tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36781900424473407072024-02-17T00:48:56.624-08:00HISTORIES OF THE WORLD.Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-15922177705082736032009-11-20T08:51:00.000-08:002009-11-20T08:52:16.721-08:00The Hanging Gardens of Babylon<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><img src="http://www.angelfire.com/ny/anghockey/garden3.jpg" /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were the most revered and awesome structures in all of history. Philo of Byzantium compiled the first list of Seven Wonders for travelers of the Hellenistic Era, which included only unique man-made structures, such as the Pyramids at Giza or sculptures like the Colossus of Rhodes . One Wonder that evokes a great deal of interest is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Philo highlighted the various qualities that made the gardens worthy of incorporation onto the list of Wonders in the 3rd century B.C. These gardens portrayed the majesty of the Babylonian culture and the advanced technology of its people. It was a terraced garden that exhibited many beautiful plants and held many fountains. Nebuchadnezzar II ordered this wonder to be built during his reign of 43 years between the years of 604-562 BC. He built it to please his homesick wife, Amyitis, who was from Media. She longed for the meadows and mountains of her homeland. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon awed and astounded many travelers and historians in ancient times. Although they no longer exist, the idea of such a magnificent feat of engineering still fascinates people today.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Nebuchadnezzar, the builder of the gardens, was the most important ruler of his dynasty. He was the son of Nabopolassar, and lived from 604-562 B.C. As a military commander, he followed in the footsteps of his predecessors, conquering many Cities. He marched through Palestine and besieged Jerusalem twice. Nebuchadnezzar was also one of the most renowned builders in the Near East, making Babylon the most beautiful city in the region. Around his city, he built walls, which formed a square. The walls measured 9 miles long. Beyond the wall was a deep moat, which kept the city safe from invasion. Herodotus states that the wall was 80 feet thick, 320 feet high, with 250 watchtowers, and 100 bronze gates. Nebuchadnezzar also built the Ishtar Gate. It was a double gate at the south end of the processional way, which was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. It was covered with brilliant blue glazed bricks and bas-relief animal sculptures. When visitors came upon this gate they would be in awe. In addition to the Ishtar gate Nebuchadnezzar built a majestic palace for himself. Travelers marveled at the walls decorated with colorful friezes of blue and yellow enameled bricks. Nebuchadnezzar paved the street sidewalks with small red stone slabs. Along the edge of each stone were carved, "I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who made this," demonstrating Nebuchadnezzar's absolute power and influence over Babylon . Nebuchadnezzar used these works as a means of self-promotion and self-glorification, not unlike other kings of that time. “Although Nebuchadnezzar suffered from insanity at some point during his 43-year reign, he transformed his city into an urban wonder”, states Herodotus . Nebuchadnezzar died a world conqueror and an architectural role model.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens, breaking natural law by creating a botanical wonder, an "impulse deriving from the love of a woman" . He wished to please his homesick Median wife Amyitis, whom he had married to make an alliance between Media and Babylonia. She was raised in a green and mountainous land. Amyitis found Mesopotamia depressing, as it is a flat and sun-baked environment. Nebuchadnezzar, with hope of making her happier, decided to build a “recreated homeland” which was an artificial mountain with rooftop gardens. What made it special was that it was a man-made paradise, and it “defied nature.” In a barren region, Nebuchadnezzar succeeded where nature had failed. The gardens were made to look like a natural Median wilderness. Nebuchadnezzar had man made hills covered with many different types of trees, which satisfied his wife's passion for mountainous surroundings. The gardens were sloped down like a hillside, and were also terraced into different flowerbeds. The beautiful landscape of the Hanging Gardens helped make it a special structure, and transformed the desert-like environment into a pastoral countryside.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The gardens had exotic flourishing plants. These plants were cultivated above ground level. Nebuchadnezzar imported the plants from foreign lands. The plants may have included “cedar, cypress, myrtle, juniper, almond, date palm, ebony, olive, oak, terebinth, nuts, ash, firs, nightshade, willow, pomegranate, plum, pear, quince, fig, and grapevine.” The plants were suspended over the heads of observers on terraces, they draped over the terraced walls. Arches were underneath these terraces. The brilliantly colored trees and flowers that dangled from the walls created a lush and magical environment.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were an impressive example of architecture. The gardens formed a quadrilateral shape. There were stairways that led to the uppermost terraced roofs. The plants hung over terraces that were supported by stone columns. There were arched vaults, which were located on cubed fountains. The fountains created a humidity that helped keep the area cool. The shade from the trees also helped keep the gardens cool. The garden ascended in closely planted levels to form a man-made replica of mountain greenery. The gardens were supported by an intricate structure of stone pillars, brick walls, and palm tree trunk beams. These trunks were made watertight. “Palm beams were laid over with mats of reed and bitumen as well as two layers of baked mud brick.” All of this was covered in a layer of lead. There were fourteen vaulted rooms and underground crypts. The entire structure measured 400 feet by 400 feet. The gardens were as tall as the city walls, which Herodotus reported to be 320 feet high. Conflicting sources report that the walls were 80 feet high, a less remarkable, but still majestic height. The architecture of the Hanging Gardens demonstrates the majesty of Babylonian structural design under Nebuchadnezzar's rule.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The gardens were as much of a technological feat as they were an architectural triumph. The technique of hydro engineering demonstrated their knowledge of irrigation. Since Babylon rarely received rain, the gardens had to be irrigated. Streams of water emerged from elevated sources and flowed down the inclined channels. This kept the whole area moist and thus the grass was always green. Historians have questioned whether the Hanging Gardens used hydroponics as a way of growing plants. Hydroponics means that nutrients are added to the water swirling around the plants roots. No soil is used in a hydroponic system. Excavations have found an elaborate tunnel and pulley system that brought ground water to the top terrace. The water was dispersed by means of a chain pump. A chain pump consists of two large wheels, like a ski lift, with one wheel at the top and one at the bottom. Buckets hanging from the chain were continuously dipped into the reservoir at the base of the gardens. By turning handles slaves provided the power to turn the wheels. The source of the gardens' water was from the Euphrates River. The water from the pool at the top of the gardens could be released from gates into channels. The channels acted as artificial streams, designed to water the garden. This chain pump showed the technological ingenuity of Babylonia and helped sustain the Hanging Gardens.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Ultimately, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon lasted through the time of Alexander the Great. This great masterpiece, with its keen architectural style, cleverness in hydro engineering, lush, flourishing plants and well-constructed landscape belongs on the list of the Wonders of the World. Nebuchadnezzar was great in many ways surpassing all other rulers of his dynasty. The elegance of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon demonstrate his leadership a strong esthetic sense and great architectural and engineering foresight. Even if Amyitis never resolved her homesickness, Nebuchadnezzar and the people of the ancient world who experienced the gardens all benefited by her depressed nature.</span></p></span></div>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-48761791478170038252009-11-20T08:30:00.000-08:002009-11-20T08:47:30.745-08:00HISTORY OF THE SUDAN<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="500" border="0"><tbody><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Nubia: from 3000 BC</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The region known in modern times as the Sudan (short for the Arabic</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">bilad as-sudan</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">, 'land of the blacks') has for much of its history been linked with or influenced by Egypt, its immediate neighbour to the north. But it also has a strong identity as the eastern end of the great trade route stretching along the open SAVANNAH south of the Sahara.<br /><br />Soon after the UNITING OF THE KINGDOMS of Egypt, in about 3100 BC, the pharaohs extend their control as far up the Nile as a boat can easily travel. This brings them to the first cataract (or rapid), in the region of modern Aswan.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pmz" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Over the centuries the Egyptians push further south, past a succession of cataracts, first to raid and then to build fortified settlements among the people of these middle reaches of the Nile. By about 1500 BC the Egypt of the pharaohs extends as far up the river as the fourth cataract, in the region of the modern Merowe.<br /><br />The area between the first and fourth cataracts is known to the Egyptians as Cush. To the Greeks, from Homer onwards, all the known people living south of Egypt are called Ethiopians (inhabiting the areas of modern Sudan and Ethiopia). Later again Sudan as far south as Khartoum becomes widely familiar under the Latin name Nubia, deriving from a local word </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">nob</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> meaning 'slave'.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pna" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">During the most expansive period of dynastic Egypt, from the 16th century BC, it becomes conventional for pharaohs to build temples, monuments and proud boundary inscriptions in Cush (or Nubia).<br /><br />Thutmose I, in about 1520 BC, penetrates further south than any of his predecessors and leaves an inscription some fifty miles upstream of Abu Hamad. In the north the most flamboyant statement of possession is the four colossal statues of Ramses II, carved in the sandstone cliff at Abu Simbel in about 1250 BC.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">As in any outpost of a long-lasting empire, the ruling class in Cush adopts the customs and beliefs of their imperial masters. The first lasting Cushite dynasty, established at some time before the 8th century BC with its capital city at Napata (near modern Merowe), is entirely Egyptian in style. And the Cushite god by this time is AMEN-RE.