346-10-17","year":1346,"label":"17 Oct 1346","text":"Scots invade England and are defeated at Neville's Cross","detail":"Scotland had been bound to France by the Auld Alliance since 1295. Philip appealed to the Scots to relieve the pressure by invading northern England, and King David II led an army south. Near Durham, at Neville's Cross, it was defeated and David himself was captured. The defeat greatly reduced the Scottish threat to England for the following years and freed Edward to continue his campaign in France.","lonlat":[-1.6,54.77],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1347","year":1347,"label":"1347","text":"Calais falls to the English after a long siege","detail":"After Crécy, Edward marched north unopposed and besieged the Channel port of Calais, which held out until it surrendered in 1347. The town became England's main base in France, letting it land and supply troops safely in the north. Calais stayed English long after the war ended, until the French retook it in 1558. Together with Crécy and Neville's Cross, its capture capped a run of English successes in 1346–1347.","lonlat":[1.86,50.95],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1348","year":1348,"label":"1348","text":"The Black Death reaches Paris","detail":"The plague pandemic that swept Europe arrived in Paris in 1348 and killed a very large share of the population of both kingdoms; estimates for France run to 6–12 million deaths, 30–60 percent of the population, and for England 2–3 million. Fighting was largely suspended while the epidemic raged. The losses strained recruitment and royal finances on both sides, and English campaigning on a large scale resumed only in 1355.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1355","year":1355,"label":"1355","text":"The Black Prince's great raid from Gascony to Narbonne","detail":"Edward III's eldest son, Edward of Woodstock, later called the Black Prince, led a chevauchée, a mounted raid designed to ruin the enemy's lands and revenue, from Bordeaux across southern France. His army pillaged Avignonet, Castelnaudary, Carcassonne and Narbonne. Such raids, repeated throughout the war, burned towns and crops and fell hardest on the peasants of France rather than on its armies.","lonlat":[3.0,43.18],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1356-09-19","year":1356,"label":"19 Sep 1356","text":"Black Prince captures King John II at Poitiers","detail":"On a second raid the Black Prince was overtaken near Poitiers by King John II. The French, some 14,000–16,000 strong, attacked about 6,000 Anglo-Gascons in a strong defensive position. A mounted force led by the Gascon captal de Buch, hidden in a wood, struck their flank and cut off their retreat, and John and many nobles were captured. With the king a prisoner, his son the Dauphin Charles ruled as regent amid growing disorder.","lonlat":[0.42,46.53],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1360-04","year":1360,"label":"Easter 1360","text":"Hailstorm devastates Edward's army: 'Black Monday'","detail":"Edward invaded France a third time, hoping to be crowned at Reims, but the city held out for five weeks, and the Dauphin refused battle. After skirmishes outside Paris the English moved toward Chartres, where a freak hailstorm struck their camp at Easter and killed more than 1,000 men. The disaster pushed Edward to negotiate when the French approached him.","lonlat":[1.49,48.45],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1360-05-08","year":1360,"label":"8 May 1360","text":"Treaty of Brétigny gives England a greatly enlarged Aquitaine","detail":"Drafted at Brétigny near Chartres and ratified at Calais in October, the treaty gave Edward full sovereignty over a much larger Aquitaine, including Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge, Limousin and other lands, plus Calais and Ponthieu. In return he gave up Normandy, Touraine, Anjou and Maine and his claim to the French crown. John II's ransom was set at three million écus, with hostages held as guarantee.","lonlat":[1.54,48.43],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1369","year":1369,"label":"1369","text":"War resumes as Charles V backs Gascon lords and Castile","detail":"In Castile's civil war the Black Prince restored Peter of Castile by winning the battle of Nájera, but the campaign left him in debt. His new hearth tax in Aquitaine provoked Gascon lords to appeal to Charles V, who summoned the prince to Paris; the prince refused, and war broke out again in 1369. That year Henry of Trastámara, backed by France, killed Peter, and Castile became an important French naval ally.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1372","year":1372,"label":"1372","text":"Castilian fleet defeats the English off La Rochelle","detail":"Castile's new Trastámara regime repaid French support with naval help. In 1372 a Castilian fleet defeated an English fleet off La Rochelle, an important port in western France. The defeat weakened English control of the sea routes to Aquitaine, and under the cautious strategy of Charles V and his constable Bertrand du Guesclin, who avoided pitched battles, the French steadily took back English-held towns.","lonlat":[-1.15,46.16],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1380","year":1380,"label":"1380","text":"By Charles V's death, England holds only Calais and a few ports","detail":"Charles V's small professional army under du Guesclin had pushed the English back so far that when the king died in 1380, the vast lands won at Brétigny had shrunk to Calais and a few coastal towns. The Black Prince had died in 1376 and Edward III in 1377, and England, ruled for the boy king Richard II, faced heavy war taxation and the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1389-06-18","year":1389,"label":"18 Jun 1389","text":"Truce of Leulinghem begins a long pause in the war","detail":"With the war unpopular in England and neither side able to pay for major campaigns, negotiations led to the three-year Truce of Leulinghem, signed on 18 June 1389. Renewed several times, it brought a long lull. In the following decades Charles VI of France suffered bouts of madness, and the rivalry of the dukes of Burgundy and Orléans turned into civil war between Burgundians and Armagnacs, both of which sought English help.","lonlat":[1.71,50.82],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1415-10-25","year":1415,"label":"25 Oct 1415","text":"Henry V wins a crushing victory at Agincourt","detail":"Henry V landed in August 1415 and took Harfleur after a long siege. Marching toward Calais with a tired, hungry army, he was forced to fight a much larger French army near Agincourt. English archers and men-at-arms on a narrow, muddy field inflicted catastrophic losses, killing many leaders of the Armagnac faction. Fearing an attack, Henry ordered most of the French prisoners, perhaps thousands, to be killed.","lonlat":[2.14,50.46],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1419-09-10","year":1419,"label":"10 Sep 1419","text":"Murder of John the Fearless drives Burgundy into alliance with England","detail":"Henry conquered Normandy, taking Caen in 1417 and Rouen in January 1419. Meanwhile the Burgundians had seized Paris in 1418. On 10 September 1419 Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy was killed by one of the Dauphin Charles's attendants during a meeting on the bridge at Montereau, and his son Philip the Good allied formally with England. The Anglo-Burgundian alliance gave Henry control of Paris and much of northern France.","lonlat":[2.96,48.39],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1420-05-21","year":1420,"label":"21 May 1420","text":"Treaty of Troyes makes Henry V heir to the French throne","detail":"Sealed at Troyes with the insane Charles VI, the treaty disinherited the Dauphin Charles and named Henry and his heirs successors to the French crown. Charles VI remained king for life, and Henry married his daughter Catherine of Valois. Henry entered Paris later that year. The Dauphin, holding much of France south of the Loire, rejected the treaty, so the war became a contest between two claimants.","lonlat":[4.07,48.3],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1424-08-17","year":1424,"label":"17 Aug 1424","text":"English destroy the Dauphin's army at Verneuil","detail":"Henry V died in August 1422, two months before Charles VI, leaving a baby son, Henry VI, as king of England and, by the treaty, of France. His brother the Duke of Bedford ran English France. At Verneuil in Normandy, Bedford's archers devastated a Franco-Scottish army, virtually destroying the Dauphin's field army and ending the Scots' role as a major force in France for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[0.93,48.74],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1429-05","year":1429,"label":"Apr–May 1429","text":"Joan of Arc helps lift the English siege of Orléans","detail":"The English had besieged Orléans, the key to the Loire valley, since October 1428, and hunger threatened to force its surrender. Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who said God had sent her to drive out the English, persuaded the Dauphin to send her there, and she entered the city on 29 April. Within days the revived French attacked the English forts and the siege was lifted, followed by victories along the Loire and at Patay.","lonlat":[1.91,47.9],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1429-07-16","year":1429,"label":"16 Jul 1429","text":"The Dauphin is crowned Charles VII at Reims","detail":"The victory at Patay, where French cavalry broke the English rearguard and captured John Talbot, opened the road through English- and Burgundian-held country to Reims, the traditional coronation city. Charles was crowned there on 16 July 1429, strengthening his claim against the Treaty of Troyes. An attack on Paris in September failed, and Henry VI was crowned king of France in Paris in 1431.","lonlat":[4.03,49.25],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1431-05-30","year":1431,"label":"30 May 1431","text":"Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen","detail":"Burgundian troops captured Joan at Compiègne in May 1430 and handed her to the English. At Rouen, the seat of English government in France, a church court led by Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais and an ally of the English, convicted her, and she was burned on 30 May 1431. A later church inquiry overturned the verdict about 25 years afterwards, and she became a lasting French national symbol.","lonlat":[1.09,49.44],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1435-09","year":1435,"label":"Sep 1435","text":"Burgundy changes sides at the Congress of Arras","detail":"England, France and Burgundy met at Arras in the summer of 1435 in what has been called Europe's first real peace congress. The English demands were seen as unrealistic, and after they left, Philip the Good of Burgundy made peace with Charles VII in the Treaty of Arras, recognising him as king. The loss of its main ally was a severe blow to England, and the treaty returned Paris to the French king.","lonlat":[2.78,50.29],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1450-04-15","year":1450,"label":"15 Apr 1450","text":"French victory at Formigny completes the recovery of Normandy","detail":"During long truces Charles VII reorganised his army into a professional force with powerful artillery that could take castles in days. The French retook Rouen in 1449. At Formigny an English army marching to relieve Caen was attacked by the Count of Clermont and then struck in flank and rear by Arthur de Richemont. It was the last significant English field army in Normandy, and the remaining strongholds soon fell.","lonlat":[-0.9,49.34],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1453-07-17","year":1453,"label":"17 Jul 1453","text":"French artillery defeats the English at Castillon","detail":"Charles VII turned to Gascony, England's last province; Bordeaux surrendered in 1451, but its people, largely sympathetic to the English, welcomed back an army under John Talbot in October 1452. At Castillon, Talbot attacked a French camp laid out by the artillery master Jean Bureau and was cut down by its cannon. Talbot and his son were killed in what is usually considered the last battle of the war.","lonlat":[-0.04,44.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1453-10-19","year":1453,"label":"19 Oct 1453","text":"Bordeaux surrenders, ending English rule in Gascony","detail":"The fall of Bordeaux ended English rule in Gascony and the fighting of the Hundred Years' War. England kept only Calais. No peace treaty was signed until 1475, when the Treaty of Picquigny formally ended the war, and English and later British monarchs kept the title king of France until the early nineteenth century. Defeat abroad fed the discontent that led to the Wars of the Roses in England.","lonlat":[-0.58,44.84],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Hundred Years' War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Sluys","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sluys"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Crécy","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Poitiers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poitiers"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Brétigny","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Br%C3%A9tigny"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Agincourt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Troyes","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Troyes"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Castillon","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castillon"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"wars-of-the-roses","name":"Wars of the Roses","moment":null,"span":[1455,1487],"dateLabel":"22 May 1455 – 16 June 1487","summary":"The Wars of the Roses were a series of English civil wars for the throne between two branches of the royal Plantagenet family: the House of Lancaster and the House of York, both descended from Edward III. Defeat in the Hundred Years' War, powerful private retinues and the weak rule of the mentally unstable Lancastrian king Henry VI fed rivalries at court, and Richard, Duke of York, pressed his own claim. Fighting began at St Albans in 1455. York was killed at Wakefield in 1460, but his son seized the crown as Edward IV and crushed the Lancastrians at Towton in 1461. After the Earl of Warwick changed sides, Henry VI was briefly restored in 1470, but Edward won back the throne at Barnet and Tewkesbury in 1471. When Edward's brother took the throne as Richard III in 1483, the Lancastrian heir Henry Tudor defeated and killed him at Bosworth in 1485, married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth of York, and beat a last Yorkist challenge at Stoke Field in 1487.","casualties":"Estimates vary widely: one modern compilation suggests about 105,000 killed in battle over the whole period, while many historians think the fighting was more limited, and the 28,000 dead reported after Towton is generally considered an exaggeration.","sides":[{"name":"House of Lancaster, then Tudor","members":[{"clio":"Kingdom of England","from":1455,"to":1460},{"clio":"Kingdom of England","from":1486,"to":1487}]},{"name":"House of York","members":[{"clio":"Kingdom of England","from":1461,"to":1485}]}],"events":[{"date":"1455-05-22","year":1455,"label":"22 May 1455","text":"First Battle of St Albans: York captures Henry VI","detail":"Henry VI's mental instability and the dominance at court of his Beaufort relatives, above all Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, drove Richard, Duke of York, and his allies the Neville earls of Salisbury and Warwick to take up arms. They defeated a royal army in the streets of St Albans, north of London. Somerset was killed and the king captured, and a parliament then appointed York Lord Protector. The battle is traditionally taken as the start of the wars.","lonlat":[-0.34,51.75],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1459-09-23","year":1459,"label":"23 Sep 1459","text":"Yorkists defeat a larger Lancastrian army at Blore Heath","detail":"Queen Margaret of Anjou, determined to protect the rights of her young son Edward, had been raising support for the Lancastrian cause. When the Earl of Salisbury marched to join York with about 5,000 men, a Lancastrian force twice that size under Lord Audley ambushed him at Blore Heath in Staffordshire. The Lancastrians were defeated and Audley was killed, and open war resumed after four years of uneasy peace.","lonlat":[-2.43,52.92],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1459-10","year":1459,"label":"Autumn 1459","text":"Yorkist army scatters at Ludford Bridge; leaders flee abroad","detail":"The Yorkist leaders gathered near Ludlow, but at Ludford Bridge their army fell apart when Warwick's professional troops from Calais, under Andrew Trollope, defected to the king. York fled to Ireland with his second son, Edmund, while Warwick and Salisbury sailed to Calais with York's heir, Edward, Earl of March. The Lancastrians appeared to have won, but the exiles soon prepared to return.","lonlat":[-2.72,52.36],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1460-07-10","year":1460,"label":"10 Jul 1460","text":"Yorkists win at Northampton and capture the king again","detail":"Warwick and Edward of March landed from Calais and marched north against the royal army. At Northampton, by the River Nene, they defeated the forces loyal to Henry VI; the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Shrewsbury and other Lancastrian lords were killed defending the king, who was taken prisoner. It was the first battle in England in which artillery was used. Queen Margaret fled north and then to Scotland.","lonlat":[-0.9,52.22],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1460-10-25","year":1460,"label":"25 Oct 1460","text":"Act of Accord makes York heir to the throne","detail":"Returning from Ireland, York laid his hand on the empty throne in Parliament to signal his claim, shocking even his allies. Unable to decide the claim on legal grounds, the lords reached a compromise in the Act of Accord: Henry VI would remain king for life, but the throne would then pass to York and his heirs, disinheriting Henry's son, Prince Edward. Queen Margaret and many Lancastrian nobles refused to accept it.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1460-12-30","year":1460,"label":"30 Dec 1460","text":"Richard of York killed at Wakefield","detail":"Margaret and the Lancastrian lords massed their armies in the north, and York marched to confront them, and was near Sandal Magna, by Wakefield, at the end of December. In what recent research suggests was a small-scale skirmish rather than a full battle, York, his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and the Earl of Salisbury were captured and killed. York's claim passed to his eldest son, Edward, Earl of March.","lonlat":[-1.5,53.66],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1461-02-02","year":1461,"label":"2 Feb 1461","text":"Edward of March wins at Mortimer's Cross","detail":"In the Welsh Marches, York's son Edward defeated a Lancastrian army at Mortimer's Cross. At dawn a parhelion made three suns appear in the sky; Edward reassured his frightened troops that it stood for the Holy Trinity and showed God's blessing, and he later took the 'sun in splendour' as his personal badge. The captured Owen Tudor, husband of Henry V's widow Catherine of Valois, was executed by his troops.","lonlat":[-2.86,52.27],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1461-02-17","year":1461,"label":"17 Feb 1461","text":"Lancastrians win the Second Battle of St Albans and free Henry","detail":"Margaret's army, moving south after Wakefield, met Warwick, who had the captive Henry VI with him, astride Watling Street at St Albans. Warwick's entrenched army was defeated and the king was freed. Yet the Lancastrian cause was unpopular in London, where the queen's army had been promised the freedom to plunder on its march south, and the citizens refused to let it in. Warwick joined Edward, and the two hurried to London, where Edward was proclaimed king as Edward IV.","lonlat":[-0.34,51.76],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1461-03-29","year":1461,"label":"29 Mar 1461","text":"Edward IV crushes the Lancastrians at Towton","detail":"Edward marched north to settle the war. On Palm Sunday, near Towton in Yorkshire, perhaps 50,000 men fought for about ten hours in a snowstorm; the wind blew snow into the faces of the Lancastrian archers, whose arrows fell short. It was probably the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. Many Lancastrians were killed in the rout, Henry fled the country, and Edward was formally crowned in June.","lonlat":[-1.27,53.84],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1464-05-15","year":1464,"label":"15 May 1464","text":"Last Lancastrian army in the north destroyed at Hexham","detail":"Lancastrian resistance continued in the far north, where a rising for Henry broke out in spring 1463. After truces with Scotland and France cut off foreign help, a Yorkist force under John Neville destroyed the main Lancastrian army at Hexham; its commanders, including the Duke of Somerset, were captured and executed. Henry VI was later caught hiding near the River Ribble and imprisoned in the Tower of London.","lonlat":[-2.1,54.97],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1469-07-26","year":1469,"label":"26 Jul 1469","text":"Warwick turns on Edward IV; royal army beaten at Edgcote","detail":"Warwick, once Edward's chief supporter, was alienated when the king married Elizabeth Woodville against his advice in 1464, promoted her family and turned away from Warwick's policy of friendship with France. In 1469 Warwick rebelled, hoping to replace Edward with his brother George, Duke of Clarence. Rebels led by 'Robin of Redesdale' defeated a royal army at Edgcote, its commanders were executed, and Edward was held prisoner until Warwick, lacking support, had to let him resume his rule.","lonlat":[-1.27,52.13],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1470-10-03","year":1470,"label":"3 Oct 1470","text":"Readeption: Warwick restores Henry VI to the throne","detail":"After a failed rising in 1470, Warwick and Clarence fled to France, where Louis XI reconciled Warwick with his old enemy Queen Margaret. They invaded through Dartmouth and Plymouth in September, Edward was forced to flee abroad, and Warwick freed Henry VI from the Tower. Henry, now too frail to rule unaided, was restored as king on 3 October 1470, with Warwick in effective control. The map keeps the Yorkist colour for this brief restoration.","lonlat":[-0.08,51.51],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1471-03-14","year":1471,"label":"14 Mar 1471","text":"Edward IV returns, landing at Ravenspurn","detail":"With some money, ships and men from his brother-in-law Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and backing from Flemish merchants, Edward landed at Ravenspurn in Yorkshire, his ships scattered by bad weather. Hull refused to let him in, but with the Earl of Northumberland's support he gathered troops as he marched south. The restored Lancastrian regime was divided, and Clarence deserted Warwick to rejoin his brother. Bad weather kept Queen Margaret and her son, with French troops, from crossing the Channel to reinforce Warwick.","lonlat":[0.11,53.6],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1471-04-14","year":1471,"label":"14 Apr 1471","text":"Warwick 'the Kingmaker' killed at Barnet","detail":"On Easter Day the armies met near Barnet, north of London, in thick mist. In the confusion, the star badge of the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford was mistaken for Edward's sun, and Lancastrians attacked their own men. Edward's determined assault broke Warwick's army; Warwick and his brother John Neville were killed in the rout. Victory at Barnet began fourteen years of Yorkist rule.","lonlat":[-0.2,51.66],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1471-05-04","year":1471,"label":"4 May 1471","text":"Lancastrian heir killed at Tewkesbury; Henry VI dies","detail":"Margaret and Prince Edward landed at Weymouth on the day of Barnet and, with an army raised in the West Country, marched north to join Jasper Tudor's Lancastrians in Wales. Edward IV caught them at Tewkesbury and completely defeated them. Prince Edward, the Lancastrian heir, was killed, and many Lancastrian nobles died in the battle or were executed after it. Henry VI died in the Tower soon afterwards, probably murdered. Edward ruled securely until his death in 1483.","lonlat":[-2.16,51.98],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1483-06-26","year":1483,"label":"26 Jun 1483","text":"Richard III takes the throne; the princes disappear","detail":"Edward IV died in April 1483, leaving his twelve-year-old son Edward V, with the boy's uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Lord Protector. Before the coronation, Edward IV's marriage was declared invalid and his children illegitimate, and an assembly proclaimed Richard king. Edward V and his younger brother, the 'Princes in the Tower', were not seen in public after that summer; their fate remains a mystery.","lonlat":[-0.08,51.51],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1483-11-02","year":1483,"label":"Oct–Nov 1483","text":"Buckingham's rebellion fails; the duke is executed","detail":"Former supporters of Edward IV, joined by Richard's one-time ally the Duke of Buckingham, rose against the new king in October 1483, backed by Edward's widow Elizabeth Woodville and Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of the exiled Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor. Storms wrecked Henry's attempt to invade from Brittany, Richard easily put down the revolt, and Buckingham was executed at Salisbury on 2 November.","lonlat":[-1.8,51.07],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1485-08-07","year":1485,"label":"7 Aug 1485","text":"Henry Tudor lands in Wales with French support","detail":"Henry Tudor, descended from Edward III through his mother Margaret Beaufort, had promised to marry Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's eldest daughter, which won over many Yorkists. With French troops he sailed from Harfleur and landed at Mill Bay, near Dale on Milford Haven, in his native Wales. He marched inland gathering support, while Richard III mustered his army to intercept him.","lonlat":[-5.15,51.7],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1485-08-22","year":1485,"label":"22 Aug 1485","text":"Richard III killed at Bosworth; Henry Tudor becomes king","detail":"Near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire, Richard's larger army attacked, but the Earl of Northumberland did not join in and the Stanleys held back. Richard gambled on a charge to kill Henry himself; Sir William Stanley's men then intervened and Richard was killed, the last English king to die in battle. Henry was crowned Henry VII, and Bosworth is often seen as the end of the Plantagenet dynasty. The exact battlefield site is disputed.","lonlat":[-1.41,52.59],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1486-01-18","year":1486,"label":"18 Jan 1486","text":"Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York, uniting the two claims","detail":"Crowned at Westminster Abbey on 30 October 1485, Henry VII kept his promise and married Elizabeth of York. Their children would inherit both the Lancastrian and Yorkist claims, a union later symbolised by the Tudor rose, which combined the white rose of York with the red rose that Henry adopted for Lancaster. Their first son, Arthur, was born that September. Yet plots by Yorkist sympathisers continued.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1487-05-04","year":1487,"label":"May 1487","text":"Yorkist rebels gather in Ireland around the pretender Lambert Simnel","detail":"Yorkist plotters presented a boy, Lambert Simnel, as the imprisoned Earl of Warwick, Clarence's son and the male heir of York. John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, Richard III's nephew, went to Burgundy, where his aunt Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, gave him money and soldiers. The rebel fleet reached Dublin on 4 May 1487, where the Earl of Kildare helped recruit Irish troops before the invasion of England.","lonlat":[-6.26,53.35],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1487-06-16","year":1487,"label":"16 Jun 1487","text":"Henry VII defeats the last Yorkist rising at Stoke Field","detail":"Lincoln's army of German and Swiss mercenaries, Irish troops and English Yorkists met Henry at East Stoke in Nottinghamshire. The battle may have been slightly larger than Bosworth, with heavier casualties, and Henry won a crushing victory; Lincoln and most of the other Yorkist commanders fell fighting. Simnel was captured and pardoned, and given work in the royal kitchen. It was the last battle between rival claimants descended from Lancaster and York.","lonlat":[-0.88,53.03],"kind":"battle"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Wars of the Roses","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Roses"},{"title":"Wikipedia: First Battle of St Albans","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_St_Albans"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Towton","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Readeption of Henry VI","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readeption_of_Henry_VI"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Tewkesbury","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tewkesbury"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Bosworth Field","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Stoke Field","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stoke_Field"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"conquest-of-the-aztec-empire","name":"Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire","moment":"aztec-conquest","span":[1519,1521],"dateLabel":"February 1519 – 13 August 1521","summary":"In 1519 Hernán Cortés sailed from Cuba with a few hundred Spaniards, defying the governor who had cancelled his expedition. Landing on the Gulf coast, he won over the Totonacs of Cempoala, who resented Aztec tribute, and after a series of battles made an alliance with Tlaxcala, the Aztecs' unconquered enemy. In November 1519 Moctezuma II received him in Tenochtitlan, and Cortés soon held the emperor hostage. A massacre of Aztec nobles in May 1520 set off an uprising, and on La Noche Triste (30 June 1520) the Spaniards and their allies fled the city with heavy losses. Sheltered by Tlaxcala, Cortés rebuilt his forces while smallpox ravaged the Valley of Mexico and killed the new emperor, Cuitláhuac. From Texcoco, with thirteen brigantines and tens of thousands of Indigenous allies, he besieged Tenochtitlan from May 1521. The city fell on 13 August 1521, when Cuauhtémoc was captured, and New Spain was built on its ruins.","casualties":"Estimates vary widely: about 1,800 Spaniards are estimated to have died over the whole campaign and many thousands of their Indigenous allies, while an estimated 100,000 to 240,000 Aztec warriors and civilians were killed, besides the far larger toll of the 1520 smallpox epidemic.","sides":[{"name":"Spain and its Indigenous allies (Tlaxcala, Totonacs, Texcoco and others)","members":[{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1519,"to":1521}]},{"name":"Aztec Triple Alliance (Mexica)","members":[{"clio":"Aztec Triple Alliance","from":1519,"to":1520,"toDate":"1521-08-13"}]}],"events":[{"date":"1519-02-10","year":1519,"label":"10 Feb 1519","text":"Cortés's expedition leaves Cuba","detail":"Two earlier Spanish voyages had touched the coasts of Yucatán and the Gulf of Mexico and heard of a rich empire inland. Diego Velázquez, governor of Cuba, chose Hernán Cortés to lead a third expedition, then cancelled his commission. Cortés sailed anyway in February 1519 with 11 ships carrying about 630 men, a few horses and some cannon, following the route of the first voyage along the Yucatán coast.","lonlat":[-84.95,21.86],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1519-03-24","year":1519,"label":"24 Mar 1519","text":"Potonchán makes peace and gives Cortés the interpreter Malintzin","detail":"After defeating the Chontal Maya of Potonchán, on the Tabasco coast, in two battles, Cortés received their submission on 24 March 1519, with gifts that included twenty enslaved women. One of them, a Nahua woman the Spaniards called Doña Marina and the Nahuas Malintzin, spoke both Maya and Nahuatl. Working with Gerónimo de Aguilar, a shipwrecked Spaniard who spoke Maya, she let Cortés talk to the Aztecs, and she became his chief interpreter and adviser.","lonlat":[-92.65,18.55],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1519-04-22","year":1519,"label":"22 Apr 1519","text":"Cortés lands on the Gulf coast near San Juan de Ulúa","detail":"The fleet anchored off San Juan de Ulúa, and the Spaniards came ashore on Good Friday, 22 April 1519. Envoys of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II soon arrived with lavish gifts, and Cortés tried to impress them with a display of cannon fire and horses. The gifts were meant to persuade the strangers to leave, but they only convinced Cortés that great wealth lay inland.","lonlat":[-96.13,19.2],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1519-06","year":1519,"label":"Jun 1519","text":"Veracruz is founded and the Totonacs of Cempoala ally with Cortés","detail":"To escape the authority of Governor Velázquez, Cortés had his men found a town, La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz, whose council named him its captain. At Cempoala, capital of the Totonacs, he persuaded the ruler Xicomecoatl to rebel against the Aztecs, and Moctezuma's tax collectors were seized. Cortés then sank his ships so that his men could not return to Cuba.","lonlat":[-96.41,19.45],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1519-09-02","year":1519,"label":"2–5 Sep 1519","text":"Battles with the Tlaxcalans","detail":"Marching inland from 16 August with Totonac porters and warriors, the Spaniards entered the lands of Tlaxcala, a confederacy that had resisted the Aztecs for generations. Otomí and Tlaxcalan armies attacked them in a series of battles from 2 to 5 September 1519 and the fighting went on for days. Unable to destroy the Spaniards, and seeing them as enemies of Moctezuma, Tlaxcala's leaders chose to make peace.","lonlat":[-97.98,19.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1519-09-23","year":1519,"label":"23 Sep 1519","text":"Cortés enters Tlaxcala: the alliance that decided the war","detail":"On 23 September 1519 Cortés entered the city of Tlaxcala, welcomed by its rulers Maxixcatzin and Xicotencatl the Elder, who saw the Spaniards as allies against the Aztecs. Tlaxcala had been encircled and blockaded by the empire for decades. Its warriors, porters and supplies, and its refuge after defeats, would make the conquest possible: tens of thousands of Tlaxcalans fought beside the Spaniards to the end.","lonlat":[-98.24,19.32],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1519-10-18","year":1519,"label":"18 Oct 1519","text":"The Cholula massacre","detail":"Moctezuma's envoys steered Cortés through Cholula, a great sacred city that had broken with Tlaxcala to become an Aztec tributary. Claiming that the Cholulans planned an ambush, and urged on by his Tlaxcalan allies, Cortés had the city's nobles seized and killed in the main temple courtyard, and the city was sacked. Cortés reported about 3,000 dead and other witnesses far more; the massacre frightened other cities into negotiating.","lonlat":[-98.3,19.06],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1519-11-08","year":1519,"label":"8 Nov 1519","text":"Moctezuma receives Cortés in Tenochtitlan","detail":"Crossing the mountains between the volcanoes, the Spaniards and their allies entered Tenochtitlan along the southern causeway on 8 November 1519. The island capital had an estimated 60,000 to more than 300,000 people, one of the largest cities in the world. Moctezuma met Cortés on the causeway and lodged the Spaniards in the palace of his father Axayacatl, at the heart of the city.","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1519-11-14","year":1519,"label":"14 Nov 1519","text":"Cortés takes Moctezuma hostage","detail":"After Aztec forces on the coast killed several Spaniards left at Veracruz, Cortés and his captains forced Moctezuma to move into the Spaniards' quarters, where he was held from 14 November 1519. The emperor kept ruling in name, under Cortés's control, and was made to swear allegiance to the Spanish king and hand over his treasure, while resentment grew among the Aztec nobility.","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1520-05","year":1520,"label":"May 1520","text":"Massacre at the Great Temple during the Toxcatl festival","detail":"Cortés had left Pedro de Alvarado in charge of the small garrison in Tenochtitlan. During the festival of Toxcatl in May 1520, Alvarado, suspecting a plot, had his men close the temple courtyard and attack the unarmed nobles and dancers, killing many. The city rose in arms, and the Spaniards and their Tlaxcalan allies were besieged in their palace. Moctezuma, still a captive, was made to call for calm.","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1520-05-27","year":1520,"label":"27 May 1520","text":"Cortés defeats Narváez at Cempoala","detail":"Governor Velázquez sent Pánfilo de Narváez with some 900 Spaniards and 19 ships to arrest Cortés, and Narváez made Cempoala his base. Leaving Tenochtitlan with a few hundred men, Cortés attacked by night on 27 May 1520 with Chinantec allies, captured Narváez and won over most of his soldiers with promises of riches. Some of the newcomers carried smallpox, which then spread inland.","lonlat":[-96.41,19.