Category History & Events

Herodotus, a renowned writer from Ancient Greece during the 5th Century BC, embarked on a monumental project in ‘The Histories’. This literary work aimed to document actual historical events, such as the lives of monarchs, significant battles, and geographical landscapes. It also compiled fascinating stories of giant gold-digging ants, a raging king who commanded the sea to be whipped 300 times, and a dolphin that heroically saved a renowned poet from drowning. Although some of the details in Herodotus’s text may not be entirely accurate, ‘The Histories’ revolutionised the recording of the past and earned Herodotus the title “father of history”, as hailed by the Roman orator and writer Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Getting to the root of the problem

Historical recordings before Herodotus’s seminal work were often mere lists of events without any explanation or attempt to understand the underlying causes, with everything attributed to the will of the gods. However, Herodotus sought a more rational and comprehensive understanding of the past. He pioneered a novel approach by examining events from multiple perspectives to understand the reasons that led to them.

The Histories

Herodotus, a Greek born in the Persian-ruled city of Halicarnassus, grew up during a tumultuous period of wars between the Greeks and Persians. Fascinated by the subject, he embarked on a mission to learn all he could about it. ‘The Histories’ opens with the line “Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquires”. His inquiry into the Persian Wars is one of the most significant and well-known aspects of this historical work.

In ‘The Histories’, Herodotus explored the political and cultural differences between the Greeks and Persians and provided valuable insights into the mindset and motivations of both sides. He recorded the internal debates of the Persian courts alongside tales of Egyptian flying snakes. This approach to research was called “autopsy”, meaning seeing for oneself, and it allowed Herodotus to become the first writer to examine the past based on the different types of evidence he collected. He evaluated eyewitness accounts, rumours, and traditions before using his reasoning to draw conclusions about what had occurred.

As his influence and power expanded, Herodotus’s writing and the idea of history spread across the Mediterranean. As the first legitimate historian, Herodotus was not without flaws and faced criticism, both during and after his lifetime, from those who doubted the accuracy of his stories. However, contemporary evidence has shed light on some of his seemingly incredible claims. For example, there is a species of marmot in The Himalayas that spreads gold dust while digging. The ancient Persian word for marmot closely resembled the word for ant, so the historian may have fallen victim to a translation error. All in all, Herodotus fared quite well for someone who was writing in an entirely new style.

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We have already seen that fifteen independent countries were formed after the U.S.S.R. ceased to exist. They are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Russia is internationally recognised as the successor of the U.S.S.R.

The first to declare independence were Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, during March-May, 1990. Among the countries that sprouted from the Soviet Union, Ukraine is getting the most attention these days because of the Russian invasion. Ukraine officially became an independent state on August 24, 1991, with Leonid Kravchuk as the first president. Ukraine gave up all the nuclear weapons it had inherited from the Soviet Union, and declared itself a non-nuclear nation on June 1, 1996.

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No doubt, the Soviet Union was a superpower in the world. Yet, its military was also feeling the impact of perestroika and glasnost.

Funding for the military was reduced considerably between 1985 and 1991, and the troop strength came down. In 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev acted on the negotiations for a long pending arms reduction treaty, bringing about the first major reduction. This reduced military strength by 500,000 men. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan happened around this time to which more than 100,000 Soviet soldiers were deployed. The ten- year-long Afghan war left more than 15,000 Soviet troops dead and thousands injured.

People’s resistance to military draft also contributed to the decline of troops. In the new spirit of glasnost, the conscripted soldiers felt free and bold to talk about the abuses they suffered. This caused great concern among the public and there was resistance everywhere to military draft. As separatist movements came up in the republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Lithuania between 1989 and 1991, the military was not strong enough to suppress them.

The centralised Communist Party was losing its grip. The Party hard-liners organised a coup attempt to overthrow Gorbachev, fed up with perestroika and glasnost. But the attempt failed, because the now-fragmented military stood in support of Gorbachev. Gorbachev managed to stay in office, but the coup had weakened the U.S.S.R further, quickening its slide to dissolution.

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Memories of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl still send shock waves through the world. The disaster occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl power station in Prypíyat, now in Ukraine. Its radioactive fallout was 400 times bigger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, reaching over most of the western U.S.S.R and even other European countries.

The Chernobyl disaster brought a moment of disillusionment for the people who had felt jubilant over the policy of glasnost. Glasnost had promised more open communication, but what happened now was that the Communist Party officials suppressed information about the disaster and its dangers. May Day parades were held as planned in the affected areas, in spite of the radiation risks. Gorbachev issued an official statement on the disaster only on May 14, eighteen days later. He said in it that the Chernobyl incident was a misfortune, but blamed the Western media for spreading lies. But people in the fallout zone and beyond were actually suffering the after-effects of radiation, and the policy of glasnost lost the public’s trust.