<br /><br />Indeed Kashta, the king of Cush in the early 8th century, maintains a court so authentic in its Egyptian manner that his descendants, after conquering Egypt, are willingly accepted as a dynasty of pharaohs.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="849" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pnb" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pnc" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The Cushite Dynasty: from c.730 BC</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The first incursion of the kings of Cush into Egypt occurs in about 750 BC, when Kashta conquers upper Egypt (the region north of the first cataract and Abu Simbel). But it is his son Piye, also known as Piankhi, who from about 730 BC captures cities the entire length of the Nile as far north as Memphis and receives the submission of the local rulers of the delta region.<br /><br />After this achievement Piye retires to his capital at Napata, where be builds a great temple to AMEN-RE. But it is impossible to remain in control of Egypt from as far south as Napata. The final establishment of the Cushite or 25th dynasty is therefore the work of Piye's brother, Shabaka, who succeeds him in about 719 BC.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pnd" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Shabaka renews the campaign to the north, defeating Bochoris (a descendant of the previous Egyptian dynasty, whom Shabaka is said to have burnt alive) and installing himself securely in Thebes and Memphis.<br /><br />Here he and and his descendants might well have ruled peacefully for some time, since they are widely welcomed for their pious safeguarding of the cult of Amen-Re. But it is their misfortune to coincide with the greatest external threat yet to confront the Nile civilization. The new power in the middle east is the formidable state of ASSYRIA, now brutally subduing the many small states and cities of Palestine and Phoenicia.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pne" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">From about 705 BC, when Assyria has a new king (Sennacherib), there is a widespread rebellion in the middle east against Assyrian rule. In support of the rebels the pharaoh (now Shabaka's nephew Shebitku) marches north from Memphis with an Egyptian army. He is heavily defeated. Egypt becomes the next Assyrian target.<br /><br />In 663 the Assyrian king (Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib) captures Memphis, seizes the royal treasure and harem and claims the title 'king of Egypt'. When the Assyrian army withdraws, leaving Egypt under the control of vassal rulers, the Cushites briefly recover Memphis. But another Assyrian expedition, in 663, settles the issue. This time Thebes is reached and plundered.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The traditional date for the end of the Cushite dynasty in Egypt is 656 BC. But this is very far from the end of the dynasty itself, which survives in the Sudan for another thousand years - still interring the royal family in Egyptian pyramids, at Napata and subsequently at Meroe.<br /><br />The move further up the Nile to Meroe is made after an Egyptian expedition sacks Napata in about 590 BC. Over the centuries, living in remote isolation (as PERSIAN,GREEKS and ROMANS follow each other in control of Egypt itself), this southern outpost of Egyptian culture gradually fades away. Pyramids begin to be built in brick instead of stone. The knowledge of writing is forgotten. Finally, in the 4th century AD, Meroe is sacked by an army from neighbouring AKSUM.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="843" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pnf" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="png" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Christians and Muslims: AD 543-1821</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Nubia has Christian neighbours to the north and to the southeast from the 4th century, when Egypt formally adopts the religion (along with the rest of the Byzantine empire) and when the ruler of EHTHOPIA is converted to Christianity by Frumentius. But it is another 200 years before Dongola, by now the main kingdom in Nubia, is brought within the Christian fold.<br /><br />In about AD 543 the king of Dongola is converted to the monophysite version of Christanity, associated in particular with the COPTIC CHURCH of Egypt and . A few years later, in about 569, the ORTHODEX CHRISTIANITY of the Byzantine empire reaches Mukarra, a neighbouring kingdom to the south.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pnh" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">During the following century the Christians of Egypt and north Africa succumb to the expansionist vigour of Islam. But Nubia is left free to follow its new Christian path, thanks partly to a treaty agreed in 652. In this year MUSLIM ARABS invade the northern part of the region from Egypt. But they agree to withdraw on condition that they are sent an annual tribute of 400 slaves.<br /><br />The treaty holds for more than six centuries, during which the trade routes bring many Muslims south into Nubia. But Muslim raids begin in earnest in the 1270s during the reign of BAYBARS, the energetic Mameluke sultan of Egypt. In 1315 the annual tribute is finally abolished and a Muslim is placed on the throne of Dongola.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">For the next five centuries the Muslim rulers of the Sudan are sometimes the representatives of a powerful administration in Egypt (for example in the EARLY OTTOMAN YEARS , after 1517). But they are more often tribal dynasties, managing to assert control for a while over a territory more extensive than their immediate local area.<br /><br />This changes in 1821, when the the region is forcefully taken in hand by the most aggressive ruler of Egypt since the time of Baybars - the Ottoman viceroy MOHAMMED ALI. </span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="844" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pol" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pom" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Egyptian rule: from AD 1821</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">In 1820 MOHAMMED ALI sends two armies south into the Sudan, each commanded by one of his younger sons. By 1821 they have conquered sufficient of the territory to establish themselves in military headquarters on the point of land formed by the confluence of the Blue and White Niles. The long narrow shape of the camp, coming to a point where the waters join, gives it the name 'elephant's trunk' - or Khartoum in Arabic.<br /><br />A few years later Khartoum is made the administrative centre of an Egyptian province in the Sudan, acquiring the status of a capital which it and OMDURMAN, on the opposite bank, have retained ever since.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pon" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Though at first seen as part of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE, the independence claimed by Mohammed Ali means that the Sudan becomes once again what it has been in ancient times - the SOUTHERN PROVINCE of Egypt. And Egypt steadily claims more and more of the surrounding territory.<br /><br />From 1846 there are Egyptian officials in the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Mits'iwa. And in 1869 SAMUEL BAKER returns to the southern Sudan, this time with an army, to annexe the vast region known as Equatoria on behalf of the khedive of Egypt (now ISMAIL a grandson of Mohammed Ali). But Egyptian control remains tenuous in much of this region. And it is made particularly unwelcome by the western influences to which ISMAIL inclines.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="poo" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">One cause of friction is the secular nature of ISMAIL's westernized administration, which is deeply offensive to the traditionally pious Muslims of the Sudan. Another is the policy, inspired by western pressures but fully accepted in Cairo, of putting an end to the slave raiding and trading which is a central feature of the Sudanese economy.<br /><br />When Baker marches south into Equatoria, as the khedive's governor general, the suppression of the slave trade is part of his brief - together with the imposition of order in some very unruly regions. Four years later the same two tasks still confront his rather more effective successor in this role, Charles Gordon.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">General Gordon accepts in 1873 the khedive's appointment as governor general of Equatoria. His role is extended in 1877 to cover the whole of the Sudan. In six years of ceaseless effort, employing the decisive vigour for which his Chinese exploits have already made him famous, Gordon subdues rebellious groups in many different regions of the Sudan.<br /><br />On his return to England, in 1880, he appears to leave a Sudan in which the Egyptian garrisons have the province well under control. But the situation is tranformed a year later by the emergence of a charismatic religious leader who takes advantage of the widespread discontent of the local Muslims.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="847" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pop" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="poq" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The Mahdi and the British: AD 1881-1898</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">In or shortly before 1881 an ascetic religious leader, Mohammed Ahmed, living with his disciples on an island in the White Nile, is inspired by the revelation that he is the long-awaited MAHDI. Publicly announcing his new role, he calls for the creation of a strict Islamic state. The immediate result is an order from Khartoum for his arrest, followed by the escape to the mountains of the MAHDI and his followers.<br /><br />The fervour of the faithful, combined with the MADHI'S own skills, results during 1883 in a series of astonishing victories - the rapid defeat of three Egyptian armies (the last of them under a British general) and the capture of several key towns, including El Obeid.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="por" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The Egyptian garrisons further to the south are now dangerously isolated. So is the capital, Khartoum, with its vulnerable population of non-Sudanese civilians. In this crisis the British government, led at the time by Gladstone, hastily appoints Gordon to rush south to Khartoum on a rescue mission. But he is provided with woefully inadequate support.<br /><br />Gordon reaches Khartoum on 18 February 1884 and begins to organize an evacuation. Some 2000 people - mainly women, children and the sick - have escaped by the time the Mahdi's forces close in, on March 13, to begin the siege of the city.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pos" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Gordon has only a demoralized Egyptian garrison under his command, but he contrives to defy the Mahdi's forces for a space of ten months. For nine of these London has no news of what is happening, for the Sudanese cut the telegraph line to Cairo in mid-April.