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1520-06-30","year":1520,"label":"30 Jun 1520","text":"La Noche Triste: the Spaniards flee Tenochtitlan","detail":"Cortés returned to the besieged palace on 24 June, but the city's nobles had chosen a new ruler, Cuitláhuac, and Moctezuma was killed in late June, by stones from his own people according to the Spaniards, by the Spaniards according to Aztec accounts. On the rainy night of 30 June 1520 Cortés broke out along the Tlacopan causeway. Hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of Tlaxcalans were killed, drowned or captured, and most of the treasure was lost.","lonlat":[-99.17,19.44],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1520-07-07","year":1520,"label":"7 Jul 1520","text":"Battle of Otumba","detail":"The survivors retreated north around the lakes, harassed all the way. On 7 July 1520, on the plain near Otumba, a large Aztec army blocked their road to Tlaxcala. Cortés and his horsemen charged the Aztec commander, the cihuacoatl Matlatzincatl, and killed him, and the Aztec army broke off. Days later the exhausted, mostly wounded Spaniards reached Tlaxcala, whose rulers refused Aztec offers and kept the alliance.","lonlat":[-98.75,19.7],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1520-08","year":1520,"label":"Aug 1520","text":"The Tepeaca campaign","detail":"To rebuild his reputation and secure the roads to the coast, Cortés led Spaniards and Tlaxcalans against Tepeaca, an Aztec tributary whose people had killed Spaniards, from early August 1520. Tepeaca was defeated and became an allied town. Other tributary towns, seeing the Aztecs unable to protect them, began to change sides, while Cortés received reinforcements from ships arriving on the coast.","lonlat":[-97.9,18.97],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1520-12-04","year":1520,"label":"4 Dec 1520","text":"Smallpox kills the emperor Cuitláhuac","detail":"Smallpox, unknown in the Americas, spread through the Valley of Mexico from the autumn of 1520 for about seventy days. Many thousands died, and others starved because no one was well enough to feed them. The emperor Cuitláhuac died on 4 December 1520, after ruling for eighty days; he was succeeded early in 1521 by Cuauhtémoc. The epidemic also struck Tlaxcala, killing the ruler Maxixcatzin.","lonlat":[-99.13,19.43],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1520-12-26","year":1520,"label":"26 Dec 1520","text":"Cortés marches on Texcoco, which becomes his base","detail":"On the day after Christmas 1520 Cortés left Tlaxcala with his Spaniards and more than 10,000 Tlaxcalan warriors under Chichimecatecuhtli, and crossed into the Valley of Mexico. At Texcoco, once the Aztecs' partner in the Triple Alliance, he installed a friendly ruler, Ixtlilxochitl II. Texcoco, on the eastern shore of the lake, became the base from which the siege of Tenochtitlan was prepared.","lonlat":[-98.88,19.51],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1521-04","year":1521,"label":"Apr 1521","text":"Cortés circles the lakes and fights at Xochimilco","detail":"Having won over Chalco and Tlalmanalco and beaten Aztec forces around Chalco in March 1521, Cortés set out in April with some 20,000 allied warriors on a circuit of the southern and western lakeshore. He fought a hard battle at Xochimilco, Tenochtitlan's ally, then found Coyoacán, Tlacopan and Azcapotzalco deserted, and returned to Texcoco, where thirteen brigantines built from Tlaxcalan timber were nearly ready.","lonlat":[-99.1,19.26],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1521-05-26","year":1521,"label":"26 May 1521","text":"The siege of Tenochtitlan begins","detail":"Three columns, each of about 200 Spaniards and 8,000 Indigenous warriors, took up positions on the lakeshore at Tlacopan under Pedro de Alvarado, Coyoacán under Cristóbal de Olid and Iztapalapa under Gonzalo de Sandoval. Alvarado and Olid cut the aqueduct from Chapultepec that carried the city's fresh water. Cortés launched the thirteen brigantines, which scattered the Aztec canoes and took control of the lake.","lonlat":[-99.18,19.42],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1521-06-30","year":1521,"label":"30 Jun 1521","text":"Aztec victory on the causeway: Spanish prisoners sacrificed","detail":"Cortés ordered a combined push into the city towards the great market of Tlatelolco but failed to fill in a breach behind his men. The Aztecs counter-attacked, Cortés was wounded and nearly captured, and dozens of Spaniards were taken alive and sacrificed at the Great Temple in sight of their comrades. Many allies briefly left the besiegers, but the blockade held and famine spread in the city.","lonlat":[-99.14,19.44],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1521-08-01","year":1521,"label":"1 Aug 1521","text":"The besiegers reach the marketplace of Tlatelolco","detail":"Advancing street by street along the causeways, the Spaniards and their allies razed each district they took and used the rubble to fill the canals. By the start of August they had broken into the market square of Tlatelolco, in the north of the island, where Alvarado's men set fire to the temple. The defenders, starving and drinking brackish water, were penned into the last corner of the city.","lonlat":[-99.14,19.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1521-08-13","year":1521,"label":"13 Aug 1521","text":"Tenochtitlan falls and Cuauhtémoc is captured","detail":"On 13 August 1521 Cuauhtémoc tried to escape across the lake by canoe and was captured by one of Sandoval's brigantines, and the last defenders surrendered. Tens of thousands had died in the siege, and allied warriors killed many of the survivors. The Aztec Empire ended; its tributary cities passed under Spanish rule, and Mexico City, capital of New Spain, was built on the ruins.","lonlat":[-99.14,19.45],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_Empire"},{"title":"Fall of Tenochtitlan (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Tenochtitlan"},{"title":"La Noche Triste (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Noche_Triste"},{"title":"Battle of Otumba (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Otumba"},{"title":"Cholula massacre (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholula_massacre"},{"title":"Battle of Cempoala (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cempoala"},{"title":"Tlaxcala (Nahua state) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaxcala_(Nahua_state)"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"imjin-war","name":"Imjin War (Japanese invasions of Korea)","moment":null,"span":[1592,1598],"dateLabel":"23 May 1592 – 16 December 1598","summary":"Having unified Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi planned to conquer Ming China and demanded passage through Korea. When the Joseon court refused, about 158,000 Japanese troops landed at Busan in May 1592. Armed with arquebuses and hardened by Japan's civil wars, they took Hanseong (Seoul) in less than three weeks and Pyongyang in July, while Katō Kiyomasa pushed into the far north-east. But Admiral Yi Sun-sin's navy won a string of victories that cut Japanese supply lines by sea, Korean Righteous Armies rose behind the lines, and in early 1593 a Ming army retook Pyongyang. The Japanese fell back to forts on the south coast while Ming and Japanese envoys negotiated. The talks collapsed in 1596, and in 1597 Hideyoshi sent a second invasion, which destroyed the Korean fleet but was halted short of Hanseong at Jiksan and at sea at Myeongnyang. Hideyoshi's death in September 1598 led Japan to withdraw; at Noryang in December Yi Sun-sin was killed in the last battle. The war devastated Korea and strained the Ming treasury.","casualties":"Estimated at well over a million Korean civilian and military deaths, with tens of thousands of Koreans carried off to Japan, more than 100,000 Japanese and over 30,000 Ming soldiers killed, though all figures are uncertain.","sides":[{"name":"Japan (Toyotomi Hideyoshi)","members":[{"clio":"Warring States Japan","from":1592,"to":1598}]},{"name":"Joseon Korea","members":[{"clio":"Joseon","from":1592,"to":1598}]},{"name":"Ming China","members":[{"clio":"Ming Dynasty","from":1592,"to":1598,"fromDate":"1592-08-23"}]}],"events":[{"date":"1592-05-23","year":1592,"label":"23–24 May 1592","text":"Japanese armies land at Busan and storm its fortress","detail":"Having unified Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi demanded passage through Korea to conquer Ming China, and when the Joseon court refused he sent an army of about 158,800 soldiers, labourers and sailors in nine divisions. Konishi Yukinaga's First Division landed at Busan on 23 May 1592. The next day it stormed the fortress of Busanjin, commanded by Chŏng Pal, killing most of the garrison and many townspeople. Korea, at peace for two centuries, was badly prepared, and its defences in the south collapsed.","lonlat":[129.04,35.1],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1592-05-25","year":1592,"label":"25 May 1592","text":"Dongnae falls after a last stand by its governor","detail":"Konishi's troops moved on to the walled town of Dongnae just north of Busan. Its prefect, Song Sanghyŏn, refused to let them pass, and the town was stormed after hours of fighting; about 3,000 defenders were killed by Korean count. The other Japanese divisions landed behind the first, and three columns, under Konishi, Katō Kiyomasa and Kuroda Nagamasa, began a race north along separate roads towards the capital, Hanseong (Seoul).","lonlat":[129.08,35.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-06-03","year":1592,"label":"3 Jun 1592","text":"Konishi routs General Yi Il at Sangju","detail":"The court sent General Yi Il south to stop the invaders on the central road, but he found only a few hundred raw troops at Sangju. On 3 June 1592 Konishi's veterans, armed with thousands of arquebuses, surrounded and destroyed his small army; Yi Il escaped and fled north. The Japanese musketeers, trained in the long civil wars of the Sengoku period, were far superior to Korean troops in open battle in the early months of the war.","lonlat":[128.16,36.41],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-06-07","year":1592,"label":"7 Jun 1592","text":"Sin Rip's army is destroyed at Chungju","detail":"General Sin Rip, Korea's most famous commander, chose not to hold the Choryong pass and instead deployed his cavalry on open ground at Tangeumdae, near Chungju, with rivers behind it. On 7 June 1592 Konishi's arquebusiers broke the Korean charges and drove the army into the rivers, where many drowned; Sin Rip took his own life. Chungju was the last organised defence before the capital, and King Seonjo fled north.","lonlat":[127.93,36.97],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-06-10","year":1592,"label":"10 Jun 1592","text":"Konishi's First Division enters the abandoned capital Hanseong","detail":"The court had already left Hanseong, and parts of the city, including the offices holding the slave registers, had been looted and burned by its own people. Konishi's division reached the capital first, on 10 June 1592, less than three weeks after landing, with Katō's division arriving soon after. King Seonjo withdrew to Pyongyang and later to Uiju on the Chinese border, and the Korean court appealed to the Ming emperor, its overlord, for help.","lonlat":[126.98,37.57],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1592-06-16","year":1592,"label":"16 Jun 1592","text":"Yi Sun-sin wins his first victory, at Okpo","detail":"While Japan's armies swept north, the navy of Jeolla province under Admiral Yi Sun-sin sailed east from its base at Yeosu. On 16 June 1592 it surprised a Japanese transport fleet anchored at Okpo on Geoje island and destroyed 26 ships without losing one of its own. It was the first of a series of naval victories, won with sturdy panokseon warships and heavy cannon, that began to threaten the Japanese supply line from Busan.","lonlat":[128.69,34.89],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-07-07","year":1592,"label":"6–7 Jul 1592","text":"The Japanese cross the Imjin River","detail":"A Korean army of about 10,000 held the north bank of the Imjin river, the barrier on the road from Hanseong to Pyongyang, and the Japanese waited there for two weeks without boats. Then the Japanese feigned a retreat; the Korean troops crossed in pursuit and were ambushed and destroyed on 6–7 July 1592. The road north lay open: Kato turned north-east into Hamgyong province, while Konishi and Kuroda marched on Pyongyang.","lonlat":[126.92,37.95],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-07-24","year":1592,"label":"19–24 Jul 1592","text":"Konishi takes Pyongyang","detail":"King Seonjo fled Pyongyang on 19 July 1592, and the panic his departure caused spread to the defenders. A Korean night attack across the Taedong river failed, and when the retreating troops showed the Japanese a ford, the defenders abandoned the city. Konishi's First Division entered Pyongyang on 24 July and found its granaries intact. Konishi halted there, waiting for supplies and reinforcements that the Korean navy and guerrilla attacks were making ever harder to deliver.","lonlat":[125.75,39.02],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-08-15","year":1592,"label":"15 Aug 1592","text":"Yi Sun-sin destroys a Japanese fleet off Hansan Island","detail":"Hideyoshi ordered his admirals to destroy the Korean navy. Wakisaka Yasuharu's fleet of about 73 ships was lured out of the narrow strait of Gyeonnaeryang into open water off Hansan Island, where Yi Sun-sin's 56 warships, including turtle ships, closed round it in a crane-wing formation. On 15 August 1592 most of the Japanese fleet was destroyed. Hansan ended Japanese plans to supply their armies by sea along the west coast.","lonlat":[128.48,34.77],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-08-23","year":1592,"label":"23 Aug 1592","text":"A first Ming force is beaten back at Pyongyang","detail":"The Ming court was busy with a revolt at Ningxia, but it sent a small force of about 6,000 men under General Zu Chengxun across the Yalu. On 23 August 1592 it attacked Pyongyang in heavy rain, broke into the city and was cut to pieces in the streets by Konishi's musketeers; Zu escaped with a few survivors. The defeat convinced the Ming that a much larger army would be needed, while envoys bought time with truce talks.","lonlat":[125.75,39.02],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1592-08-30","year":1592,"label":"30 Aug 1592","text":"Katō Kiyomasa reaches Hoeryong and captures two Korean princes","detail":"Katō Kiyomasa's Second Division of more than 20,000 men crossed to the east coast, took Hamhung, the capital of Hamgyong province, and beat the provincial army at Songjin on 23 August. On 30 August it entered Hoeryong near the Tumen river, where two Korean princes and the governor had already been seized by local people and handed over. Katō even raided across the Tumen against the Jurchens. But Korean partisans soon rose across Hamgyong and retook its northern towns.","lonlat":[129.75,42.44],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1592-11-08","year":1592,"label":"8–13 Nov 1592","text":"Kim Si-min repels a Japanese army at Jinju","detail":"Jinju guarded the road from Gyeongsang into the rich province of Jeolla, which had escaped invasion and fed the Korean war effort. About 30,000 Japanese troops besieged the fortress, held by Kim Si-min with some 3,800 soldiers and a few thousand irregulars and 170 newly made arquebuses. After six days of assaults with siege towers and ladders the Japanese gave up on 13 November, having lost heavily; Kim Si-min was mortally wounded. Jinju became a symbol of Korean resistance, alongside the Righteous Armies.","lonlat":[128.08,35.19],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1593-02-08","year":1593,"label":"6–8 Feb 1593","text":"Ming and Korean troops retake Pyongyang","detail":"In January 1593 a Ming army of about 40,000 under Li Rusong crossed the Yalu and, with Korean troops and monk soldiers, reached Pyongyang on 5 February. Its cannon battered the walls, and after three days of assaults Konishi abandoned the city on the night of 8 February and retreated south, losing thousands of men. The Japanese gave up most of the north. Katō Kiyomasa, in danger of being cut off, withdrew from Hamgyong province in the following weeks.","lonlat":[125.75,39.02],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1593-02-27","year":1593,"label":"27 Feb 1593","text":"The Japanese halt Li Rusong's advance at Byeokjegwan","detail":"Confident after Pyongyang, Li Rusong pushed on towards Hanseong with an advance force, mostly cavalry. At the post station of Byeokjegwan, north of the capital, on 27 February 1593 it ran into a much larger Japanese army under Kobayakawa Takakage and was driven back with heavy losses in the mud. Li withdrew to Kaesong and then Pyongyang, and the two sides settled into a stalemate along the line from Kaesong to Hanseong.","lonlat":[126.9,37.72],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1593-03-14","year":1593,"label":"14 Mar 1593","text":"Kwon Yul's garrison beats off a Japanese assault at Haengju","detail":"General Kwon Yul fortified the hill fort of Haengjusanseong on the Han river west of Hanseong with about 2,300 soldiers, monks and townspeople. On 14 March 1593 some 30,000 Japanese attacked it in waves through the day, but the defenders, using cannon, rocket carts and stones, held out until the Japanese withdrew. Haengju, with Korean naval raids and the Ming burning of Japanese grain stores at Yongsan, left the army in Hanseong short of food.","lonlat":[126.82,37.6],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1593-05","year":1593,"label":"May 1593","text":"The Japanese abandon Hanseong and fall back to the south coast","detail":"Short of food, hit by disease and harassed by guerrillas, the Japanese commanders agreed in peace talks with the Ming envoy Shen Weijing to evacuate the capital and withdraw to the Busan area, while the Ming army would also pull back. They left Hanseong in the spring of 1593 and retreated to a chain of castles, the wajō, built along the southern coast of Gyeongsang province from Ulsan to Geoje, which they held for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[129.04,35.1],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1593-07-27","year":1593,"label":"20–27 Jul 1593","text":"The Japanese take Jinju and massacre its defenders","detail":"Hideyoshi was determined to avenge the failure at Jinju. In July 1593 a Japanese army of about 90,000, the largest single force of the war, besieged the fortress, defended by a few thousand soldiers and crowded with civilians. After a week of assaults the walls were breached and the city fell on 27 July; the Japanese killed its defenders and much of its population, Korean sources counting 60,000 dead. They then withdrew to their coastal forts.","lonlat":[128.08,35.19],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1596","year":1596,"label":"1596","text":"Peace talks collapse at Osaka","detail":"For three years Ming and Japanese negotiators, chiefly Shen Weijing and Konishi Yukinaga, misrepresented each side's demands to their masters in order to keep the truce. Hideyoshi expected Ming surrender of territory and a princess, while the Ming believed he had asked to become a tributary king. When the deception came out at his audience with the Ming envoys at Osaka Castle in 1596, Hideyoshi was enraged and ordered a second invasion of Korea.","lonlat":[135.53,34.69],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1597-08-28","year":1597,"label":"28 Aug 1597","text":"The Korean navy is destroyed at Chilcheollyang","detail":"In 1597 more than 140,000 Japanese troops crossed to Korea. Yi Sun-sin had been removed from his command after a Japanese plot, and his successor Won Gyun was ordered to attack the Japanese fleet. On 28 August 1597, off Geoje island near Chilcheollyang, his tired fleet was surprised at night by a much larger Japanese navy. Most of the Korean fleet, by one count 188 ships, was destroyed, and Won Gyun was killed. The sea route to the west coast now lay open to Japan.","lonlat":[128.57,34.82],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1597-09-26","year":1597,"label":"23–26 Sep 1597","text":"The Japanese storm Namwon","detail":"Japan's second offensive aimed at Jeolla province, which had escaped the first invasion. The Left Army of about 50,000 under Ukita Hideie besieged Namwon, held by about 3,000 Ming soldiers under Yang Yuan and a few hundred Koreans. The town fell on the night of 26 September after four days; Yang Yuan broke out with about 100 men, but most of the defenders and many townspeople were killed. The Japanese went on to take Jeonju.","lonlat":[127.39,35.41],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1597-10-16","year":1597,"label":"16 Oct 1597","text":"Ming troops stop the Japanese advance at Jiksan","detail":"While the Left Army swept Jeolla, the Japanese Right Army under Mōri Hidemoto and Katō Kiyomasa marched north through Chungcheong towards Hanseong. On 16 October 1597 its vanguard under Kuroda Nagamasa met a Ming force of about 8,000 infantry and cavalry near Jiksan, south of the capital, and was driven back after a hard fight. Jiksan was the farthest the Japanese got towards Hanseong in the second invasion; with winter coming, their armies turned back towards the south coast.","lonlat":[127.2,36.88],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1597-10-26","year":1597,"label":"26 Oct 1597","text":"Yi Sun-sin's 13 ships defeat a Japanese fleet at Myeongnyang","detail":"Restored to command after Chilcheollyang, Yi Sun-sin had only 13 warships left. He waited for the Japanese fleet, at least 133 warships, in the narrow Myeongnyang strait off Jindo island, where a powerful tidal current runs. On 26 October 1597 his ships held the strait for hours, sinking or disabling about 30 Japanese vessels, and when the tide turned the Japanese withdrew. The victory stopped the Japanese navy from advancing along the west coast to support their armies.","lonlat":[126.31,34.57],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1598-02-19","year":1598,"label":"29 Jan – 19 Feb 1598","text":"Ming–Korean armies fail to take Ulsan castle","detail":"The Japanese held the winter in new coastal castles, and the Ming general Yang Hao led about 50,000 Ming and Korean troops against the new Japanese castle at Ulsan. Its garrison held out through repeated assaults until a Japanese relief army arrived; on 19 February 1598 the allies broke off the siege and retreated with heavy losses. A stalemate followed along the south coast, from Ulsan to Suncheon.","lonlat":[129.31,35.54],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1598-09-18","year":1598,"label":"18 Sep 1598","text":"Toyotomi Hideyoshi dies; Japan decides to withdraw","detail":"Hideyoshi died at Fushimi Castle on 18 September 1598, leaving his five-year-old son Hideyori as heir. The Council of Five Elders that now governed Japan kept his death secret and ordered the armies in Korea home. Meanwhile allied armies attacked the Japanese castles at Sacheon and Suncheon in October 1598 and were beaten off, but the Japanese prepared to evacuate their forts and sail back to Japan.","lonlat":[135.77,34.94],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1598-12-16","year":1598,"label":"16 Dec 1598","text":"Noryang: the last battle; Yi Sun-sin is killed","detail":"Konishi Yukinaga was blockaded at Suncheon by the Korean and Ming fleets, and Shimazu Yoshihiro sailed with about 500 ships to rescue him. Yi Sun-sin and the Ming admiral Chen Lin intercepted the relief fleet in the Noryang strait before dawn on 16 December 1598 and destroyed about half of it. Yi was killed by a gunshot at the height of the battle. Konishi escaped round the south of Namhae island, and on 21 December the last Japanese commanders sailed from Busan for Japan.","lonlat":[127.87,34.94],"kind":"battle"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: Imjin War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imjin_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Chungju","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chungju"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Hansan Island","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hansan_Island"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Pyongyang (1593)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Pyongyang_(1593)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Siege of Jinju (1593)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jinju_(1593)"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Myeongnyang","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myeongnyang"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Toyotomi Hideyoshi","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyotomi_Hideyoshi"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Battle of Noryang","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Noryang"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"thirty-years-war","name":"Thirty Years' War","moment":"westphalia","span":[1618,1648],"dateLabel":"23 May 1618 – 24 October 1648","summary":"The war began as a revolt by Protestant nobles in Bohemia against their Habsburg king, Ferdinand, who was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1619. It grew into a struggle over religion and power across the Holy Roman Empire, as Denmark, Sweden and finally France intervened against the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs and the Catholic League led by Bavaria. Imperial armies crushed Bohemia in 1620 and Denmark in 1626, and the Edict of Restitution of 1629 alarmed Protestant rulers. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden then won at Breitenfeld in 1631 but was killed at Lützen in 1632. After the Swedish defeat at Nördlingen in 1634, most German princes made peace with the emperor in 1635, but Catholic France joined Sweden in open war on the Habsburgs. Exhausting campaigns followed until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which recognised Calvinism alongside Catholicism and Lutheranism, gave Sweden and France territory, confirmed Dutch independence from Spain and recognised the Swiss Confederation as independent of the Empire.","casualties":"An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died, most from famine and disease, and the population of Germany is thought to have fallen from about 18–20 million to 11–13 million.","sides":[{"name":"Habsburgs and Catholic League","members":[{"clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)","from":1618,"to":1648},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1619,"to":1648},{"clio":"Duchy of Bavaria","from":1619,"to":1648},{"clio":"Electorate of Saxony","from":1620,"to":1620},{"clio":"Electorate of Saxony","from":1636,"to":1645}]},{"name":"Protestant states, Sweden and France","members":[{"clio":"Principality of Transylvania","from":1619,"to":1626},{"clio":"(Dutch Republic)","from":1621,"to":1647},{"clio":"Denmark-Norway","from":1625,"to":1629},{"clio":"Swedish Empire","from":1630,"to":1648},{"clio":"Electorate of Saxony","from":1631,"to":1631},{"clio":"Brandenburg-Prussia","from":1631,"to":1634},{"clio":"(Kingdom of France)","from":1635,"to":1648}]}],"events":[{"date":"1618-05-23","year":1618,"label":"23 May 1618","text":"Defenestration of Prague: Bohemian Protestants revolt","detail":"Bohemia's Protestant nobles feared that their new Habsburg king, the devout Catholic Ferdinand, would roll back the religious freedoms they had won. At Prague Castle a group of them threw two of the king's regents and their secretary out of a high window; all three survived. The act was an open challenge to Habsburg rule, and the rebels set up their own government and raised an army. The local revolt became the opening of a thirty-year European war.","lonlat":[14.4,50.09],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1619-08","year":1619,"label":"Aug 1619","text":"Bohemia deposes Ferdinand and chooses Frederick V of the Palatinate","detail":"In August 1619 the Bohemian Estates rescinded Ferdinand's election as their king and offered the crown to Frederick V, the Calvinist Elector Palatine; in the same month Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Frederick entered Prague in October. By accepting, he turned a Bohemian dispute into a quarrel among the Empire's princes. Ferdinand secured help from Maximilian of Bavaria and the Catholic League, and from Spain, while Gabriel Bethlen of Transylvania attacked Habsburg Hungary in support of the rebels.","lonlat":[14.42,50.09],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1620-11-08","year":1620,"label":"8 Nov 1620","text":"Battle of White Mountain: the Bohemian revolt is crushed","detail":"An imperial and Catholic League army under Tilly and Bucquoy, with Spanish troops, met the Bohemian army under Christian of Anhalt on a low plateau outside Prague. The rebels were routed in about an hour and Tilly entered Prague the next day. Frederick fled, mocked as the 'Winter King'. Twenty-seven rebel leaders were later executed in the Old Town Square, and much of the Protestant nobility went into exile as their lands were confiscated and Bohemia was forcibly re-Catholicised.","lonlat":[14.32,50.08],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1622-05","year":1622,"label":"May 1622","text":"Catholic armies win at Wimpfen and overrun the Palatinate","detail":"With Bohemia lost, the war moved to Frederick's own lands on the Rhine. Spanish troops had already occupied part of the Palatinate, and in May and June 1622 Tilly defeated Protestant armies at Wimpfen and Höchst; Frankenthal surrendered in March 1623. The emperor rewarded Maximilian of Bavaria with Frederick's title of elector, confirmed in February 1623. Transferring an electoral vote from a Protestant to a Catholic prince alarmed Protestant rulers inside and outside the Empire.","lonlat":[9.16,49.23],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1626-08-27","year":1626,"label":"27 Aug 1626","text":"Battle of Lutter: Tilly defeats Christian IV of Denmark","detail":"King Christian IV of Denmark, also a prince of the Empire as Duke of Holstein, had entered the war in 1625 as champion of the Protestant cause in northern Germany. At Lutter am Barenberge Tilly's Catholic League army beat him comprehensively: he lost at least a third of his army, all his artillery and most of his baggage, and many German allies deserted him. Imperial troops under Wallenstein then pushed into Denmark's Jutland peninsula.","lonlat":[10.27,51.98],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1629-03","year":1629,"label":"Mar 1629","text":"Emperor Ferdinand II issues the Edict of Restitution","detail":"At the height of his power, Ferdinand II ordered that church lands taken over by Protestant rulers since the Peace of Passau of 1552 be returned to the Catholic Church. Enforcing it would have stripped Lutheran princes of bishoprics and abbeys across northern Germany, and imperial commissioners began confiscations with army backing. The edict turned even moderate, previously loyal Lutheran states such as Saxony and Brandenburg against the emperor and helped open the way for Swedish intervention.","lonlat":[16.37,48.21],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1629-06","year":1629,"label":"Jun 1629","text":"Treaty of Lübeck takes Denmark out of the war","detail":"Defeated on land and with Jutland occupied, Christian IV made peace with the emperor at Lübeck in June 1629. He kept Schleswig and Holstein and recovered his Danish lands, but gave up his claims to the north German bishoprics of Bremen and Verden and promised not to interfere in the Empire again. The Danish phase of the war ended with Habsburg power reaching the Baltic coast, which worried Sweden.","lonlat":[10.69,53.87],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1630-07","year":1630,"label":"Jul 1630","text":"Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden lands in Pomerania","detail":"Concerned by imperial power on the Baltic and presenting himself as protector of German Protestants, King Gustavus Adolphus landed in Pomerania with nearly 18,000 troops. By the Treaty of Bärwalde in 1631, Cardinal Richelieu's Catholic France agreed to subsidise the Swedish army, putting rivalry with the Habsburgs ahead of religion. Sweden's well-drilled army, with mobile field artillery, was to change the course of the war.","lonlat":[13.85,54.14],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1631-05-20","year":1631,"label":"20 May 1631","text":"Sack of Magdeburg: some 20,000 people killed","detail":"The Protestant city of Magdeburg had allied with Sweden and was besieged by Catholic League forces. On 20 May troops under Pappenheim, part of Tilly's army, stormed the walls; the city burned and was plundered for days. Around 20,000 defenders and civilians are estimated to have died, and of roughly 25,000 inhabitants only about 5,000 survived. The massacre shocked Protestant Europe and helped persuade many rulers to stand against the emperor.","lonlat":[11.63,52.13],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1631-09-17","year":1631,"label":"17 Sep 1631","text":"Battle of Breitenfeld: first great Swedish victory","detail":"Saxony, threatened by Tilly's army, finally allied with Sweden. Near Leipzig the combined Swedish-Saxon army met Tilly; the Saxons were routed early, but the Swedes held and broke the imperial army, which lost about two-thirds of its men. It was the Catholic side's first major defeat of the war. Gustavus marched into southern and western Germany, and several Protestant states joined him.","lonlat":[12.4,51.4],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1632-11-16","year":1632,"label":"16 Nov 1632","text":"Battle of Lützen: Sweden wins but Gustavus Adolphus is killed","detail":"The emperor had recalled Wallenstein to raise a new army. At Lützen, southwest of Leipzig, the Swedes narrowly defeated him in a confused, foggy battle, and Wallenstein's cavalry general Pappenheim was mortally wounded. But Gustavus Adolphus, riding to rally his infantry, ran into enemy cavalry and was shot dead. Sweden's chancellor Axel Oxenstierna kept the war going, but without its king the Protestant coalition lost much of its drive.","lonlat":[12.14,51.24],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1634-02-25","year":1634,"label":"25 Feb 1634","text":"Wallenstein is assassinated at Eger (Cheb)","detail":"Albrecht von Wallenstein, the emperor's most powerful general, had grown wealthy and independent and was suspected at court of secret talks with the enemy. Ferdinand II dismissed him, and on 25 February 1634 officers of his own army murdered him at Eger (Cheb) in Bohemia. Command of the imperial army passed to the emperor's son, the future Ferdinand III, tightening Habsburg control of the war effort.","lonlat":[12.37,50.08],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1634-09-06","year":1634,"label":"6 Sep 1634","text":"Battle of Nördlingen: crushing defeat for Sweden","detail":"An imperial army under the future Ferdinand III, joined by a Spanish army marching north from Italy, met the Swedes and their German allies at Nördlingen in Swabia. The Protestant army was destroyed. Sweden's position in southern Germany collapsed, and its German allies began to look for terms with the emperor, while France, fearing a Habsburg triumph, prepared to enter the war openly.","lonlat":[10.49,48.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1635-05","year":1635,"label":"May 1635","text":"France declares war on Spain","detail":"Until now Richelieu had fought the Habsburgs by paying others. After Nördlingen, France declared war on Spain in May 1635 and in March 1636 formally allied with Sweden by the Treaty of Wismar. From this point the conflict was less a German religious war than a contest between Bourbon France and the Habsburgs, fought in the Low Countries, along the Rhine and in Italy as well as Germany.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1635-05","year":1635,"label":"May 1635","text":"Peace of Prague: Saxony and most German princes make peace with the emperor","detail":"Days after France's declaration, the emperor and Saxony agreed the Peace of Prague, and most Lutheran princes, including Brandenburg, soon accepted it. In return the emperor effectively set aside the Edict of Restitution, and the princes merged their forces into an imperial army. The treaty might have ended the German war, but Sweden, now backed by France, fought on, and Saxony found itself at war with its former Swedish ally.","lonlat":[14.42,50.09],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1636-10","year":1636,"label":"Oct 1636","text":"Battle of Wittstock: Sweden recovers in the north","detail":"In October 1636 a Swedish army under Johan Banér defeated an imperial and Saxon army at Wittstock in Brandenburg. The victory restored Sweden's position in northern Germany after the disaster of Nördlingen. Campaigning across Brandenburg, Saxony and Pomerania devastated the region, as armies of all sides lived off the land, spreading hunger and disease among civilians. Wittstock also showed that Sweden, now paid by France, could fight on without its German allies.","lonlat":[12.49,53.16],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1638-12","year":1638,"label":"Dec 1638","text":"Breisach falls to Bernard of Saxe-Weimar","detail":"Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, a German Protestant general now paid by France, besieged the Rhine fortress of Breisach, which surrendered in December 1638. Breisach guarded the route by which Spain moved troops from Italy to the Netherlands along the Rhine, and its loss made Spanish reinforcement of Flanders much harder. After Bernard's death in 1639 France took over his army and his conquests in Alsace.","lonlat":[7.58,48.03],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1642-10","year":1642,"label":"Oct 1642","text":"Second Battle of Breitenfeld: Swedish victory near Leipzig","detail":"On almost the same ground as Gustavus Adolphus's victory of 1631, a Swedish army under Lennart Torstensson defeated an imperial army in October 1642. The win let Sweden occupy Leipzig and much of Saxony and keep up pressure on the Habsburg lands. Peace talks were by now being arranged, but each side fought on to improve its bargaining position. Torstensson, Sweden's ablest general after Gustavus, would lead its armies to their greatest successes over the next three years.","lonlat":[12.4,51.4],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1643-05-19","year":1643,"label":"19 May 1643","text":"Battle of Rocroi: France defeats Spain's army of Flanders","detail":"Spain's army in the Netherlands invaded northern France and besieged the fortress of Rocroi. A French army under the young Duke of Enghien, later the Great Condé, attacked and destroyed it, including its famed infantry regiments. Rocroi became a symbol of the end of Spain's military dominance in Europe, though the Franco-Spanish war went on until 1659. The battle was fought just days after the death of King Louis XIII, and it secured the start of the young Louis XIV's reign.","lonlat":[4.52,49.93],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1645-03","year":1645,"label":"Mar 1645","text":"Battle of Jankau: Swedes rout the imperial army in Bohemia","detail":"Torstensson's Swedish army invaded Bohemia and in March 1645 destroyed an imperial army at Jankau (Jankov), southeast of Prague. Swedish troops then advanced towards Vienna. The defeat left the emperor with few soldiers, and in the same year Saxony made a truce with Sweden. Ferdinand III's negotiators at Münster and Osnabrück now had to accept far more concessions. Imperial losses were so heavy that the Habsburg lands lay open to Swedish raids.","lonlat":[14.73,49.65],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1647-03-14","year":1647,"label":"14 Mar 1647","text":"Truce of Ulm: Bavaria pauses its war with France and Sweden","detail":"With Franco-Swedish armies ravaging his lands, Maximilian of Bavaria, the emperor's most important German ally, agreed a truce with France and Sweden at Ulm. The emperor was left almost alone in Germany. Maximilian broke the truce later that year and rejoined the emperor, but the episode showed how close the Habsburg side was to exhaustion. Bavaria had fought for the Catholic side since 1619, and its wavering showed that even the most loyal allies wanted peace on almost any terms.","lonlat":[9.99,48.4],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1648-01-30","year":1648,"label":"30 Jan 1648","text":"Peace of Münster: Spain recognises Dutch independence","detail":"At Münster, Spain and the Dutch Republic signed a separate peace ending the Eighty Years' War, which had resumed alongside the German war in 1621. Spain recognised the United Provinces as a sovereign state. Freed of its Dutch war, Spain kept fighting France, but the treaty removed one strand of the wider conflict months before the main settlement. The Dutch, who had fought Spain on and off for eighty years, emerged as a leading trading and naval power.","lonlat":[7.63,51.96],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1648-05","year":1648,"label":"May 1648","text":"Battle of Zusmarshausen: last imperial field army defeated","detail":"A combined French and Swedish army under Turenne and Wrangel caught the retreating imperial and Bavarian army at Zusmarshausen, west of Augsburg, in May 1648 and defeated it. Bavaria lay open to plunder, and the emperor had no army left capable of resisting in southern Germany. The defeat pushed Ferdinand III to settle quickly on the terms being negotiated in Westphalia.","lonlat":[10.6,48.4],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1648-07","year":1648,"label":"Jul 1648","text":"Swedes storm Prague Castle and the Lesser Town","detail":"In the war's last months a Swedish force surprised Prague, seizing the castle and the Malá Strana (Lesser Town) on the left bank in July 1648 and carrying off rich booty, including treasures from the imperial collections. The Old Town across the river held out until news of peace arrived. The war thus ended in the city where it had begun thirty years earlier.","lonlat":[14.4,50.09],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1648-10-24","year":1648,"label":"24 Oct 1648","text":"Peace of Westphalia signed at Münster and Osnabrück","detail":"Two treaties concluded with France (at Münster) and Sweden (at Osnabrück) ended the war. Calvinism was recognised alongside Catholicism and Lutheranism, with 1624 as the reference year for each territory's religion. Sweden gained Western Pomerania, Bremen-Verden and an indemnity; France gained Metz, Toul, Verdun and lands in Alsace; Brandenburg gained Farther Pomerania; Bavaria kept an electorate and the Palatine heir received a new one; and the Swiss Confederation was recognised as independent of the Empire.","lonlat":[7.63,51.96],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Thirty Years' War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Battle of White Mountain (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_White_Mountain"},{"title":"Battle of Lutter (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lutter"},{"title":"Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_intervention_in_the_Thirty_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Sack of Magdeburg (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Magdeburg"},{"title":"Battle of Breitenfeld (1631) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Breitenfeld_(1631)"},{"title":"Battle of Lützen (1632) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_L%C3%BCtzen_(1632)"},{"title":"Peace of Westphalia (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"seven-years-war","name":"Seven Years' War","moment":"seven-years-war","span":[1756,1763],"dateLabel":"17 May 1756 – 15 February 1763","summary":"Two rivalries merged into one global war: Britain and France contested North America and India, while Austria sought to recover Silesia, which Prussia had seized in the 1740s. In the 'Diplomatic Revolution' of 1756 Britain allied with Prussia and France with its old enemy Austria; Russia and Sweden joined Austria, and Spain entered in 1762. Frederick II of Prussia invaded Saxony and survived years of fighting against much larger armies, winning at Rossbach and Leuthen but nearly collapsing after Kunersdorf, until Russia left the war in 1762. Britain subsidised Prussia and defended Hanover, but used its navy to conquer French Canada, beat the French in India and seize Havana and Manila. In India the East India Company also defeated the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey. The Treaty of Paris gave Britain Canada, Florida and dominance in India, while the Treaty of Hubertusburg left Silesia with Prussia. Britain's war debts later fed the quarrel with its American colonies.","casualties":"Military deaths among the main powers are estimated at close to 900,000 (roughly France 200,000, Prussia 180,000, Austria and the Empire 165,000, Britain 160,000 and Russia 120,000), with heavy civilian losses besides.","sides":[{"name":"Britain, Prussia and allies","members":[{"clio":"(British Empire)","from":1756,"to":1763},{"clio":"English Colonial Empire","from":1756,"to":1761},{"clio":"English Colonial Empire","from":1763,"to":1763},{"clio":"Kingdom of Prussia","from":1756,"to":1763},{"clio":"Electorate of Hanover","from":1756,"to":1763},{"clio":"(Portuguese Empire)","from":1762,"to":1763}]},{"name":"France, Austria and allies","members":[{"clio":"(Kingdom of France)","from":1756,"to":1763},{"clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)","from":1756,"to":1763},{"clio":"Russian Empire","from":1757,"to":1762},{"clio":"Swedish Empire","from":1757,"to":1762},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1762,"to":1763}]},{"name":"Nawab of Bengal (against the East India Company)","members":[{"clio":"Nawabs of Bengal","from":1756,"to":1757}]}],"events":[{"date":"1756-05-17","year":1756,"label":"17 May 1756","text":"Britain declares war on France","detail":"British and French colonists and soldiers had been fighting in the Ohio valley since 1754, where a young George Washington was defeated in the first clashes. Meanwhile the alliances of Europe were reshuffled: in January 1756 Britain agreed the Convention of Westminster with Prussia, and in May France signed the First Treaty of Versailles with Austria. Britain's formal declaration of war on France in May 1756 turned the undeclared colonial conflict into a European and then global war.