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World War II was won by the combined might of the Allied Forces which included Great Britain, France, the USA and the Soviet Union. However, this bond of friendship was not to last long, and the capitalist western countries and the communist U.S.S.R soon drifted apart; so did their respective allies. This developed into a deep rivalry that was open, but controlled. This peculiar form of international hostility came to be known as the ‘Cold War’.

The term ‘Cold War’ first appeared in an article written by the English writer George Orwell. He was using it to describe a possible nuclear stalemate between two or three monstrous super-states. This usage was introduced into the United States in 1947, by Bernard Baruch who was a financier and adviser to the president, in a speech at the State-House in South Carolina. Soon ‘Cold War’ became part of the common parlance in international politics.

The countries of Eastern Europe, liberated by the Soviet Red Army during World War II, were put under communist governments. They were under the control of the U.S.S.R. The western powers feared this Soviet domination in Eastern Europe, and they also perceived a threat of the Soviet influence spreading to other democracies. By 1947-48, the Cold War had become a reality to live with, as the U.S. brought the western European countries under its influence. In 1949, the U.S.A and its European allies formed a military alliance named the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to resist any possible threat from the Soviet bloc.

The Cold War mostly operated on political and economic grounds, with propaganda as a weapon. There was only very limited use of real weapons, and the world is lucky it did not develop into a ‘Hot War’. Ultimately, the dissolution of the U.S.S.R brought an end to the Cold War.

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In 1905, Russia witnessed a wave of unrest that spread through the whole empire. The Revolution of 1905 was triggered by many reasons. The ordinary people suffered greatly from economic hardships, and they were angry with the regime of the tsar.

Population in the big cities had doubled because of industrialization. Overcrowding and pollution put a strain on the living conditions. There was not enough food to support the increasing urban population, and the living and working conditions were horrible for the workers as well as peasants. Anger and discontent grew among the people, pausing a threat to the regime.

On January 22, 1905, a huge gathering of people, mostly workers, marched to the winter palace of Tsar Nicholas II who was away at the time. The tsar had given orders not to shoot at the people, but the troops were unnerved by the huge numbers and opened fire. Hundreds were killed and wounded. This event came to be known as ‘Bloody Sunday’, and later triggered the Russian Revolution of 1905.

The defeat in Russia’s war with Japan also added fuel to the fire. The tsar had to sign a humiliating peace treaty, and this defeat to an Asian power was widely seen as an embarrassment and strengthened the perception that the tsarist government was weak.

A series of strikes broke out everywhere in the country, threatening the already weak economy. Nicholas II was forced to agree to bring in reforms, and he promised to implement them through the Russian parliament. But he had no intention to give up his grip on power, and dissolved the parliament. The 1905 Revolution did not bring in anything significant, but it caused the tsar to lose his people’s trust.

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The Romanovs were a great dynasty that ruled Russia for three centuries, right up to the Russian Revolution of 1917. The family took the surname Romanov to honour Roman Yurev, father of the first wife of Ivan the Terrible.

The Romanov era in Russia’s history began in 1613, as Mikhail Fedorovich of the family assumed power as the tsar. The last of the Romanov rulers was Nicholas II who was nicknamed Bloody, because thousands of people died in three revolutions that happened during his time.

During the Russian Revolution, the family of Nicholas II was caught and arrested, and the entire royal family was shot on the night of July 16-17, 1917. The relatives who were hiding in St. Petersburg were killed, too. That was the end of monarchy in Russia.

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The first ruler to be proclaimed as the Tsar of Russia was Ivan the Terrible, the Grand Prince of Moscow. He was the grandson of Ivan III. The word ‘terrible’ in his name is the English translation of a Russian word that actually has positive connotations, like being admirable and formidable, though his name did strike terror among many while he ruled.

Ivan the Terrible was crowned as the ‘tsar and grand prince of all Russia’, on January 16, 1547. He married Anastasia Romanova two weeks after his coronation. The first woman to bear the title of Tsarina, she belonged to the Romanov family, who would later come to power in Russia.

During the 37 years of his rule, Ivan made an indelible mark in Russia’s history. He modified the code of laws, created a parliament and a council of nobles, implemented local self-governance for rural areas and founded a standing army. He also allowed the country to have a certain amount of international trade, and the English Muscovy Company was given access to trade with Russia. Ivan’s reign was also mostly a period of war. He was able to conquer Kazan on the Volga River, and then annexed the entire Middle Volga region to Russia. Several churches were built to commemorate this historic conquest. The most famous of them is the St. Basil’s Cathedral at Moscow’s Red Square. Russian expansion into the northern region of Siberia also took place during the time of Ivan the Terrible.