<br /><br />The unknown but all too imaginable fate of Gordon, already a hero from past campaigns, galvanizes public opinion in Britain and eventually forces a vacillating government to plan for the relief of Khartoum. In September 1884 Garnet Wolseley sails from London to lead an expedition up the Nile. His vanguard reaches Khartoum on 28 January 1885 - too late by just two days.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pot" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">On 26 January the Mahdi's forces have finally breached the walls of Khartoum and have massacred Gordon and the starving troops and citizens. Wolseley's small army withdraws. The remaining Egyptian garrisons in the Sudan make their way north as best they can.<br /><br />The Mahdi has made his camp around the small village of Omdurman, on the left bank of the Nile a short way downstream from the confluence of the two rivers. This now becomes the capital of a Sudan administered as an Islamic state in imitation of the early CALIPHATE. The Mahdi rules until his death in June 1885, when he is succeeded by the man whom he has appointed as caliph - Abdullahi ibn Mohammed, usually known simply as the Khalifa. </span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">For thirteen years the Khalifa maintains a military Islamic state in keeping with the early traditions of the CALIPHATE, and on occasion his efforts at expansion meet with some success - as in his interference in 1889 in neighbouring ETHOPIA.<br /><br />But in the long run the Anglo-Egyptian alliance to the north has an irresistible military advantage. The death of Gordon is finally avenged in 1898 when Herbert Kitchener (a member as a young man of WOLSELEY'S failed expedition) mows down the Khalifa's forces at Omdurman with artillery and machine-gun fire. This victory restores British and Egyptian control in the Sudan - though it is challenged two weeks later by France in a dangerous incident at Fashoda.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="848" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pou" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pov" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Anglo-Egyptian Condominium: AD 1899-1956</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The victorious army at Omdurman is mainly composed of Egyptian troops, though led by senior British officers, and the avowed purpose of the campaign is to restore order in this southern province of the khedive of Egypt. The Anglo-Egyptian partnership continues in the arrangements now made for the government of the Sudan. Sovereignty in the region is to be shared by the British crown and the khedive. British and Egyptian flags are to fly side by side.<br /><br />But cooperation does not prove easy, particularly when politicians in CAIRO after World War I begin to demand the incorporation of Sudan within Egypt - a policy vigorously opposed by Britain.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="pow" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">In 1924 outbreaks of anti-British violence in Egyptian units in the Sudan are followed by the assassination in Cairo of Lee Stack, the British governor general of the southern colony. The British response is to force the withdrawal of all Egyptian forces. For twelve years the British govern the Sudan on their own, until an Anglo-Egyptian treaty in 1936 restores the role of Egyptian officials.<br /><br />There are further disputes. In 1951 Egypt's king FAROUK, indignant that Britain has facilitated the first steps towards Sudanese independence (in the form of a legislative council), unilaterally declares himself ruler of a united kingdom of Egypt and the Sudan.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">This declaration has little meaning on the ground, pleases no one in the Sudan and is soon rendered irrelevant when Farouk is himself overthrown in the 1952 coup by NAGUIB and other officers.<br /><br />NAGUIB immediately recognizes Sudan's right to self-determination, and in 1953 Britain and Egypt jointly agree to facilitate the transitional period. Elections in 1954 are won by the National Unionist Party, led by Ismail al-Azhari who has campaigned on a policy of merging Sudan with Egypt to achieve the 'unity of the Nile Valley'. However his views are altered by the experience of office as prime minister. Contrary to his campaign rhetoric, he leads the nation into a separate independence at the start of 1956.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="845" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="pox" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="poy" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Independence and civil war: AD 1956-1985</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">In August 1955, less than six months before the agreed date of independence, the southern Sudan is convulsed by mutiny, riot and violent loss of life. The reason is alarm at the approaching event by the non-Muslim African majority in the south, where people are mainly Christian or ANIMIST. These southern Sudanese fear control by the more numerous Muslim Arabs of the northern regions.<br /><br />With hindsight this event can be seen as a disastrous omen for the new nation. For the rest of the century the recurrent feature of the troubled political life of the area is the attempt by northern Muslim groups to transform the Sudan into a fundamentalist Islamic state.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="poz" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The underlying strength of the Islamic movement derives from the strong Mahdist tradition in the Sudan. Indeed two of the main parties are at various times led by direct descendants of the Mahdi.<br /><br />The political ambitions of the Muslim community fuel two separate long-running conflicts. One, in the north, is between religious and secular rivals, with the secular side at first advocating a Marxist economic policy. The other, between north and south, is a civil war in which insurgent groups in EQUATORIA fight for independence and freedom from the threat of Muslim domination.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="ppa" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The struggle for power in the north goes through several distinct phases. After a spell of military rule (1958-64), elections in 1965 bring in a Muslim government and a ban on the communist party. A left-wing coup in 1969 brings to power a colonel in the army, Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeri, who establishes single-party rule by the Sudanese Socialist Party.<br /><br />Nimeri aligns himself internationally with the socialist bloc, but at home he is a pragmatic ruler. This enables him in 1972 to end a 17-year-civil war in the rebellious southern province by signing the Addis Ababa Agreement, allowing for the internal autonomy of Equatoria.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">However, ten years later, Nimeri reverses his policy - partly because violent unrest has recently revived in the south, but also in deference to the growing strength of the Muslim Brotherhood in the north. In 1983 Nimeri amends Sudanese law to bring it into line with the strict and punitive Islamic legal code, the sharia. In the same year he abrogates the Addis Ababa Agreement, bringing the south back under central administration.<br /><br />The result is an escalation of rebellion in the south and protest everywhere by moderates at the harsh application of the sharia. Nimeri vacillates, in an apparently hopeless situation. In 1985 he is toppled in a bloodless coup by his chief of staff.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" height="10" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="846" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="ppb" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><a name="ppc" style="text-decoration: none; "></a></span></td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="mdblk" style="font-size: 12px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">National Islamic Front: from AD 1989</span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">Elections are held within a year of the 1985 coup, bringing to power a succession of ineffective coalitions. Once again the situation is soon resolved by military intervention, in 1989. But this time the army and the Muslim fundamentalists are of one mind.<br /><br />The general in command of the coup is Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. He rules at first through a Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation, a body closely linked to the NIF (National Islamic Front) which is the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1996 elections are held. Bashir is confirmed in the presidency. The NIF, the only permitted party, wins all 400 seats in the national assembly.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="ppd" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">With the coup of 1989 the outcome long feared by the south has come to pass. Sudan is in the hands of Muslim fundamentalists. Here, as elsewhere, they maintain control with a ruthlessness previously associated with secular dictators. Political liberties are suppressed, along with an independent press and judiciary. Extreme puritanism in everyday life is decreed for the population.<br /><br />These developments add a new intensity to the civil war in the south, vigorously renewed by the SPLA (Sudanese People's Liberation Army) after the collapse of the ADDIS ABABA AGREEMENT. It now acquires the profile of a holy war with ethnic undertones. Impassioned Arab MUJAHEDEEN move south to confront the African infidels.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="ppd1" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">The result is another region of devastation and suffering, one of several which deface Africa at the end of the millennium. Since the resumption of the civil war in 1983 it is calculated that the Sudanese conflict has resulted in about 1.4 million deaths and 3 million displaced refugees.<br /><br />In the second half of the 1990s there are steps towards peace, culminating in an agreement in 1998 between the government and the SPLA to hold a referendum on self-determination. No date has been set. But there are other signs that Bashir and the NIF wish to take tentative steps in the direction of democracy. Rival political parties are allowed legal existence from the start of 1999.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><a name="" style="text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="mdblk" valign="top" width="450" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;">However the fragility of any such hope is evident in December 1999, when Bashir declares a three-month state of emergency just two days before a parliamentary vote on a proposal to limit the president's powers.