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1756-06-20","year":1756,"label":"20 Jun 1756","text":"Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal, captures British Calcutta","detail":"The new Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, objected to the East India Company fortifying Calcutta without his permission. His forces occupied the town and the garrison of Fort William surrendered on 20 June. Many British prisoners died overnight in a cramped cell remembered as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta', though the numbers given at the time are disputed. The Company sent Robert Clive from Madras to recover the town.","lonlat":[88.36,22.57],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1756-06-28","year":1756,"label":"28 Jun 1756","text":"Minorca falls to France","detail":"A French expedition landed on the British-held Mediterranean island of Minorca and besieged Fort St Philip at Port Mahon. A British fleet under Admiral John Byng failed to relieve it, and the garrison surrendered on 28 June. The loss caused outrage in Britain; Byng was court-martialled and shot. It was an early sign that Britain's navy was not yet ready for the war.","lonlat":[4.27,39.89],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1756-08-29","year":1756,"label":"29 Aug 1756","text":"Prussia invades Saxony","detail":"Frederick II of Prussia believed Austria, Russia and France were preparing to attack him and decided to strike first. On 29 August his army invaded Austria's ally Saxony, aiming to use it as a base and to seize its resources. The Saxon army was trapped in its camp at Pirna. To much of Europe the invasion made Prussia the aggressor, and it brought Austria, France, Russia and the Holy Roman Empire into the war against him.","lonlat":[13.74,51.05],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1756-10-01","year":1756,"label":"1 Oct 1756","text":"Battle of Lobositz: Frederick turns back an Austrian relief army","detail":"An Austrian army marched from Bohemia to rescue the Saxons trapped at Pirna. Frederick met it at Lobositz (Lovosice) on the Elbe on 1 October and forced it to withdraw after a hard fight. Cut off from help, the starving Saxon army surrendered in October, and Frederick forced many of its soldiers into Prussian service. Saxony would be occupied and taxed by Prussia for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[14.05,50.52],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1757-05-06","year":1757,"label":"6 May 1757","text":"Battle of Prague: costly Prussian victory in Bohemia","detail":"In spring 1757 Frederick invaded Bohemia and attacked the Austrian army outside Prague on 6 May. The Prussians won, but at heavy cost, and the Austrians retreated inside the city, which Frederick besieged. A relieving Austrian army then defeated him at Kolín later that year, forcing him to lift the siege and leave Bohemia. Meanwhile French and Russian armies were advancing towards Prussia from the west and east.","lonlat":[14.42,50.09],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1757-06-23","year":1757,"label":"23 Jun 1757","text":"Battle of Plassey: Clive defeats Siraj ud-Daulah","detail":"After retaking Calcutta in January and capturing the French post of Chandernagore in March, Robert Clive marched on the Nawab with about 3,100 men. At Plassey (Palashi) the Nawab's much larger army, supported by a small French artillery unit, was defeated after his commander Mir Jafar, who had secretly conspired with the British, held back his troops. Mir Jafar was made Nawab as a British client, and the Company gained de facto control of Bengal's revenues.","lonlat":[88.25,23.8],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1757-11-05","year":1757,"label":"5 Nov 1757","text":"Battle of Rossbach: Frederick routs a Franco-Imperial army","detail":"A French army joined by troops of the Holy Roman Empire's Reichsarmee advanced into Saxony. At Rossbach Frederick, with a much smaller force, caught them on the march with a rapid cavalry charge and swift infantry fire, and the allied army collapsed. The victory made Frederick a hero in Protestant Britain and ended French attempts to strike directly at Prussia from the west.","lonlat":[11.9,51.27],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1757-12-05","year":1757,"label":"5 Dec 1757","text":"Battle of Leuthen: Frederick recovers Silesia","detail":"While Frederick was in Saxony, the Austrians had overrun most of Silesia and taken Breslau. A month after Rossbach he marched east and attacked a far larger Austrian army at Leuthen, west of Breslau, using the 'oblique order' to fall on its flank. The Austrians were heavily defeated and Breslau soon surrendered. Leuthen is often counted Frederick's greatest victory, and it saved his hold on Silesia.","lonlat":[16.75,51.1],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1758-07-26","year":1758,"label":"26 Jul 1758","text":"Louisbourg surrenders to the British","detail":"Under William Pitt, Britain poured troops and ships into North America. An expedition under Jeffery Amherst, with James Wolfe as a brigadier and Admiral Boscawen's fleet, besieged the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island from 8 June. Governor Drucour surrendered on 26 July. Its fall opened the St Lawrence River to British fleets and provided the base for the attack on Quebec the next year. Fort Duquesne in the Ohio valley also fell in 1758.","lonlat":[-59.99,45.92],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1758-08-25","year":1758,"label":"25 Aug 1758","text":"Battle of Zorndorf: bloody clash of Prussians and Russians","detail":"A Russian army had overrun East Prussia and advanced to the Oder, besieging Küstrin. Frederick attacked it at Zorndorf, northeast of Berlin, on 25 August. The battle was one of the bloodiest of the century, with both armies suffering very heavy losses, and neither was destroyed; the Russians withdrew afterwards. Frederick had stopped the immediate threat to Brandenburg, but his army was being worn down.","lonlat":[14.67,52.6],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1759-08-01","year":1759,"label":"1 Aug 1759","text":"Battle of Minden: allied army saves Hanover","detail":"A French army advancing on Hanover met the allied army of British, Hanoverian and other German troops under Ferdinand of Brunswick before Minden on the Weser. Six British and two Hanoverian infantry regiments repulsed repeated attacks by French cavalry, and the allies drove the French from the field. Minden ended French plans against Hanover for 1759 and was counted in Britain's 'year of victories'.","lonlat":[8.92,52.29],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1759-08-12","year":1759,"label":"12 Aug 1759","text":"Battle of Kunersdorf: Russians and Austrians crush Frederick","detail":"A combined Russian and Austrian army took position at Kunersdorf, near Frankfurt an der Oder. Frederick attacked on 12 August but his army was shattered, losing a large share of its men, and he briefly despaired of the war. The allies failed to follow up and march on Berlin, and Prussia survived, but with ever-thinner resources. Kunersdorf was Frederick's heaviest defeat of the war.","lonlat":[14.6,52.35],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1759-09-13","year":1759,"label":"13 Sep 1759","text":"Battle of the Plains of Abraham: the British take Quebec","detail":"After a summer besieging Quebec, General James Wolfe's troops climbed the cliffs above the St Lawrence at night and formed up on the Plains of Abraham outside the city. The Marquis de Montcalm attacked and was defeated in a short battle; both commanders were mortally wounded. Quebec surrendered days later. Montreal, the last French stronghold, capitulated in 1760, completing Britain's conquest of Canada.","lonlat":[-71.22,46.8],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1759-11-20","year":1759,"label":"20 Nov 1759","text":"Battle of Quiberon Bay: Britain destroys a French fleet","detail":"France had gathered troops and transports to invade Britain. When its Brest fleet put to sea, Admiral Edward Hawke chased it into Quiberon Bay off Brittany in a November gale, among dangerous shoals, and destroyed or scattered it. The invasion plan was abandoned. With Quiberon Bay, Britain controlled the seas for the rest of the war, cutting France off from its colonies in Canada, the Caribbean and India.","lonlat":[-2.95,47.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1760-01-22","year":1760,"label":"22 Jan 1760","text":"Battle of Wandiwash: British defeat the French in southern India","detail":"In the Carnatic, on India's southeast coast, the French under the Comte de Lally had besieged British Madras without success. At Wandiwash (Vandavasi) a Company army under Sir Eyre Coote decisively defeated Lally. The British then captured French posts across the region and confined the French to their main settlement of Pondicherry. The battle ended France's chances of building an empire in India.","lonlat":[79.6,12.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1761-01","year":1761,"label":"Jan 1761","text":"Pondicherry surrenders to the British","detail":"After Wandiwash, British forces blockaded Pondicherry by land and sea. The French garrison held out for months before surrendering in January 1761, and the British razed its fortifications. Although the Treaty of Paris returned Pondicherry and other trading posts to France, they had to stay unfortified, leaving Britain the dominant European power in India. The French commander, the Comte de Lally, was later tried in France and executed, blamed for the loss of French India.","lonlat":[79.81,11.93],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1762-01-05","year":1762,"label":"5 Jan 1762","text":"Empress Elizabeth of Russia dies","detail":"By late 1761 Prussia was close to collapse. Then Empress Elizabeth, a determined enemy of Frederick, died on 5 January 1762. Her successor, Peter III, admired Frederick and moved at once to end Russia's war with him. The sudden change saved Prussia from likely defeat. Peter III soon made peace and even briefly sent Russian troops to help Prussia. Without Russian armies, Austria could no longer hope to recover Silesia, and Sweden also withdrew from the war.","lonlat":[30.32,59.94],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1762-05-05","year":1762,"label":"5 May 1762","text":"Treaty of St Petersburg: Russia makes peace with Prussia","detail":"Russia and Prussia concluded peace on 5 May. Russia agreed to return all the lands its troops had occupied, including East Prussia, and to help arrange peace between Prussia and Sweden, which also left the war that spring. Peter III was soon overthrown by his wife, Catherine II, who kept the peace but did not rejoin the war. Frederick could now concentrate on Austria.","lonlat":[30.32,59.94],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1762-08-13","year":1762,"label":"13 Aug 1762","text":"Havana surrenders to a British expedition","detail":"Spain joined France in 1762 under the Family Compact, and Britain declared war on it in January. A large British force under the Earl of Albemarle and Admiral George Pocock besieged Havana, Cuba, from 6 June; after the Morro fortress fell, the city surrendered on 13 August. In October another British force took Manila in the Philippines. Spain's invasion of Britain's ally Portugal that year failed.","lonlat":[-82.36,23.14],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1762-10-29","year":1762,"label":"29 Oct 1762","text":"Battle of Freiberg: last major battle in Germany","detail":"With Russia and Sweden out of the war, Prussia recovered ground against Austria in Silesia and Saxony. On 29 October a Prussian army under Frederick's brother, Prince Henry, defeated Austrian and Reichsarmee troops at Freiberg in Saxony. It was the last major battle of the war in Europe. Exhausted and unable to win, Austria and Prussia opened peace talks soon after.","lonlat":[13.34,50.91],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1763-02-10","year":1763,"label":"10 Feb 1763","text":"Treaty of Paris: Britain gains Canada, Florida and Indian supremacy","detail":"Britain, France and Spain signed peace in Paris, with Portugal agreeing the same day. France ceded Canada and its lands east of the Mississippi to Britain; it had already given Louisiana west of the river to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain and recovered Havana and Manila. France kept fishing rights off Newfoundland, regained Guadeloupe and Martinique, and recovered its Indian trading posts but not their fortifications.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1763-02-15","year":1763,"label":"15 Feb 1763","text":"Treaty of Hubertusburg ends the war in Germany","detail":"Five days later Austria, Prussia and Saxony signed peace at the Hubertusburg hunting lodge between Dresden and Leipzig. It restored the prewar borders of 1748: Silesia and Glatz stayed Prussian and Saxony was returned to its elector. Prussia agreed to support Archduke Joseph's election as future emperor. Prussia had survived as a great power, at enormous human and economic cost.","lonlat":[12.92,51.3],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Seven Years' War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War"},{"title":"Office of the Historian: French and Indian War / Seven Years' War, 1754–63","url":"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/french-indian-war"},{"title":"Battle of Plassey (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey"},{"title":"Siege of Louisbourg (1758) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Louisbourg_(1758)"},{"title":"Battle of Minden (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Minden"},{"title":"Battle of Wandiwash (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wandiwash"},{"title":"Siege of Havana (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Havana"},{"title":"Treaty of Paris (1763) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1763)"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"american-revolutionary-war","name":"American Revolutionary War","moment":"american-revolution","span":[1775,1783],"dateLabel":"19 April 1775 – 3 September 1783","summary":"After the Seven Years' War, Britain's attempts to tax its Thirteen Colonies and tighten control met growing resistance, and in April 1775 fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The Continental Congress appointed George Washington to command, and on 4 July 1776 it declared independence. Britain took New York and Philadelphia but could not destroy Washington's army, and in 1777 a British army surrendered at Saratoga. The victory helped bring France into the war in 1778, followed by Spain in 1779 and, from 1780, war between Britain and the Dutch Republic, turning a colonial rebellion into a wider war fought from the Caribbean to Gibraltar. British forces then turned south, taking Savannah and Charleston, until Charles Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown in 1781 by American and French armies and a French fleet. His surrender led Britain to seek peace, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 recognised the independence of the United States.","casualties":"An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died (about 6,800 in battle and some 17,000 from disease), and British military deaths are estimated at about 43,600, besides some 7,800 German auxiliaries and 7,000 Loyalists.","sides":[{"name":"United States and allies","members":[{"clio":"United States of America","from":1776,"to":1783},{"clio":"(Kingdom of France)","from":1778,"to":1783},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1779,"to":1783},{"clio":"(Dutch Republic)","from":1780,"to":1783}]},{"name":"Great Britain","members":[{"clio":"(British Empire)","from":1775,"to":1783},{"clio":"Electorate of Hanover","from":1775,"to":1783}]}],"events":[{"date":"1775-04-19","year":1775,"label":"19 Apr 1775","text":"Lexington and Concord: the first shots of the war","detail":"British troops marched from Boston to seize militia weapons stored at Concord. At Lexington they met a small company of colonial militia, and shots were fired; at Concord the troops were driven back, and on their return to Boston thousands of militiamen fired on them from cover along the road. The clashes turned political protest into armed rebellion, and militia from across New England soon surrounded British-held Boston.","lonlat":[-71.23,42.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1775-06-17","year":1775,"label":"17 Jun 1775","text":"Battle of Bunker Hill: costly British victory at Boston","detail":"During the siege of Boston, colonial forces fortified heights on the Charlestown peninsula overlooking the town. British troops made frontal assaults and took the position on the third attempt, after the defenders ran short of ammunition, but suffered heavy casualties. The battle showed that colonial militia could stand against British regulars. That month Congress had appointed George Washington commander of the new Continental Army.","lonlat":[-71.06,42.38],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1775-12-31","year":1775,"label":"31 Dec 1775","text":"American assault on Quebec fails","detail":"Hoping to bring Canada into the rebellion, American forces invaded in 1775 and took Montreal. On the last night of the year, in a snowstorm, Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold attacked the walled city of Quebec. Montgomery was killed, Arnold wounded and hundreds of Americans captured. The failure ended hopes of adding Canada to the revolt, and American forces withdrew in 1776.","lonlat":[-71.21,46.81],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1776-03-17","year":1776,"label":"17 Mar 1776","text":"British forces evacuate Boston","detail":"Over the winter, cannon captured at Fort Ticonderoga were hauled overland to Boston, and in March Washington placed them on Dorchester Heights, commanding the town and harbour. Unable to hold Boston, the British commander William Howe evacuated his army by sea to Halifax on 17 March. It was an early American success, though Howe would return in force that summer to attack New York.","lonlat":[-71.06,42.36],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1776-07-04","year":1776,"label":"4 Jul 1776","text":"Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence","detail":"On 2 July the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted for independence, and on 4 July it adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted chiefly by Thomas Jefferson. It listed grievances against King George III and declared the colonies to be free and independent states. The war became a fight for a new nation rather than for colonists' rights within the British Empire.","lonlat":[-75.15,39.95],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1776-08-27","year":1776,"label":"27 Aug 1776","text":"Battle of Long Island: Howe defeats Washington","detail":"Howe landed a large army on Long Island and outflanked Washington's defences on 27 August, inflicting a heavy defeat. Washington evacuated his army across the East River to Manhattan by night, but over the following weeks the British drove him out of New York, which they took and held for the rest of the war. The Continental Army retreated across New Jersey, shrinking as enlistments expired.","lonlat":[-73.95,40.65],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1776-12-26","year":1776,"label":"26 Dec 1776","text":"Battle of Trenton: Washington crosses the Delaware","detail":"With his army dwindling, Washington crossed the icy Delaware River on Christmas night and at daybreak on 26 December surprised the Hessian garrison at Trenton, capturing most of it. A week later, on 3 January 1777, he won again at Princeton. The small victories revived the Patriot cause, encouraged soldiers to re-enlist and forced the British to pull back from much of New Jersey.","lonlat":[-74.76,40.22],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1777-09-11","year":1777,"label":"11 Sep 1777","text":"Battle of Brandywine opens the road to Philadelphia","detail":"In 1777 Howe sailed his army to Chesapeake Bay to attack the rebel capital, Philadelphia. At Brandywine Creek on 11 September he outflanked and defeated Washington, and British troops occupied Philadelphia on 26 September; Congress had already fled. Washington's army survived a defeat at Germantown and wintered at Valley Forge, while Howe's move left no support for a British army advancing from Canada.","lonlat":[-75.59,39.87],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1777-10-17","year":1777,"label":"17 Oct 1777","text":"Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga","detail":"General John Burgoyne led a British army south from Canada along Lake Champlain to cut New England off from the other colonies. American forces under Horatio Gates, with Benedict Arnold, blocked him near Saratoga in two battles in September and October. Surrounded and short of supplies, Burgoyne surrendered his whole army on 17 October. The victory persuaded France that the rebellion could succeed.","lonlat":[-73.64,43.0],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1778-02-06","year":1778,"label":"6 Feb 1778","text":"France signs treaties of commerce and alliance with the United States","detail":"Benjamin Franklin and his fellow commissioners in Paris concluded a Treaty of Amity and Commerce and a Treaty of Alliance with France on 6 February 1778. France recognised American independence and entered the war against Britain, sending money, troops and, above all, a navy. Britain now had to defend its Caribbean islands, India and the home waters as well as fighting in America.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1778-06-28","year":1778,"label":"28 Jun 1778","text":"Battle of Monmouth: the Continental Army holds its own","detail":"Facing a French fleet, the British abandoned Philadelphia and marched back to New York. Washington's army, retrained over the winter at Valley Forge, caught the rearguard at Monmouth Court House in New Jersey on 28 June. The hard-fought battle was inconclusive and the British reached New York, but the Continental Army showed it could now meet British regulars in open battle.","lonlat":[-74.32,40.26],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1778-12-29","year":1778,"label":"29 Dec 1778","text":"British capture Savannah and turn the war south","detail":"Stalemated in the north, Britain adopted a 'southern strategy', counting on Loyalist support in Georgia and the Carolinas. A seaborne expedition captured Savannah, Georgia, on 29 December 1778. A Franco-American attempt to retake the city in 1779 failed. From here British forces would push into South Carolina, but the war in the south became a brutal civil conflict between Patriots and Loyalists.","lonlat":[-81.09,32.08],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1779-06-24","year":1779,"label":"24 Jun 1779","text":"Spain joins the war and besieges Gibraltar","detail":"Spain allied with France by the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1779, hoping to recover Gibraltar and Minorca from Britain, though it did not ally formally with the United States. On 24 June Spanish and later French forces began the Great Siege of Gibraltar, which lasted more than three and a half years. Spanish forces also campaigned against the British along the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi.","lonlat":[-5.35,36.14],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1780-05","year":1780,"label":"May 1780","text":"Charleston surrenders: Britain's greatest victory of the war","detail":"A British army under Henry Clinton besieged Charleston, South Carolina, in spring 1780. In May the American commander Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city and an army of several thousand men, the largest American loss of the war. Clinton returned to New York, leaving Charles Cornwallis to conquer the Carolinas. The fall of Charleston left South Carolina open to British occupation, and Loyalist and Patriot militias fought a bitter guerrilla war across the backcountry.","lonlat":[-79.93,32.78],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1780-08-16","year":1780,"label":"16 Aug 1780","text":"Battle of Camden: Cornwallis routs Gates","detail":"Horatio Gates, the victor of Saratoga, led a new southern army into South Carolina. At Camden on 16 August Cornwallis attacked and routed it; the militia fled and Gates retreated far to the north. For a time British control of South Carolina seemed secure. But Patriot militia defeated a Loyalist force at Kings Mountain in October, and the new commander Nathanael Greene rebuilt the southern army.","lonlat":[-80.6,34.25],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1780-12","year":1780,"label":"Dec 1780","text":"Britain declares war on the Dutch Republic","detail":"Dutch merchants had traded with the Americans and supplied France, and the Republic was about to join Russia's League of Armed Neutrality. In December 1780 Britain declared war, beginning the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. The Royal Navy seized Dutch ships and colonies, but the war added one more naval opponent to Britain's list as it fought France and Spain around the world.","lonlat":[4.31,52.08],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1781-01-17","year":1781,"label":"17 Jan 1781","text":"Battle of Cowpens: Morgan defeats Tarleton","detail":"Nathanael Greene divided his army, sending Daniel Morgan into western South Carolina. At the Cowpens on 17 January Morgan placed militia in front of his Continentals, and when Banastre Tarleton's British force advanced it was drawn in and enveloped. Most of Tarleton's men were killed or captured. The defeat cost Cornwallis much of his light infantry and drew him into a long chase after Greene.","lonlat":[-81.81,35.14],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1781-03-15","year":1781,"label":"15 Mar 1781","text":"Battle of Guilford Court House: a costly British victory","detail":"Cornwallis caught up with Greene at Guilford Court House in North Carolina on 15 March. The British held the field, but lost about a quarter of their force, and Greene withdrew his army intact. Too weak to hold the Carolinas, Cornwallis marched north into Virginia, hoping to cut off supplies to the south, while Greene recovered most of South Carolina and Georgia.","lonlat":[-79.84,36.13],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1781-09-05","year":1781,"label":"5 Sep 1781","text":"Battle of the Chesapeake: French fleet cuts off Cornwallis","detail":"Cornwallis fortified Yorktown on Chesapeake Bay, expecting supply and rescue by sea. A French fleet under the Comte de Grasse arrived from the Caribbean, and on 5 September off the Virginia Capes it fought a British fleet under Thomas Graves, which then returned to New York. With the French controlling the bay, Cornwallis was trapped as Washington and Rochambeau marched south with their armies.","lonlat":[-75.7,36.95],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1781-10-19","year":1781,"label":"19 Oct 1781","text":"Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown","detail":"From 28 September an American army under Washington and a French army under Rochambeau besieged Yorktown, digging trenches ever closer and bombarding the town. With no help coming by sea, Cornwallis surrendered on 19 October; more than 7,000 British soldiers were taken prisoner. It was the last major land battle of the war in America, and it broke Britain's will to continue the fight for the colonies.","lonlat":[-76.51,37.24],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1782-03-20","year":1782,"label":"20 Mar 1782","text":"Lord North's government resigns","detail":"News of Yorktown shook Parliament. In March 1782 the House of Commons passed a motion against continuing offensive war in America, and on 20 March the Prime Minister, Lord North, who had led the government through the war, resigned. The new ministry opened peace negotiations with the American commissioners in Paris while still fighting France and Spain. King George III, who had wanted to fight on, accepted that the war in America was lost.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1782-04-12","year":1782,"label":"12 Apr 1782","text":"Battle of the Saintes: Rodney defeats de Grasse","detail":"France and Spain planned to invade Britain's colony of Jamaica. In fighting from 9 to 12 April near the Îles des Saintes, between Guadeloupe and Dominica, a British fleet under Admiral George Rodney broke the French line, captured four ships of the line and took de Grasse prisoner. The invasion was abandoned, and the victory strengthened Britain's hand in the peace talks.","lonlat":[-61.6,15.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1782-09-13","year":1782,"label":"13 Sep 1782","text":"Grand assault on Gibraltar fails","detail":"After three years of siege, France and Spain launched a great attack on Gibraltar on 13 September 1782, using specially built floating batteries. The British garrison, which included Hanoverian troops, set them ablaze with red-hot shot, and the assault ended in a costly failure. Gibraltar stayed British, and the siege was lifted in February 1783. A British fleet under Lord Howe resupplied the Rock in October 1782.","lonlat":[-5.35,36.14],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1782-11-30","year":1782,"label":"30 Nov 1782","text":"Preliminary peace articles signed in Paris","detail":"Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay negotiated directly with Britain and signed preliminary articles on 30 November 1782. Britain accepted American independence and boundaries, and the articles dealt with fishing rights off Newfoundland, prewar debts, Loyalist property and the evacuation of British forces. France signed its own preliminary articles with Britain in January 1783. The Americans negotiated separately from France, despite their alliance, securing generous terms.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1783-09-03","year":1783,"label":"3 Sep 1783","text":"Treaty of Paris recognises the United States","detail":"The formal peace between Britain and the United States was signed in Paris on 3 September 1783, alongside Britain's treaties with France and Spain. Britain recognised the independence of the United States, whose territory reached west to the Mississippi. Spain recovered Florida and Minorca, while Britain kept Gibraltar. British troops left New York that November. Ratifications were exchanged in 1784, completing the peace.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"American Revolutionary War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War"},{"title":"Office of the Historian: Treaty of Paris, 1783","url":"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/treaty"},{"title":"Siege of Yorktown (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown"},{"title":"Great Siege of Gibraltar (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Siege_of_Gibraltar"},{"title":"Battle of the Saintes (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Saintes"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"napoleonic-wars","name":"Napoleonic Wars","moment":"napoleonic-wars-waterloo","span":[1803,1815],"dateLabel":"18 May 1803 – 20 November 1815","summary":"The brief Peace of Amiens collapsed when Britain declared war on France in May 1803. Napoleon Bonaparte, crowned emperor in 1804, then fought a series of coalitions of European powers. Britain's navy won at Trafalgar in 1805, but on land Napoleon defeated Austria and Russia at Austerlitz in 1805, Prussia at Jena in 1806 and Russia at Friedland in 1807, and made allies or satellites of much of Europe, from Spain to the Duchy of Warsaw. His attempt to impose his brother on Spain from 1808 began a long, draining war in the Iberian Peninsula, and in 1812 his invasion of Russia ended in a disastrous winter retreat. Prussia, Austria and Sweden then joined Russia and Britain, defeated him at Leipzig in 1813 and took Paris in 1814, forcing his abdication and exile to Elba. He returned in 1815 for the Hundred Days but was defeated at Waterloo, and was exiled to Saint Helena. The Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's map.","casualties":"An estimated 1.8 million or more soldiers died on all sides, over 1 million of them French or French-allied, and civilian deaths, notably in Spain and Russia, added many hundreds of thousands more.","sides":[{"name":"French Empire and allies","members":[{"clio":"(French Consulate)","from":1803,"to":1804},{"clio":"(First French Empire)","from":1805,"to":1814},{"clio":"(Bourbon Kingdom of France)","from":1815,"to":1815},{"clio":"(Batavian Republic)","from":1803,"to":1810},{"clio":"Italian Republic","from":1803,"to":1813},{"clio":"Duchy of Bavaria","from":1805,"to":1805},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1805,"to":1807},{"clio":"Kingdom of Bavaria","from":1806,"to":1813},{"clio":"Kingdom of Württemberg","from":1806,"to":1813},{"clio":"Grand Duchy of Baden","from":1806,"to":1813},{"clio":"Kingdom of Naples (Napoleonic)","from":1806,"to":1813},{"clio":"Kingdom of Saxony","from":1807,"to":1813},{"clio":"Denmark-Norway","from":1807,"to":1814},{"clio":"Kingdom of Westphalia","from":1809,"to":1813},{"clio":"Duchy of Warsaw","from":1809,"to":1813},{"clio":"Kingdom of Prussia","from":1812,"to":1812},{"clio":"Austrian Empire","from":1812,"to":1812}]},{"name":"Coalition powers","members":[{"clio":"(British Empire)","from":1803,"to":1815},{"clio":"Russian Empire","from":1805,"to":1807},{"clio":"Russian Empire","from":1812,"to":1815},{"clio":"(Habsburg Monarchy)","from":1805,"to":1805},{"clio":"Austrian Empire","from":1809,"to":1809},{"clio":"Austrian Empire","from":1813,"to":1815},{"clio":"Swedish Empire","from":1805,"to":1809},{"clio":"Swedish Empire","from":1813,"to":1814},{"clio":"Kingdom of Prussia","from":1806,"to":1807},{"clio":"Kingdom of Prussia","from":1813,"to":1815},{"clio":"Kingdom of Saxony","from":1806,"to":1806},{"clio":"(Portuguese Empire)","from":1807,"to":1815},{"clio":"(Spanish Empire)","from":1808,"to":1814},{"clio":"(Netherlands)","from":1815,"to":1815}]}],"events":[{"date":"1803-05-18","year":1803,"label":"18 May 1803","text":"Britain declares war on France, ending the Peace of Amiens","detail":"The Peace of Amiens of 1802 had briefly ended the wars of the French Revolution. But Britain distrusted First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte's expansion in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands, and refused to give up Malta as the treaty required. On 18 May 1803 Britain declared war. Napoleon gathered an army on the Channel coast at Boulogne to invade England, while the Royal Navy blockaded French ports.