Ivan laid the groundwork for effective governance in Russia. At the same time, this harsh ruler also left a legacy of ruling with absolute imperial power. Ivan died in 1584, and he was succeeded by his son Feodor I. However, Feodor was mentally weak and the actual power went to his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov. The Rurik Dynasty came to an end as Feodor died in 1598 without an heir.

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Ivan III the Great was the grand prince of Moscow and the grand prince of all Russia. Russia gained independence from the Mongols during his reign, which put an end to 200 years of their rule. Ivan was the one who made Moscow the centre of Russia by expanding its borders.

Ivan III was born in Moscow in 1440. He was a successor of Moscow’s grand dukes and the son of Vasily II the Dark- a name he gained during the civil war when he was blinded by his cousin Dmitry Shemyaka during an attempt to capture power. But Vasily II declared Ivan co-ruler while he was only six years of age to assure his son’s succession. At twelve years of age, Ivan was married to Maria, the princess of the principality of Tver. The marriage led to the inclusion of Tver, which had been Moscow’s major rival since 1300, into the duchy. During the ten years before the death of his father, Ivan accompanied him and participated in all his dealings and crusades. When he took the throne at the age of 22, he was already an experienced prince, with strong character and capacity to deal with important issues.

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Ivan launched a war against the Novgorod princedom in 1470 and conquered it. He made it a part of his empire in 1478. By this he acquired all of northern Russia from Lapland (now Finland) to the Ural Mountains. He kept on increasing his domain by conquest, purchases of surrounding sovereign territories or by using his diplomatic talent to win allegiance from weaker princes.

As a result of two wars with Lithuania (1492 and 1500), he forced Alexander I, the ruler of that country and the king of Poland, to give up some of their towns. Ivan III thus came to be known as the ‘gatherer’ of Russian land as he succeeded in tripling the territory of his state.

During this period, Moscow was still a part of the Mongol Tatar Empire of the Golden Horde and was expected to pay tribute to the Tatar rulers. The Mongol Horde was already weakened by this time and Ivan formally refused to pay further tribute in 1480.

The Horde’s last khan tried to make Ivan comply, but the two armies just stood opposite each other on the Ugra River and no battle was ever fought. Instead, both sides retreated and the demand for tribute came to an end.

During this time, Moscow started to be called the Third Rome due to its new political position (Rome and Constantinople being first and second). In 1497, Ivan made the double-headed eagle, a Byzantine symbol, as Russia’s official emblem. Under Ivan III, a code of law known as Sudebnik was formulated in the year 1497.

It was the first time that the laws of Moscow were written down in one place. Ivan’s success in making Moscow the centre of Russian power earned him the title “the Great”. He died on 27 October 1505 and was succeeded by his son Vasili III.

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Moscow was established as one of the many small city-states in what is now Western Russia and Ukraine. In fact, Moscow was one of the last ones founded as it was initially established only in the twelfth century. This is late as the powerful cities of Novgorod and Kiev are more than 300 years older! Founded by Yuri Dolgorukiy, Moscow became important enough to have its own fortress, which is called the Kremlin. The city was situated near the Moskva River, and it was a vital stronghold. But by 1238, the city had been burned down by the Mongols who invaded the place. They either killed all of its inhabitants or carried them off into slavery. However, the Mongols let a native Russian rule the city after he was made to pay an immense amount of money for the honour of doing so!

The native ruler who restored Moscow to much of its previous glory was Alexander Nevsky. He helped to keep the city strong against the attacks of other European powers, while stopping its further destruction by the Mongols. After his death, his son Daniel gained power. He was aware that Moscow alone could not defeat the Mongols, so he convinced the Mongols that he sought to rule Russia on their behalf. As such he called his domain the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

This plan to work alongside the Mongols with the ultimate goal to defeat them continued. Ultimately, after almost 200 years, Ivan III the Great was able to put an end to the Mongol control over Russia and declared himself the ruler of all Russia.

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Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and the Caucasus were ruled by a group of Mongols who settled in the region from the 1240s to 1502. They were known as the Golden Horde. The Golden Horde was established by Batu Khan, who was one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan, as a part of the Mongol Empire before its ultimate fall.

When Genghis Khan was about to die in 1227, he divided his Empire into four fiefdoms, each to be ruled by his four sons and their families. However, his first son Jochi died six months earlier, so the western – most of the four khanates, in Russia and Kazakhstan, came under Jochi’s eldest son, Batu. In 1240, Batu conquered the principalities of Kievan Rus, which is now northern Ukraine and western Russia. In the lands of the Golden Horde, all the senior princes of the Rus swore their allegiance to Batu.