<br /></span></td><td width="30" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"> </span></td><td valign="top" align="middle" width="20" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td width="350" height="12" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "></td><td style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "></td></tr><tr><td width="350" height="19" style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "></td></tr></tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF6600;"><br /><br /></span><br /></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-78778538375258555672009-11-20T08:04:00.000-08:002009-11-20T08:48:42.997-08:00HISTORY OF BHUTAN<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:medium;"><center><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: 800;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /></span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-weight: normal; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:medium;"><div class="pseudoparagraph" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 14px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/14px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; float: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">It is believed the country got the name 'Bhutan' from the Sanskrit word 'Bhu-Uttan' which means 'High Land'. Another theory says that it comes from the Sanskrit word 'Bhots-ant' meaning 'end of Tibet or south of Tibet'. However, to the Bhutanese themselves, their country is known as "Druk Yul" and its inhabitants as 'Drukpa'.</span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In Bhutanese language, Druk means dragon and 'Druk-Yul' means 'the land of the Dragon'. This is because when the sect of Buddhism, which was later to become the dominant religion in BHUTAN was first initiated at the Ralung monastery in Tibet, 'a loud roar of the thunder dragon' was heard echoing to the south. This was taken as an auspicious sign that the sect would fluorish in the south of Tibet, where Bhutan is, and the sect was named as the 'Drukpa sect'. The country where this sect later flourished was henceforth known as 'Druk-yul'.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">To this day, the state religion of Bhutan is 'Drukpa Kargyud' although other sects are almost equally popular and tolerated.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">One thing that all Bhutanese are proud of is that Bhutan was never colonised. Despite many wars with Tibet, and some rough encounters with the British, Bhutan always managed to remain independent.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Recorded histroy begins from around the 8th century AD. In the 8th century, the great Tantric mystic Guru Padmasambhava (more popularly known as Guru Rimpoche in Bhutan) came to Bhutan from Swat, present-day PAKISTAN, and spread the Buddhist faith through the land, planting the seeds of the culture that flourishes today. Temples and monasteries dating from the 8th century still stand as honoured places in contemporary Bhutan.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The greatest event in the history of Bhutan was the arrival of Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel from Tibet in 1616. He was aged 23. He was to become the first person to bring all parts of Bhutan under one central authority and unify the 'country'.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">"Shabdrung" literally means "at whose feet one submits". He was the father and unifier of medieval Bhutan. He was a great man. After repelling numerous Tibetan invasions, the Shabdrung subdued the many warring feudal overlords and brought all of Bhutan under the influence of the Drukpa Kagyud School. His 35 year reign also saw the establishment of a nation-wide administration, aspects of which still endure, and the building of dzongs as easily defensible fortresses and seats of local government. In fact, many of the dzongs you see today were built during the Shabdrung's reign, although some future renovations were carried out.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Shabdrung set up a dual system of Government with a secular head known as the 'Druk Desi' and a spiritual head known as the 'Je Khenpo'. However after his death, before his reincarnation would be found and would come of age, rivalry between different lords and fight for power broke up, which took Bhutan through a tumultuous period until 1907, the hereditary monarchy was insititued in Bhutan with Gongsar Ugyen Wangchuk as the first king of Bhutan.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Like the great Shabdrung, Ugyen Wangchuk pacified the feuding Regional Governors who had plunged Bhutan into a state of almost perpetual civil war. Having consolidated his authority across the entire country by 1885, he played the key mediator role between the British and the Chinese. Finally, on December 17 (Bhutan's National Day) 1907, Ugyen Wangchuk was unanimously elected by all Regional Governors and the Central Monastic Body, at the Punakha Dzong and crowned "Druk Gyalpo" ("Precious Ruler of the Dragon People).</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The present king, the fourth hereditary monarch, is Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuk, upon whose coronation in 1974 Bhutan opened its doors to tourists.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Monarchy of Bhutan<br /></span></strong></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel (Founder)</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /><br />The monk ruler, Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyel (1594-1651), a Tibetan native, is considered as the founder of modern Bhutan state. He was the first ruler of Bhutan. He ruled for 35 years. His successors ruled the country till 1907.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">KING UGYEN WANGCHUCK (FIrst King)</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /><br />Ugyen Wangchuck ( 1907-1926 AD) was the son of Jigme Namgyel . He was born in 1862 . He was an able administrator and a wise diplomat. He took several reforms and introduced the system of western education. He opened many schools. He signed a new Anglo-Bhutanese Treaty with British India Raj in 1910. He ruled for 19 years. He died in August 21, 1926. He was married to Queen Ashi Tsendue Lhamo. His son Jigme Wangchuck became the second King of Bhutan after his death.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">KING JIGME WANGCHUCK </span></strong><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">(Second King)</span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /><br />King Jijme Wangchuck ( 1926-1952 AD) was born in 1905. As the eldest son of King Ugen Wangchuck, he received education in English, Hindi and Buddhist literature. During his reign, Bhutan started to forsake its self-imposed isolation. In 1947 Bhutan participated in the Asian relations Conference in New Delhi, India. The Treaty of perpetual peace and friendship between the government of Independent India and Bhutan was signed in Darjeeling, on 08 August 1949. This Treaty governs the modern day Indo-Bhutan relations. Bhutan agreed to be guided by the advice of India in regard to its foreign relations, according to this Treaty. He was married to Queen Ashi Phuntsho Chhoedon<br /></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">KING JIGME DORJI WANGCHUCK </span></strong><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">(Third King) </span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><br /><br />King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck ( 1952-1972) was born in 1928. He learned English and Hindi languages at early childhood. He ascended to throne as the third king in 1952. During his 20 years reign, Bhutan emerged as a modern nation. Bhutan achieved all-round development during his reign. He was a far-sighted monarch. He introduced land reforms putting a landholding ceiling of 30 acres. He distributed lands to land-less citizens. He put a ban on slavery and serfdom. He established a High court and reorganized the judicial system. In 1953, he established the Tshogdu or National assembly - Bhutan’s first unicameral Parliament. He established the Royal Advisory Council in 1963. During his reign Bhutan’s first planned economic development plan was drafted. In 1961, a five year economic development pan was launched for the years 1961-1966. Bhutan is still following this five-year economic development plan. He created Bhutan’s first Council of Ministers in 1968. In 1963, Bhutan joined the Colombo Plan. During his 20 years reign, 1770 Km of roads were constructed, the number of schools rose to 102 and 6 hospitals were established. In 1971, he set up a Planning Commission. Bhutan was admitted to the United Nations in 1971. He died on 21 July, 1972. He was the main architect of modern Bhutan he was married to Queen Ashi Kelzang Chhoedon wangchuck.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">HIS MAJESTY KING JIGME SINGYE WANGCHUCK </span></strong><strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">(Forth King)</span></strong></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"> The fourth hereditary and the current King Jime Singye Wangchuck ( 1972 -) was born on 11 November 1955. His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, King of Bhutan is the reigning monarch and head of Bhutanese Royal Family. He received modern education. He briefly studied in India and the United Kingdom. He returned to the Ugyen Wangchuck Academy in Paro, Bhutan in 1970. However, he could not complete his school education due to the sudden death of his father. He became king on 23 July 1972 at the age of 17. His official coronation was held on June 02, 1974.<br /><br />In 1979 His Majesty King Jime Singye Wangchuck married four sisters - Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, Ashi Tshering Pem Wangchuck, Ashi Tshering Yangdon Wangchuck and Ashi Sangay Choden Wangchuck as queens. An official royal wedding and a public ceremony was held on 31 October 1988. They five princes and five princesses. HRH Dasho Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck is the Crown Prince.<br /><br />His Majesty King Jime Singye Wangchuck also carried forward the socio-economic progress of the country initiated by his father. Bhutan has made tremendous progress in the filed of communications, hydro-electric power development, education, health, financial sector, environmental protection, and industrial and infrastructural development during his reign. The per capita GDP stood at its highest of US$ 712.8 (Nu 32,006) in 2000.<br /><br />Bhutan became the member of. ESCAP in 1972, NAM in 1973, IFAD, IMF, IBRD, IDA and FAO in 1981, WHO, UNESCO and ADB in 1982, UNIDO in 1983, ITU in 1988, ICAO in 1989, ECOSOC in 1992.<br /><br />Under his reign, Bhutan established diplomatic relations with Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, EEC, Norway and NETHERLANDS, Kuwait, Japan, Finland, South Korea, Austria, THAILAND, Bahrain, Hongkong, Singapore, Macaw, MALDIVES, Sri Lanka, Pakistan , Bangladesh, India and Nepal.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "></p></div><div class="endOfPageAd" style="margin-top: 20px; "><div id="horizontalad" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; "><div id="afcSlot_2" class="googleAdBlock googleAdBlockSquare" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; position: relative; text-align: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; clear: both; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 298px; height: 248px; border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-right-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: block; "></div></div></div></span></h3></center></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-58771757776926500732009-11-20T08:02:00.000-08:002009-11-20T08:03:57.146-08:00A Brief History of Islam<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Spread of Islam</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">From the oasis cities of Makkah and Madinah in the Arabian desert, the message of Islam went forth with electrifying speed. Within half a century of the Prophet's death, Islam had spread to three continents. Islam is not, as some imagine in the West, a religion of the sword nor did it spread primarily by means of war. It was only within Arabia, where a crude form of idolatry was rampant, that Islam was propagated by warring against those tribes which did not accept the message of God--whereas Christians and Jews were not forced to convert. Outside of Arabia also the vast lands conquered by the Arab armies in a short period became Muslim not by force of the sword but by the appeal of the new religion. It was faith in One God and emphasis upon His Mercy that brought vast numbers of people into the fold of Islam. The new religion did not coerce people to convert. Many continued to remain Jews and Christians and to this day important communities of the followers of these faiths are found in Muslim lands.