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1804-12-02","year":1804,"label":"2 Dec 1804","text":"Napoleon is crowned Emperor of the French","detail":"Napoleon, ruler of France as First Consul since 1799, was proclaimed emperor in May 1804 and crowned at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on 2 December, with Pope Pius VII present; he placed the crown on his own head. The new empire alarmed Europe's monarchies. In 1805 Britain, Austria, Russia and smaller powers, including Sweden and Naples, formed the Third Coalition against him.","lonlat":[2.35,48.85],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1805-10-20","year":1805,"label":"20 Oct 1805","text":"Austrian army surrenders at Ulm","detail":"Abandoning his invasion plan, Napoleon marched the Grande Armée from the Channel to the Danube at great speed. An Austrian army under Karl Mack had advanced into Bavaria, France's ally, ahead of the Russians; Napoleon swept around it and trapped it at Ulm, where Mack surrendered on 20 October with most of his army. The road to Vienna lay open, and French troops entered the city in November.","lonlat":[9.99,48.4],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1805-10-21","year":1805,"label":"21 Oct 1805","text":"Battle of Trafalgar: Nelson destroys the Franco-Spanish fleet","detail":"Off Cape Trafalgar in southern Spain, a British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson attacked a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve, cutting through its line in two columns. The allied fleet lost most of its ships, captured or destroyed, while no British ship was lost; Nelson was killed by a sniper during the battle. Trafalgar ended any French hope of invading Britain and confirmed British naval supremacy for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[-6.04,36.18],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1805-12-02","year":1805,"label":"2 Dec 1805","text":"Battle of Austerlitz: Napoleon defeats Austria and Russia","detail":"On the first anniversary of his coronation, Napoleon met the combined Russian and Austrian armies, with both emperors present, near Austerlitz in Moravia. He lured them into attacking his deliberately weakened right, then struck through their centre on the Pratzen Heights and split their army. The 'Battle of the Three Emperors' is often counted his greatest victory. Austria sued for peace and the Russians withdrew.","lonlat":[16.76,49.13],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1805-12-26","year":1805,"label":"26 Dec 1805","text":"Treaty of Pressburg: Austria makes peace","detail":"Signed at Pressburg (Bratislava), the treaty took Venetia from Austria and gave it to Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy, and transferred Tyrol and other lands to France's German allies Bavaria and Württemberg, whose rulers became kings. Austria paid a large indemnity. The Third Coalition collapsed, and Napoleon began reorganising Germany around client states. Napoleon's victories in 1805 left Austria humbled, while Prussia, which had stayed neutral, was isolated.","lonlat":[17.11,48.14],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1806-07","year":1806,"label":"Jul 1806","text":"Napoleon forms the Confederation of the Rhine","detail":"In July 1806 sixteen German states, including Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden, left the Holy Roman Empire and formed the Confederation of the Rhine under Napoleon's protection, promising him troops. Weeks later Francis II gave up the title of Holy Roman Emperor and dissolved the thousand-year-old Empire, ruling on as Emperor of Austria. Prussia, alarmed at French power in Germany, moved towards war.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1806-10-14","year":1806,"label":"14 Oct 1806","text":"Battles of Jena and Auerstedt: Prussia is crushed","detail":"Prussia joined the Fourth Coalition and declared war in October 1806, before Russian help could arrive. On 14 October Napoleon defeated one Prussian army at Jena while Marshal Davout, though outnumbered, beat the main Prussian army at Auerstedt nearby. The Prussian state collapsed within weeks: fortresses surrendered, and the French entered Berlin later that month. King Frederick William III fled to East Prussia.","lonlat":[11.59,50.93],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1806-11-21","year":1806,"label":"21 Nov 1806","text":"Berlin Decree launches the Continental System","detail":"Unable to defeat Britain at sea, Napoleon tried to ruin its economy. His decree issued in Berlin on 21 November 1806 banned trade between Britain and France's allies and dependent states. Britain replied with its own blockade. Enforcing this 'Continental System' drew Napoleon into conflicts with Portugal, Spain and finally Russia, and widespread smuggling undermined it. Neutral shipping, including that of the United States, was caught between the rival British and French blockades.","lonlat":[13.4,52.52],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1807-06-14","year":1807,"label":"14 Jun 1807","text":"Battle of Friedland: Napoleon defeats the Russians","detail":"After a winter campaign in Poland and East Prussia, including the bloody but indecisive battle of Eylau, Napoleon caught the Russian army under Bennigsen with a river at its back at Friedland, in East Prussia, on 14 June. The Russians were heavily defeated and Tsar Alexander I asked for an armistice, leaving Prussia without its last ally. Friedland ended the war of the Fourth Coalition on the continent.","lonlat":[21.01,54.44],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1807-07-07","year":1807,"label":"7 Jul 1807","text":"Treaties of Tilsit: Napoleon and Alexander I divide Europe","detail":"Napoleon and Alexander I met on a raft on the Niemen River and agreed peace at Tilsit. Russia joined the Continental System against Britain. Prussia, in a separate treaty, lost about half its territory: its Polish lands became the Duchy of Warsaw and lands west of the Elbe went into the new Kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by Napoleon's brother Jérôme. Napoleon's power on the continent was at its height.","lonlat":[21.88,55.08],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1807-08","year":1807,"label":"Aug 1807","text":"Britain attacks Copenhagen and seizes the Danish fleet","detail":"Fearing that Napoleon would take over neutral Denmark's navy, Britain demanded its surrender. When Denmark refused, a British force besieged and bombarded Copenhagen from August 1807, causing heavy civilian losses, and carried off the Danish fleet. Denmark-Norway responded by allying with France, and stayed on Napoleon's side until 1814. The attack, against a neutral state, was controversial even in Britain, but it denied Napoleon a fleet he could have used against British trade and the Royal Navy.","lonlat":[12.57,55.68],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1807-11","year":1807,"label":"Nov 1807","text":"French troops occupy Lisbon","detail":"Portugal, Britain's old ally, refused to join the Continental System. A French army under Junot marched through Spain with Spanish agreement and occupied Lisbon in November 1807; the Portuguese royal family sailed for Brazil under British naval escort just before. French troops now stood in both Iberian kingdoms, a prelude to Napoleon's move against Spain itself. Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese monarchy for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[-9.14,38.72],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1808-05-02","year":1808,"label":"2 May 1808","text":"Dos de Mayo: Madrid rises against the French","detail":"Napoleon lured the Spanish king and his heir to Bayonne, forced them to give up the throne, and made his brother Joseph King of Spain. On 2 May the people of Madrid rose against French troops; the revolt was put down and many prisoners were shot the next day. Uprisings spread across Spain, local juntas declared war on France, and Spain changed sides to fight alongside Britain and Portugal.","lonlat":[-3.7,40.42],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1808-07-19","year":1808,"label":"16–19 Jul 1808","text":"Battle of Bailén: a French army surrenders to Spain","detail":"In Andalusia, a Spanish army under Castaños trapped a French corps under General Dupont at Bailén. After fighting from 16 to 19 July Dupont negotiated a surrender, and about 17,000 French troops were captured. It was the first open-field defeat of a Napoleonic army. Joseph fled Madrid, encouraging resistance across Europe, and Napoleon came to Spain himself and retook Madrid by November.","lonlat":[-3.77,38.09],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1809-07-05","year":1809,"label":"5–6 Jul 1809","text":"Battle of Wagram: Napoleon defeats Austria again","detail":"Encouraged by French difficulties in Spain, Austria formed the Fifth Coalition with Britain in April 1809. Napoleon took Vienna but was checked at Aspern-Essling in May. In July he crossed the Danube and, in a huge two-day battle at Wagram on 5–6 July, defeated Archduke Charles's army. Austria agreed an armistice days later. It was one of the largest battles yet fought in Europe, and casualties on both sides were very heavy.","lonlat":[16.57,48.3],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1809-10-14","year":1809,"label":"14 Oct 1809","text":"Treaty of Schönbrunn imposes a harsh peace on Austria","detail":"Austria lost its Adriatic coast to France, Salzburg to Bavaria and Galician lands to the Duchy of Warsaw and Russia, and had to pay an indemnity and limit its army. In 1810 Napoleon married Emperor Francis's daughter Marie-Louise, binding Austria to France. Of the continental powers, only Russia remained independent of Napoleon, and its relations with him were souring. Britain fought on alone with Portugal and the Spanish resistance.","lonlat":[16.31,48.18],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1812-06-24","year":1812,"label":"24 Jun 1812","text":"The Grande Armée crosses the Niemen to invade Russia","detail":"Russia had left the Continental System and the two emperors were rivals over Poland. On 24 June Napoleon crossed the Niemen with more than 450,000 men, including contingents from his allies; Prussia and Austria, now forced into alliance with France, also sent corps. The Russian armies retreated rather than give battle, drawing the invaders deep into the country along failing supply lines.","lonlat":[23.9,54.9],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1812-09-07","year":1812,"label":"7 Sep 1812","text":"Battle of Borodino: bloodiest day of the campaign","detail":"About 110 km west of Moscow, the Russian army under Mikhail Kutuzov finally stood and fought at Borodino on 7 September. In a day of massed assaults on Russian earthworks, both sides lost tens of thousands of men. Napoleon held the field but failed to destroy the Russian army, which withdrew in order and abandoned Moscow. It is often described as the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars.","lonlat":[35.82,55.52],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1812-09-14","year":1812,"label":"14 Sep 1812","text":"Napoleon enters a deserted Moscow, which burns","detail":"On 14 September the French entered Moscow, which most inhabitants had left. Fires, set on the orders of governor Rostopchin according to many accounts, soon destroyed much of the city. Napoleon waited about five weeks for Alexander to offer peace, but no offer came. On 19 October, with winter approaching and supplies short, he began to retreat. After a defeat at Maloyaroslavets, he was forced back along the ravaged route by which he had come.","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1812-11-26","year":1812,"label":"26–29 Nov 1812","text":"Crossing of the Berezina: the retreat from Moscow","detail":"Snow and frost, hunger and Cossack and peasant attacks destroyed the retreating army. At the Berezina River, with Russian armies closing in, French engineers built bridges in icy water, and between 26 and 29 November the remnants, about 49,000 troops plus many stragglers, escaped across at great cost. Of the more than 450,000 men who had invaded, only around 120,000 survived the campaign.","lonlat":[28.36,54.32],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1813-06-21","year":1813,"label":"21 Jun 1813","text":"Battle of Vitoria: Wellington breaks French rule in Spain","detail":"While Napoleon rebuilt his army in Germany, where Prussia had changed sides to join Russia, Wellington's British, Portuguese and Spanish army advanced across northern Spain. At Vitoria on 21 June it broke the French army of King Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, capturing its baggage and artillery. The French withdrew to the Pyrenees, and the defeat encouraged Austria to join the coalition that summer.","lonlat":[-2.67,42.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1813-10-16","year":1813,"label":"16–19 Oct 1813","text":"Battle of Leipzig, the 'Battle of the Nations'","detail":"Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Swedish armies converged on Napoleon at Leipzig in Saxony. Over four days some 560,000 soldiers fought, the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, with about 133,000 casualties. The Saxon and Württemberg troops changed sides during the battle. Napoleon was decisively defeated and retreated to France; the Confederation of the Rhine dissolved, and the allies invaded France in early 1814.","lonlat":[12.37,51.34],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1814-03-31","year":1814,"label":"31 Mar 1814","text":"Coalition armies enter Paris","detail":"Napoleon fought a skilful defensive campaign in eastern France in early 1814 and won several battles, but he could not stop the much larger allied armies. While he manoeuvred against their supply lines, the coalition marched on Paris, which capitulated after fighting on 30 March; the allied sovereigns entered the city on 31 March. On 2 April the French Senate declared Napoleon deposed.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1814-04-06","year":1814,"label":"6 Apr 1814","text":"Napoleon abdicates at Fontainebleau and is exiled to Elba","detail":"At Fontainebleau, with his marshals unwilling to fight on, Napoleon first offered to abdicate in favour of his son; the allies refused, and on 6 April he gave up the thrones of France and Italy unconditionally. The Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on 11 April, gave him the island of Elba as a principality for life. The Bourbon king Louis XVIII returned to France, and the powers met at the Congress of Vienna.","lonlat":[2.7,48.4],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1815-03-01","year":1815,"label":"1 Mar 1815","text":"Napoleon escapes Elba and lands in France: the Hundred Days","detail":"Napoleon left Elba in February and landed in southern France on 1 March 1815 with a small force. Troops sent to stop him, including Marshal Ney, went over to him, and he reached Paris on 20 March as Louis XVIII fled. The powers at Vienna declared him an outlaw and Austria, Prussia, Russia and Britain each pledged 150,000 men to the Seventh Coalition.","lonlat":[7.07,43.57],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1815-06-18","year":1815,"label":"18 Jun 1815","text":"Battle of Waterloo: Napoleon's final defeat","detail":"Napoleon struck into the Netherlands before the allies could unite, beating the Prussians at Ligny on 16 June. Two days later, near Waterloo south of Brussels, his army attacked Wellington's British, Dutch-Belgian and German force of about 68,000 men, which held its ridge all day until Blücher's Prussians arrived on the French flank in the evening. The French army broke, losing nearly 40,000 men; allied losses were about 22,000.","lonlat":[4.41,50.68],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1815-06-22","year":1815,"label":"22 Jun 1815","text":"Napoleon abdicates for the second time","detail":"Back in Paris after Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated on 22 June. Coalition armies reached Paris in early July and Louis XVIII was restored on 8 July. Napoleon surrendered to the British and was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821. The second Treaty of Paris, on 20 November 1815, formally ended the wars.","lonlat":[2.35,48.87],"kind":"political"}],"sources":[{"title":"Napoleonic Wars (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars"},{"title":"Battle of Bailén (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bail%C3%A9n"},{"title":"French invasion of Russia (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia"},{"title":"Battle of Vitoria (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vitoria"},{"title":"Battle of Leipzig (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leipzig"},{"title":"Treaty of Fontainebleau (1814) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fontainebleau_(1814)"},{"title":"Hundred Days (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days"},{"title":"National Army Museum: Battle of Waterloo","url":"https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-waterloo"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"taiping-rebellion","name":"Taiping Rebellion","moment":null,"span":[1850,1864],"dateLabel":"December 1850 – July 1864","summary":"In the 1840s Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka who had failed the imperial examinations and believed himself the younger brother of Jesus, gathered the God Worshipping Society in Guangxi. Famine, overtaxation and the Qing defeat in the First Opium War fed its growth, and in January 1851 Hong proclaimed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at Jintian. His armies marched north to the Yangtze, took Wuchang and in March 1853 captured Nanjing, which became their capital, Tianjing. An expedition against Beijing failed, and in 1856 a bloody power struggle killed several Taiping leaders. Provincial armies raised by gentry officials, above all Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army, slowly drove the Taiping back, while Western-officered forces helped defend Shanghai. In 1860 the Taiping broke out east into Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but the Qing took Anqing in 1861, besieged Nanjing from 1862 and stormed it in July 1864, shortly after Hong's death. It was the deadliest civil war in history and left the Qing dependent on regional armies.","casualties":"An estimated 20–30 million people died, most of them from famine and disease; some estimates run far higher.","sides":[{"name":"Qing dynasty (with Western-officered units from 1860)","members":[{"clio":"Qing Dynasty","from":1850,"to":1864}]},{"name":"Taiping Heavenly Kingdom","members":[{"clio":"Taiping Heavenly Kingdom","from":1853,"to":1864}]}],"events":[{"date":"1851-01-11","year":1851,"label":"11 Jan 1851","text":"Hong Xiuquan proclaims the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at Jintian","detail":"In 1850 local officials in Guangxi moved against the God Worshipping Society, and its followers gathered at Jintian, near Guiping, organised into military units. After routing a Qing attack at the turn of the year, the God Worshippers formally rose on 11 January 1851, Hong Xiuquan's birthday, and declared the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The rebels grew their hair long instead of wearing the Qing queue, a visible act of defiance that earned them the name 'Long-Hairs'.","lonlat":[110.08,23.45],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1851-09-25","year":1851,"label":"25 Sep 1851","text":"Taiping break out of the Jintian area and take Yong'an","detail":"Hemmed in by Green Standard troops that far outnumbered them, the rebels fought their way north and captured the walled town of Yong'an (modern Mengshan) on 25 September 1851. They held it for months while Qing forces regrouped and closed in, and in 1851 Hong gave his chief followers the title of king, under himself as Heavenly King. In 1852 the Taiping cut their way out and marched on Guilin, the provincial capital, but its walls proved too strong.","lonlat":[110.52,24.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1852-06-10","year":1852,"label":"10 Jun 1852","text":"Ambush at Suoyi ford on the Xiang River halts the march into Hunan","detail":"Leaving Guilin, the Taiping headed north towards Hunan along the Xiang River. On 10 June 1852 a gentry-led militia ambushed them at Suoyi ford, near Quanzhou on the Guangxi–Hunan border, and the rebels lost about a fifth of their force. The South King Feng Yunshan, one of the movement's founders, had been mortally wounded by a Qing gunner at nearby Quanzhou weeks earlier and died that June. The survivors pressed on into Hunan, recruiting as they went.","lonlat":[111.07,26.0],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1852-09","year":1852,"label":"Sep 1852","text":"Taiping besiege Changsha; the West King is killed","detail":"The Taiping laid siege to Changsha, the capital of Hunan, which Qing reinforcements reached in time. Miners dug tunnels under the walls, but few reached them. In September the West King Xiao Chaogui, showing himself in royal robes to rally the troops, was killed by a Qing gunner. By November Hong called off the siege and the army moved north down the Xiang River towards Dongting Lake and the Yangtze, seizing thousands of boats at Yuezhou.","lonlat":[112.94,28.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1853-01-12","year":1853,"label":"12 Jan 1853","text":"Taiping capture Wuchang on the Yangtze","detail":"Reaching the Yangtze in December 1852, the Taiping first took the commercial towns of Hanyang and Hankou on the north bank, then bridged the river with boats to attack Wuchang, the capital of Hubei. After a siege of about twenty days the city fell on 12 January 1853. Warned of a large Qing army to the north, the leaders decided not to march on Beijing but to sail east down the Yangtze towards Nanjing, a choice later criticised as a strategic error.","lonlat":[114.31,30.55],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1853-03-19","year":1853,"label":"19 Mar 1853","text":"Taiping take Nanjing and make it their Heavenly Capital","detail":"Sailing down the Yangtze, the Taiping took Jiujiang and Anqing almost unopposed and reached Nanjing, the old southern capital, on 6 March 1853. Tunnels packed with explosives breached the walls and the city fell on 19 March. The Taiping killed tens of thousands of Manchu bannermen and their families in the garrison quarter. Hong renamed the city Tianjing, the Heavenly Capital, and ruled from there for eleven years, while Qing armies camped outside it.","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1853-05-08","year":1853,"label":"8 May 1853","text":"Northern Expedition sets out to capture Beijing","detail":"To strike at the Qing capital, the commander Yang Xiuqing sent an army under Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang north from Yangzhou on 8 May 1853. Moving fast through Anhui and Henan without leaving garrisons, it crossed the Yellow River in late June but then lost two months besieging Huaiqing. Turning through Shanxi into Zhili, it alarmed the court in Beijing, which called in Manchu and Mongol cavalry to defend the city.","lonlat":[119.42,32.39],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1853-06-10","year":1853,"label":"10 Jun 1853","text":"Western Expedition retakes Anqing and pushes up the Yangtze","detail":"A second army left Nanjing on 19 May 1853 to secure the Yangtze upstream. It recaptured Anqing on 10 June, then split: one force conquered much of Anhui and took Luzhou (Hefei) in January 1854, another went into Jiangxi, where it failed to take Nanchang, and a third moved on Hubei and Hunan. These campaigns gave the Taiping a belt of territory along the middle Yangtze that fed and recruited for the capital.","lonlat":[117.05,30.52],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1853-10-30","year":1853,"label":"30 Oct 1853","text":"Northern Expedition turns towards Tianjin instead of Beijing","detail":"Close to the capital by late October, the expedition did not attack Beijing but moved on Tianjin, where it waited for reinforcements through the north China winter. Its southern soldiers suffered badly from the cold and lack of supplies. On 5 February 1854 Li ordered a retreat south, and Qing generals broke dykes to flood the rebels. Historians often see the failure to strike at Beijing at once as one of the war's decisive mistakes.","lonlat":[117.2,39.13],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1854-05-01","year":1854,"label":"1 May 1854","text":"Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army defeats the Taiping at Xiangtan","detail":"Zeng Guofan, a senior official at home in Hunan, had turned local militia into a new provincial force, the Xiang (Hunan) Army, with its own river fleet and officers loyal to him personally. When Taiping forces of the Western Expedition took Xiangtan, upriver from Changsha, his troops beat them there on 1 May 1854. It was the first major victory of the new regional armies that would eventually win the war for the Qing.","lonlat":[112.94,27.83],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1854-10-14","year":1854,"label":"14 Oct 1854","text":"Xiang Army retakes Wuchang and Hanyang","detail":"Following up its victory at Xiangtan, the Xiang Army and its fleet pushed down the Xiang River and the Yangtze and recaptured Wuchang and Hanyang on 14 October 1854. The Taiping struck back: in 1855 Shi Dakai badly defeated Zeng's river fleet at Hukou, and Taiping forces took Wuchang again on 3 April 1855. The middle Yangtze changed hands repeatedly over the next two years.","lonlat":[114.31,30.55],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1855-05","year":1855,"label":"May 1855","text":"The last of the Northern Expedition is destroyed in Shandong","detail":"After retreating from Tianjin, the expedition's two halves were trapped in fortified villages. Lin Fengxiang was captured in Zhili in March 1855, and Li Kaifang held out at Fengguantun in Shandong until Qing forces took him in spring 1855 (sources give 31 March or 31 May). Almost the whole army was lost. A relief force sent north from Anqing in 1854 had never reached it, and the Taiping did not threaten Beijing again.","lonlat":[116.15,36.55],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1856-06-20","year":1856,"label":"20 Jun 1856","text":"Taiping break the Qing siege camp outside Nanjing","detail":"Since 1853 a Qing army, the Jiangnan Battalion under Xiang Rong, had camped outside Nanjing. In June 1856 Taiping forces recalled from the west defeated it and lifted the three-year siege on 20 June; Xiang Rong died in August. The victory marked the height of Taiping power, holding the capital, much of Anhui and Jiangxi and the river between, but it also left the East King Yang Xiuqing feeling secure enough to claim equality with Hong.","lonlat":[118.85,32.04],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1856-09-02","year":1856,"label":"2 Sep 1856","text":"Tianjing Incident: Taiping leaders kill each other in the capital","detail":"When Yang Xiuqing demanded a title equal to Hong's, Hong summoned his generals. On 2 September 1856 Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang stormed Yang's palace and killed him, his family and thousands of his followers. Wei then turned on Shi Dakai, who escaped, and Hong had Wei and Qin killed in turn. More than 27,000 people died, and in 1857 Shi left Nanjing with a large army. The movement never recovered its unity or leadership.","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1856-12-19","year":1856,"label":"19 Dec 1856","text":"Qing forces retake Wuchang for good","detail":"While the Taiping leaders fought in Nanjing, Qing and Xiang Army forces besieging Wuchang took advantage. The city, which had changed hands several times since 1853, fell to the Qing on 19 December 1856 and stayed in their hands for the rest of the war. With Hubei secure, Zeng Guofan's armies could turn down the Yangtze towards Jiangxi and Anhui, the provinces that protected the Taiping capital.","lonlat":[114.31,30.55],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1858-05","year":1858,"label":"May 1858","text":"Xiang Army captures Jiujiang","detail":"Jiujiang, at the mouth of Poyang Lake, had been a Taiping stronghold since 1853. In May 1858 the Xiang Army captured the city, and by September it had cleared the rest of Jiangxi. The fall of Jiujiang opened the Yangtze below Wuchang to Zeng's fleet and brought his armies to the borders of Anhui, the next province on the way to Nanjing.","lonlat":[115.99,29.71],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1858-11-16","year":1858,"label":"16 Nov 1858","text":"Battle of Sanhe: Taiping destroy an elite Xiang Army force","detail":"A Xiang Army column of about 6,000 under Li Xubin pushed into central Anhui in autumn 1858 and attacked the Taiping-held town of Sanhe, a supply hub west of Lake Chao. The Taiping generals Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng, two of the new commanders who rose after 1856, brought over 100,000 men and ambushed it on 16 November. Li Xubin and Zeng Guofan's brother were killed and the Qing siege of Anqing had to be abandoned.","lonlat":[117.24,31.51],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1860-05","year":1860,"label":"May 1860","text":"Taiping rout the Jiangnan Battalion and break out east","detail":"A rebuilt Qing army again besieged Nanjing. To draw it off, Li Xiucheng raided Hangzhou in March 1860, then doubled back, and in May the Taiping routed the Jiangnan Battalion and lifted the siege. Hong Rengan, Hong's cousin and new chief minister, sent the armies east into southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the richest region of the empire. The Qing commanders Zhang Guoliang and He Chun died, and command passed to Zeng Guofan.","lonlat":[118.95,32.05],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1860-06-02","year":1860,"label":"2 Jun 1860","text":"Taiping capture Suzhou","detail":"Advancing down the Grand Canal, the Taiping took Changzhou on 26 May and Suzhou, one of China's wealthiest cities, on 2 June 1860. Li Xiucheng made Suzhou the seat of his own administration. In August a Taiping attack on Shanghai was repulsed by Chinese troops with European officers under the American Frederick Townsend Ward. The eastern campaign gave the Taiping a new heartland, but drew their best troops away from the middle Yangtze.","lonlat":[120.62,31.3],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1861-09-05","year":1861,"label":"5 Sep 1861","text":"Xiang Army takes Anqing after a year-long siege","detail":"Zeng Guofan saw Anqing, the Taiping base upstream of Nanjing, as the key to the river. His brother Zeng Guoquan besieged it from September 1860, while a British blockade stopped foreign merchants supplying the city. Chen Yucheng's attempts at relief failed, and on 5 September 1861 the besiegers breached the walls of the starving city. Zeng moved his headquarters to Anqing and prepared the advance on Nanjing.","lonlat":[117.05,30.52],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1861-12-31","year":1861,"label":"31 Dec 1861","text":"Taiping capture Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang","detail":"In late 1861 the Taiping launched a final eastern offensive. They took the treaty port of Ningbo on 9 December and, after a siege, Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, on 31 December 1861. In January 1862 they surrounded Shanghai. The foreign powers, until then officially neutral, now joined the Qing in its defence, and Western naval forces and the Ever Victorious Army helped retake Ningbo on 10 May 1862.","lonlat":[120.16,30.27],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1862-05","year":1862,"label":"May 1862","text":"Xiang Army begins the siege of Nanjing","detail":"Advancing down the Yangtze from Anqing, Zeng Guoquan's Xiang Army reached the walls of Nanjing in May 1862 and entrenched south of the city. Larger Taiping armies brought back from the east tried to break the siege but failed. Hong Xiuquan refused to leave, declaring that God would defend the Heavenly Capital, while Qing forces gradually took the river forts and the hills around the city.","lonlat":[118.8,31.98],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1862-09-21","year":1862,"label":"21 Sep 1862","text":"Ward is mortally wounded at Cixi as Shanghai is held","detail":"Around Shanghai, the Huai Army of Li Hongzhang, British and French troops and the Ever Victorious Army, a Western-officered Chinese force founded by the American Frederick Townsend Ward, drove Taiping forces back from the city in 1862. Ward was shot leading an attack on Cixi, near Ningbo, on 21 September 1862 and died the next day. In March 1863 command passed to the British officer Charles Gordon.","lonlat":[121.25,30.17],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1863-12","year":1863,"label":"Dec 1863","text":"Suzhou surrenders to Li Hongzhang and Gordon","detail":"Through 1863 the Huai Army and Gordon's Ever Victorious Army took the towns between Shanghai and Suzhou, using armed steamers on the canals. In early December 1863 Taiping officers inside Suzhou killed their commander Tan Shaoguang and opened the gates. Li Hongzhang then had the surrendered Taiping leaders executed despite Gordon's guarantee of their safety, and Gordon briefly refused to fight on. The loss of Suzhou cost the Taiping their eastern capital.","lonlat":[120.62,31.3],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1864-05-11","year":1864,"label":"11 May 1864","text":"Changzhou falls, completing the Qing reconquest of southern Jiangsu","detail":"After Suzhou, the Huai Army and the Ever Victorious Army attacked Changzhou, the main Taiping base left on the Grand Canal. The decisive assault came between 25 April and 11 May 1864, when the city fell and its commander Chen Kunshu was captured and executed. In Zhejiang, Zuo Zongtang retook Hangzhou the same year. Gordon disbanded his army soon afterwards, and only Nanjing and scattered forces remained to the Taiping.","lonlat":[119.97,31.81],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1864-06-01","year":1864,"label":"1 Jun 1864","text":"Hong Xiuquan dies in besieged Nanjing","detail":"By March 1864 the Xiang Army had completed the encirclement of Nanjing, and food ran out inside. Hong Xiuquan fell ill after eating wild plants, possibly intending suicide, and died on 1 June 1864 after about twenty days. His fifteen-year-old son Hong Tianguifu succeeded him, and Li Xiucheng took charge of the defence, but during the siege more than 200,000 Taiping troops left the city to surrender.","lonlat":[118.78,32.06],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1864-07-19","year":1864,"label":"19 Jul 1864","text":"Nanjing falls to the Xiang Army","detail":"On 19 July 1864 the Xiang Army exploded a mine under the wall near the Taiping Gate and stormed into Nanjing; by evening every gate was taken. The unpaid troops looted, raped and killed, and the city burned for a week; Zeng Guofan's own reports put the dead at 100,000 or more. Li Xiucheng was captured and executed, and Hong's son was caught in October. Taiping remnants fought on in the south until 1866, but the Heavenly Kingdom was finished.","lonlat":[118.79,32.05],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Taiping Rebellion (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion"},{"title":"Columbia University, Asia for Educators: Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864)","url":"http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1750_taiping.htm"},{"title":"Northern Expedition (Taiping Rebellion) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Expedition_(Taiping_Rebellion)"},{"title":"Tianjing Incident (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjing_Incident"},{"title":"Battle of Anqing (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anqing"},{"title":"Third Battle of Nanjing (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Battle_of_Nanjing"},{"title":"Battle of Wuchang (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wuchang"},{"title":"Hong Xiuquan (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"american-civil-war","name":"American Civil War","moment":"us-civil-war","span":[1861,1865],"dateLabel":"12 April 1861 – 26 May 1865","summary":"Decades of conflict over slavery and its spread into the western territories came to a head when Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery, won the presidential election of 1860. South Carolina seceded in December, and in February 1861 seceding slave states formed the Confederate States of America. The war began when Confederate forces bombarded Fort Sumter in April 1861. Early Confederate victories in Virginia showed the war would be long, while Union armies advanced along the rivers of the West. After Antietam in 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the end of slavery a Union war aim and opened the army to Black soldiers. In July 1863 the Union won at Gettysburg and took Vicksburg, splitting the Confederacy. Ulysses S. Grant pressed Robert E. Lee in Virginia while William T. Sherman took Atlanta and marched to the sea. Lee surrendered at Appomattox in April 1865, days before Lincoln was assassinated, and slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.","casualties":"Estimates of soldiers' deaths range from about 620,000 to 700,000 or more, most of them from disease, plus an undetermined number of civilian deaths.","sides":[{"name":"Union","members":[{"clio":"United States of America","from":1861,"to":1865}]},{"name":"Confederacy","members":[{"clio":"Confederate States of America","from":1861,"to":1865}]}],"events":[{"date":"1861-02-04","year":1861,"label":"4 Feb 1861","text":"Seceding states meet to form the Confederate States of America","detail":"After Lincoln's election, South Carolina's convention voted unanimously to secede on 20 December 1860, and six more Deep South states followed. On 4 February 1861 their delegates met at Montgomery, Alabama, agreed to form the Confederate States of America, and chose Jefferson Davis as president. The new government began seizing federal forts and arsenals within its borders, while the outgoing administration in Washington hesitated.","lonlat":[-86.3,32.38],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1861-04-12","year":1861,"label":"12 Apr 1861","text":"Confederates bombard Fort Sumter: the war begins","detail":"Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbour, was one of the few federal posts in the South still held by US troops. When Lincoln announced he would send supplies, Confederate batteries opened fire on 12 April, and the garrison surrendered the next day. Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion, and four more slave states, including Virginia, then joined the Confederacy, which moved its capital to Richmond.","lonlat":[-79.87,32.75],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1861-07-21","year":1861,"label":"21 Jul 1861","text":"First Battle of Bull Run: a Confederate victory near Washington","detail":"Under pressure for a quick advance on Richmond, a Union army under Irvin McDowell attacked Confederates under P. G. T. Beauregard near Manassas, Virginia. Confederate reinforcements arrived by rail, and the Union army retreated in disorder towards Washington. It was the first major battle of the war, and it showed both sides that the war would be long and costly. Lincoln called for 500,000 more volunteers.","lonlat":[-77.52,38.81],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1862-02-16","year":1862,"label":"11–16 Feb 1862","text":"Grant captures Fort Donelson in Tennessee","detail":"In the western theatre, Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant, supported by river gunboats, captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and then besieged Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, which surrendered with its garrison on 16 February. The victories opened Tennessee to Union armies, led to the fall of Nashville and made Grant a national figure. Grant's demand for 'unconditional surrender' earned him a nickname matching his initials.","lonlat":[-87.86,36.49],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1862-04-06","year":1862,"label":"6–7 Apr 1862","text":"Battle of Shiloh: a shockingly costly Union victory","detail":"Confederates under Albert Sidney Johnston surprised Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River on 6 April. Johnston was killed that afternoon, and with reinforcements overnight the Union counterattacked on 7 April and drove the Confederates south. Nearly 24,000 men were killed, wounded or missing, more than in any earlier American battle. In late April a Union fleet also captured New Orleans.","lonlat":[-88.32,35.15],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1862-09-17","year":1862,"label":"17 Sep 1862","text":"Battle of Antietam halts Lee's first invasion of the North","detail":"After victories in Virginia, Robert E. Lee led the Confederate army into Maryland. George B. McClellan's Union army attacked it along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg on 17 September, in what remains the bloodiest single day in American military history. Lee withdrew to Virginia. The Union success gave Lincoln the moment to announce, five days later, his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. About 23,000 men were killed, wounded or missing.","lonlat":[-77.74,39.47],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1863-01-01","year":1863,"label":"1 Jan 1863","text":"Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation","detail":"Lincoln's proclamation declared that people held as slaves in the states in rebellion were free. It did not apply to the loyal border states or to Confederate areas already under Union control, and its promise depended on Union victory. But it made ending slavery a Union war aim, discouraged Britain and France from recognising the Confederacy, and opened the Union Army and Navy to Black men; almost 200,000 served by the war's end.","lonlat":[-77.04,38.9],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1863-04-30","year":1863,"label":"30 Apr–6 May 1863","text":"Battle of Chancellorsville: Lee's boldest victory","detail":"Joseph Hooker's much larger Union army crossed the Rappahannock to outflank Lee. Lee divided his army and sent Stonewall Jackson on a march around the Union right, which collapsed under a surprise attack. Hooker withdrew across the river. The victory was costly: Jackson was mortally wounded by his own men's fire. Encouraged, Lee decided to invade the North again. Lee lost fewer men than Hooker, but the Confederacy could less afford its losses.","lonlat":[-77.65,38.31],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1863-07-01","year":1863,"label":"1–3 Jul 1863","text":"Battle of Gettysburg: Lee's invasion of the North fails","detail":"Lee's army met George Meade's Union army at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Over three days the Confederates attacked the Union line on the hills south of the town, ending with the failed assault on the centre known as Pickett's Charge. Gettysburg was the war's costliest battle, with more American soldier casualties than the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 combined. Lee retreated to Virginia and never again invaded the North in force.","lonlat":[-77.23,39.81],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1863-07-04","year":1863,"label":"4 Jul 1863","text":"Vicksburg surrenders: the Union controls the Mississippi","detail":"Vicksburg, on its bluffs above the river, was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi. Grant besieged it from 18 May, and Pemberton's starving garrison surrendered on 4 July, the day after Gettysburg ended. Port Hudson fell on 9 July, giving the Union the whole river and cutting off Texas, Arkansas and western Louisiana from the rest of the Confederacy.","lonlat":[-90.88,32.35],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1864-09-02","year":1864,"label":"2 Sep 1864","text":"Sherman captures Atlanta","detail":"In 1864 Grant, now commanding all Union armies, attacked Lee in Virginia while William T. Sherman advanced from Tennessee on Atlanta, a vital rail and supply centre. After months of manoeuvre and battles, Atlanta fell on 2 September. With the war in Virginia stalled in costly trench fighting around Petersburg, the victory boosted Northern morale and helped Lincoln win re-election that November.","lonlat":[-84.39,33.75],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1864-11-15","year":1864,"label":"15 Nov 1864","text":"Sherman begins his March to the Sea","detail":"Leaving Atlanta in flames, Sherman's army of about 62,000 men cut loose from its supply lines and marched across Georgia, living off the land. Foragers seized food and livestock and the troops wrecked about 300 miles of railroad, factories and farms. Historians debate whether this 'hard war' amounted to total war, but it crippled the Confederate economy and morale. Sherman faced little organised resistance along the way.","lonlat":[-84.39,33.75],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1864-12-21","year":1864,"label":"21 Dec 1864","text":"Sherman reaches the sea and takes Savannah","detail":"Sherman's army captured the port of Savannah on 21 December after a march of over a month, and he offered it to Lincoln as a Christmas present. In early 1865 he turned north through the Carolinas, squeezing the Confederacy from the south as Grant held Lee in Virginia. The march showed that the Confederacy could not protect its own heartland, and desertion from Confederate armies grew as soldiers worried about their families at home.","lonlat":[-81.09,32.08],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1865-04-01","year":1865,"label":"1 Apr 1865","text":"Battle of Five Forks breaks the siege of Petersburg","detail":"For more than nine months Grant had besieged Lee's army in trenches around Petersburg, the rail centre protecting Richmond. On 1 April Union troops under Philip Sheridan routed Confederates at Five Forks, cutting one of Lee's last supply lines. The next day Grant attacked all along the line, and Lee told President Davis that Richmond must be abandoned. Petersburg fell on the night of 2 to 3 April.","lonlat":[-77.39,37.14],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1865-04-03","year":1865,"label":"2–3 Apr 1865","text":"Richmond falls to Union troops","detail":"The Confederate government fled Richmond on 2 April, and retreating troops set fire to supplies, burning much of the city. Union troops entered the capital on 3 April. Lee's remaining army retreated west, hoping to join Confederate forces in North Carolina. For many Black Americans in the city, Union troops' arrival meant the end of slavery. The fall of the capital, which the Union had sought to capture since 1861, signalled that the Confederacy's end was near. Lee's army now had only days to run.","lonlat":[-77.44,37.54],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1865-04-09","year":1865,"label":"9 Apr 1865","text":"Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court House","detail":"Cut off and short of food, Lee's army was surrounded near Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lee met Grant in a private house and surrendered on 9 April on generous terms: his men were paroled and allowed to go home, officers keeping their side arms and soldiers who owned horses keeping them. Other Confederate forces surrendered over the following weeks, and the war is usually dated as ending in May 1865.","lonlat":[-78.8,37.38],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1865-04-14","year":1865,"label":"14 Apr 1865","text":"President Lincoln is assassinated","detail":"Five days after Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln was shot by the actor and Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in Washington, and he died the next morning. Vice President Andrew Johnson became president and faced the task of rebuilding the Union. The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the United States, was ratified in December 1865. Booth was cornered and killed in Virginia twelve days later.","lonlat":[-77.03,38.9],"kind":"political"}],"sources":[{"title":"American Civil War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War"},{"title":"National Archives: The Emancipation Proclamation","url":"https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation"},{"title":"American Battlefield Trust: Civil War Casualties","url":"https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-casualties"},{"title":"First Battle of Bull Run (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Bull_Run"},{"title":"Battle of Shiloh (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shiloh"},{"title":"Siege of Vicksburg (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vicksburg"},{"title":"Sherman's March to the Sea (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"paraguayan-war","name":"Paraguayan War (War of the Triple Alliance)","moment":null,"span":[1864,1870],"dateLabel":"12 November 1864 – 1 March 1870","summary":"In 1864 Brazil intervened in a civil war in Uruguay against the Blanco government, an ally of Paraguay. Paraguay's president, Francisco Solano López, who had warned that he would treat an occupation of Uruguay as a threat, seized a Brazilian steamer in November and invaded Brazil's province of Mato Grosso. When Argentina refused his army passage, Paraguay attacked Corrientes in April 1865, and Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, now under a pro-Brazilian government, signed the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. Brazil's victory at Riachuelo gave the allies the rivers, and Paraguay's invading armies were destroyed or surrendered by late 1865. The allies invaded Paraguay in 1866, won at Tuyutí but were bloodily repulsed at Curupayty; under the Marquess of Caxias they took the fortress of Humaitá in 1868 and Asunción in January 1869. López fought on as a guerrilla until Brazilian troops killed him at Cerro Corá on 1 March 1870. Paraguay lost territory and a large share of its people.","casualties":"Estimates vary widely, from about 150,000 to 500,000 deaths in all; Paraguay may have lost 60–70 percent of its population of about 420,000–450,000, by one estimate, while Brazil lost an estimated 50,000 soldiers and Argentina about 18,000, many of them to disease and hunger.","sides":[{"name":"Triple Alliance (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay)","members":[{"clio":"Empire of Brazil","from":1864,"to":1870,"fromDate":"1864-11-12","toDate":"1870-03-01"},{"clio":"Oriental Republic of Uruguay","from":1865,"to":1870,"fromDate":"1865-02-20","toDate":"1870-03-01"},{"clio":"Argentine Confederation","from":1865,"to":1870,"fromDate":"1865-04-13","toDate":"1870-03-01"}]},{"name":"Paraguay","members":[{"clio":"Paraguay","from":1864,"to":1870,"fromDate":"1864-11-12","toDate":"1870-03-01"}]}],"events":[{"date":"1864-10-12","year":1864,"label":"12 Oct 1864","text":"Brazilian troops invade Uruguay","detail":"Brazil backed the Colorado rebel Venancio Flores against Uruguay's Blanco government of Atanasio Aguirre, which had rejected Brazilian demands over border raids. Paraguay's president, Francisco Solano López, warned in August that he would regard any occupation of Uruguay as an attack on the balance of the Platine region. Brazil ignored him, and on 12 October 1864 Brazilian troops crossed into Uruguay.","lonlat":[-55.5,-31.4],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1864-11-12","year":1864,"label":"12 Nov 1864","text":"Paraguay seizes the Brazilian steamer Marquês de Olinda","detail":"The Brazilian steamer Marquês de Olinda, carrying the new governor of Mato Grosso up the Paraguay River, called at Asunción on 11 November 1864. López sent the warship Tacuarí after her; on 12 November she was stopped near Concepción and brought back, and all aboard were arrested. The same day Paraguay broke off diplomatic relations with Brazil. A month later López launched his first offensive.","lonlat":[-57.43,-23.4],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1864-12-27","year":1864,"label":"27 Dec 1864","text":"Paraguay invades Mato Grosso and attacks Fort Coimbra","detail":"Two Paraguayan columns invaded the Brazilian province of Mato Grosso. One, carried up the Paraguay River, attacked Fort Coimbra on 27 December 1864; its garrison of 154 men held out for three days before slipping away upriver. Albuquerque and Corumbá fell in January 1865, and the overland column took Dourados, Miranda and Nioaque, and Coxim in April, but the Paraguayans did not push on to Cuiabá.","lonlat":[-57.79,-19.92],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1865-02-20","year":1865,"label":"20 Feb 1865","text":"The Uruguayan War ends with Flores in power","detail":"After a Brazilian and Colorado siege, the Blanco stronghold of Paysandú fell on 2 January 1865, and the allies closed in on Montevideo. On 20 February 1865 the Blanco government gave way and Venancio Flores took power. Paraguay had lost its ally in Uruguay before its own army could arrive, and Flores's Uruguay sided with Brazil. Montevideo had been left isolated before it gave in.","lonlat":[-56.19,-34.9],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1865-03-23","year":1865,"label":"23 Mar 1865","text":"Paraguay's Congress votes for war with Argentina","detail":"In January 1865 López asked Argentina to let 20,000 Paraguayan soldiers cross the province of Corrientes to strike at Brazil; President Bartolomé Mitre refused. A Paraguayan congress met in March and on 23 March voted for war with Argentina, accusing it of favouring Brazil, and made López a field marshal. The declaration was sent to Buenos Aires on 29 March.","lonlat":[-57.63,-25.28],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1865-04-13","year":1865,"label":"13 Apr 1865","text":"Paraguayan forces seize Corrientes","detail":"On 13 April 1865 a Paraguayan squadron sailed down the Paraná, attacked two Argentine warships at Corrientes, and troops under General Wenceslao Robles took the city. Robles then advanced south along the river, taking Bella Vista, Empedrado and Goya, while the provincial government withdrew inland and Corrientes militia fought a guerrilla war. The attack brought Argentina into the war. Argentina declared war in early May.","lonlat":[-58.83,-27.47],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1865-05-01","year":1865,"label":"1 May 1865","text":"Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance","detail":"On 1 May 1865 Brazil, Argentina and Flores's Uruguay signed a secret treaty in Buenos Aires, naming Argentina's president Bartolomé Mitre allied commander-in-chief. They pledged to fight until López was removed and laid down Paraguay's future borders in their own favour. The treaty was meant to stay secret, but Britain obtained a copy and published it in 1866. Uruguay's Flores commanded his own small army.","lonlat":[-58.38,-34.6],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1865-06-11","year":1865,"label":"11 Jun 1865","text":"Battle of Riachuelo: Brazil destroys Paraguay's navy","detail":"On 11 June 1865 a Paraguayan squadron attacked the Brazilian fleet of Admiral Francisco Manoel Barroso on the Paraná below Corrientes. Barroso rammed and sank or wrecked most of the Paraguayan ships. The battle gave the allies control of the rivers up to Paraguay's border, cut the invading armies' supply lines and, for practical purposes, decided the outcome of the war.","lonlat":[-58.84,-27.56],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1865-06-12","year":1865,"label":"12 Jun 1865","text":"A Paraguayan army invades Rio Grande do Sul","detail":"In May 1865 some 12,000 Paraguayans under Colonel Antonio de la Cruz Estigarribia crossed into Argentine territory south of Encarnación and marched down the Uruguay River. Estigarribia took the Brazilian town of São Borja on 12 June and then Itaqui, while a smaller column under Major Pedro Duarte advanced down the Argentine bank of the river. Brazilian commanders in the province could offer little resistance at first.","lonlat":[-56.0,-28.66],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1865-08-17","year":1865,"label":"17 Aug 1865","text":"Battle of Yatay","detail":"Duarte's column, about 3,200 strong, had occupied Paso de los Libres on the Argentine bank opposite Uruguaiana, which Estigarribia entered on 5 August without supporting him. On 17 August 1865 an allied army under Venancio Flores attacked Duarte's position by the Yatay stream and destroyed his column; most of its men were killed or taken prisoner. Estigarribia, across the river, did not intervene.","lonlat":[-57.05,-29.65],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1865-09-18","year":1865,"label":"18 Sep 1865","text":"Estigarribia surrenders at Uruguaiana","detail":"Besieged in Uruguaiana by Brazilian, Argentine and Uruguayan forces, with Emperor Pedro II, Mitre and Flores present, Estigarribia's starving garrison surrendered on 18 September 1865, against López's orders, and some 5,500 men became prisoners. López then pulled his armies out of Argentina and Brazil, and the war moved to Paraguay's own borders. Some of the prisoners were sold into slavery by Brazilian officers.","lonlat":[-57.08,-29.76],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1865-11-03","year":1865,"label":"3 Nov 1865","text":"The Paraguayan army completes its withdrawal from Corrientes","detail":"On 3 October López ordered the southern army to leave Argentine territory. It evacuated the city of Corrientes on 22 October, looting the river towns as it went, and by 3 November 1865 some 27,000 men had recrossed the Paraná at Paso de la Patria with about 100,000 head of cattle. Corrientes's provincial government returned to its capital the same day.","lonlat":[-58.57,-27.32],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1866-04-16","year":1866,"label":"16 Apr 1866","text":"The allies cross the Paraná and invade Paraguay","detail":"After months of gathering in camps north of Corrientes, the allied armies crossed the Paraná into Paraguay on 16 April 1866. General Manuel Luís Osório led the landing and beat back Paraguayan counterattacks around the fort of Itapirú. The allies pushed inland towards the swamps and trenches guarding the fortress of Humaitá, and were checked at Estero Bellaco on 2 May.","lonlat":[-58.5,-27.29],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1866-05-24","year":1866,"label":"24 May 1866","text":"Battle of Tuyutí, the largest battle of the war","detail":"Hoping to destroy the allied army in one blow, López attacked its camp at Tuyutí on 24 May 1866 with about 23,000–25,000 men against some 32,000–35,000 allies. The attack nearly succeeded but was broken by allied resistance and Brazilian artillery. Paraguay lost about 12,000–13,000 killed and wounded, losses it could not replace, while the allies suffered some 4,000–6,000 casualties. Both armies then dug in for months.","lonlat":[-58.55,-27.2],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1866-09-22","year":1866,"label":"22 Sep 1866","text":"Battle of Curupayty: a bloody allied defeat","detail":"After taking the fort of Curuzú on 3 September 1866 and a failed peace meeting between López and Mitre, the allies made a frontal assault on the Paraguayan trenches at Curupayty on 22 September, supported by Brazilian warships. General José E. Díaz's defenders held, and the allies lost between about 4,000 and 8,000 men, against at most a few hundred Paraguayans. Allied offensives stopped for ten months.","lonlat":[-58.57,-27.11],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1867-07-22","year":1867,"label":"22 Jul 1867","text":"Caxias begins the march around Humaitá","detail":"The Marquess of Caxias, Brazil's commander from late 1866, rebuilt the disease-ridden allied army and on 22 July 1867 began a wide flanking march east and north around the fortress of Humaitá. On 2 November Brazilian troops took Tayí on the Paraguay River north of the fortress, cutting its land link with Asunción; López's counterattack at the second battle of Tuyutí the next day failed.","lonlat":[-58.4,-27.0],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1868-02-19","year":1868,"label":"19 Feb 1868","text":"Brazilian ironclads force the passage of Humaitá","detail":"Humaitá's river batteries and a chain across the Paraguay River had blocked the allied fleet for two years. On 19 February 1868 Brazilian ironclads ran past the batteries under heavy fire, giving the allies control of the river and threatening Asunción. In early March López left the fortress with most of its garrison, crossing to the Chaco shore and moving north.","lonlat":[-58.51,-27.07],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1868-07-26","year":1868,"label":"26 Jul 1868","text":"The fortress of Humaitá falls","detail":"The remaining garrison of Humaitá, starving after a long siege, beat off an allied assault on 16 July 1868. On the night of 24–25 July Colonel Francisco Martínez led the last defenders out across the river, and on 26 July the allies occupied the empty fortress. Trapped on the Chaco shore, about 1,300 survivors surrendered on 5 August. Humaitá had blocked the allied advance for more than two years.","lonlat":[-58.5,-27.07],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1868-12-11","year":1868,"label":"6–11 Dec 1868","text":"Ytororó and Avay: Caxias attacks the Paraguayans from behind","detail":"López had fortified a line on the Pikysyry stream south of Asunción. Caxias built a road through the Chaco swamps, carried his army round the line and recrossed the river at Villeta. Turning south to attack from the rear, the Brazilians forced the bridge at Ytororó on 6 December 1868 at heavy cost, and on 11 December destroyed a Paraguayan division at Avay.","lonlat":[-57.53,-25.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1868-12-27","year":1868,"label":"21–27 Dec 1868","text":"Battle of Lomas Valentinas","detail":"From 21 to 27 December 1868 the allies attacked López's last entrenched army at Lomas Valentinas, near Itá Ybaté. After days of fighting the Paraguayan positions were overrun, though López escaped with a small escort. The garrison of the riverside fort of Angostura, cut off, surrendered on 30 December, and the road to Asunción lay open. Caxias's call on López to surrender on 24 December had been refused.","lonlat":[-57.52,-25.59],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1869-01-01","year":1869,"label":"1 Jan 1869","text":"Allied troops occupy Asunción","detail":"Brazilian troops entered the evacuated Paraguayan capital on 1 January 1869, and Caxias arrived on 5 January. About 30,000 allied soldiers were soon quartered there and looted almost every building. Caxias, ill, considered the war won and left; Brazil set up a provisional Paraguayan government, while López withdrew east into the hills of the Cordillera and raised a new army.","lonlat":[-57.63,-25.28],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1869-08-12","year":1869,"label":"12 Aug 1869","text":"Battle of Piribebuy","detail":"Emperor Pedro II's son-in-law, the Count of Eu, took command in 1869 and led some 20,000 men into the Cordillera. On 12 August 1869 they stormed Piribebuy, López's temporary capital, defended by about 1,600 poorly armed men and boys. After five hours of fighting the town fell; its hospital was burned and the government's archives were lost. Some 730 of the defenders were killed.","lonlat":[-57.04,-25.47],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1869-08-16","year":1869,"label":"16 Aug 1869","text":"Battle of Acosta Ñu, the 'Children's Battle'","detail":"Covering López's retreat on 16 August 1869, about 3,500 Paraguayans, most of them boys, faced more than 20,000 Brazilian and Argentine soldiers on the plain of Acosta Ñu. They were overwhelmed, with some 2,000 killed. It was the last major battle of the war, and Paraguay remembers it every 16 August as Children's Day. López himself escaped north with the survivors.","lonlat":[-56.95,-25.4],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1870-03-01","year":1870,"label":"1 Mar 1870","text":"López is killed at Cerro Corá and the war ends","detail":"With a few hundred followers López retreated into the forests of the north-east, pursued by Brazilian columns. On 1 March 1870 troops under General José Antônio Correia da Câmara surprised his camp at Cerro Corá. López, wounded and refusing to surrender, was killed. Allied troops occupied Paraguay until 1876, and peace treaties gave disputed lands to Brazil and Argentina. He had refused every offer to surrender.","lonlat":[-56.03,-22.65],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Paraguayan War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War"},{"title":"Treaty of the Triple Alliance (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_the_Triple_Alliance"},{"title":"Corrientes campaign (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrientes_campaign"},{"title":"Siege of Uruguaiana (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Uruguaiana"},{"title":"Siege of Humaitá (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Humait%C3%A1"},{"title":"Battle of Cerro Corá (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cerro_Cor%C3%A1"},{"title":"Uruguayan War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_War"},{"title":"Mato Grosso campaign (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mato_Grosso_campaign"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"first-italo-ethiopian-war","name":"First Italo-Ethiopian War","moment":"battle-of-adwa","span":[1895,1896],"dateLabel":"January 1895 – 26 October 1896","summary":"Italy had held the Red Sea port of Massawa since 1885 and built the colony of Eritrea on the plateau behind it. In 1889 Emperor Menelik II signed the Treaty of Wuchale with Italy, but its Italian text made Ethiopia an Italian protectorate while the Amharic text did not, and in 1893 Menelik repudiated it. In January 1895 Italian colonial troops under General Oreste Baratieri defeated Ras Mengesha of Tigray at Coatit and Senafe, then occupied Adigrat, Adwa and Mekelle and declared Tigray annexed. Menelik called up the nobility of the whole empire and marched north with an army of over 100,000, many armed with modern rifles. His forces overran an Italian outpost at Amba Alagi in December 1895 and forced the fort at Mekelle to surrender in January 1896. On 1 March 1896 Baratieri attacked near Adwa and his army was routed. In the Treaty of Addis Ababa of October 1896 Italy recognised Ethiopia's full independence, a victory that became a symbol for anti-colonial and Pan-African movements.","casualties":"At Adwa alone an estimated 6,000 Italian and colonial troops and 4,000–7,000 Ethiopians were killed; estimates for the whole war run to about 9,000 Italian and colonial dead and about 10,000 Ethiopian.","sides":[{"name":"Italy (with Eritrean colonial troops)","members":[{"clio":"Kingdom of Italy","from":1895,"to":1896},{"clio":"Italian Africa","from":1895,"to":1896}]},{"name":"Ethiopian Empire","members":[{"clio":"Ethiopian Empire","from":1895,"to":1896}]}],"events":[{"date":"1895-01-13","year":1895,"label":"13 Jan 1895","text":"Italians repel Ras Mengesha's invasion of Eritrea at Coatit","detail":"Menelik had repudiated the Treaty of Wuchale in 1893, and in December 1894 Bahta Hagos led a revolt against Italian rule in Eritrea, which was quickly crushed. Suspecting Ras Mengesha Yohannes, the ruler of Tigray, Governor Baratieri moved against him. Mengesha crossed into Eritrea with about 19,000 men, but on 13 January 1895 a colonial force of under 4,000, mostly Eritrean askaris, beat him at Coatit, opening the war.","lonlat":[39.36,14.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1895-01-15","year":1895,"label":"15 Jan 1895","text":"Baratieri routs Mengesha's retreating army at Senafe","detail":"Mengesha withdrew towards Tigray, but Baratieri caught up with his camp in the Senafe basin on the evening of 15 January 1895. Italian mountain guns shelled the camp from the heights over two days, and the Tigrayan army broke up with heavy losses. The defeat left Tigray open to invasion, and Baratieri gathered his troops at Senafe for an advance south across the border.","lonlat":[39.42,14.7],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1895-03-25","year":1895,"label":"25 Mar 1895","text":"Italian troops occupy Adigrat in Tigray","detail":"Crossing from Eritrea into the Ethiopian province of Tigray, Baratieri's army occupied the town of Adigrat on 25 March 1895. It became the main Italian base in Tigray, supporting further advances south. The Italians hoped that disaffected rulers such as Ras Mengesha, Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam and the Sultan of Aussa would join them, but Ethiopia's nobility instead rallied to the emperor.","lonlat":[39.46,14.28],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1895-04-02","year":1895,"label":"2 Apr 1895","text":"Italians occupy Adwa and declare Tigray annexed to Eritrea","detail":"On 2 April 1895 Italian troops entered Adwa, the main town of western Tigray, and Baratieri issued a proclamation annexing Tigray to the colony of Eritrea. With the rainy season approaching, the Italians paused their advance. Menelik meanwhile sought help abroad, but France chose Italian goodwill over an alliance with him; Russia, which disliked a Catholic power ruling an Orthodox nation, sent arms.","lonlat":[38.9,14.16],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1895-09-17","year":1895,"label":"17 Sep 1895","text":"Menelik II calls the Ethiopian nobility to war","detail":"On 17 September 1895 Menelik issued a proclamation summoning the men of Ethiopia to join his army at Were Ilu. Regional rulers who had resented his rise, among them Ras Mengesha of Tigray, answered the call. Over the following months an army of more than 100,000 assembled and marched north, armed with tens of thousands of modern rifles bought from France, Russia and even Italy.","lonlat":[38.74,9.03],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1895-10-09","year":1895,"label":"9 Oct 1895","text":"Italians push south past Debra Ailà and take Mekelle","detail":"In October the Italians resumed their advance. On 9 October 1895 colonial battalions under General Giuseppe Arimondi drove Mengesha's rearguard from the pass of Debra Ailà, near Antalo. Mekelle, the Tigrayan capital, was occupied without a fight after Mengesha withdrew on Menelik's advice, and in October the Italians built a fort by the church of Enda Iyesus above the town. Advanced detachments went on south to the mountain stronghold of Amba Alagi.","lonlat":[39.35,13.33],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1895-12-07","year":1895,"label":"7 Dec 1895","text":"Ethiopians overrun the Italian outpost at Amba Alagi","detail":"Major Pietro Toselli held Amba Alagi with about 2,000 Eritrean askaris. On 7 December 1895 the vanguard of Menelik's army under Ras Makonnen, joined by Ras Mengesha and Ras Welle, attacked from several sides and overran the position. Toselli and most of his men were killed. Arimondi, coming up from Mekelle with reinforcements, could only collect a few hundred survivors and fall back north, leaving a garrison in the unfinished fort at Mekelle.","lonlat":[39.53,12.98],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1895-12-18","year":1895,"label":"18 Dec 1895","text":"Ras Makonnen surrounds the Italian fort at Mekelle","detail":"Major Giuseppe Galliano held the fort above Mekelle with about 1,150 askaris and 200 Italians and two mountain guns. Ras Makonnen's troops surrounded it on 18 December 1895 and a frontal assault a few days later was repulsed with heavy losses. Galliano was ordered to hold on while Baratieri concentrated the rest of the Italian army at Adigrat. In early January 1896 Menelik himself arrived with the main imperial army.","lonlat":[39.48,13.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1896-01-21","year":1896,"label":"21 Jan 1896","text":"Mekelle garrison surrenders and is allowed to leave","detail":"After two weeks of bombardment the Ethiopians cut the fort off from its water supply and beat back attempts to retake the well. With his men dying of thirst, Galliano agreed to surrender with his commanders' permission on 21 January 1896. Menelik let the garrison march out with its weapons and gave it mules to rejoin Baratieri. The escort also let the emperor move his army west, through passes the Italians did not guard, towards Adwa.","lonlat":[39.47,13.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1896-02","year":1896,"label":"Feb 1896","text":"Menelik moves on Adwa; Baratieri follows with his army","detail":"Rather than attack the fortified Italian base at Adigrat, Menelik marched his army west by way of Hawzen to the plain around Adwa. Fearing an invasion of Eritrea, Baratieri left Adigrat and moved his army towards Adwa to face him. Both armies were short of food: the Ethiopian host had exhausted the countryside, while the Italians, at the end of a long supply line, had provisions for only a few more days.","lonlat":[39.43,13.98],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1896-02-29","year":1896,"label":"29 Feb 1896","text":"Baratieri and his generals decide to attack","detail":"On the evening of 29 February 1896 Baratieri, who knew he was about to be replaced by General Antonio Baldissera and was under pressure from Rome to win, met his four brigade commanders. With supplies running out, he suggested retreating towards Asmara, but the generals argued for an attack. Believing Menelik could field only about 30,000 men, Baratieri ordered an advance by night to positions overlooking the Ethiopian camp.","lonlat":[39.1,14.22],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1896-03-01","year":1896,"label":"1 Mar 1896","text":"Battle of Adwa: Menelik's army routs the Italians","detail":"About 17,700 Italian and Eritrean troops in four brigades marched overnight on separate mountain tracks and lost touch with each other. At dawn on 1 March 1896 Albertone's brigade ran into the Ethiopian army, perhaps 73,000 to 100,000 strong, and the others were attacked in turn and cut off. By noon the Italian army was in flight, abandoning its artillery. Over 6,000 Italian and colonial troops were killed and about 3,800 captured.","lonlat":[38.95,14.18],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1896-03-10","year":1896,"label":"10 Mar 1896","text":"Crispi's government falls in Rome after the defeat","detail":"News of Adwa reached Italy by telegraph almost at once and set off riots and demonstrations in several cities. Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, the main champion of colonial expansion in Ethiopia, was forced to resign, leaving office on 10 March 1896. Menelik offered peace if Italy publicly renounced its claim to a protectorate, but broke off talks when Italy asked for conditions. Talks went slowly while Italian prisoners remained in Ethiopian hands.","lonlat":[12.48,41.9],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1896-05-18","year":1896,"label":"18 May 1896","text":"Italians evacuate Adigrat, their last foothold in Tigray","detail":"General Baldissera reorganised the defeated army in Eritrea and relieved the Italian garrison left behind at Adigrat. Menelik insisted on its surrender as a condition of the peace talks, and on 18 May 1896 Baldissera evacuated the fort. The Italians withdrew behind the Mareb river, which became the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and Menelik returned to his capital, Addis Ababa.","lonlat":[39.46,14.28],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1896-10-26","year":1896,"label":"26 Oct 1896","text":"Treaty of Addis Ababa: Italy recognises Ethiopian independence","detail":"After months of negotiation, Italy agreed in August to abrogate the Treaty of Wuchale without conditions, and the Treaty of Addis Ababa was signed on 26 October 1896. Italy recognised Ethiopia's independence, paid for the upkeep of its prisoners and kept Eritrea up to the Mareb, Belesa and Muna rivers. Britain and France soon signed treaties treating Ethiopia as an equal, and it stayed independent until the Italian invasion of 1935.","lonlat":[38.74,9.03],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"First Italo-Ethiopian War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Italo-Ethiopian_War"},{"title":"Battle of Adwa (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adwa"},{"title":"Treaty of Addis Ababa (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Addis_Ababa"},{"title":"Battle of Amba Alagi (1895) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amba_Alagi_(1895)"},{"title":"Siege of Mekelle (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Mekelle"},{"title":"Adigrat (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adigrat"},{"title":"Battle of Senafe (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Senafe"},{"title":"Francesco Crispi (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Crispi"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"world-war-i","name":"First World War","moment":"world-war-i","span":[1914,1918],"dateLabel":"28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918","summary":"The First World War began a month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and within days the alliance system drew in the great powers. Germany and Austria-Hungary, joined by the Ottoman Empire in 1914 and Bulgaria in 1915, formed the Central Powers. Serbia, Russia, France, Belgium and the British Empire formed the Allies, or Entente, joined by Japan (1914), Italy (1915), Portugal and Romania (1916), and the United States, Greece, Siam, China and Brazil (1917). After the Marne the Western Front froze into trench warfare, while fighting spread to Eastern Europe, the Alps, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, East Asia and the oceans. Revolution took Russia out of the war in 1917–18. Germany's spring offensive of 1918 failed, Allied counter-offensives followed, and the Central Powers signed armistices between September and 11 November 1918. Four empires collapsed, and the peace treaties redrew the map of Europe and the Middle East.","casualties":"An estimated 15 to 22 million soldiers and civilians died, with many millions more wounded.","sides":[{"name":"Allies (Entente)","members":[{"clio":"(British Empire)","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"(French Third Republic)","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"Russian Empire","from":1914,"to":1916},{"clio":"Russian Republic","from":1917,"to":1917,"toDate":"1917-12-15"},{"clio":"Serbs","from":1914,"to":1915},{"clio":"Serbia","from":1918,"to":1918},{"clio":"Montenegro","from":1914,"to":1915},{"clio":"Kingdom of Belgium","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"Belgian Congo","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"Empire of Japan","from":1914,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1914-08-23"},{"clio":"Commonwealth of Australia","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"Kingdom of Italy","from":1915,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1915-05-23"},{"clio":"Italian Africa","from":1915,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1915-05-23"},{"clio":"Portuguese Republic","from":1916,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1916-03-09"},{"clio":"United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia","from":1916,"to":1916,"fromDate":"1916-08-27"},{"clio":"Kingdom of Hejaz","from":1916,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1916-06-10"},{"clio":"United States of America","from":1917,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1917-04-06"},{"clio":"First Hellenic Republic","from":1917,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1917-06-30"},{"clio":"Rattanakosin Kingdom","from":1917,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1917-07-22"},{"clio":"Kuomintang","from":1917,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1917-08-14"},{"clio":"Brazilian Republic","from":1917,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1917-10-26"},{"clio":"Republic of Liberia","from":1917,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1917-08-04"}]},{"name":"Central Powers","members":[{"clio":"German Empire","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"German Africa","from":1914,"to":1918},{"clio":"Austria-Hungary","from":1914,"to":1918,"toDate":"1918-11-03"},{"clio":"Ottoman Empire","from":1914,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1914-10-29","toDate":"1918-10-30"},{"clio":"Principality of Bulgaria","from":1915,"to":1918,"fromDate":"1915-10-14","toDate":"1918-09-29"}]}],"events":[{"date":"1914-06-28","year":1914,"label":"28 Jun 1914","text":"Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo","detail":"Bosnia had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908, angering Serbian nationalists. On 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot the heir to the Habsburg throne and his wife in Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and, assured of German backing, sent Belgrade an ultimatum it expected to be refused. The crisis of July 1914 turned a regional quarrel into a confrontation between Europe's two armed alliance blocs.","lonlat":[18.43,43.86],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1914-07-28","year":1914,"label":"28 Jul 1914","text":"Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia","detail":"Serbia accepted most of the ultimatum but not all of it, and on 28 July Austria-Hungary declared war. Russia mobilised in support of Serbia; Germany declared war on Russia on 1 August and on France on 3 August. Mobilisation timetables and alliance commitments meant that a Balkan war became a continental one in under a week, before diplomacy could slow it down.","lonlat":[20.46,44.82],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1914-08-04","year":1914,"label":"4 Aug 1914","text":"Germany invades Belgium; Britain declares war","detail":"Germany's war plan aimed to knock out France quickly by swinging through neutral Belgium before turning east against Russia. German troops crossed the Belgian border on 4 August and besieged the fortresses of Liège. Britain, a guarantor of Belgian neutrality under the 1839 treaty, declared war on Germany the same day, bringing in its whole empire, including India, the dominions and its African colonies.","lonlat":[5.57,50.63],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1914-08-23","year":1914,"label":"23–30 Aug 1914","text":"Germany crushes a Russian army at Tannenberg","detail":"Russia attacked East Prussia sooner than Germany expected, forcing it to move troops east. Between 23 and 30 August German forces under Hindenburg and Ludendorff encircled and destroyed the Russian Second Army near Tannenberg, taking a very large number of prisoners. Russia was driven out of East Prussia, but its offensive had drawn German strength away from France at a critical moment.","lonlat":[20.13,53.