Batu died in 1256, and the new Great Khan Mongke appointed his son Sartaq as the successor to lead the Golden Horde. Sartaq also died soon after and was replaced by Batu’s younger brother Berke. The Kievans took this chance to rebel as the Mongols were in the turmoil of succession issues. Timur (Tamerlane) fought the shaken Golden Horde in 1395 through 1396, when he demolished their army, looted their cities and appointed his own khan. The Golden Horde survived until 1480, but it was never the great power it had been after Timur’s invasion. In the same year, Ivan III drove the Golden Horde from Moscow and established the nation of Russia.

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As with most of the world’s federations, the major reason for the fall of Kievan Rus was political instability created by the rules of succession. All of the different principalities were governed by members of the Rurik dynasty, but it was a staircase succession. Staircase succession means that the members of the dynasty were given different territories to rule, where the principal one was Kyiv. Each territory was ruled by a prince (tsar), but in Kyiv, the Grand Prince led them all. When the Grand Prince died, the next legitimate heir, that is, the oldest Rurik dynasty heir, not necessarily a son, left his principality and moved to Kyiv to be the Grand Prince.

After Vladimir died in 1015, there were three years of confusion and during this period, two of his sons (Boris and Gleb) were killed at the instigation of another son, Sviatopolk. In 1018, Yaroslav the Wise, who was one of the surviving sons, attained the throne and kept it until 1054.

Under Yaroslav’s rule, Kievan Rus continued to expand, but it was accomplished mostly through a series of marriages to royal families in Europe. He continued to maintain the federation’s trading power through this. But when Yaroslav died in 1054, power passed to his son Izaiaslav, who got involved in a succession battle that lasted through several rulers until 1240, when Mongols attacked Kyiv.

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We learned that monasteries were set up, but the religion of Rus was not so simple. When they came to the region first, they brought with them some of their Scandinavian religion and mixed it into the local Slavonic culture to establish the first Rus religion. We do not know how much of the Viking and Slavic culture were included in it. Most information about this phase comes from the efforts of Vladimir I to form a unifying element to his upcoming Eastern Slavic state.

A short while after Vladimir took power in 980; he made six wooden idols of Slavonic gods at his estates in Kyiv. These included a statue of the Slavic god Perun, the god of thunder. This figure is generally associated both with the Scandinavian Thor and the northern Iranian gods, who had a head of silver and a moustache of gold. The other idols were of Khors, Dazbog, Stribog, Simargl, and Mokosh.

Earlier, Slavic rulers had an inclination to Christianity but it was not established as a religion back then. The Byzantine patriarch Photius first sent missionaries in 860 – but Christianity formally came as a state religion under the rule of Vladimir the Great, who ruled from 980 to 1015.

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From the limited Slavian records available, we can understand that the economic basis of Kievan Rus was trade in the initial times. The resources of the region included furs, beeswax, honey, and enslaved people. The three trade routes that were taken over by the Rus consisted of important trade lines between north and south, bridging Scandinavia and Constantinople and the east and the west from the Balkans to Greece.

Archaeologists have found more than 1,000 tablets made from birch bark from Kievan Rus cities, mainly from Novgorod. These writings, written in Old Eastern Slavic, are mainly associated with commercial themes such as accounting, credit and investments, all indicating their flourishing trade systems.

The currency of Kievan Rus was named the grivna, and in 15th-century Novgorod, 15 grivnas made up one ruble, equal to 170.1 grams of silver. A developed system of commercial credit and money lending made their line of credit open to anyone. In Kievan Rus, commercial loans were available to Rus, foreign merchants and investors as well.

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Feudalism was the structure of the Mediaeval Rus. By the latter half of the eleventh century, or even before, all the principalities in Kievan Rus were headed by a Rurik dynastic prince who resided in a castle situated in the capital city. All princes had a group of warriors known as druzhina. They guarded the forts at the frontier and protected the prince’s interests. The most important ones of the druzhina were the boyars, who were land-owners. Some of the boyars even had their own castles!

Each boyar had stewards (tivun) to take care of the land, different categories of semi-free peasants, and a few categories of enslaved people working in households and estates, who were originally military captives. Such captives were forced to work in agricultural land and as artisans and merchants, but whether or not they were considered to be enslaved is a topic of debate among scholars. It is said that their status evolved over time.

In terms of religion, monasteries were established by the Byzantine church in most of the principalities, with the head known as the Metropolitan based in Kyiv. Sheriffs (virnik) and mayors (posadnik) were given the duty of collecting various fines, tributes, and other fees for the city treasury.