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Moreover, the spread of Islam was not limited to its miraculous early expansion outside of Arabia. During later centuries the Turks embraced Islam peacefully as did a large number of the people of the Indian subcontinent and the Malay-speaking world. In Africa also, Islam has spread during the past two centuries even under the mighty power of European colonial rulers. Today Islam continues to grow not only in Africa but also in Europe and America where Muslims now comprise a notable minority.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="02"></a>General Characteristics of Islam</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Islam was destined to become a world religion and to create a civilization which stretched from one end of the globe to the other. Already during the early Muslim caliphates, first the Arabs, then the Persians and later the Turks set about to create classical Islamic civilization. Later, in the 13th century, both Africa and India became great centers of Islamic civilization and soon thereafter Muslim kingdoms were established in the Malay-Indonesian world while Chinese Muslims flourished throughout China.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="03"></a>Global Religion</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Islam is a religion for all people from whatever race or background they might be. That is why Islamic civilization is based on a unity which stands completely against any racial or ethnic discrimination. Such major racial and ethnic groups as the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Africans, Indians, Chinese and Malays in addition to numerous smaller units embraced Islam and contributed to the building of Islamic civilization. Moreover, Islam was not opposed to learning from the earlier civilizations and incorporating their science, learning, and culture into its own world view, as long as they did not oppose the principles of Islam. Each ethnic and racial group which embraced Islam made its contribution to the one Islamic civilization to which everyone belonged. The sense of brotherhood and sisterhood was so much emphasized that it overcame all local attachments to a particular tribe, race, or language--all of which became subservient to the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The global civilization thus created by Islam permitted people of diverse ethnic backgrounds to work together in cultivating various arts and sciences. Although the civilization was profoundly Islamic, even non-Muslim "people of the book" participated in the intellectual activity whose fruits belonged to everyone. The scientific climate was reminiscent of the present situation in America where scientists and men and women of learning from all over the world are active in the advancement of knowledge which belongs to everyone.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The global civilization created by Islam also succeeded in activating the mind and thought of the people who entered its fold. As a result of Islam, the nomadic Arabs became torch-bearers of science and learning. The Persians who had created a great civilization before the rise of Islam nevertheless produced much more science and learning in the Islamic period than before. The same can be said of the Turks and other peoples who embraced Islam. The religion of Islam was itself responsible not only for the creation of a world civilization in which people of many different ethnic backgrounds participated, but it played a central role in developing intellectual and cultural life on a scale not seen before. For some eight hundred years Arabic remained the major intellectual and scientific language of the world. During the centuries following the rise of Islam, Muslim dynasties ruling in various parts of the Islamic world bore witness to the flowering of Islamic culture and thought. In fact this tradition of intellectual activity was eclipsed only at the beginning of modern times as a result of the weakening of faith among Muslims combined with external domination. And today this activity has begun anew in many parts of the Islamic world now that the Muslims have regained their political independence.</span></p><div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Rightly guided Caliphs</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Upon the death of the Prophet, Abu Bakr, the friend of the Prophet and the first adult male to embrace Islam, became caliph. Abu Bakr ruled for two years to be succeeded by 'Umar who was caliph for a decade and during whose rule Islam spread extensively east and west conquering the Persian empire, Syria and Egypt. It was 'Umar who marched on foot at the end of the Muslim army into Jerusalem and ordered the protection of Christian sites. 'Umar also established the first public treasury and a sophisticated financial administration. He established many of the basic practices of Islamic government.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">'Umar was succeeded by 'Uthman who ruled for some twelve years during which time the Islamic expansion continued. He is also known as the caliph who had the definitive text of the Noble Quran copied and sent to the four corners of the Islamic world. He was in turn succeeded by 'Ali who is known to this day for his eloquent sermons and letters, and also for his bravery. With his death the rule of the "rightly guided" caliphs, who hold a special place of respect in the hearts of Muslims, came to an end.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="06"></a>The Caliphate</span></h3><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="07"></a>Umayyad</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Umayyad caliphate established in 661 was to last for about a century. During this time Damascus became the capital of an Islamic world which stretched from the western borders of China to southern France. Not only did the Islamic conquests continue during this period through North Africa to Spain and France in the West and to Sind, Central Asia and Transoxiana in the East, but the basic social and legal institutions of the newly founded Islamic world were established.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="08"></a>Abbasids</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads, shifted the capital to Baghdad which soon developed into an incomparable center of learning and culture as well as the administrative and political heart of a vast world.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">They ruled for over 500 years but gradually their power waned and they remained only symbolic rulers bestowing legitimacy upon various sultans and princes who wielded actual military power. The Abbasid caliphate was finally abolished when Hulagu, the Mongol ruler, captured Baghdad in 1258, destroying much of the city including its incomparable libraries.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">While the Abbasids ruled in Baghdad, a number of powerful dynasties such as the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks held power in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The most important event in this area as far as the relation between Islam and the Western world was concerned was the series of Crusades declared by the Pope and espoused by various European kings. The purpose, although political, was outwardly to recapture the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem for Christianity. Although there was at the beginning some success and local European rule was set up in parts of Syria and Palestine, Muslims finally prevailed and in 1187 Saladin, the great Muslim leader, recaptured Jerusalem and defeated the Crusaders.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="09"></a>North Africa And Spain</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">When the Abbasids captured Damascus, one of the Umayyad princes escaped and made the long journey from there to Spain to found Umayyad rule there, thus beginning the golden age of Islam in Spain. Cordoba was established as the capital and soon became Europe's greatest city not only in population but from the point of view of its cultural and intellectual life. The Umayyads ruled over two centuries until they weakened and were replaced by local rulers.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Meanwhile in North Africa, various local dynasties held sway until two powerful Berber dynasties succeeded in uniting much of North Africa and also Spain in the 12th and 13th centuries. After them this area was ruled once again by local dynasties such as the Sharifids of Morocco who still rule in that country. As for Spain itself, Muslim power continued to wane until the last Muslim dynasty was defeated in Granada in 1492 thus bringing nearly eight hundred years of Muslim rule in Spain to an end.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="10"></a>After the Mangol Invasion</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Mongols devastated the eastern lands of Islam and ruled from the Sinai Desert to India for a century. But they soon converted to Islam and became known as the Il-Khanids. They were in turn succeeded by Timur and his descendents who made Samarqand their capital and ruled from 1369 to 1500. The sudden rise of Timur delayed the formation and expansion of the Ottoman empire but soon the Ottomans became the dominant power in the Islamic world.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="11"></a>Ottoman Empire</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">From humble origins the Turks rose to dominate over the whole of Anatolia and even parts of Europe. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine empire. The Ottomans conquered much of eastem Europe and nearly the whole of the Arab world, only Morocco and Mauritania in the West and Yemen, Hadramaut and parts of the Arabian peninsula remaining beyond their control. They reached their zenith of power with Suleyman the Magnificent whose armies reached Hungary and Austria. From the 17th century onward with the rise of Westem European powers and later Russia, the power of the Ottomans began to wane. But they nevertheless remained a force to be reckoned with until the First World War when they were defeated by the Westem nations. Soon thereafter Kamal Ataturk gained power in Turkey and abolished the six centuries of rule of the Ottomans in 1924.