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1914-09-05","year":1914,"label":"5–12 Sep 1914","text":"The First Battle of the Marne halts the German advance","detail":"German armies sweeping through Belgium and northern France came within reach of Paris by early September. From 5 to 12 September French and British forces counter-attacked along the River Marne, opening a gap between German armies and forcing them to retreat to the Aisne. The quick victory Germany had planned was lost; both sides dug in, and trenches soon ran from the Channel coast to Switzerland.","lonlat":[3.1,48.95],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1914-10-29","year":1914,"label":"29 Oct 1914","text":"Ottoman warships raid Russia's Black Sea ports","detail":"The Ottoman Empire had signed a secret alliance with Germany in August. On 29 October Ottoman warships, led by two ex-German cruisers, shelled Russian ports on the Black Sea. Russia declared war on 1 November and Britain and France followed. Ottoman entry closed the Straits to Allied supplies for Russia and opened new fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Sinai and Palestine.","lonlat":[30.73,46.48],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1914-11-07","year":1914,"label":"7 Nov 1914","text":"Japan captures Germany's Chinese base at Tsingtao","detail":"Japan, allied to Britain since 1902, declared war on Germany on 23 August 1914 and moved against German possessions in Asia and the Pacific. Japanese forces, with a smaller British contingent, besieged the German naval base at Tsingtao on China's Shandong peninsula, which fell on 7 November. Japan also took Germany's island colonies north of the equator, extending its reach in East Asia.","lonlat":[120.38,36.07],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1915-04-22","year":1915,"label":"22 Apr 1915","text":"Germany uses poison gas on a large scale at Ypres","detail":"On the Western Front neither side could break the trench lines. At the start of the Second Battle of Ypres, on 22 April 1915, German troops released chlorine gas against French and Algerian positions, opening a gap they could not exploit. Both sides went on to use chemical weapons throughout the war, and gas became one of the conflict's most feared features.","lonlat":[2.88,50.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1915-04-24","year":1915,"label":"24 Apr 1915","text":"Armenian deportations and massacres begin","detail":"On the night of 23–24 April 1915 Ottoman authorities arrested hundreds of Armenian community leaders in Constantinople. Deportations of Armenians from Anatolia followed, with death marches towards the Syrian desert and mass killings. Estimates of the dead range from about 600,000 to 1.5 million. Almost all historians outside Turkey describe these events as genocide; the Turkish government rejects that term.","lonlat":[28.98,41.01],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1915-04-25","year":1915,"label":"25 Apr 1915","text":"Allied landings at Gallipoli","detail":"Britain and France hoped to force the Dardanelles, take Constantinople and open a sea route to Russia. After a naval attack failed, British, French, Australian, New Zealand and Indian troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April 1915. Ottoman forces held the heights, and months of costly fighting followed. The Allies abandoned the campaign and withdrew their last troops in December 1915 and January 1916.","lonlat":[26.28,40.23],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1915-05-07","year":1915,"label":"7 May 1915","text":"A German U-boat sinks the liner Lusitania","detail":"Germany had declared the waters around Britain a war zone in February 1915, using submarines against merchant shipping. On 7 May a U-boat torpedoed the British liner Lusitania off southern Ireland, killing more than a thousand passengers and crew, among them over a hundred Americans. The sinking turned American opinion against Germany, which for a time restricted submarine attacks to avoid war with the United States.","lonlat":[-8.55,51.42],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1915-05-23","year":1915,"label":"23 May 1915","text":"Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary","detail":"Italy had stayed neutral in 1914 despite its prewar alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. After the Allies secretly promised it Austrian territory, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915, though not on Germany until August 1916. A new front opened along the Alps and the Isonzo River, where repeated Italian offensives over the next two years gained little ground at great cost.","lonlat":[13.6,45.95],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1915-10-14","year":1915,"label":"14 Oct 1915","text":"Bulgaria joins the Central Powers; Serbia is overrun","detail":"Bulgaria, seeking territory lost in the Balkan Wars, declared war on Serbia on 14 October 1915. Attacked by German and Austro-Hungarian armies from the north and Bulgarians from the east, Serbia was conquered in little more than a month. Its army retreated across the Albanian mountains to the Adriatic coast and was evacuated by Allied ships, later fighting again on the Salonika front.","lonlat":[23.32,42.7],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1916-02-21","year":1916,"label":"21 Feb 1916","text":"The Battle of Verdun begins","detail":"Germany attacked the fortress city of Verdun on 21 February 1916, aiming to wear down the French army in a battle France could not refuse. The fighting lasted until 18 December, when French counter-attacks had retaken most of the lost ground. Combined French and German casualties are estimated at roughly 700,000 to 975,000, and Verdun became a symbol of the war's attrition.","lonlat":[5.39,49.16],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1916-05-31","year":1916,"label":"31 May–1 Jun 1916","text":"Britain and Germany fight the naval Battle of Jutland","detail":"Britain's Royal Navy blockaded Germany, and the German High Seas Fleet hoped to destroy part of the British Grand Fleet. The two fleets met in the North Sea off Denmark on 31 May and 1 June 1916, the war's largest naval battle. Britain lost more ships and men, but the German fleet returned to port and did not seek another major fleet action, so the blockade held.","lonlat":[6.0,56.7],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1916-06-04","year":1916,"label":"4 Jun 1916","text":"Russia's Brusilov Offensive breaks the Austro-Hungarian line","detail":"To relieve pressure on France and Italy, Russian armies under General Aleksei Brusilov attacked along a wide front in Galicia and Volhynia on 4 June 1916. Short, surprise bombardments broke the Austro-Hungarian lines, and huge numbers of prisoners were taken. Germany had to send reinforcements east, and the offensive's early success encouraged Romania to join the Allies, but Russian losses were also very heavy.","lonlat":[25.33,50.75],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1916-06-10","year":1916,"label":"10 Jun 1916","text":"Sharif Hussein launches the Arab Revolt at Mecca","detail":"Britain had promised in letters to Sharif Hussein of Mecca to support Arab independence in return for a rising against the Ottomans. On 10 June 1916 his forces attacked the Ottoman garrison at Mecca. Backed by British gold, weapons and officers such as T. E. Lawrence, Arab forces under his son Faisal took Aqaba in July 1917 and reached Damascus at the end of September 1918.","lonlat":[39.83,21.42],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1916-07-01","year":1916,"label":"1 Jul 1916","text":"The Battle of the Somme begins","detail":"Britain and France attacked along the River Somme on 1 July 1916, partly to relieve Verdun. On the first day the British army suffered about 57,500 casualties, including some 19,200 dead, the worst single day in its history. The battle lasted until 18 November and gained only a few miles; British, French and German losses together exceeded a million, and tanks made their first appearance there.","lonlat":[2.7,50.01],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1916-08-27","year":1916,"label":"27 Aug 1916","text":"Romania enters the war on the Allied side","detail":"Encouraged by the Brusilov Offensive and promised Austro-Hungarian Transylvania, Romania declared war and began hostilities against Austria-Hungary on 27 August 1916. German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Ottoman forces counter-attacked from two sides, and Bucharest fell on 6 December. Romania's government and army held on in Moldavia but, isolated after Russia's collapse, signed a separate peace in May 1918, then re-entered the war on 10 November 1918.","lonlat":[26.1,44.43],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1917-03-15","year":1917,"label":"15 Mar 1917","text":"Revolution in Petrograd forces the Tsar to abdicate","detail":"War losses, food shortages and distrust of the government fuelled protests in Petrograd from 8 March 1917 (February in Russia's old calendar). Troops joined the crowds, and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March. A Provisional Government kept Russia in the war, but its 1917 summer offensive failed and the army began to disintegrate, while soviets of workers and soldiers competed for power.","lonlat":[30.32,59.94],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1917-04-06","year":1917,"label":"6 Apr 1917","text":"The United States declares war on Germany","detail":"Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917, gambling that it could starve Britain before American forces arrived. The intercepted Zimmermann telegram, in which Germany proposed an alliance with Mexico, further angered American opinion. The United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 as an 'associated power', and its troops reached the Western Front in growing numbers through 1918.","lonlat":[-77.01,38.89],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1917-10-24","year":1917,"label":"24 Oct 1917","text":"Austro-German breakthrough at Caporetto","detail":"On 24 October 1917 Austro-Hungarian and German divisions, using gas and infiltration tactics, broke the Italian line at Caporetto on the Isonzo. The Italian army fell back to the Piave River, losing very large numbers of men, many of them as prisoners. Britain and France rushed divisions to Italy, General Cadorna was replaced as commander, and the new line on the Piave held through the winter and against a final Austro-Hungarian offensive in June 1918.","lonlat":[13.56,46.26],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1917-11-07","year":1917,"label":"7 Nov 1917","text":"The Bolsheviks seize power in Russia","detail":"Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd on 7 November 1917 (25 October in the old calendar), promising peace, land and bread. The new government agreed an armistice with the Central Powers on 15 December. Peace talks opened at Brest-Litovsk. Russia's withdrawal let Germany move many divisions to the Western Front for a final offensive, while Russia itself slid into a long civil war between the Bolsheviks and their opponents.","lonlat":[30.32,59.94],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1917-12-11","year":1917,"label":"11 Dec 1917","text":"British forces enter Jerusalem","detail":"After failing twice at Gaza, the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Allenby broke through the Ottoman line at Beersheba and Gaza in autumn 1917. On 11 December Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot. British troops had also taken Baghdad in March, and the Balfour Declaration of 2 November had promised support for a Jewish national home in Palestine, shaping the region's postwar history.","lonlat":[35.23,31.78],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1918-03-03","year":1918,"label":"3 Mar 1918","text":"Russia makes peace at Brest-Litovsk","detail":"Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria on 3 March 1918. Russia gave up Finland, the Baltic lands, Poland, most of Belarus and Ukraine, and Kars, Ardahan and Batum in the Caucasus. German troops occupied much of this territory, though Germany still kept large forces in the East. The treaty ended the Eastern Front for the Central Powers and was annulled after Germany's defeat in November 1918.","lonlat":[23.69,52.1],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1918-03-21","year":1918,"label":"21 Mar 1918","text":"Germany launches its Spring Offensive in the West","detail":"With divisions freed from Russia, Germany tried to win in the West before American strength could tell. Operation Michael began on 21 March 1918 near Saint-Quentin and drove the British back many miles; further offensives followed into July, reaching the Marne again. The attacks gained ground but cost Germany its best troops and failed to break the Allied armies, now under a single commander, Ferdinand Foch.","lonlat":[3.29,49.85],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1918-08-08","year":1918,"label":"8 Aug 1918","text":"Allied victory at Amiens opens the Hundred Days Offensive","detail":"After stopping the last German attack on the Marne in July, the Allies struck back. On 8 August British, Australian, Canadian and French forces attacked east of Amiens with tanks, aircraft and artillery and advanced several miles in a day. A series of Allied offensives followed, including the American-led Meuse–Argonne offensive from 26 September, pushing German armies back towards their own border.","lonlat":[2.53,49.85],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1918-09-19","year":1918,"label":"19–25 Sep 1918","text":"Allenby routs the Ottoman armies at Megiddo","detail":"In Palestine, British Empire forces under Allenby, with Arab Revolt forces on their flank, attacked the Ottoman line on 19 September 1918. Cavalry broke through and the Ottoman armies in Palestine collapsed within days. Damascus was reached at the end of September, and the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October, after Bulgaria had already signed an armistice on 29–30 September.","lonlat":[35.18,32.58],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1918-11-03","year":1918,"label":"3 Nov 1918","text":"Austria-Hungary signs an armistice after Vittorio Veneto","detail":"Italy launched its offensive at Vittorio Veneto on 24 October 1918 as Austria-Hungary was breaking up into national states. The Austro-Hungarian army disintegrated, and on 3 November an armistice was signed at Villa Giusti near Padua, taking effect the next day. The Habsburg monarchy dissolved within days, as Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the new South Slav state went their own ways. Germany was now the only Central Power still fighting.","lonlat":[11.88,45.42],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1918-11-11","year":1918,"label":"11 Nov 1918","text":"Germany signs the armistice at Compiègne","detail":"With its allies gone, its armies in retreat and revolution spreading at home, Germany sought terms. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on 9 November, and German delegates signed the armistice in a railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne early on 11 November; fighting stopped at 11 a.m. The peace treaties followed, including the Treaty of Versailles with Germany on 28 June 1919.","lonlat":[2.91,49.43],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: World War I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Timeline of World War I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Allies of World War I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_I"},{"title":"Wikipedia: World War I casualties","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Armenian genocide","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Arab Revolt","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"world-war-ii","name":"Second World War","moment":"world-war-ii","span":[1939,1945],"dateLabel":"1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945","summary":"The Second World War began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and Britain and France declared war; Japan had been at war with China since July 1937. Germany, with the Soviet Union bound to it by a non-aggression pact, overran Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries and France by June 1940, when Italy joined it. The Tripartite Pact of September 1940 tied Germany, Italy and Japan together as the Axis, later joined by Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and others. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 brought the Soviet Union and the United States into the Allied coalition alongside Britain, China and the exiled governments. After turning points at Midway, Guadalcanal and Stalingrad, the Allies invaded Italy and France while the Red Army advanced from the east. Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945. Japan, after the atomic bombings and the Soviet declaration of war, announced its surrender on 15 August and signed it on 2 September 1945.","casualties":"An estimated 60 million to more than 75 million people died, most of them civilians, including about six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.","sides":[{"name":"Allies","members":[{"clio":"Second Polish Republic","from":1939,"to":1939},{"clio":"(British Empire)","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"(French Third Republic)","from":1939,"to":1939},{"clio":"Free French","from":1940,"to":1944},{"clio":"French Africa","from":1943,"to":1944},{"clio":"(French Fourth Republic)","from":1945,"to":1945},{"clio":"Commonwealth of Australia","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"Canada","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"South Africa","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"Kingdom of Norway","from":1940,"to":1945},{"clio":"(Netherlands)","from":1940,"to":1942},{"clio":"(Netherlands)","from":1945,"to":1945},{"clio":"Belgian Congo","from":1940,"to":1945},{"clio":"Kingdom of Belgium","from":1945,"to":1945},{"clio":"First Hellenic Republic","from":1940,"to":1940},{"clio":"Kingdom of Greece","from":1945,"to":1945},{"clio":"Yugoslav Partisans","from":1944,"to":1944},{"clio":"Yugoslavia","from":1945,"to":1945},{"clio":"French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon","from":1941,"to":1945},{"clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics","from":1941,"to":1945},{"clio":"United States of America","from":1941,"to":1945},{"clio":"Republic of China","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"Communist Party of China","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"Mexico","from":1942,"to":1945},{"clio":"Unitary State of Brazil","from":1942,"to":1945},{"clio":"Ethiopia","from":1942,"to":1945},{"clio":"Kingdom of Italy","from":1944,"to":1945},{"clio":"Mongolian People's Republic","from":1945,"to":1945}]},{"name":"Axis","members":[{"clio":"Nazi Germany","from":1939,"to":1944},{"clio":"Empire of Japan","from":1939,"to":1945},{"clio":"Kingdom of Italy","from":1940,"to":1943},{"clio":"Italian Africa","from":1940,"to":1943},{"clio":"Hungarian Republic","from":1941,"to":1943},{"clio":"Kingdom of Romania","from":1941,"to":1944},{"clio":"Principality of Bulgaria","from":1941,"to":1944},{"clio":"Independent State of Croatia","from":1941,"to":1944},{"clio":"Republic of Finland","from":1941,"to":1944},{"clio":"Kingdom of Thailand","from":1942,"to":1945}]},{"name":"Vichy France (collaborationist, officially neutral)","members":[{"clio":"(Vichy France)","from":1940,"to":1942},{"clio":"French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon","from":1940,"to":1940},{"clio":"Vichy France","from":1943,"to":1943},{"clio":"French Indochina","from":1943,"to":1944}]}],"events":[{"date":"1939-09-01","year":1939,"label":"1 Sep 1939","text":"Germany invades Poland","detail":"In August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact that secretly divided eastern Europe between them. On 1 September German forces invaded Poland from the west, north and south, using massed armour and air power. Poland's army fought for over a month, but Warsaw surrendered in late September and the last Polish units in early October, and Poland was partitioned.","lonlat":[21.01,52.23],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1939-09-03","year":1939,"label":"3 Sep 1939","text":"Britain and France declare war on Germany","detail":"Britain and France had guaranteed Poland's independence, and when Germany ignored their demand to withdraw they declared war on 3 September 1939. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada followed within days, and India was committed by its viceroy. Little fighting followed in the West for months, the so-called Phoney War, while the war at sea began at once, with U-boats attacking Allied shipping in the Atlantic.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1939-09-17","year":1939,"label":"17 Sep 1939","text":"The Soviet Union invades eastern Poland","detail":"Under the secret terms of its pact with Germany, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on 17 September 1939, and the two powers divided the country. The Soviet Union went on to force bases on the Baltic states, invade Finland in November 1939 in the Winter War, and annex the Baltic states and parts of Romania in 1940, though it stayed formally neutral in the wider war.","lonlat":[24.03,49.84],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1940-04-09","year":1940,"label":"9 Apr 1940","text":"Germany invades Denmark and Norway","detail":"Germany wanted Norway's ports for its navy and U-boats and to protect iron-ore shipments from Sweden through Narvik. On 9 April 1940 it invaded Denmark, which capitulated within hours, and Norway, where British, French and Polish troops landed to help. The Allies withdrew in early June as France collapsed, and the Norwegian army on the mainland surrendered on 10 June; Norway's king and government went into exile in London.","lonlat":[10.75,59.91],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1940-05-10","year":1940,"label":"10 May 1940","text":"Germany attacks France and the Low Countries","detail":"On 10 May 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Its main armoured thrust came through the Ardennes, crossing the Meuse at Sedan and racing to the Channel, cutting off the Allied armies in Belgium. The Netherlands surrendered within days and Belgium at the end of May, while more than 340,000 Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk by early June.","lonlat":[4.94,49.7],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1940-06-10","year":1940,"label":"10 Jun 1940","text":"Italy declares war on Britain and France","detail":"Mussolini's Italy, allied to Germany by the Pact of Steel in 1939, stayed out of the fighting until France was clearly beaten. On 10 June 1940 Italy declared war on Britain and France and attacked in the Alps. Italy's entry spread the war to the Mediterranean, North Africa and East Africa, where Italian colonies bordered British-held Egypt, Sudan and Kenya.","lonlat":[12.5,41.9],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1940-06-22","year":1940,"label":"22 Jun 1940","text":"France signs an armistice; the Vichy regime follows","detail":"With Paris taken on 14 June, Marshal Philippe Pétain's new government sought terms. The armistice was signed on 22 June in the forest of Compiègne, in the carriage used in 1918. Germany occupied the north and the Atlantic coast, while a French government based at Vichy ran the rest and the colonies. In London, General Charles de Gaulle called on the French to keep fighting, founding Free France.","lonlat":[2.91,49.43],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1940-07-10","year":1940,"label":"10 Jul 1940","text":"The Battle of Britain begins","detail":"Germany needed control of the air before it could invade Britain. From 10 July to 31 October 1940 the Luftwaffe attacked shipping, airfields and then cities, but the Royal Air Force, aided by radar, was not defeated. Hitler postponed the planned invasion indefinitely. It was Germany's first major defeat of the war. Night bombing of British cities, the Blitz, continued from September 1940 until May 1941.","lonlat":[-0.13,51.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1940-09-27","year":1940,"label":"27 Sep 1940","text":"Germany, Italy and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact","detail":"On 27 September 1940 Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin, pledging to support each other against any new enemy, a warning aimed at the United States. Hungary, Romania and Slovakia joined in November 1940, Bulgaria in March 1941, and Croatia after its creation. Thailand allied with Japan in December 1941 and declared war on Britain and the United States in January 1942.","lonlat":[13.4,52.52],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1941-04-06","year":1941,"label":"6 Apr 1941","text":"Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece","detail":"Italy had invaded Greece in October 1940 but was driven back into Albania, and British troops arrived to help Greece. On 6 April 1941 Germany, with Italian and Hungarian forces, invaded Yugoslavia, whose government had just been overthrown for joining the Axis, and Greece. Both were conquered within weeks, Crete fell in May, and Yugoslavia was carved up, including a new Axis-aligned Independent State of Croatia.","lonlat":[20.46,44.82],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1941-06-22","year":1941,"label":"22 Jun 1941","text":"Germany invades the Soviet Union","detail":"On 22 June 1941 Germany and its allies, including Romania, Finland and Hungary, launched Operation Barbarossa, a vast invasion along a front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Huge Soviet armies were encircled and German forces reached the outskirts of Leningrad and Moscow by late 1941, where a Soviet counter-offensive in December pushed them back. The Soviet Union now joined Britain as an ally.","lonlat":[23.69,52.1],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1941-12-07","year":1941,"label":"7 Dec 1941","text":"Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and Western colonies in Asia","detail":"After the United States embargoed oil exports over Japan's occupation of French Indochina, Japan struck. On 7 December 1941 its carrier aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 Americans, while other forces attacked the Philippines, Guam, Wake, Malaya, Thailand and Hong Kong. The United States declared war on Japan the next day, and Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on 11 December.","lonlat":[-157.95,21.36],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1942-01-20","year":1942,"label":"20 Jan 1942","text":"Nazi officials coordinate the 'Final Solution' at Wannsee","detail":"Mass shootings of Jews by German units in the occupied Soviet Union had begun in 1941. On 20 January 1942 SS General Reinhard Heydrich convened senior officials at a villa at Wannsee in Berlin to coordinate the deportation of Europe's Jews to be killed, mostly in occupied Poland. Through killing centres such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered about six million Jews in the Holocaust.","lonlat":[13.17,52.43],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1942-02-15","year":1942,"label":"15 Feb 1942","text":"Singapore surrenders to Japan","detail":"Japanese forces landed in Malaya in December 1941 and advanced rapidly down the peninsula. Singapore, Britain's main base in Asia, surrendered on 15 February 1942, and about 80,000 British, Indian, Australian and local troops became prisoners. Churchill called it the worst disaster in British military history. By May Japan had also taken the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines and most of Burma.","lonlat":[103.82,1.35],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1942-06-04","year":1942,"label":"4–7 Jun 1942","text":"The US Navy defeats Japan at Midway","detail":"Japan tried to draw the remaining US carriers into a decisive battle by attacking Midway atoll. Forewarned by codebreakers, US aircraft sank all four Japanese fleet carriers in the attacking force, Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū, between 4 and 7 June 1942, for the loss of the carrier Yorktown. Japan could not replace the ships and trained aircrew, and the battle is widely seen as a turning point in the Pacific.","lonlat":[-177.37,28.21],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1942-08-07","year":1942,"label":"7 Aug 1942","text":"US Marines land on Guadalcanal","detail":"Japan was building an airfield on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands that threatened links between the United States and Australia. US Marines landed on 7 August 1942 in the first major Allied land offensive against Japan. Months of fighting on land, at sea and in the air followed, until Japan evacuated its last troops on 9 February 1943, ceding the initiative in the Pacific to the Allies.","lonlat":[160.0,-9.43],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1942-11-08","year":1942,"label":"8 Nov 1942","text":"Allied landings in Vichy North Africa (Operation Torch)","detail":"Days after the British victory at El Alamein in Egypt, American and British forces landed in Vichy-ruled Morocco and Algeria on 8 November 1942. After brief fighting, Admiral Darlan ordered French forces to stop on 10 November, and French North Africa went over to the Allies. Germany responded by occupying the rest of France on 11 November. Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered by 13 May 1943.","lonlat":[-7.59,33.57],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1943-02-02","year":1943,"label":"2 Feb 1943","text":"The German Sixth Army surrenders at Stalingrad","detail":"German forces had attacked Stalingrad on the Volga in the summer of 1942 and nearly taken the city by November. On 19 November the Red Army counter-attacked against the Romanian armies on the flanks and encircled the German Sixth Army. Its commander, Friedrich Paulus, surrendered on 2 February 1943, and about 235,000 Axis soldiers were captured. The Soviet Union kept the initiative on the Eastern Front for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[44.52,48.71],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1943-07-05","year":1943,"label":"5 Jul 1943","text":"The Battle of Kursk","detail":"Germany's last major offensive in the East began on 5 July 1943, when its armies attacked the Soviet salient around Kursk from north and south. Soviet forces had prepared deep defences and held, and on 12 July they launched their own counter-offensive. Kursk, which included some of the largest tank battles of the war, ended Germany's ability to mount strategic offensives on the Eastern Front.","lonlat":[36.19,51.73],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1943-07-09","year":1943,"label":"9 Jul 1943","text":"Allied invasion of Sicily; Italy changes sides","detail":"After victory in North Africa, the Allies invaded Sicily on 9 July 1943. Mussolini was deposed on 25 July, and the new Italian government signed an armistice, announced on 8 September, as the Allies landed on the mainland. Germany occupied most of Italy, freed Mussolini and set up a puppet state in the north, while the royal government joined the Allies as a co-belligerent.","lonlat":[14.25,37.07],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1944-06-06","year":1944,"label":"6 Jun 1944","text":"D-Day: the Allied landings in Normandy","detail":"After years of preparation, Allied forces landed on five Normandy beaches, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, on 6 June 1944, preceded by airborne drops. More than 156,000 soldiers came ashore on the first day in the largest seaborne invasion in history, carried by about 5,000 ships. After weeks of hard fighting the Allies broke out in late July and advanced across France.","lonlat":[-0.57,49.34],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1944-06-22","year":1944,"label":"22 Jun 1944","text":"Operation Bagration destroys German Army Group Centre","detail":"Three years to the day after the German invasion, the Red Army launched a massive offensive in Belarus on 22 June 1944. Army Group Centre's front collapsed, Minsk was liberated on 4 July, and by August Soviet forces had reached the Vistula near Warsaw and the border of East Prussia. With about 450,000 German casualties, it was among the heaviest German defeats of the war.","lonlat":[27.56,53.9],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1944-08-25","year":1944,"label":"25 Aug 1944","text":"Paris is liberated; Romania leaves the Axis","detail":"As Allied armies broke out of Normandy and landed in southern France, the French Resistance rose in Paris, and French and American troops entered the city on 25 August 1944. Two days earlier a coup in Romania had taken it out of the Axis, and Bulgaria followed in September. Romania's oilfields were lost to Germany, and by the autumn it was losing allies and territory on every front.","lonlat":[2.35,48.86],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1944-10-23","year":1944,"label":"23–26 Oct 1944","text":"The Battle of Leyte Gulf","detail":"US forces landed on Leyte in the Philippines on 20 October 1944. Japan sent almost its whole remaining fleet to attack the landings, and from 23 to 26 October the largest naval battle of the war was fought around the islands. The Japanese navy suffered crippling losses and never again sailed in comparable force. The battle also saw the first organised kamikaze attacks.","lonlat":[125.0,11.0],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1944-12-16","year":1944,"label":"16 Dec 1944","text":"Germany's Ardennes offensive: the Battle of the Bulge","detail":"With the Allies nearing Germany's western border, Hitler gambled on a surprise winter offensive through the Ardennes on 16 December 1944, aiming to split the Allied armies and retake Antwerp. German forces made a deep bulge in the American line but were held at key points such as Bastogne, and the offensive was repulsed by mid-January 1945, using up Germany's last reserves in the West.","lonlat":[5.72,50.0],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1945-04-01","year":1945,"label":"1 Apr 1945","text":"US forces invade Okinawa","detail":"The Allies needed bases close to Japan for the planned invasion. US forces landed on Okinawa on 1 April 1945 and fought until organised resistance ended on 22 June, under waves of kamikaze attacks at sea. About 94,000 Japanese soldiers and some 12,500 Americans died, and estimates of Okinawan civilian deaths range from 40,000 to 150,000, foreshadowing the cost of invading Japan itself.","lonlat":[127.68,26.21],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1945-05-08","year":1945,"label":"8 May 1945","text":"Germany surrenders unconditionally","detail":"Soviet forces stormed Berlin in late April 1945 while American and British armies advanced from the west; Hitler killed himself on 30 April. German commanders signed an unconditional surrender at Reims on 7 May and a definitive act in Berlin-Karlshorst, which took effect at 23:01 on 8 May. The Western Allies celebrate Victory in Europe Day on 8 May, while Russia marks Victory Day on 9 May.","lonlat":[13.53,52.49],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1945-08-06","year":1945,"label":"6 Aug 1945","text":"The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima","detail":"Japan rejected the Allied demand for unconditional surrender issued at Potsdam in July. On 6 August 1945 a US bomber dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and a second destroyed much of Nagasaki on 9 August. Estimates of deaths by the end of 1945 are 90,000–166,000 in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki. Historians still debate whether the bombings were justified.","lonlat":[132.46,34.39],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1945-08-09","year":1945,"label":"9 Aug 1945","text":"The Soviet Union invades Japanese-held Manchuria","detail":"At Yalta in February 1945 Stalin had agreed to join the war against Japan within about three months of Germany's defeat. The Soviet Union declared war on 8 August and invaded Manchuria an hour later, and Mongolia joined on 10 August. Soviet forces quickly overran Manchukuo, Inner Mongolia, northern Korea, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, removing Japan's last hope of a negotiated peace.","lonlat":[126.64,45.75],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1945-09-02","year":1945,"label":"2 Sep 1945","text":"Japan signs the instrument of surrender","detail":"After the atomic bombings and the Soviet attack, Emperor Hirohito ordered acceptance of the Allied terms, and his recorded announcement of surrender was broadcast on 15 August 1945. Japanese representatives signed the instrument of surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, ending the Second World War. Japan was occupied, and its overseas empire was dismantled.","lonlat":[139.75,35.35],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Wikipedia: World War II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Axis powers","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_powers"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Allies of World War II","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_II"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pacific War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War"},{"title":"USHMM Holocaust Encyclopedia: Wannsee Conference and the \"Final Solution\"","url":"https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/wannsee-conference-and-the-final-solution"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Operation Torch","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Soviet–Japanese War","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"arab-israeli-war-1948","name":"1948 Arab–Israeli War","moment":null,"span":[1947,1949],"dateLabel":"November 1947 – 20 July 1949","summary":"On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly voted to partition British-ruled Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under international control. Jewish leaders accepted the plan; Palestinian Arab leaders and the Arab states rejected it, and civil war broke out between Jewish and Palestinian Arab forces. Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948 as the British Mandate ended, and the next day the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, with a Saudi contingent, entered the country. Fighting alternated with UN truces until early 1949. Israel emerged in control of about 78 percent of former Mandatory Palestine; Transjordan held the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt the Gaza Strip, along armistice lines later called the Green Line. Israelis remember the war as their War of Independence. For Palestinians it is the Nakba (\"catastrophe\"): about 750,000 people fled or were expelled, over 400 villages were depopulated, and Israel did not allow the refugees to return.","casualties":"An estimated 6,373 Israelis (about 4,000 soldiers and 2,400 civilians), 3,700–7,000 soldiers of the Arab armies and 3,000–13,000 Palestinian Arab fighters and civilians were killed.","sides":[{"name":"Israel (Jewish forces before May 1948)","members":[{"clio":"State of Israel","from":1948,"to":1949}]},{"name":"Palestinian Arab forces","members":[{"clio":"Palestinians","from":1948,"to":1948}]},{"name":"Arab League states","members":[{"clio":"Kingdom of Egypt","from":1948,"to":1949},{"clio":"Kingdom of Jordan","from":1948,"to":1949},{"clio":"Second Syrian Republic","from":1948,"to":1949},{"clio":"Kingdom of Iraq","from":1948,"to":1949},{"clio":"Lebanon","from":1948,"to":1949},{"clio":"Kingdom of Saudi Arabia","from":1948,"to":1949}]}],"events":[{"date":"1947-11","year":1947,"label":"Nov 1947","text":"UN votes to partition Palestine; civil war breaks out","detail":"Britain, which had ruled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate since the 1920s, handed the question of its future to the United Nations. On 29 November 1947 the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, dividing the country into a Jewish state and an Arab state with Jerusalem under UN control. Jewish leaders accepted; Palestinian Arab leaders and the Arab states rejected it. Fighting between Jewish and Palestinian Arab militias began immediately and grew into a civil war while British troops prepared to leave.","lonlat":[35.22,31.78],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1948-04-05","year":1948,"label":"5 Apr 1948","text":"Operation Nachshon fights to open the road to Jerusalem","detail":"By early 1948 Palestinian Arab irregulars had cut the road from the coast, leaving Jewish West Jerusalem short of food and arms. From 5 to 20 April the Haganah, the main Jewish militia, launched Operation Nachshon to open the route through the hills, its first brigade-sized offensive. The fighting around Castel, where the Palestinian commander Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni was killed, marked a shift from defence to attack under Plan Dalet, which aimed to secure the territory of the planned Jewish state and its approaches.","lonlat":[35.14,31.8],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-04-09","year":1948,"label":"9 Apr 1948","text":"Deir Yassin massacre","detail":"On 9 April fighters of the Irgun and Lehi, right-wing Jewish militias, supported by the Haganah and Palmach, attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin west of Jerusalem. At least 107 villagers, many of them women, children and elderly people, were killed; for decades a figure of about 254 was widely cited, but recent scholarship puts the toll near 110. News of the killings spread fear across Palestine and greatly accelerated the flight of Arab civilians from their homes.","lonlat":[35.18,31.79],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1948-04-13","year":1948,"label":"13 Apr 1948","text":"Hadassah medical convoy ambushed in Jerusalem","detail":"Four days after Deir Yassin, Arab fighters ambushed a convoy carrying doctors, nurses, patients and Haganah escorts to the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, an isolated Jewish enclave in north-east Jerusalem. The vehicles were trapped and set alight in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and 78 Jews, most of them medical staff, were killed. The attack was described as a reprisal for Deir Yassin and showed how the civil war had become a cycle of attacks on civilians.","lonlat":[35.23,31.8],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1948-04-21","year":1948,"label":"21 Apr 1948","text":"Haganah captures Haifa; most Arab residents leave","detail":"Haifa, a mixed port city of about 140,000 people, roughly half of them Arabs, was a key target as British forces withdrew. On 21–22 April the Haganah's Carmeli Brigade seized the city. Around 15,000 Arabs fled or were expelled during the fighting, and by mid-May only about 4,000 of some 65,000–70,000 Arab residents remained. Jaffa and other Arab towns fell in the following weeks, and the exodus became one of the central events of the Nakba.","lonlat":[34.99,32.82],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-05-13","year":1948,"label":"13 May 1948","text":"Kfar Etzion falls; massacre of defenders","detail":"The Etzion bloc, four Jewish settlements between Bethlehem and Hebron, lay deep in territory allotted to the Arab state and had been besieged for months. On 13 May, the day before the Mandate ended, the Arab Legion and local Arab irregulars overran Kfar Etzion. Many of the defenders were killed after they had surrendered, and the other settlements of the bloc surrendered the next day. Israelis came to remember the massacre as one of the war's defining losses.","lonlat":[35.12,31.65],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1948-05-14","year":1948,"label":"14 May 1948","text":"Israel declares independence as the Mandate ends","detail":"With the British Mandate due to expire at midnight, David Ben-Gurion read Israel's Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv on the afternoon of 14 May 1948. The United States granted the new provisional government de facto recognition the same day, and the Soviet Union soon followed with full recognition. The declaration turned the civil war into an interstate war: Arab governments had announced that their armies would intervene once British rule ended.","lonlat":[34.77,32.07],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1948-05-15","year":1948,"label":"15 May 1948","text":"Arab armies enter Palestine","detail":"On 15 May the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq crossed into former Mandatory Palestine, and Lebanon joined on the northern border; a Saudi formation fought under Egyptian command. Transjordan's Arab Legion moved mainly into areas allotted to the Arab state and around Jerusalem. Egyptian columns advanced up the coast towards Tel Aviv and through the Negev. Palestinians commemorate 15 May each year as Nakba Day, marking the loss of their homeland.","lonlat":[34.25,31.29],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1948-05-20","year":1948,"label":"20 May 1948","text":"Syrian attack on the Deganias is repulsed","detail":"Syria's army advanced south of the Sea of Galilee and on 20 May attacked Degania Alef and Degania Bet, the oldest kibbutzim in the Jordan Valley. Defenders with few heavy weapons stopped the tanks at the perimeter, and by 21 May the Syrians had pulled back. The Syrian front then settled into a stalemate, with Syria holding small areas west of the old border until the armistice of July 1949.","lonlat":[35.57,32.71],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-05-25","year":1948,"label":"25 May 1948","text":"Israeli assault on Latrun fails","detail":"The Arab Legion's hold on the police fort at Latrun again cut the main road to Jerusalem. On 24–25 May the newly formed Israel Defense Forces attacked it in Operation Bin Nun A, using units that included recently arrived immigrants, and were driven back with heavy losses; further attacks in late May and June also failed. Israel instead built a rough bypass, nicknamed the 'Burma Road', to supply West Jerusalem.","lonlat":[34.98,31.83],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-05-28","year":1948,"label":"28 May 1948","text":"Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City surrenders","detail":"From mid-May the Arab Legion fought Jewish forces for control of Jerusalem. The Jewish Quarter of the walled Old City, held by a small garrison, was surrounded and shelled. On 28 May it surrendered; its residents were expelled to West Jerusalem and the defenders taken prisoner. Jerusalem was left divided, with Transjordan holding the Old City and East Jerusalem until 1967.","lonlat":[35.23,31.77],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-05-29","year":1948,"label":"29 May 1948","text":"Egyptian advance halted near Isdud","detail":"Egypt's main column pushed up the coastal road and by 28 May reached a destroyed bridge north of the Arab town of Isdud (modern Ashdod), about 30 kilometres from Tel Aviv. From 29 May to 3 June Israeli forces counter-attacked in Operation Pleshet, using Israel's first fighter aircraft. The Egyptians dug in and advanced no further north, and the line held until the first truce.","lonlat":[34.66,31.8],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-06-11","year":1948,"label":"11 Jun 1948","text":"First UN truce begins","detail":"The UN Security Council had demanded a ceasefire, and the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, appointed UN Mediator, negotiated a four-week truce that took effect on 11 June. Both sides used the pause to rearm despite an arms embargo; Israel received aircraft and weapons from Czechoslovakia and absorbed thousands of new recruits. When fighting resumed on 8 July, the military balance had shifted in Israel's favour.","lonlat":[35.22,31.78],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1948-07-12","year":1948,"label":"12 Jul 1948","text":"Lydda and Ramle captured; 50,000–70,000 residents expelled","detail":"In the 'Ten Days' of fighting between the truces, Israel launched Operation Dani to secure the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Lydda was captured on 11 July and Ramle on 12 July, and hundreds of people were killed in Lydda. On 12 July Ben-Gurion authorised the expulsion of both towns' civilians, and some 50,000–70,000 people were forced to walk east towards Arab Legion lines in summer heat. It was the largest single expulsion of the war.","lonlat":[34.89,31.95],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1948-09","year":1948,"label":"Sep 1948","text":"Arab League sets up the All-Palestine Government in Gaza","detail":"The second UN truce began on 18 July. In September the Arab League established an All-Palestine Government in Gaza, claiming authority over the whole of Palestine. It was led by figures close to the exiled Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini but depended entirely on Egypt, which controlled the Gaza Strip. Transjordan's King Abdullah opposed it and moved to absorb the West Bank, which he annexed in 1950.","lonlat":[34.46,31.5],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1948-09-17","year":1948,"label":"17 Sep 1948","text":"UN Mediator Folke Bernadotte assassinated","detail":"Bernadotte had proposed a settlement that would give the Negev to the Arab side and western Galilee to Israel, plans opposed by Israelis and Arabs alike. On 17 September members of Lehi, a militant Jewish group, ambushed his motorcade in Jerusalem's Katamon quarter, killing him and the French officer Colonel André Serot. Israel's government outlawed Lehi, but the killers were never convicted. The UN later handed his duties to a Conciliation Commission.","lonlat":[35.21,31.76],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1948-10-21","year":1948,"label":"21 Oct 1948","text":"Israel takes Beersheba in Operation Yoav","detail":"On 15 October Israel broke the second truce with Operation Yoav, an offensive against Egyptian forces in the south. It cut the Egyptian lines, encircled an Egyptian brigade in the Faluja pocket, where it held out until the armistice, and on 21 October captured Beersheba, the main town of the Negev. Most of the town's Arab population had already fled. The operation opened the route to the southern Negev.","lonlat":[34.79,31.25],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-10-29","year":1948,"label":"29 Oct 1948","text":"Operation Hiram takes the Upper Galilee","detail":"Starting on 24 October, Israeli forces attacked the Arab Liberation Army, a force of volunteers from Arab countries, and Syrian and Lebanese units in the Upper Galilee. Within about 60 hours the whole region was in Israeli hands, and Israeli troops briefly occupied villages inside southern Lebanon. Arab losses were estimated at 400 dead and 550 captured; killings of civilians were reported in several villages, and many inhabitants fled north into Lebanon.","lonlat":[35.4,33.0],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1948-12-22","year":1948,"label":"22 Dec 1948","text":"Operation Horev drives Egyptian forces from the Negev","detail":"On 11 December the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, saying refugees wishing to return home and live in peace should be allowed to do so, or receive compensation. Days later, on 22 December, Israel launched Operation Horev to expel the Egyptian army from the Negev. Israeli columns crossed briefly into Egyptian Sinai before British pressure forced a withdrawal, and fighting near Rafah in early January 1949 led Egypt to accept armistice talks.","lonlat":[34.43,30.88],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1949-02-24","year":1949,"label":"24 Feb 1949","text":"Israel and Egypt sign an armistice at Rhodes","detail":"Under UN mediator Ralph Bunche, Israeli and Egyptian delegates negotiated on the Greek island of Rhodes and signed the first armistice of the war on 24 February 1949. Egypt kept the Gaza Strip, crowded with refugees; the besieged brigade at Faluja was allowed to go home, and the village passed to Israel. Lebanon signed on 23 March and Transjordan on 3 April; Iraq withdrew its troops without a separate agreement.","lonlat":[28.22,36.44],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1949-03-10","year":1949,"label":"10 Mar 1949","text":"Israeli forces reach the Red Sea at Umm Rashrash","detail":"In Operation Uvda, launched on 5 March, Israeli brigades raced south through the Negev, an area allotted to Israel under the partition plan but not yet occupied. On 10 March they reached the abandoned police post of Umm Rashrash on the Gulf of Aqaba and raised a hand-inked flag, a moment Israel regards as the end of the fighting. The site became the port of Eilat, giving Israel access to the Red Sea.","lonlat":[34.95,29.55],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1949-07-20","year":1949,"label":"20 Jul 1949","text":"Israel–Syria armistice ends the war","detail":"The last armistice, with Syria, was signed on 20 July 1949 after months of talks on the Jordan River front; Syria withdrew from most of the land it held west of the border, which became demilitarised zones. The armistice lines, later called the Green Line, held until 1967. About 750,000 Palestinian refugees lived in camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and Israel barred their return. In the following years hundreds of thousands of Jews left or were expelled from Arab countries, many settling in Israel.","lonlat":[35.63,33.0],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"1948 Arab–Israeli War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War"},{"title":"Office of the Historian, US State Dept: The Arab-Israeli War of 1948","url":"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war"},{"title":"1949 Armistice Agreements (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Armistice_Agreements"},{"title":"Nakba (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba"},{"title":"Deir Yassin massacre (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre"},{"title":"Battle of Haifa (1948) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Haifa_(1948)"},{"title":"United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_194"},{"title":"Folke Bernadotte (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"korean-war","name":"Korean War","moment":"korean-war","span":[1950,1953],"dateLabel":"25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953","summary":"Korea, a Japanese colony from 1910, was divided at the 38th parallel into Soviet and US occupation zones in 1945, and in 1948 rival governments formed: Kim Il Sung's communist North and Syngman Rhee's South. On 25 June 1950 North Korea invaded the South and quickly took Seoul. The UN Security Council called on members to help South Korea, and a US-led United Nations Command was formed. After being pushed back to a perimeter around Pusan, UN forces landed at Incheon in September, retook Seoul and advanced deep into the North. In October China entered the war, driving the UN back south of Seoul by January 1951. The front then stabilised near the 38th parallel, and from July 1951 two years of trench warfare accompanied armistice talks, stalled largely over the return of prisoners. The armistice of 27 July 1953 left Korea divided along a demilitarised zone; no peace treaty has been signed.","casualties":"An estimated 2.5 to 4 million people died, including about one million soldiers and 1.5 to 3 million civilians.","sides":[{"name":"South Korea and the UN Command","members":[{"clio":"Republic of Korea","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"United States of America","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Canada","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Commonwealth of Australia","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"New Zealand","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"South Africa","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"French Fourth Republic","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Kingdom of Belgium","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Luxembourg","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Netherlands","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Kingdom of Greece","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Republic of Turkey","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Ethiopia","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Republic of Colombia","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Republic of the Philippines","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"Kingdom of Thailand","from":1950,"to":1953}]},{"name":"North Korea and China","members":[{"clio":"Democratic People's Republic of Korea","from":1950,"to":1953},{"clio":"People's Republic of China","from":1950,"to":1953}]}],"events":[{"date":"1950-06-25","year":1950,"label":"25 Jun 1950","text":"North Korea invades South Korea","detail":"After years of border clashes, and with Soviet approval and equipment, the Korean People's Army attacked across the 38th parallel before dawn on 25 June 1950 with tanks and artillery. South Korea's smaller, lightly armed army was caught unprepared and fell back along the whole front. The UN Security Council, which the Soviet Union was boycotting, passed resolutions condemning the invasion and calling on members to help repel it.","lonlat":[127.0,38.0],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1950-06-28","year":1950,"label":"28 Jun 1950","text":"Seoul falls","detail":"Three days into the invasion, North Korean troops entered Seoul, the South's capital. South Korean engineers blew up the bridges over the Han River while they were still crowded with soldiers and refugees, trapping much of the army north of the river. On 27 June President Truman had ordered US air and naval forces to support South Korea, and he soon committed ground troops from the occupation forces in Japan.","lonlat":[126.98,37.57],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1950-07-05","year":1950,"label":"5 Jul 1950","text":"First US ground troops fight at Osan","detail":"Task Force Smith, a small battalion-sized force flown in from Japan, met the North Korean advance near Osan, south of Seoul, on 5 July. Lacking effective anti-tank weapons, it was overrun by T-34 tanks and infantry and forced into a disorderly retreat. The defeat showed that the US garrison troops in Japan were neither trained nor equipped for the war, and UN forces continued to fall back south through July.","lonlat":[127.07,37.15],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1950-08","year":1950,"label":"Aug 1950","text":"UN forces hold the Pusan Perimeter","detail":"By early August South Korean, US and newly arriving British troops were confined to a corner of south-east Korea around the port of Pusan, behind a line along the Naktong River. For six weeks they fought off repeated North Korean attacks while reinforcements and supplies poured in through the port. The North Korean army, at the end of long supply lines under constant air attack, was steadily worn down.","lonlat":[128.6,35.87],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1950-09-15","year":1950,"label":"15 Sep 1950","text":"UN amphibious landing at Incheon","detail":"General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the UN forces, staged a risky amphibious landing at Incheon, the port of Seoul, far behind North Korean lines, despite its extreme tides. US Marines and army troops came ashore on 15 September, and on 16 September the Eighth Army broke out of the Pusan Perimeter. Caught between the two forces, the North Korean army collapsed and its remnants retreated north.","lonlat":[126.62,37.47],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1950-09-25","year":1950,"label":"Sep 1950","text":"UN forces recapture Seoul","detail":"After a week of hard street fighting, US Marines and South Korean troops retook the ruined capital in late September, and Syngman Rhee's government returned on 29 September. Thousands of North Korean soldiers were cut off in the South. The UN now faced a choice: stop at the 38th parallel, restoring the pre-war border, or pursue the beaten North Korean army and reunify the peninsula by force.","lonlat":[126.98,37.57],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1950-10-01","year":1950,"label":"1 Oct 1950","text":"UN forces cross the 38th parallel","detail":"South Korean troops crossed into the North on the east coast around 1 October, and US-led UN Command forces followed on 7 October after the UN General Assembly endorsed the goal of a unified Korea. China had warned through Indian diplomats that it would intervene if American troops crossed the parallel, but the warnings were largely dismissed in Washington and Tokyo.","lonlat":[128.6,38.1],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1950-10-19","year":1950,"label":"19 Oct 1950","text":"UN forces capture Pyongyang","detail":"On 19 October US and South Korean troops, together with the British 27th Commonwealth Brigade, entered Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, as Kim Il Sung's government fled north. UN columns then pushed towards the Yalu River, China's border, spreading out over mountainous terrain as winter approached. Many commanders expected the war to be over by Christmas, and planning began for the occupation of a reunified Korea under the South's government.","lonlat":[125.75,39.03],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1950-10-19","year":1950,"label":"19 Oct 1950","text":"Chinese troops cross the Yalu into Korea","detail":"The same day Pyongyang fell, the first units of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, commanded by Peng Dehuai, began crossing the Yalu River secretly at night. Mao Zedong had decided to intervene to keep American forces from China's border. On 25 October the Chinese launched their first offensive against South Korean and US units, then briefly withdrew, leaving UN commanders uncertain of their numbers.","lonlat":[124.4,40.1],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1950-11-27","year":1950,"label":"27 Nov 1950","text":"Battle of Chosin Reservoir","detail":"In late November massive Chinese forces struck the UN advance. On 27 November they surrounded the US 1st Marine Division and army units around the Chosin Reservoir in north-east Korea. In temperatures far below freezing, the encircled troops fought their way out over 17 days to the coast. Further west the Eighth Army was routed and made the longest retreat in US Army history.","lonlat":[127.25,40.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1950-12-24","year":1950,"label":"24 Dec 1950","text":"Hungnam evacuation completed","detail":"The UN X Corps established a defensive perimeter around the north-eastern port of Hungnam on 11 December. By 24 December some 100,000 troops and tens of thousands of North Korean civilian refugees had been evacuated by sea to the South, and the port facilities were demolished. By the end of December UN forces had abandoned the whole of North Korea.","lonlat":[127.62,39.83],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1951-01-04","year":1951,"label":"4 Jan 1951","text":"Communist forces retake Seoul","detail":"Chinese and North Korean forces launched a New Year offensive across the 38th parallel, and on 4 January 1951 Seoul changed hands for the third time as UN troops withdrew south of the Han River. Hundreds of thousands of civilians fled south again. General Matthew Ridgway, who had taken command of the Eighth Army after its commander was killed in an accident, restored its morale and halted the retreat.","lonlat":[126.98,37.57],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1951-03-14","year":1951,"label":"14 Mar 1951","text":"UN forces recapture Seoul in Operation Ripper","detail":"Ridgway's methodical counter-offensives used massed firepower to inflict heavy losses on the over-extended Chinese forces. Operation Ripper, launched on 7 March, retook Seoul on 14 March, leaving the city in ruins after its fourth change of hands in less than a year. By the end of March UN forces were back near the 38th parallel, roughly where the war had started nine months earlier.","lonlat":[126.98,37.57],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1951-04-11","year":1951,"label":"11 Apr 1951","text":"Truman relieves MacArthur of command","detail":"MacArthur publicly called for expanding the war to China, including attacks on Chinese bases, contradicting Truman's policy of a limited war confined to Korea. On 11 April 1951 Truman dismissed him from all his commands in Tokyo, from which he had directed the war, and replaced him with Ridgway. The decision caused uproar in the United States but confirmed civilian control over military policy.","lonlat":[139.76,35.68],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1951-04-22","year":1951,"label":"22 Apr 1951","text":"Chinese spring offensive; Battle of the Imjin River","detail":"On 22 April the Chinese launched their largest offensive of the war. On the Imjin River north of Seoul, the British 29th Brigade held its positions for three days before retreating; the 1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment, was surrounded on Hill 235 and most of its men captured. At Kapyong, Australian and Canadian battalions also blocked the advance. The offensive failed to retake Seoul.","lonlat":[126.95,37.95],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1951-07-10","year":1951,"label":"10 Jul 1951","text":"Armistice talks open at Kaesong","detail":"With the front stabilised near the 38th parallel, negotiators from both sides met at Kaesong on 10 July 1951; the talks later moved to Panmunjom. They dragged on for two years, deadlocked above all over prisoners of war: thousands of Chinese and North Korean prisoners did not want to go home, and the UN refused forced repatriation. Meanwhile both armies dug in along a front of trenches and fortified hills, fighting costly battles for small gains.","lonlat":[126.55,37.97],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1953-07-27","year":1953,"label":"27 Jul 1953","text":"Armistice signed at Panmunjom","detail":"After the death of Stalin in March 1953 and a compromise on prisoners based on an Indian proposal, the armistice was signed at Panmunjom on 27 July 1953. It created a demilitarised zone about 4 kilometres wide along the final front line, which left the South with a little more territory than before the war. South Korea did not sign. No peace treaty followed, and Korea remains divided.","lonlat":[126.68,37.96],"kind":"treaty"}],"sources":[{"title":"Korean War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War"},{"title":"National Army Museum: Korean War","url":"https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/korean-war"},{"title":"United Nations Command (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Command"},{"title":"Thailand in the Korean War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand_in_the_Korean_War"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"vietnam-war","name":"Vietnam War","moment":"vietnam-war","span":[1955,1975],"dateLabel":"1955 – 30 April 1975","summary":"The 1954 Geneva Accords ended French rule in Indochina and temporarily divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with nationwide elections promised for 1956. They were never held. In the South, Ngo Dinh Diem proclaimed the Republic of Vietnam in 1955 with US backing, while the communist North under Ho Chi Minh supported a southern insurgency led by the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong). Fearing communist expansion across Asia, the United States sent advisers, then, after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, bombers and combat troops, reaching about 543,000 soldiers in 1969, joined by South Korean, Australian, New Zealand and Thai forces. China and the Soviet Union supplied the North. The 1968 Tet Offensive failed militarily but turned American opinion against the war. Under Nixon's 'Vietnamization' US forces withdrew, leaving after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Fighting continued, and on 30 April 1975 North Vietnamese tanks entered Saigon. Vietnam was reunified under communist rule in 1976, and communist movements also took power in Cambodia and Laos in 1975.","casualties":"An estimated 966,000 to 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians died, more than 58,000 Americans were killed, and total deaths including Cambodia and Laos are estimated at 1.3 to 3.4 million.","sides":[{"name":"North Vietnam and its allies","members":[{"clio":"Democratic Republic of Vietnam","from":1956,"to":1975}]},{"name":"South Vietnam and its allies","members":[{"clio":"Republic of Vietnam","from":1956,"to":1966},{"clio":"Republic of Vietnam","from":1973,"to":1975},{"clio":"United States of America","from":1964,"to":1973},{"clio":"Republic of Korea","from":1965,"to":1973},{"clio":"Commonwealth of Australia","from":1962,"to":1972},{"clio":"New Zealand","from":1965,"to":1972},{"clio":"Kingdom of Thailand","from":1966,"to":1972},{"clio":"Kingdom of Laos","from":1959,"to":1975},{"clio":"Kingdom of Cambodia","from":1970,"to":1975}]}],"events":[{"date":"1955-10","year":1955,"label":"Oct 1955","text":"Diem proclaims the Republic of Vietnam","detail":"The Geneva Accords of July 1954, which followed the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, left Ho Chi Minh's communists in control of the North and a non-communist government in the South. In October 1955 the South's prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, held a referendum that was rigged to give him 98 percent of the vote, deposed the emperor Bao Dai, and declared the Republic of Vietnam with himself as president. With US support he refused to hold the reunification elections due in 1956.","lonlat":[106.7,10.78],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1960-12","year":1960,"label":"Dec 1960","text":"National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) founded","detail":"Diem's government suppressed communists and other opponents in the South, and from 1959 Hanoi backed armed struggle there, sending men and supplies down what became the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In December 1960 the National Liberation Front was formally created to lead the southern insurgency; its opponents called its fighters the Viet Cong. Its guerrillas spread their control over much of the South's countryside.","lonlat":[106.1,11.31],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1963-01","year":1963,"label":"Jan 1963","text":"Viet Cong defeat South Vietnamese troops at Ap Bac","detail":"In the Mekong Delta village of Ap Bac, a Viet Cong force of a few hundred fought a much larger South Vietnamese army force backed by US helicopters, artillery and armoured carriers. The Viet Cong lost 18 men, while the South Vietnamese lost 83 soldiers and five US helicopters were brought down. American advisers and reporters saw the battle as evidence that the South's army could not defeat the insurgency.","lonlat":[106.18,10.43],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1963-11-02","year":1963,"label":"2 Nov 1963","text":"Diem overthrown and killed in a military coup","detail":"Diem's favouritism towards Catholics provoked the Buddhist crisis of 1963, which began in May when government forces killed nine Buddhists in Hue; protests, including monks' self-immolations, followed. With tacit US approval, South Vietnamese generals overthrew Diem on 1–2 November, and he and his brother were killed. A series of unstable military governments followed in Saigon, and the insurgency gained ground in the countryside, drawing the United States towards direct intervention.","lonlat":[106.7,10.78],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1964-08-02","year":1964,"label":"2 Aug 1964","text":"Gulf of Tonkin incident","detail":"On 2 August the US destroyer Maddox, on an intelligence mission off North Vietnam's coast, exchanged fire with North Vietnamese torpedo boats. A second attack reported on 4 August was later shown not to have happened. President Johnson ordered retaliatory air strikes, and on 7 August Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving him broad authority to use military force in Southeast Asia without a declaration of war.","lonlat":[106.9,19.7],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1965-03-02","year":1965,"label":"2 Mar 1965","text":"Operation Rolling Thunder begins","detail":"After Viet Cong attacks on US bases in February 1965, the United States began a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam on 2 March. Rolling Thunder aimed to raise southern morale, pressure Hanoi to stop supporting the insurgency, and destroy the North's transport, industry and air defences. It continued, with pauses, until 31 October 1968, but failed to stop the flow of men and supplies south.","lonlat":[105.9,19.5],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1965-03-08","year":1965,"label":"8 Mar 1965","text":"US Marines land at Da Nang","detail":"On 8 March 1965, 3,500 US Marines came ashore near Da Nang, officially to guard the air base: the first American ground combat units in Vietnam. Their role soon expanded to offensive operations, and troop numbers rose rapidly. Allied contingents followed, including South Korean divisions from September 1965 and an Australian battalion, which had arrived in June 1965 alongside a New Zealand artillery battery.","lonlat":[108.22,16.05],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1965-11-14","year":1965,"label":"14 Nov 1965","text":"Battle of Ia Drang","detail":"In the Central Highlands, the US 1st Cavalry Division landed by helicopter in the Ia Drang valley and fought North Vietnamese regulars from 14 to 18 November, the first major battle between the US Army and the People's Army of Vietnam. Both sides suffered heavy losses and both claimed victory. The battle set the pattern of the war: US reliance on helicopters, artillery and air power against an enemy that fought at close range to blunt it.","lonlat":[107.7,13.55],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1966-08-18","year":1966,"label":"18 Aug 1966","text":"Australians fight the Battle of Long Tan","detail":"Australia had sent military advisers to South Vietnam from 1962 and combat troops from 1965, based at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy province. On 18 August 1966 a company of about 100 Australian soldiers was caught in a rubber plantation near Long Tan by a much larger Viet Cong and North Vietnamese force. Supported by artillery, they held out through a monsoon storm until relieved. Eighteen Australians were killed; it became Australia's best-known battle of the war.","lonlat":[107.43,10.48],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1968-01-30","year":1968,"label":"30 Jan 1968","text":"The Tet Offensive","detail":"During the Tet lunar new year holiday, about 77,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops attacked more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals and Saigon, where they briefly entered the US Embassy grounds. The hoped-for popular uprising did not come, and the attackers were driven back with heavy losses; in Hue, held for 26 days, thousands of civilians were executed. Militarily a defeat for Hanoi, Tet shocked the American public and pushed Johnson towards negotiations, which opened in Paris on 10 May.","lonlat":[106.7,10.78],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1968-03-16","year":1968,"label":"16 Mar 1968","text":"My Lai massacre","detail":"On 16 March 1968 soldiers of Charlie Company, Americal Division, killed between 347 and 504 unarmed villagers, mostly women, children and elderly men, in the hamlets of My Lai and My Khe in Quang Ngai province. The killings were covered up until the journalist Seymour Hersh revealed them in November 1969. Of 26 soldiers charged, only Lieutenant William Calley was convicted, and the massacre deepened opposition to the war.","lonlat":[108.87,15.18],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"1970-04-30","year":1970,"label":"30 Apr 1970","text":"US and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia","detail":"Under 'Vietnamization', President Nixon began withdrawing US troops in 1969 while building up South Vietnam's army. In March 1970 Cambodia's ruler Prince Sihanouk was overthrown, and the new pro-US Khmer Republic faced North Vietnamese forces and the communist Khmer Rouge. On 30 April Nixon ordered US and South Vietnamese troops to attack North Vietnamese bases inside Cambodia. The expansion of the war set off protests in the United States, where National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University on 4 May.","lonlat":[106.4,11.7],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1972-03","year":1972,"label":"Mar 1972","text":"North Vietnam launches the Easter Offensive","detail":"With most US ground troops gone, North Vietnam launched a three-pronged conventional invasion of the South in late March 1972, using tanks and artillery across the demilitarised zone into Quang Tri province, in the Central Highlands and north of Saigon. South Vietnamese forces, backed by massive US air power, held most key cities and retook Quang Tri city by September, but the North kept large areas along the border.","lonlat":[107.19,16.75],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1972-12","year":1972,"label":"Dec 1972","text":"US B-52s carry out the 'Christmas bombing'","detail":"Peace talks in Paris had nearly produced an agreement in October 1972, but they broke down over objections from South Vietnam and new demands from both sides. On 14 December President Nixon ordered massive B-52 raids on North Vietnam, carried out in the second half of the month in what became known as the Christmas bombing. Negotiations resumed in early January 1973, and the agreement was quickly concluded.","lonlat":[105.85,21.03],"kind":"other"},{"date":"1973-01-27","year":1973,"label":"27 Jan 1973","text":"Ceasefire under the Paris Peace Accords","detail":"The United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Viet Cong signed the Paris Peace Accords on 27 January 1973, and a ceasefire took effect across Vietnam at midnight GMT that day. US and allied forces were to leave within 60 days and prisoners of war were to be exchanged, but North Vietnamese troops were allowed to remain in the South. The negotiators Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Tho declined it.","lonlat":[106.7,10.78],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1973-03","year":1973,"label":"Mar 1973","text":"Last US and South Korean combat troops leave","detail":"South Korea, whose forces had numbered about 50,000 at their peak, withdrew its last troops on 23 March 1973. Within the 60 days set by the accords, the last US combat troops left South Vietnam at the end of March, and American prisoners came home in Operation Homecoming. The ceasefire never fully held, and fighting between North and South Vietnamese forces resumed while US aid to Saigon was cut back.","lonlat":[106.66,10.82],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1975-03-10","year":1975,"label":"10 Mar 1975","text":"North Vietnamese capture Buon Ma Thuot","detail":"In early 1975 North Vietnam launched an offensive in the Central Highlands. The capture of Buon Ma Thuot on 10 March prompted President Nguyen Van Thieu to order a withdrawal from the highlands, which collapsed into a chaotic retreat under fire, jammed with soldiers and civilians. The speed of the South's disintegration surprised Hanoi, which accelerated its plans to take Saigon before the rainy season.","lonlat":[108.04,12.67],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1975-03-28","year":1975,"label":"28 Mar 1975","text":"Hue and Da Nang fall","detail":"As panic spread in the northern provinces, Hue fell on 25 March and Da Nang, South Vietnam's second city, on 28 March. Hundreds of thousands of refugees and soldiers crowded the roads and beaches trying to escape south by sea. South Vietnamese troops made a last stand at Xuan Loc, east of Saigon, from 9 to 21 April, and Thieu resigned on 21 April.","lonlat":[108.22,16.05],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1975-04-17","year":1975,"label":"17 Apr 1975","text":"Khmer Rouge capture Phnom Penh","detail":"In Cambodia, the communist Khmer Rouge had besieged the capital for months after the US ended its bombing there in 1973. The US embassy evacuated its staff on 12 April, and on 17 April the city's last defences fell. The Khmer Rouge immediately ordered the entire population to leave the city, beginning a regime under which an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians would die by 1979.","lonlat":[104.92,11.56],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1975-04-30","year":1975,"label":"30 Apr 1975","text":"Fall of Saigon","detail":"North Vietnamese forces encircled Saigon in late April. As the city fell, Operation Frequent Wind evacuated the remaining Americans and tens of thousands of South Vietnamese by helicopter. On the morning of 30 April North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gate of the Presidential Palace, and President Duong Van Minh, in office for two days, surrendered. Vietnam was formally reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976.","lonlat":[106.7,10.78],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Vietnam War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War"},{"title":"Office of the Historian, US State Dept: Ending the Vietnam War, 1969–1973","url":"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/ending-vietnam"},{"title":"US National Archives: Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics","url":"https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics"},{"title":"Free World Military Forces (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_World_Military_Forces"},{"title":"Tet Offensive (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive"},{"title":"My Lai massacre (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre"},{"title":"Paris Peace Accords (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Accords"},{"title":"Fall of Saigon (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"soviet-afghan-war","name":"Soviet–Afghan War","moment":"soviet-afghan-war","span":[1979,1989],"dateLabel":"24 December 1979 – 15 February 1989","summary":"In April 1978 the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan seized power in a coup. Its radical reforms and harsh repression provoked uprisings across the country, and its two factions fought each other. In December 1979 the Soviet Union sent its 40th Army into Afghanistan, killed the party leader Hafizullah Amin and installed Babrak Karmal. Soviet and Afghan government forces held the cities and main roads, but could not defeat the mujahideen, Islamic resistance groups operating from the mountains and from refugee camps in Pakistan. The United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China and others armed and funded the resistance, with Pakistan's intelligence service distributing the aid. After repeated offensives, mounting losses and the arrival of US Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Mikhail Gorbachev's government sought a way out. Under the Geneva Accords of April 1988 Soviet troops withdrew, the last leaving on 15 February 1989. Najibullah's government survived until 1992, when civil war among the mujahideen followed.","casualties":"An estimated 1 to 3 million Afghans died, most of them civilians, along with 14,453 Soviet soldiers by official count (other estimates reach 26,000); about 5 million Afghans fled abroad.","sides":[{"name":"Soviet Union and the Afghan communist government","members":[{"clio":"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics","from":1979,"to":1989},{"clio":"Afghanistan","from":1979,"to":1986}]},{"name":"Afghan mujahideen","members":[{"clio":"Mujahideen","from":1987,"to":1989}]}],"events":[{"date":"1979-03-15","year":1979,"label":"15 Mar 1979","text":"Uprising in Herat","detail":"The communist government that took power in April 1978 pushed land and social reforms by force and arrested and executed thousands of opponents. On 15 March 1979 a popular revolt broke out in the western city of Herat, joined by mutinous soldiers of the army's 17th Division. Communist officials and some Soviet advisers were killed. Government forces retook the city on 20 March and bombed it; estimates of the dead range from 3,000 to 25,000. Taraki asked Moscow for troops, but the Soviet leadership at first refused.","lonlat":[62.2,34.35],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1979-09","year":1979,"label":"Sep 1979","text":"Hafizullah Amin seizes power","detail":"Rivalry within the ruling party ended in September 1979 when Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin overthrew President Nur Muhammad Taraki, who was killed soon afterwards. Amin intensified the repression, while rebellion spread and the army suffered mass desertions and mutinies. Soviet leaders distrusted him, feared that Afghanistan might be lost to Islamist rebels or turn to the West, and began planning an intervention.