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The Slavs are one of Europe’s largest ethnic groups, though there is not much information about their origins.

Now most scholars believe that they came from somewhere in western Central Asia, near the shores of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. The largest of these groups are the Eastern Slavs, who are the ancestors of today’s Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians. They arrived in modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia sometime during the middle of the first millennium AD.

This was around the same period during which many other previously Central Asian groups were moving to the west as a result of the Great Migration, which made many nomadic groups move from Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East from 400 to 600 AD.

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Kievan Rus, which means “Rus of Kyiv”, was a loose federation of peoples in Eastern Europe. They were scattered mostly in the modern states of Belarus and Ukraine, and in parts of western Russia. The Kievan Rus phenomenon began in the 9th century and was supplemented by the arrival of Norse raiders, and went on up to the 15th century, when the federation faced the mass invasion by the Mongol Horde.

It is interesting to note that the founders of the Kievan Rus were members of the Riurikid Dynasty, who were Viking traders. They travelled across the rivers of Eastern Europe in the beginning of the 8th century. According to mythology, the Kievan Rus originated with the semi-legendary Rurik (830-879), who came with his two brothers Sineus and Turvor between 859-862. The trio were Varangians, a name given to Vikings by the Greeks. Later, during the 10th-14th centuries, their descendants would become the Varangian Guard, the personal bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors.

The story is that Rurik’s brothers died, and in 862, he gained control of Ladoga and founded the Holmgard settlement near Novgorod. When Rurik died, his cousin Oleg (ruled 882-912) took charge, and by 885 the Rus expansion began to move southward towards Constantinople, attacking the city and attaining a trading treaty. Kiev was established as the capital and the Rus economy grew due to exports and their control over the three main trade routes across the region.

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Life on our planet developed millions of years ago, but if large life-forms are taken into consideration, then intelligent organisms like the Homo sapiens have never dominated any specific era or even a period. The Cenozoic Era can be known as the arrival and dominance of intelligent life-forms like modern human beings, which changed the world scenario permanently.

The term ‘Cenozoic’ has been derived from the Greek words: kainos meaning ‘new’ and zoe meaning ‘life’. It is the shortest era of the Earth, spanning from about 66 million years ago to the present. After the sudden K-T boundary mass extinction, mammals got a chance to evolve extensively in this era, and hence, it is also called ‘The Age of The Mammals’. The climate of our planet stabilized and atmospheric oxygen slowly increases with a simultaneous decrease in carbon dioxide and other toxic gaseous elements.

Earlier, the Cenozoic comprised two periods: Tertiary and Quaternary, the former being divided into Paleogene and Neogene, but now the term Tertiary is slowly phased out. Instead, the era is now divided into three periods: Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary, ranging from the oldest to the youngest. They are again subdivided into a number of stages/epochs. Apart from mammals, the Aves class of Chordates, i.e., the birds also evolved a lot, and several of them were larger than the average height of a human.

Credit: science.earthjay.com

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Early mammals were inauspicious creatures. The first mammal-like forms appear in the fossil record during the late Triassic period, about 225 million years ago. They were small, superficially shrew-like forms, some no longer than a few centimeters. In the shadow of the dinosaurs — a group that coincidentally also made its first appearance in the late Triassic — the early mammals were certainly less than imposing. Throughout the Mesozoic period — for over 160 million years — the largest mammal was no bigger than a ground hog. Moreover, the many wondrous and sometimes bizarre mammals we know today — such as the whales, bats, elephants, and scaly pangolins — were not part of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic scene.

Credit: Science Direct

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The Cambrian Period marks an important point in the history of life on Earth; it is the time when many kinds of invertebrates and the first vertebrates—fishes—appeared in the fossil record. The Burgess Shale contains the best record of Cambrian animal fossils including soft-bodied forms. This locality reveals the presence of creatures originating from the “Cambrian explosion”—an evolutionary burst of animal origins dating from 545 to 525 million years ago. The “explosion” describes the very rapid proliferation of a truly amazing diversity of living things on Earth. Most of these creatures are now extinct and are known only from their fossils.

During Cambrian time, life was only common in the water. The land was barren and subject to erosion; these geologic conditions led to mudslides, where sediment periodically rolled into the seas and buried marine organisms. At the Burgess Shale locality in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, sediment was deposited in a deep-water basin adjacent to an enormous algal reef with a vertical escarpment several hundred feet high.