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="12"></a>Persia</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">While the Ottomans were concerned mostly with the westem front of their empire, to the east in Persia a new dynasty called the Safavids came to power in 1502. The Safavids established a powerful state of their own which flourished for over two centuries and became known for the flowering of the arts. Their capital, Isfahan, became one of the most beautiful cities with its blue tiled mosques and exquisite houses. The Afghan invasion of 1736 put an end to Safavid rule and prepared the independence of Afghanistan which occured fommally in the 19th century. Persia itself fell into tummoil until Nader Shah, the last Oriental conqueror, reunited the country and even conquered India. But the rule of the dynasty established by him was short-lived. The Zand dynasty soon took over to be overthrown by the Qajars in 1779 who made Tehran their capital and ruled until 1921 when they were in turn replaced by the Pahlavis.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="13"></a>India</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">As for India, Islam entered into the land east of the Indus River peacefully. Gradually Muslims gained political power beginning in the early 13th century. But this period which marked the expansion of both Islam and Islamic culture came to an end with the conquest of much of India in 1526 by Babur, one of the Timurid princes. He established the powerful Mogul empire which produced such famous rulers as Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan and which lasted, despite the gradual rise of British power in India, until 1857 when it was officially abolished.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="14"></a>Malaysia And Indonesia</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Farther east in the Malay world, Islam began to spread in the 12th century in northem Sumatra and soon Muslim kingdoms were establishd in Java, Sumatra and mainland Malaysia. Despite the colonization of the Malay world, Islam spread in that area covering present day Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Phililppines and southern Thailand, and is still continuing in islands farther east.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="15"></a>Africa</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">As far as Africa is concemed, Islam entered into East Africa at the very beginning of the Islamic period but remained confined to the coast for some time, only the Sudan and Somaliland becoming gradually both Arabized and Islamized. West Africa felt the presence of Islam through North African traders who travelled with their camel caravans south of the Sahara. By the 14th century there were already Muslim sultanates in such areas as Mali, and Timbuctu in West Africa and Harar in East Africa had become seats of Islamic leaming.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Gradually Islam penetrated both inland and southward. There also appeared major charismatic figures who inspired intense resistance against European domination. The process of the Islamization of Africa did not cease during the colonial period and continues even today with the result that most Africans are now Muslims carrying on a tradition which has had practically as long a history in certain areas of sub-Saharan Africa as Islam itself.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="16"></a>Islam in the United States</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">It is almost impossible to generalize about American Muslims: converts, immigrants, factory workers, doctors; all are making their own contribution to America's future. This complex community is unified by a common faith, underpinned by a countrywide network of a thousand mosques.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Muslims were early arrivals in North America. By the eighteenth century there were many thousands of them, working as slaves on plantations. These early communities, cut off from their heritage and families, inevitably lost their Islamic identity as time went by. Today many Afro-American Muslims play an important role in the Islamic community.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The nineteenth century, however, saw the beginnings of an influx of Arab Muslims, most of whom settled in the major industrial centers where they worshipped in hired rooms. The early twentieth century witnessed the arrival of several hundred thousand Muslims from Eastem Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in Maine in 1915; others soon followed, and a group of Polish Muslims opened a mosque in Brooklyn in 1928.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In 1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the term of President Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. The same period saw the establishment of other communities whose lives were in many ways modelled after Islam. More recently, numerous members of these groups have entered the fold of Muslim orthodoxy. Today there are about five million Muslims in America.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="17"></a>Aftermath of the Colonial Period</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">At the height of European colonial expansion in the 19th century, most of the Islamic world was under colonial rule with the exception of a few regions such as the heart of the Ottoman empire, Persia, Afghanistan, Yemen and certain parts of Arabia. But even these areas were under foreign influence or, in the case of the Ottomans, under constant threat. After the First World War with the breakup of the Ottoman empire, a number of Arab states such as Iraq became independent, others like Jordan were created as a new entity and yet others like Palestine, Syria and Lebanon were either mandated or turned into French colonies. As for Arabia, it was at this time that Saudi Arabia became finally consolidated. As for other parts of the Islamic world, Egypt which had been ruled by the descendents of Muhammad Ali since the l9th century became more independent as a result of the fall of the Ottomans, Turkey was turned into a secular republic by Ataturk, and the Pahlavi dynasty began a new chapter in Persia where its name reverted to its eastern traditional form of Iran. But most of the rest of the Islamic world remained under colonial rule.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="18"></a>Arab</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">It was only after the Second World War and the dismemberment of the British, French, Dutch and Spanish empires that the rest of the Islamic world gained its independence. In the Arab world, Syria and Lebanon became independent at the end of the war as did Libya and the shaykdoms around the Gulf and the Arabian Sea by the 1960's. The North African countries of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria had to fight a difficult and, in the case of Algeria, long and protracted war to gain their freedom which did not come until a decade later for Tunisia and Morocco and two decades later for Algeria. Only Palestine did not become independent but was partitioned in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="19"></a>India</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In India Muslims participated in the freedom movement against British rule along with Hindus and when independence finally came in 1947, they were able to create their own homeland, Pakistan, which came into being for the sake of Islam and became the most populated Muslim state although many Muslims remained in India. In 1971, however, the two parts of the state broke up, East Pakistan becoming Bengladesh.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="20"></a>Far East</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Farther east still, the Indonesians finally gained their independence from the Dutch and the Malays theirs from Britain. At first Singapore was part of Malaysia but it separated in 1963 to become an independent state. Small colonies still persisted in the area and continued to seek their independence, the kingdom of Brunei becoming independent as recently as 1984.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="21"></a>Africa</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In Africa also major countries with large or majority Muslim populations such as Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania began to gain their independence in the 1950's and 1960's with the result that by the end of the decade of the 60's most parts of the Islamic world were formed into independent national states. There were, however, exceptions. The Muslim states in the Soviet Union failed to gain their autonomy or independence. The same holds true for Sinkiang (called Eastem Turkestan by Muslim geographers) while in Eritrea and the southern Philippines Muslim independence movements still continue.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="22"></a>National States</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">While the world of Islam has entered into the modern world in the form of national states, continuous attempts are made to create closer cooperation within the Islamic world as a whole and to bring about greater unity. This is seen not only in the meetings of the Muslim heads of state and the establishment of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) with its own secretariat, but also in the creation of institutions dealing with the whole of the Islamic world. Among the most important of these is the Muslim World League (Rabitat al-alam al-Islami ) with its headquarters in Makkah. Saudi Arabia has in fact played a pivotal role in the creation and maintenance of such organizations.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="23"></a>Revival and Reassertation of Islam</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Muslims did not wish to gain only their political independence. They also wished to assert their own religious and cultural identity. From the 18th century onward Muslim reformers appeared upon the scene who sought to reassert the teachings of Islam and to reform society on the basis of Islamic teachings. One of the first among this group was Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who hailed from the Arabian peninsula and died there in 1792. This reformer was supported by Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ud, the founder of the first Saudi state. With this support Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was able to spread his teachings not only in Arabia but even beyond its borders to other Islamic lands where his reforms continue to wield influence to this day.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In the 19th century lslamic assertion took several different forms ranging from the Mahdi movement of the Sudan and the Sanusiyyah in North Africa which fought wars against European colonizers, to educational movements such as that of Aligarh in India aiming to reeducate Muslims. In Egypt which, because of al-Azhar University, remains to this day central to Islamic learning, a number of reformers appear, each addressing some aspect of Islamic thought. Some were concerned more with law, others economics, and yet others the challenges posed by Western civilization with its powerful science and technology. These included Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who hailed originally from Persia but settled in Cairo and who was the great champion of Pan-Islamism, that is the movement to unite the Islamic world politically as well as religiously. His student, Muhammad 'Abduh, who became the rector of al-Azhar. was also very influential in Islamic theology and thought. Also of considerable influence was his Syrian student, Rashid Rida, who held a position closer to that of 'Abd al-Wahhab and stood for the strict application of the Shari'ah. Among the most famous of these thinkers is Muhammad Iqbal, the outstanding poet and philosopher who is considered as the father of Pakistan.