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1979-12-25","year":1979,"label":"25 Dec 1979","text":"Soviet 40th Army enters Afghanistan","detail":"On 24–25 December 1979 Soviet forces began crossing the Amu Darya from the Uzbek SSR and flying troops into Kabul and the Bagram air base. Ground columns moved south along the main highways, and within weeks tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers were in the country. Moscow presented the operation as assistance requested by the Afghan government under a 1978 friendship treaty.","lonlat":[67.42,37.22],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"1979-12-27","year":1979,"label":"27 Dec 1979","text":"Soviet special forces kill Amin and install Karmal","detail":"On the evening of 27 December Soviet special forces stormed the Tajbeg Palace outside Kabul in Operation Storm-333, killing Amin, while other units seized key buildings in the capital. Babrak Karmal, leader of the party's rival Parcham faction, was installed as head of government. The UN General Assembly condemned the intervention on 14 January 1980 by 104 votes to 18, and the United States responded with sanctions and a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.","lonlat":[69.12,34.46],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1980-04","year":1980,"label":"Apr 1980","text":"First Soviet offensive into the Panjshir Valley","detail":"The Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, close to the Salang highway that carried Soviet supplies, was the base of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the most effective mujahideen commander. In April 1980 Soviet and Afghan troops launched the first of nine major offensives there. Each time the guerrillas withdrew into the side valleys and mountains, and returned once the troops left. Further offensives followed in August and December 1980 and September 1981, with the same result.","lonlat":[69.7,35.35],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1982-05-16","year":1982,"label":"16 May 1982","text":"Panjshir V, the largest offensive yet","detail":"On 16 May 1982 about 12,000 Soviet and Afghan troops attacked the Panjshir with hundreds of armoured vehicles and over 100 helicopters, landing some 4,200 airborne troops behind Massoud's defences. They occupied much of the valley floor and set up garrisons, but most of the mujahideen escaped and kept fighting from the heights. Villages were destroyed and much of the valley's population fled.","lonlat":[69.65,35.3],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1983-01","year":1983,"label":"Jan 1983","text":"Massoud agrees a truce with Soviet forces","detail":"After repeated failed offensives, Massoud negotiated the first Soviet–mujahideen ceasefire directly with a Soviet military intelligence officer in January 1983. Soviet forces withdrew from most of the Panjshir, leaving a small garrison, and Massoud used the pause to extend his influence and organisation into neighbouring regions. The truce did not cover the Salang Pass, where fighting went on. Other resistance leaders criticised the deal, and full-scale fighting in the valley resumed in 1984.","lonlat":[69.7,35.35],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1983-07","year":1983,"label":"Jul 1983","text":"Mujahideen besiege Khost","detail":"In the eastern province of Paktia, near the Pakistani border, mujahideen forces surrounded the garrison town of Khost in July 1983. Its defenders could be supplied only by air for years. The siege symbolised the war's pattern: the government held the towns, while the resistance controlled much of the countryside and the routes to its bases and supply depots in Pakistan.","lonlat":[69.92,33.34],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1984-04-19","year":1984,"label":"19 Apr 1984","text":"Panjshir VII offensive","detail":"When the 1983 truce collapsed, Soviet commanders launched the seventh and largest Panjshir offensive on 19 April 1984, preceded by heavy bombing that included high-altitude raids. Massoud, forewarned, had evacuated many civilians and fighters. Troops fought through the valley into September, but the mujahideen again survived, and Soviet forces evacuated the valley in September. Two more offensives followed, in September 1984 and June 1985; the last Soviet and Afghan troops left the lower Panjshir in June 1988.","lonlat":[69.7,35.35],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1986-05-04","year":1986,"label":"4 May 1986","text":"Najibullah replaces Karmal","detail":"Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader from 1985, wanted to end a costly war. On 4 May 1986 Karmal was replaced as party leader by Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the secret police. In the same year the United States began supplying the mujahideen with Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, about 2,300 in all, through its covert programme Operation Cyclone, which made Soviet helicopters and aircraft far more vulnerable.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1987-01","year":1987,"label":"Jan 1987","text":"Najibullah launches 'national reconciliation'","detail":"At the start of 1987 Najibullah announced a policy of national reconciliation, offering a ceasefire, power-sharing and an end to the party's monopoly in an effort to win over opponents and prepare for Soviet withdrawal. The main mujahideen parties, based in Peshawar in Pakistan, rejected the offer. Fighting continued, and the government relied ever more on militias paid with Soviet money.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"1987-11-19","year":1987,"label":"19 Nov 1987","text":"Operation Magistral relieves Khost","detail":"From 19 November 1987 to 10 January 1988 Soviet and Afghan forces fought to reopen the road from Gardez to besieged Khost, cut for months by the mujahideen. Soviet troops entered Khost on 30 December and convoys brought in supplies. It was one of the last big Soviet operations; once the main force pulled back, the mujahideen closed the road again.","lonlat":[69.6,33.5],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"1988-05-15","year":1988,"label":"15 May 1988","text":"Soviet withdrawal begins under the Geneva Accords","detail":"On 14 April 1988 Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Geneva Accords at the United Nations in Geneva, with the Soviet Union and the United States as guarantors. They set a timetable for Soviet withdrawal, which began on 15 May. Half the troops had left by mid-August. The mujahideen were not party to the accords, and outside powers kept arming both sides.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"1989-02-15","year":1989,"label":"15 Feb 1989","text":"Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan","detail":"The second phase of the withdrawal ran from November 1988, and on 15 February 1989 the last Soviet column crossed the Amu Darya bridge into the Uzbek SSR, led by the 40th Army's commander, General Boris Gromov. About 620,000 Soviet personnel had served in Afghanistan. The war had damaged the Soviet economy and the army's prestige, and it is often counted among the causes of the Soviet Union's collapse.","lonlat":[67.42,37.22],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"1989-03-05","year":1989,"label":"5 Mar 1989","text":"Mujahideen assault on Jalalabad fails","detail":"Expecting Najibullah's government to collapse, mujahideen groups backed by Pakistan's intelligence service attacked the eastern city of Jalalabad on 5 March 1989, joined by Arab volunteers. Government forces held the city, and fighting lasted until the end of June. The defeat divided the resistance and showed that the Afghan army could fight without Soviet troops. Najibullah's government survived until April 1992.","lonlat":[70.45,34.43],"kind":"battle"}],"sources":[{"title":"Soviet–Afghan War (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War"},{"title":"Office of the Historian, US State Dept: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980","url":"https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan"},{"title":"1979 Herat uprising (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Herat_uprising"},{"title":"Panjshir offensives (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjshir_offensives"},{"title":"Geneva Accords (1988) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Accords_(1988)"},{"title":"Operation Cyclone (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone"},{"title":"Operation Magistral (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magistral"},{"title":"Battle of Jalalabad (1989) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jalalabad_(1989)"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"war-in-afghanistan-2001-2021","name":"War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)","moment":"september-11-afghanistan","span":[2001,2021],"dateLabel":"7 October 2001 – 30 August 2021","summary":"After al-Qaeda's attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 killed nearly 3,000 people, the Taliban government of Afghanistan refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. On 7 October US and British forces began air strikes, and with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance they toppled the Taliban within weeks, though bin Laden escaped. A new government under Hamid Karzai was formed, and a NATO-led force (ISAF), eventually drawing troops from 51 countries, helped build the Afghan state and army. From 2006 the Taliban, regrouping from sanctuaries in Pakistan, waged a growing insurgency, especially in the south and east. A US troop surge in 2009–11 and the killing of bin Laden in 2011 did not end the fighting. ISAF's combat mission ended in 2014, and Afghan forces took the lead. Under the 2020 Doha Agreement the United States agreed to withdraw. As foreign troops left in 2021 the Afghan Republic collapsed, and the Taliban took Kabul on 15 August.","casualties":"An estimated 176,000 to more than 212,000 people were killed, including about 46,000 Afghan civilians, 66,000–92,000 Afghan security forces and about 3,500 coalition troops, 2,330 of them American.","sides":[{"name":"US-led coalition, Northern Alliance and Afghan Republic","members":[{"clio":"United States of America","from":2001,"to":2021},{"clio":"Kingdom of Great Britain","from":2001,"to":2021},{"clio":"Afghanistan","from":2001,"to":2021}]},{"name":"Taliban and al-Qaeda","members":[{"clio":"Taliban","from":2001,"to":2005}]}],"events":[{"date":"2001-09-09","year":2001,"label":"9 Sep 2001","text":"Northern Alliance commander Massoud assassinated","detail":"By 2001 the Taliban, in power in Kabul since 1996, controlled most of Afghanistan and sheltered Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. The main resistance was the Northern Alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, which held a corner of the north-east. On 9 September two al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists killed Massoud with a bomb hidden in their camera. Two days later al-Qaeda hijackers attacked New York and Washington, killing close to 3,000 people.","lonlat":[69.47,37.37],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2001-10-07","year":2001,"label":"7 Oct 2001","text":"US and British air strikes begin","detail":"The Taliban refused US demands to hand over bin Laden. On 18 September Congress authorised the use of force against those responsible for 9/11, and on 7 October US and British forces began bombing Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Operation Enduring Freedom. Small teams of CIA officers and special forces joined Northern Alliance commanders, directing air strikes onto Taliban front lines.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"2001-11-09","year":2001,"label":"9 Nov 2001","text":"Mazar-i-Sharif falls to the Northern Alliance","detail":"Supported by US air power and special forces, forces loyal to the Uzbek commander Abdul Rashid Dostum captured the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on 9 November. Its fall broke the Taliban's hold on the north, and their front lines began to collapse across the country as commanders defected or retreated. Within days Northern Alliance forces were advancing on Kabul, while Pashtun anti-Taliban leaders, including Hamid Karzai, rallied support in the south.","lonlat":[67.11,36.71],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2001-11-13","year":2001,"label":"13 Nov 2001","text":"Taliban abandon Kabul","detail":"As Northern Alliance troops advanced from the Shomali plain, Taliban fighters withdrew from Kabul overnight, and on 13 November coalition-backed forces entered the capital. Residents greeted the end of Taliban rule with music, shaved beards and uncovered television sets, all banned under the regime. Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fell back to the south and to the eastern mountains near Pakistan.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2001-12-03","year":2001,"label":"3 Dec 2001","text":"Battle of Tora Bora; bin Laden escapes","detail":"Bin Laden and hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters retreated to the Tora Bora cave complex in the White Mountains near the Pakistani border. From 3 to 17 December Afghan militias, backed by US bombing and small special-forces teams, attacked the complex. Few US ground troops were committed to block escape routes, and bin Laden slipped away, reportedly around 16 December, probably into Pakistan.","lonlat":[70.25,34.12],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2001-12-09","year":2001,"label":"9 Dec 2001","text":"Taliban surrender Kandahar; Karzai to lead interim government","detail":"On 5 December Afghan factions meeting in Bonn, Germany, signed an agreement naming Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader from Kandahar, head of an interim administration. Four days later the Taliban surrendered Kandahar, their spiritual capital, and their leader Mullah Omar fled. The UN Security Council then authorised an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help secure Kabul. Within two months of the first air strikes, the Taliban regime had fallen, though its leaders and many fighters survived.","lonlat":[65.71,31.61],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2002-03","year":2002,"label":"Mar 2002","text":"Operation Anaconda in the Shah-i-Kot valley","detail":"In March 2002 US and allied troops, with Afghan forces, attacked Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters gathered in the Shah-i-Kot valley in Paktia province, the first major ground operation since Tora Bora. The fighting in high mountains in winter was fierce and cost US lives, and many fighters escaped to Pakistan. In June a loya jirga, a grand assembly, chose Karzai to head a transitional government.","lonlat":[69.31,33.37],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2003-08-11","year":2003,"label":"11 Aug 2003","text":"NATO takes command of ISAF","detail":"On 11 August 2003 NATO took over command of ISAF, the alliance's first operational commitment outside Europe. Over the next three years ISAF expanded from Kabul across the whole country, completing the process in October 2006, while a separate US-led force continued counter-terrorism operations. At its height ISAF had more than 130,000 personnel from 51 NATO and partner countries, by far the largest contingent coming from the United States, followed by Britain and Germany.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2004-10-09","year":2004,"label":"9 Oct 2004","text":"Karzai wins Afghanistan's first presidential election","detail":"A loya jirga agreed a new constitution with a strong presidency in January 2004. On 9 October millions of Afghans, including many women, voted in the country's first direct presidential election, and Karzai won with a majority. Western governments hailed it as a milestone, but the state remained weak, dependent on foreign aid and troubled by corruption and warlord power.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2006-04","year":2006,"label":"Apr 2006","text":"British troops deploy to Helmand as the Taliban resurge","detail":"Regrouped in Pakistan's border areas, the Taliban stepped up their insurgency; suicide attacks rose from 27 in 2005 to 139 in 2006. As ISAF expanded into the south, Britain sent more than 3,000 troops to Helmand province in April 2006, based at Camp Bastion, while Canadian, Dutch and US forces fought in Kandahar and neighbouring provinces. Fighting in the south soon became far heavier than expected.","lonlat":[64.22,31.86],"kind":"other"},{"date":"2009-12-01","year":2009,"label":"1 Dec 2009","text":"US surge: 30,000 more troops ordered to Afghanistan","detail":"With the Taliban gaining ground, President Barack Obama announced on 1 December 2009 that 30,000 more US troops would be sent, on top of the 68,000 already deployed, but set a date to begin withdrawing them in 2011. US numbers peaked at about 100,000 in 2010–11, with most of the surge forces sent to the south. The surge pushed back the Taliban in parts of Helmand and Kandahar but did not defeat them.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2011-05-01","year":2011,"label":"1 May 2011","text":"US special forces kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan","detail":"After years of intelligence work, US Navy SEALs raided a compound in Abbottabad, a Pakistani garrison town, on the night of 1–2 May 2011 local time and killed bin Laden. The discovery that he had been living close to Pakistan's military academy strained US–Pakistani relations. Al-Qaeda's founder had evaded capture for almost a decade. In June 2011 Obama announced the withdrawal of 33,000 surge troops by summer 2012, as the focus shifted to handing security over to Afghan forces.","lonlat":[73.24,34.17],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"2014-10-26","year":2014,"label":"26 Oct 2014","text":"Britain hands over Camp Bastion","detail":"Security responsibility passed gradually to Afghan forces from July 2011, and they took the lead nationwide in June 2013. On 26 October 2014 British forces handed Camp Bastion to the Afghan army, ending the UK's combat mission in Helmand, where some 9,500 British troops had served at the peak. About 450 British personnel died in Afghanistan, many from improvised explosive devices.","lonlat":[64.22,31.86],"kind":"other"},{"date":"2014-12","year":2014,"label":"Dec 2014","text":"ISAF's combat mission ends","detail":"At the end of 2014 ISAF was wound up and Afghan forces assumed full responsibility for security. From 1 January 2015 a smaller NATO mission, Resolute Support, trained and advised Afghan forces, while US forces kept up counter-terrorism operations. Afghan troops and police took very heavy casualties as the Taliban captured rural districts and briefly seized cities such as Kunduz.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2020-02-29","year":2020,"label":"29 Feb 2020","text":"US–Taliban Doha Agreement","detail":"After talks that excluded the Afghan government, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement in Doha, Qatar, on 29 February 2020. The US committed to withdraw all its forces, and the Taliban promised to stop al-Qaeda and other groups from using Afghanistan to threaten the US and to negotiate with Kabul. Talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government began in Doha in September but made little progress.","lonlat":[51.53,25.29],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"2021-08-15","year":2021,"label":"15 Aug 2021","text":"Taliban enter Kabul as the Republic collapses","detail":"On 14 April 2021 President Joe Biden announced that all US troops would leave by 11 September. As foreign forces pulled out, the Taliban launched a rapid offensive, taking rural districts and then provincial capitals, often after local forces surrendered. On 15 August President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and Taliban fighters entered Kabul and the presidential palace, ending the Islamic Republic.","lonlat":[69.17,34.53],"kind":"turning-point"},{"date":"2021-08-26","year":2021,"label":"26 Aug 2021","text":"Suicide bombing at Kabul airport","detail":"Tens of thousands of Afghans crowded around Kabul airport hoping to be evacuated. On 26 August a suicide bomber from the local branch of the Islamic State struck at the Abbey Gate, killing 13 US service members and at least 170 Afghans. The evacuation continued; more than 120,000 people were flown out in the final weeks of the withdrawal. Many Afghans who had worked with foreign forces or the Republic were left behind.","lonlat":[69.21,34.56],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"2021-08-30","year":2021,"label":"30 Aug 2021","text":"Last US troops leave Afghanistan","detail":"The last US military aircraft left Kabul airport shortly before midnight on 30 August 2021, ending nearly 20 years of war, the longest in US history. The Taliban declared an interim government of their Islamic Emirate in September, imposing severe restrictions on women and girls, including bans on secondary schooling, while the country faced economic collapse and a humanitarian crisis as foreign aid was cut off.","lonlat":[69.21,34.56],"kind":"turning-point"}],"sources":[{"title":"Council on Foreign Relations: The U.S. War in Afghanistan, 1999–2021 (timeline)","url":"https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan"},{"title":"War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021)"},{"title":"NATO: ISAF's mission in Afghanistan (2001–2014)","url":"https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_69366.htm"},{"title":"National Army Museum: War in Afghanistan","url":"https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/war-afghanistan"}],"cinema":true},{"id":"russian-invasion-of-ukraine","name":"Russian invasion of Ukraine","moment":null,"span":[2022,2024],"dateLabel":"24 February 2022 – ongoing (shown to 2024)","summary":"Conflict between Russia and Ukraine began in 2014, when Russia seized and annexed Crimea and backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region. On 24 February 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion from the north, east and south, which President Vladimir Putin called a 'special military operation'. Ukrainian resistance defeated the attack on Kyiv, and Russian forces withdrew from the north in April, leaving evidence of war crimes. Russia took Mariupol and much of the south-east, but Ukrainian counteroffensives in late 2022 recaptured large areas around Kharkiv and Kherson. Russia declared the annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September 2022, a move rejected internationally. In 2023 Russia took Bakhmut and a Ukrainian counteroffensive made little progress; in 2024 Russian forces advanced slowly in the east, while Ukraine launched an incursion into Russia's Kursk region, where North Korean troops joined the fighting. In 2023 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin. The war continues, with Russia occupying about a fifth of Ukraine.","casualties":"Military killed and wounded are estimated in the hundreds of thousands on each side, and the UN had verified at least 12,340 civilian deaths by 30 November 2024, a figure it says is an undercount.","sides":[{"name":"Ukraine","members":[{"clio":"Ukraine","from":2022,"to":2024}]},{"name":"Russia and North Korea","members":[{"clio":"Russian Federation","from":2022,"to":2024},{"clio":"Democratic People's Republic of Korea","from":2024,"to":2024}]}],"events":[{"date":"2022-02-21","year":2022,"label":"21 Feb 2022","text":"Putin recognises the Donetsk and Luhansk 'people's republics'","detail":"After massing between 169,000 and 190,000 troops on Ukraine's borders, including in Belarus, Putin recognised the independence of the two Russian-backed separatist entities in eastern Ukraine on 21 February 2022. They had been at war with Ukrainian forces since 2014. The next day Russia sent troops into the areas they held, describing them as peacekeepers. Western governments responded with the first new sanctions.","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2022-02-24","year":2022,"label":"24 Feb 2022","text":"Russia launches a full-scale invasion","detail":"At dawn on 24 February Putin announced a 'special military operation', and missile strikes hit cities across Ukraine. Russian forces advanced from Belarus towards Kyiv, from the north-east towards Kharkiv, and from Crimea into the south. Airborne troops attacked Hostomel airfield near the capital. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared martial law and general mobilisation and stayed in Kyiv, and millions of Ukrainians began to flee.","lonlat":[30.52,50.45],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"2022-03-16","year":2022,"label":"16 Mar 2022","text":"Russian airstrike destroys the Mariupol drama theatre","detail":"Russian forces encircled Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, in the first days of the war and subjected it to constant bombardment, cutting off water, power and food. On 16 March an airstrike destroyed the city's drama theatre, where hundreds of civilians were sheltering; the word 'children' had been painted in large letters outside. The UN confirmed 1,348 civilian deaths in the siege and believes the real toll is thousands higher.","lonlat":[37.55,47.1],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"2022-04-01","year":2022,"label":"1 Apr 2022","text":"Russian withdrawal from Kyiv region reveals killings in Bucha","detail":"The advance on Kyiv stalled in early March, and a Ukrainian counteroffensive from late March forced Russian forces to withdraw from the north, completed by 7 April. When Ukrainian troops re-entered the suburb of Bucha on 1 April they found bodies of civilians in the streets. The UN documented at least 73 unlawful killings there, with more under investigation; Ukrainian authorities recovered 458 bodies. Russia denied responsibility.","lonlat":[30.21,50.55],"kind":"atrocity"},{"date":"2022-05-20","year":2022,"label":"20 May 2022","text":"Mariupol falls as Azovstal defenders surrender","detail":"The last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol held out for weeks in the tunnels of the Azovstal steelworks. After evacuations of civilians and wounded soldiers, the remaining troops surrendered, the last on 20 May, and Russia took full control of the ruined city. Its capture gave Russia a land corridor from the Donbas to Crimea. In the summer Russian forces also took Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk in Luhansk region.","lonlat":[37.61,47.1],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2022-07-22","year":2022,"label":"22 Jul 2022","text":"Black Sea Grain Initiative signed in Istanbul","detail":"Russia's blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports had trapped millions of tonnes of grain and pushed up world food prices. On 22 July Ukraine and Russia signed separate agreements with Turkey and the UN in Istanbul, allowing grain ships to sail through a protected corridor. The deal let Ukraine resume large-scale exports. Russia briefly suspended its participation in October 2022 and finally withdrew on 17 July 2023, after which Ukraine kept shipping grain through its own corridor.","lonlat":[29.0,41.04],"kind":"treaty"},{"date":"2022-09-06","year":2022,"label":"6 Sep 2022","text":"Ukraine's Kharkiv counteroffensive","detail":"On 6 September Ukrainian forces, equipped with Western-supplied weapons including HIMARS rocket launchers, broke through thinly held Russian lines in Kharkiv region. Within days they had retaken Balakliia, Kupiansk and the logistics hub of Izium, recapturing thousands of square kilometres. It was the largest Ukrainian gain since the defence of Kyiv. On 21 September Putin announced a partial mobilisation of 300,000 reservists, and many Russian men fled abroad to avoid the call-up.","lonlat":[37.26,49.21],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2022-09-30","year":2022,"label":"30 Sep 2022","text":"Russia proclaims the annexation of four Ukrainian regions","detail":"After referendums held under occupation and condemned as shams by Ukraine and Western governments, Putin announced on 30 September the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, even though Russian forces did not control all of them. The UN General Assembly later declared the annexations invalid, and Ukraine and its allies regard them as illegal. Russia had already annexed Crimea in 2014 after a disputed referendum.","lonlat":[37.62,55.75],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2022-11-11","year":2022,"label":"11 Nov 2022","text":"Ukrainian troops enter Kherson","detail":"Kherson was the only regional capital Russia had captured since February. After months of Ukrainian strikes on bridges and supply lines across the Dnipro, Russia announced a withdrawal to the river's east bank, and Ukrainian troops entered the city on 11 November to celebrations. The retreat left all territory west of the Dnipro in Ukrainian hands, but the city remained within range of Russian artillery across the river and was shelled for the rest of the war.","lonlat":[32.62,46.64],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2023-05-20","year":2023,"label":"20 May 2023","text":"Wagner Group captures Bakhmut","detail":"The battle for Bakhmut, a small city in Donetsk region, became the longest and bloodiest of the war. Russia's Wagner Group, a private military company that recruited heavily among prisoners, led months of costly assaults. Wagner claimed full control on 20 May 2023 and Russia declared victory the next day. US officials estimated that Russia suffered about 100,000 casualties in the battle.","lonlat":[38.0,48.59],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2023-06","year":2023,"label":"Jun 2023","text":"Ukraine's southern counteroffensive begins","detail":"In early June Ukraine launched a long-awaited counteroffensive, mainly in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, aiming to cut the land corridor to Crimea. Its brigades, many trained and equipped by NATO countries, ran into deep minefields, trenches and drones in Russia's prepared defences. After months of fighting and heavy losses on both sides, Ukraine had regained only a few villages, and by late 2023 the front was again largely static.","lonlat":[35.9,47.45],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2023-06-06","year":2023,"label":"6 Jun 2023","text":"Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam","detail":"Early on 6 June the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro, then held by Russian forces, was breached, draining its huge reservoir and flooding towns and villages downstream on both banks. About 600 square kilometres were flooded, and dozens to hundreds of people died, many in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky. Most independent analysts attribute the breach to Russian forces; Russia denied responsibility and blamed Ukraine.","lonlat":[33.37,46.78],"kind":"other"},{"date":"2023-06-24","year":2023,"label":"24 Jun 2023","text":"Wagner mutiny in Russia","detail":"After months of feuding with Russia's defence ministry, Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin led his fighters in a brief armed rebellion on 23–24 June, seizing the military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and advancing towards Moscow. A deal brokered by Belarus ended the mutiny within a day. Prigozhin was killed when his plane crashed two months later. The mutiny exposed divisions in Russia's war effort, and Wagner's fighters were absorbed into other forces.","lonlat":[39.72,47.23],"kind":"political"},{"date":"2024-02-17","year":2024,"label":"17 Feb 2024","text":"Russia captures Avdiivka","detail":"With Western military aid delayed and Ukrainian forces short of artillery ammunition, Russia regained the initiative. After months of attacks, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the fortified town of Avdiivka, near Donetsk city, which Russian forces captured on 17 February 2024. It was Russia's largest gain since Bakhmut. Russian forces then advanced slowly westward towards the town of Pokrovsk through the year, at heavy cost in men and equipment.","lonlat":[37.75,48.14],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2024-05-10","year":2024,"label":"10 May 2024","text":"Russia opens a new offensive in Kharkiv region","detail":"On 10 May Russian forces crossed the border into northern Kharkiv region, attacking towards Vovchansk and opening a new front that stretched Ukraine's defences. The advance was halted within weeks, after the United States allowed Ukraine to strike Russian forces just across the border with American weapons, but Kharkiv city, Ukraine's second largest, remained under heavy missile and glide-bomb attack throughout the year.","lonlat":[36.94,50.29],"kind":"battle"},{"date":"2024-08-06","year":2024,"label":"6 Aug 2024","text":"Ukraine launches an incursion into Russia's Kursk region","detail":"On 6 August about 11,000 Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia's Kursk region, seizing the town of Sudzha and hundreds of square kilometres: the largest foreign attack on Russian territory since the Second World War. Ukraine hoped to divert Russian forces from the Donbas and gain a bargaining chip. Russia assembled around 78,000 troops to push the Ukrainians back, and the fighting in Kursk continued into 2025.","lonlat":[35.27,51.19],"kind":"invasion"},{"date":"2024-11","year":2024,"label":"Nov 2024","text":"North Korean troops join the fighting in Kursk","detail":"About 10,000–12,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to Russia in autumn 2024, arriving in the Kursk region in late October, and the first clashes with Ukrainian forces were reported in early November. Russia and North Korea acknowledged the deployment only in April 2025. At the end of 2024 the war continued, with Russia occupying about a fifth of Ukraine's territory.","lonlat":[35.5,51.4],"kind":"battle"}],"sources":[{"title":"Russian invasion of Ukraine (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine"},{"title":"Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker: War in Ukraine","url":"https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/conflict-ukraine"},{"title":"Kyiv Independent: Over 12,000 civilians killed in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale war, UN says","url":"https://kyivindependent.com/over-12-000-civilians-killed-in-ukraine-since-russias-full-scale-war-un-says"},{"title":"Siege of Mariupol (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Mariupol"},{"title":"Bucha massacre (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre"},{"title":"Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Kakhovka_Dam"},{"title":"North Korean involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_involvement_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine"},{"title":"ICC arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova (Wikipedia)","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court_arrest_warrants_for_Vladimir_Putin_and_Maria_Lvova-Belova"}],"cinema":true}]}