Credit: National Park Service

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In August 1961, the German Democratic Republic began under the leadership of Erich Honecker to block off East Berlin and the GDR from West Berlin by means of barbed wire and antitank obstacles. Streets were torn up and barricades of paving stones were erected. Tanks gathered at crucial places. The subway and local railway services between East and West Berlin were interrupted. Inhabitants of East Berlin and the GDR were no longer allowed to enter the West. In the following days, construction brigades began replacing the temporary barriers with a solid wall, which stood in place for nearly 30 years. In November 1989, after weeks of discussion about new travel laws, the Berlin Wall was demolished.

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After World War I, the United States and the USSR emerged as the two main powers in the world – known as ‘superpowers’. Although they had fought together to defeat Nazi Germany, differences between the two superpowers soon led to the start of the ‘Cold War’.

The Cold War started in August 1945, and it was a political war between the USSR and its communist allies, and the USA and other non-communist countries. It did not involve any fighting, although there was a threat of military action on several occasions.

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Many Indians wanted independence from British rule, and a chance to build up industry and wealth in India itself. By the end of World War II it was clear that Britain could no longer ignore the demands of the Indian people. But negotiations were complicated by the demands of Muslims in India. Violence broke out between Hindus and Muslims, and Indians and British leaders eventually agreed to divide India into the two states of Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.

India gained its independence in August 1947. Millions of Hindus and Muslims fled from their homes. As people tried to move to their new homes, hundreds of thousands of them were killed.

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Technological advances in the machines and weapons of war were rapid during the 20th century. During World War I, inventions included the tank and the fighter aircraft. At sea, one of the major advances in military marine technology happened before the war, with the building of the battleship Dreadnought.

During World War II, the Germans used a new type of warfare, known as Blitzkreig (lightning war). But even more horrifying was the invention of the atomic bomb in the United States.

The first atomic bomb was exploded in an experiment in New Mexico, USA in July 1945. Only month later, atomic bombs were used to end the war. The bombs dropped on Japan killed about 130,000 people. Many more suffered terrible after effects such as radiation and burn injuries. This same terrifying bomb was used to bring the war against Japan to its catastrophic end.

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On December, 1941, there was a surprise attack by the Japanese airforce on the United States navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Although the attack crippled the US navy in the Pacific Ocean, it also drew the Americans into World War II. The USA and their Allies declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941. Japan joined Germany and Italy to form the Axis alliance.

During the summer of 1942, US forces successfully halted the Japanese advance at the battles of Midway Island, Guadalcanal and Coral Sea. After Pearl Harbor, however, Japanese forces quickly took control of much of Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Burma and the Philippines.

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In March 1939, the German leader Adolph Hitler threatened to invade Poland. Hitler had already shown the seriousness of his intentions by taking over Austria (in 1938) and Czechoslovakia (in 1939). Both Great Britain and France gave guarantees to help Poland if it was attacked. So when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France were forced to declare war on Germany.

Under Hitler’s leadership, Germany had been well prepared for war. During 1939 and 1940, German troops scored victories in Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. Before the war started, Hitler had signed a ‘non-aggression pact’ with the Soviet Union, both sides promising not to attack the other. As German troops swept across Europe, Soviet troops attacked Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. World War II ended in 1945.

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Many people hoped that World War I was the ‘war to end all wars’. However, during the 1920s and 1930s there were a lot of political changes in many countries. In 1922 these changes led to the growth of the Fascist movement, (‘Fascism’ comes from the word fasces, meaning a bundle of branches.) fascism promised strong leadership and to restore the national economy and pride. This was a very powerful message in the years of the Great Depression, and many people in Europe supported the various Fascist parties.

Italy was the first country to have a Fascist rule. In 1922, Benito Mussolini marched to Rome and demanded that the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel III, make him Prime Minister.

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In the late 1920s, the price of shares on the New York Stock Exchange increased rapidly. More and more people bought stocks and shares in the hope of selling them again when their price had gone up – therefore making a large profit. When prices dropped in October 1929, people rushed to sell their stocks and shares before it was too late, but prices fell even further. This event is known as the Wall Street Crash. Thousands of people lost all their money, many businesses and banks shut down and unemployment soared.

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As the 19th century drew to a close, there was an increase in rivalry between the different nations of Europe. They competed against each other for control of colonies, and for industrial and military power. In 1882, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (known as the Central Powers) formed in alliance called the Triple Alliance, promising to protect each other in the event of an attack. In 1904, Britain joined with France in a similar alliance. They were joined by Russia in 1907 to form the Triple Entente. Europe was finally plunged into war by the action of an assassin in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo in 1914. Soon all the major European powers were drawn into conflict. Russia, backed by France, supported Serbia. Then Germany invaded neutral Belgium and attacked France, drawing Britain into the conflict.