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="24"></a>Reform Organizations</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Moreover, as Western influence began to penetrate more deeply into the fiber of Islamic society, organizations gradually grew up whose goal was to reform society in practice along Islamic lines and prevent its secularization. These included the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-muslimin) founded in Egypt and with branches in many Muslim countries, and the Jama'at-i Islami of Pakistan founded by the influential Mawlana Mawdudi. These organizations have been usually peaceful and have sought to reestablish an Islamic order through education. During the last two decades, however, as a result of the frustration of many Muslims in the face of pressures coming from a secularized outside world, some have sought to reject the negative aspects of Western thought and culture and to return to an Islamic society based completely on the application of the Shari 'ah. Today in every Muslim country there are strong movements to preserve and propagate Islamic teachings. In countries such as Saudi Arabia Islamic Law is already being applied and in fact is the reason for the prosperity, development and stability of the country. In other countries where Islamic Law is not being applied, however, most of the effort of Islamic movements is spent in making possible the full application of the Shari'ah so that the nation can enjoy prosperity along with the fulfillment of the faith of its people. In any case the widespread desire for Muslims to have the religious law of Islam applied and to reassert their religious values and their own identity must not be equated with exceptional violent eruptions which do exist but which are usually treated sensationally and taken out of proportion by the mass media in the West.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="25"></a>Education and Science in the Islamic World</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In seeking to live successfully in the modern world, in independence and according to Islamic principles, Muslim countries have been emphasizing a great deal the significance of the role of education and the importance of mastering Western science and technology. Already in the 19th century, certain Muslim countries such as Egypt, Ottoman Turkey and Persia established institutions of higher learning where the modem sciences and especially medicine were taught. During this century educational institutions at all levels have proliferated throughout the Islamic world. Nearly every science ranging from mathematics to biology as well as various fields of modern technology are taught in these institutions and some notable scientists have been produced by the Islamic world, men and women who have often combined education in these institutions with training in the West.</span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">In various parts of the Islamic world there is, however, a sense that educational institutions must be expanded and also have their standards improved to the level of the best institutions in the world in various fields of leaming especially science and technology. At the same time there is an awareness that the educational system must be based totally on Islamic principles and the influence of alien cultural and ethical values and norms, to the extent that they are negative, be diminished. To remedy this problem a number of international Islamic educational conferences have been held, the first one in Makkah in 1977, and the foremost thinkers of the Islamic world have been brought together to study and ponder over the question of the relation between Islam and modern science. This is an ongoing process which is at the center of attention in many parts of the Islamic world and which indicates the significance of educational questions in the Islamic world today.</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="26"></a>Influence of Islamic Science and Learning Upon the West</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The oldest university in the world which is still functioning is the eleven hundred-year-old Islamic university of Fez, Morocco, known as the Qarawiyyin. This old tradition of Islamic learning influenced the West greatly through Spain. In this land where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived for the most part peacefully for many centuries, translations began to be made in the 11th century mostly in Toledo of Islamic works into Latin often through the intermediary of Jewish scholars most of whom knew Arabic and often wrote in Arabic. As a result of these translations, Islamic thought and through it much of Greek thought became known to the West and Western schools of learning began to flourish. Even the Islamic educational system was emulated in Europe and to this day the term chair in a university reflects the Arabic kursi (literally seat) upon which a teacher would sit to teach his students in the madrasah (school of higher learning). As European civillization grew and reached the high Middle Ages, there was hardly a field of learning or form of art, whether it was literature or architecture, where there was not some influence of Islam present. Islamic learning became in this way part and parcel of Western civilization even if with the advent of the Renaissance, the West not only turned against its own medieval past but also sought to forget the long relation it had had with the Islamic world, one which was based on intellectual respect despite religious opposition.</span><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><a name="27"></a>Conclusion</span></h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Islamic world remains today a vast land stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with an important presence in Europe and America, animated by the teachings of Islam and seeking to assert its own identity. Despite the presence of nationalism and various secular ideologies in their midst, Muslims wish to live in the modern world but without simply imitating blindly the ways followed by the West. The Islamic world wishes to live at peace with the West as well as the East but at the same time not to be dominated by them. It wishes to devote its resources and energies to building a better life for its people on the basis of the teachings of Islam and not to squander its resources in either internal or external conflicts. It seeks finally to create better understanding with the West and to be better understood by the West. The destinies of the Islamic world and the West cannot be totally separated and therefore it is only in understanding each other better that they can serve their own people more successfully and also contribute to a better life for the whole of humanity.<br /></span></div><div><br /></div><center></center></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-61285225382578642092009-11-20T07:48:00.000-08:002009-11-20T08:00:48.669-08:00The History of Madrid, Spain<img src="http://www.gomadrid.com/history/images/mayor.jpg" alt="Madrid's Plaza Mayor" /> <img src="http://www.gomadrid.com/history/images/palreal.jpg" alt="Madrid's Royal Palace" /><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, geneva; font-size: 13px; "><p></p><p>The site of Madrid has been occupied since prehistoric times, as has been shown by numerous objects found during different excavations along the banks of the River Manzanares. Many of these objects (axes and small Palaeolithic objects, remains of animals that prove the existence of large mammals, Neolithic ceramics, etc.) can be seen at the National Archaeological Museum. Madrid's population was initially Iberian and later Roman, and is possibly the Mantua found in certain ancient references and the Roman Miacum from the "Antonine itinerary", although some historians dispute this.</p><p>It is now commonly believed that the original name of the settlement here was Matrice, a pre-Muslim word, which refers to the waters of the area and particularly to the stream running down the Calle de Segovia.</p><p>However, Madrid as such does not achieve a mention in chronicles until the late tenth century, at which time there was already a fort or castle where the ROYAL PALACE stands today. This fort was occupied by the Moors, who having named the River Manzanares al-Magrit ("source of water"), referred to the area as Mayrit (from which Magerit, then Madrid) and around which the borough of Madrid developed in the following centuries. The old arab walls surrounding this settlement can still be seen today .</p><p>Between several different warriors, the Moors kept rule until Madrid was finally conquered in 1085 by Alfonso VI in his advance towards TOLEDO. This king ordered the main mosque within the fort's walls to be "purified" and consecrated as a Catholic church under the guidance of the Virgin of the Almudena, the name deriving from a religious icon found near the "almudín" or wheat deposit. La Virgen de la Almudena later became Madrid's female patron saint, whose saint's day is CELEBRATED on 9th November and who gives her name to Madrid's cathedral.</p><p>In the year 1329, King Fernando V assembled The Court of Madrid for the first time.</p><p>A little later, due to the Reconquista, Moors and Jews formed a concentrated population in the area that still today carries the name of Morería, but in 1494 the "unbelievers" were expelled and the mosque and other indicative buildings disappeared.</p><p>Later, Madrid was taken by the followers of Enrique of Tastamara and ceded by Juan I to King Leon V of Armenia who was then dethroned by the Sultan of Babilonia. Having been destroyed by fire during the reign of Enrique II, the city was rebuilt by his grandson Enrique III, who reincorporated Madrid under the Crown of Castille and who also founded El Pardo, situated just outside the city.</p><p>Enrique VI gave Madrid the title of "Very Noble and Loyal" and celebrated here his magnificent wedding with Doña Juana of Portugal. The death of the king caused the formation of two distinct bands within the Castille kingdom - the two sides disputing the succession of the throne. Isabel and her supporters overcame Doña Juana's followers and the victorious "Catholic Kings" (Isabel and her husband Fernando) solemnly entered the city to reside in a mansion in the Plaza de la Paja owned by Don Pedro Lasso de la Vega.</p><p>During the war of Communities, the Borough of Madrid took sides with the "Comuneros", although this did not prevent Emperor Carlos V bestowing on the city the title of "Crowned and Imperial". As remnants of these times we can cite the Church of San Jerónimo, the Church of del Paso and the TOWER OF LUJANES, this last in the Plaza de la Villa, opposite the Ayuntamiento or City Hall where Francis I of France was held prisoner after his defeat at Pravia in Italy.</p><p>Carlos V was certainly enamoured with Madrid, amongst other things because he managed to cure himself here of tertian fever. However, it was his son, Felipe II who moved the Imperial Court to Madrid in 1561, although without making any official declaration. The population of the borough at this time was around 25,000. From this time Madrid was now the kingdom's capital, apart from the brief years between 1601 and 1606 when Felipe III installed his court in Valladolid.