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In April 1770, Captain James Cook had sailed along the east coast of Australia. He and his crew had landed at a place called Botany Bay and claimed the land for Britain, naming the region New South Wales.

Eighteen years later, in 1788, the first ships full of settlers arrived from Britain. These settlers were all convicts, transported from Britain for their various crimes. Under the command of Captain Arthur Philip, the convicts were set to work founding a penal colony in Botany Bay. About 300,000 Aborigines were living in Australia when the settlers first arrived from Europe. They were divided into about 500 tribal groups.

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The last tsar, Nicholas II, ruled from 1894 until his abdication in 1917. In the early years of his reign there was increasing discontent amongst ordinary Russians. Many people, including the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Illyich Lenin, followed the teachings of Karl Marx, the founder of communism. In 1905 this discontent boiled over when troops fired on thousands of striking workers outside the tsar’s Winter Palace in St Petersburg. The rebellion was quickly put down, but hundreds of workers were killed and wounded.

In early 1917 riots broke out again and this time the troops supported the rioters. Nicholas II abdicated, and a provisional government was put in place.

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The Manchus ruled China for more than 250 years, from 1644 until 1912. This time is known as the Qing dynasty. In the early 1800’s, British merchants started to trade opium illegally from India to China. Despite the fact that the additive dangers of opium were well known, the British government backed the merchants. They wanted to force China to accept more open trade.

The first Opium War broke out in 1839, and was started when Chinese officials seized 20,000 chests of opium in Guangzhou. It ended with the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. Under the terms of this treaty, Hong Kong became a British colony and more Chinese ports were opened up to European trade. A second Opium War (1856 to 1860) extended the trading rights of European nations in China. Under Manchu rule, all Chinese males had to follow the tradition of wearing their hair in a pigtail. It was seen as a sign of loyalty to the Qing dynasty.

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During the 1700’s the slave trade brought misery to thousands of Africans, who were transported across the Atlantic Ocean and forced to works as slaves on plantation in the Americas. This trade also brought huge wealth to those who ran it – the shipbuilders, shipowners, merchants and traders.

Many people began to condemn the slave trade and to call for it to be abolished. The slave trade came to an end in the British Empire in 1807 and was finally abolished within the empire in 1833. Slavery continued elsewhere, however. It did not come to an end in the United States until after the American Civil War in 1865, and continued in Brazil until 1889.

In 1788 an association was formed in London to encourage British exploration and trade in Africa. Many British explorers set out to explore Africa along its rivers. Probably the most famous of all the expeditions was led by David Livingstone, who set out to look for the source of the River Nile. After being out of contact for almost three years, he was eventually found by the American journalist Henry Stanley.

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The Industrial Revolution, which begun in Europe in the early 1700’s, saw dramatic improvements in travel and carrying of cargo.

In Britain, private roads called turnpikes were built in the 1750’s and travellers had to pay tolls to use them. But these soon became rutted and in need of repair. In about 1810, a Scottish engineer called John Macadam developed a new type of hard-wearing road surface that drained easily.

As industry expanded, greater loads of heavy goods such as coal and iron had to be taken across country. Rivers did not always go in the right direction, so canals were dug instead. The first modern canal system opened in France in 1681, and was copied later in Britain and the USA. By about 1800, there were nearly 7,000 km of canal in Britain. Steam power was the driving force of the Industrial Revolution. In 1804 an Englishman, Richard Trevithick, built a steam engine which could pull itself along on iron rails. His idea was later developed by George Stephenson, whose locomotive Rocket, was used to pull trains from 1829.

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French troops fought alongside American colonists in the American War of Independence. The cost of these wars left France virtually bankrupt. To try to raise money, the French king, Louis XVI, proposed an increase in taxes. However, most of the country’s richest people – the clergy and the noblemen – did not pay taxes. So the burden fell on the ordinary peasants. On July 14, 1789, a mob attacked the royal prison in Paris, the Bastille. Although few prisoners were released, this event marked the end of royal power in France and the beginning of the Revolution.

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By the year 1763 more than two million British colonists were living in North America. Their main ambition was to be able to govern themselves. Britain, however, had different ideas about her colonies, because they were an important market for trade. The British government were concerned about who was going to pay for the forces that were still stationed to protect North America. The answer was the colonists themselves through new and increased taxes.

The Americans had never been taxed before and protested loudly. They had no-one to put their case to the parliament in London, so they took direct action. By 1775 the whole colony was in a state of rebellion. This was the opening of America’s struggle for freedom.

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In 1768, the British government sent an expedition to find the mysterious southern continent. Its leader was James Cook, and his ship was a small but tough vessel called Endeavour. After visiting the island of Tahiti, Cooked sailed southwards and then west until he sighted an unknown land. It turned out to be New Zealand. The Endeavour sailed on, searching for the east coast of Australia. By 1770 Cook reached the coast of what he knew to be Australia. He followed it northwards until he found a suitable place to land. He called this Botany Bay.

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Peter the Great was a giant figure, well over 2 m tall, and full of violent energy. When he became tsar of Russia in 1696, he was determined to use all his energy to make Russia a strong and modern state.

After many years of civil war, invasion and bloodshed, Russia had just begun a slow progress out of its backward and primitive past. Under the new tsar, this progress became far more rapid.

Peter himself spent years touring western Europe to find out for himself how other countries were won. He was also a great builder. He built roads, canals and introduced modern methods to mining and other industries.

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In the year 1603, Britain had a new king James I. He was the first of the Stuart monarchs, and ruled not only England and Wales, but also Scotland. James believed strongly that God had given kings their right to govern, and no one could question this authority. James’s arrogant views and conduct made him very unpopular with his subjects. His son Charles I, who followed him to the throne in 1625, was even less popular. Soon Britain was split by civil wars.

Charles wanted to rule without consulting parliament but he was faced with enormous rebellion. Enraged by this, Charles tried to arrest five members of parliament for treason. The action made him hated all the more and he was forced to flee to London. By August 1642 he had declared war on the parliamentary supporters (known as ‘Roundheads’).

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The Vikings came from Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark and Sweden). Their homelands offered little spare farmland for a growing population, so many Vikings went abroad in search of new lands. The Vikings were farmers, but also fierce warriors, and their first impact on western Europe was a violent one. They began to sail across the North Sea in the late AD 700’s, raiding the coasts of Britain and mainland Europe. They raided churches and towns, carrying off loot and slaves, their raids caused panic, and rulers tried to buy off the invaders with gold. This, however, only encouraged the Vikings to come back for more.

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In the late AD 300 s the Roman army was hard pressed to fight off waves of barbarian invasions. Troops in distant outposts, such as the British Isles, were needed to defend the empire, and by AD 410 the last Roman soldiers had left England for mainland Europe. Without the Roman army to protect them, the Roman Britons of England were unable to prevent these mercenaries, and any new bands of invaders, from taking over land they wanted. The newcomers were a mixture of people – Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians – who became known as the ‘English’. The invaders came to England to find land to farm. They were well armed and tough, and drove away many Britons, who moved into western England.

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The advance of Islam seemed unstoppable in the late 600 s. The Byzantine and Persian empires could not halt the armies of Islam, and nor could Egypt. By AD 700 Muslims controlled most of the North African coast and ships patrolled the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. Muslims from Morocco invaded Spain, but the advance of Islam into Western Europe was stopped in AD 732 by the Frankish army of Charles Martel.

Under the Ummayad family rule there were four classes of citizens: Arabian Muslims; new converts; Christians, Jews and Mandaens (a Persian sect); and slaves. The new converts included people from Egypt, Syria, a Persia and Asia Minor. They adopted Arab ways, but brought to the Arabs a wealth of new learning in philosophy, medicine, art and science.

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In the first centuries after Christ, Christianity spread from Palestine into North Africa, Asia Minor and across Europe. Further east, many people in the Arabian Peninsula were still pagans, worshipping ancient gods. In this region, during the 600 s, there arose a new religion called Islam.

Islam had its roots in the Hebrew-Christian belief in one God, and its prophet was Muhammad (AD 570-632). Through Muhammad’s Mecca became the holiest city of Islam. Muhammad’s teachings appear in the Koran, the holy book of the Islam.

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Hadrian’s Wall was built in AD 122 to defend the northern frontier of Roman Britain. It acted as a checkpoint on movement between England and Scotland. The wall took eight years to build and stretches for 118 km.

At this time the Roman Empire was governed by the personal will of the emperor, but the emperor’s power rested on his army. Weak or bad emperors were sometimes overthrown by army generals. Some emperors ruled well – Hadrian, for example, travelled widely to inspect building projects. Others, such as Nero and Caligula, were cruel or mad. The Romans were such good organizers that the empire usually kept working even when there was a fool at its heart.

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The ancient Greeks were pioneers in medicine, mathematics and science. They looked at the world in the light of logic and reason, and made some important discoveries. In the year 432 BC a building called the Parthenon was completed. The Parthenon was built in Athens to honour the city’s protector, the goddess Athene. Her gold and ivory decorated statue was inside the great hall, enclosed by columns which supported the roof like a forest of stones.

The Greeks built many beautiful temples to their gods. Stone columns, as used in the Parthenon, were a typical feature of many Greek buildings.

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