</p><p>Madrid enjoyed significant changes during the 18th century, when city gates, bridges and new buildings gave it a new appearance. The Royal Palace (also called the Eastern Palace - Palacio de Oriente, standing next to the large PLAZA DE ORIENTE square) was constructed on the site of the ruins of the Alcazar or old Moorish Castle which had been destroyed by fire in 1734. After 1738 Juan B. Sachetti directed the construction work on the Palace, helped out to some extent by Ventura Rodríguez and developing on original plans made by Juavera. The work was practically completed by 1760.</p><p>The reign of Carlos III (1759 - 1788) helped to greatly improve the appearance of the city. The work on the Royal Palace was totally completed (as we know it today), as was the construction of the city gates of PEUTRA DE TOLEDO, Puerta de Segovia (no longer standing) PEUTRA DE ALCALA and, together with THE ROYALTHEATRE, the building that now houses the Ministry of Finance (Hacienda), the Natural Science Museum, the BOTANICAL GARDEN and the temple of San Francisco El Grande, amongst others. Also, the RETIRO PARK was significantly improved and several new buildings built: CASA DE CISNEROS, the General Hospital, the College of San Carlos, the Royal Mint, Casa de los Geranios and the fountains of CIBELES,NEPTUNE and Apollo.</p><p>The reign of Carlos IV gave Madrid the Buenavista Palace (today the Ministry of Armed Forces) and other notable mansions such as that of the Dukes of Liria in Princesa Street and that of the Count of Altamira in Calle de la Flor.</p><p>On the 2nd of May 1808 a popular revolt started in the PEURTA DEL SOL, initiating the War of Independence. There are numerous place names in Madrid dedicated to these patriotic disturbances, the most significant being of course the Plaza Dos de Mayo in Malasaña. Once General Castaños had repelled the invaders in Bailén, he entered Madrid on 23rd August 1808. However, there were further battles when Emperor Napoleon presented himself in Chamartín and also in December of the same year when José Bonaparte entered Spain, only to be expelled three years later under pressure from the Anglo-Hispanic army led by Wellington. The last of the French left Madrid on the 27th May 1813 and the following year King Fernando VII entered the city.</p><p>In 1835 the famous University of Alcalá de Henares was transferred to Madrid, where the Faculty of Science was added, becoming the UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID.</p><p>The city continued to be improved during the reign of Isabel II with old houses in the Puerta del Sol being pulled down and the Congreso de los Diputados or Parliament, Royal and Zarzuela Theatres and the Canal de Isabel II (Madrid's water lifeline) being built. Also, in 1857, Madrid's gas lighting system was inaugurated.</p><p>Since then Madrid's urban progress has accelerated to reach, today, the level of one of Europe's most beautiful capital cities - pleasing both for its intense animated spirit and its suitable mix of modern and classical appearance.</p><p></p></span></div>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-46412520300030223882009-11-20T07:47:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:48:12.313-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Parliamentary Monarchy<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The Spanish Constitution, which was unanimously approved by Parliament and voted by 87.8% of the citizens in a referendum held on 6 December 1978, provides in his article 1 for a Parliamentary Monarchy of the classical liberal European style, with certain peculiarities to take into account the Spanish situation.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Article 1.3 reads: 'The political form of the Spanish State is that of a Parliamentary Monarchy'</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The Constitution provides for separation between legislative, executive and judiciary and gives institutional backing to the King as Head of State and supreme head of the Armed Forces.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Sovereign power is held by a two-chamber Parliament, called the Cortes, whose members are elected by all of the citizens who are 18 or over, for a maximun term of four years. The people's representatives are elected by voting from closed lists drawn up by the political parties or election coalitions, the number of deputies and senators elected for each party being in proportion to the number of votes that each list has received. The proportion is weighted in favour of the lists that receive most votes according to the so-called d'Hondt rule which allocates a larger share of the seats in Parliament to the lists that carry more votes in small constituencies. The rule was introduced by consensus among the different political parties to avoid the possibility that a strictly proportional system would result in too many parties being represented in Parliament, thus leading to weak governments.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The concern over the stability of elected governments is also reflected in the procedure for appointing the Government. This is appointed by the President of the Government (Prime Minister), and the ministers answer directly to him. Therefore, it is the candidate to President of the Government who, upon being entrusted with forming a Government by the King, presents his programme to the Cortes and is chosen by majority vote. In order to be chosen, the Prime Minister must receive an absolute majority of the votes in the firt round or a relative majority in a subsequent round. In order to strengthen the stability of the Government thus elected, any motion of no-confidence must include the name of the candidate nominated to replace the President of the Government, and in the event of the motion being approved a new Government will be formed according to this same procedure. The procedure, introduced by the 'Fathers of the Constitution' (Gabriel Cisneros, Manuel Fraga, Miguel Herrero y Rodriguez de Minon, Gregorio Peces-Barba, Jose Perez Llorca, Miguel Roca and Jordi Sole Tura), is an effective protection against instability resulting from sudden changes in governing coalitions. A Government can only fall if a viable majority reaches an agreement on its replacement.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The stability of Spanish democracy has also benefited from an unconditional backing from the Crown. In restoring Monarchy in Spain King Juan Carlos I has shown intelligence and sensivity, to the point of placing the good name of the Monarchy at the highest level in modern Spanish history both among Spanish people and in other countries. The Royal Family's open and straightforward style, their simple way of life, the absence of a Royal Court and the support given by the King, the Queen, the Crown Prince and the two Infantas to various moral and humanitarian causes have succeeded in placing the Crown above political and ideological confrontations within a period of a few years, turning it into the final guarantor of democratic values and institutions.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-58800185694637640062009-11-20T07:46:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:47:15.877-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Democratic Transition<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">The new king was as determined as he was prudent in his efforts to assure Spain a rapid democratic process, transforming the institution he incarnated into a 'Monarchy for all the Spanish people'. However, it was not an easy task. It was necessary to 'respect' the legal conditions inherited from Francoism, along with a good many of his political groups.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1976: Arias Navarro, who remained in his post as head of the Government, soon showed himself incapable of guaranteeing a smooth transition, while a series of serious incidents such as Vitoria, Montejurra and pro-amnesty demonstrations were taking place throughout the country. Finally, Arias Navarro resigns office and is replaced by Adolfo Suarez (July).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">The new Government proposes a bicameral Cortes and requests that workers be allowed to organize their own unions apart from the 'vertical syndicates'.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">The Cortes approve the Political Reform Law, which is also ratified by a referendum.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1977: The Government repeals the articles of the Law of Associations which gave it power to refuse the legalization of any political party. Spain and the Soviet Union announce the establishment of full diplomatic relations. Ten parties are legally recognized, including the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), the Popular Socialist Party and the Christian Democrat Party. A royal decree practically dissolves the National Movement. The Government recognizes the Communist Party (PCE). The Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) obtains a majority in the general election (June). Three decrees which restore to a limited extent the self-government of Catalonia are signed by the King. The Government approves the provisional pre-autonomy of the Basque Country.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1978: The Spanish people approve by an 88% majority the new Constitution, which defines Spain as a Parliamentary Monarchy.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1980: The Basque Country and Catalonia legally decome autonomous regions.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1981: Suarez resigns as prime minister and is replaced by Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo. The decline of the UCD and the change of the prime ministers coincided with the death throes of the authoritarian regime to defend itself against democracy. A group of Civil Guards burst into the Congress and held the Deputies as hostages while the General-in-chief of one of the country's military regions supported the coup by ordering his troops to occupy Valencia. The decisive intervention of the King aborted the attempted coup, and the Spanish defended their democracy. This event further weakened the Government and the party in power.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1982: On October 28, new general elections were held. The PSOE obtained an absolute majority. Felipe Gonzalez is invested as Prime Minister. This event can be considered as the culmination of the transition period and it represented the definite consolidation of the democratic process.</span></p><div><br /></div><p></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-74351660975195696562009-11-20T07:44:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:46:22.068-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Francoist Dictatorship<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1939 to 1945: Spain stays out of the 2nd World War.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1947: Franco announces the restoration of the monarchy when he dies or retires (Law of Succession).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1953: Spain and the US sign a co-operation agreement providing for the establishment of bases for joint use.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1955: An agreement between the US and the Soviet Union enables Spain to enter the United Nations with other fifteen nations.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1956: Sidi Mohamed ben Yusef, the Moroccan Sultan, reaches an agreement with Franco to end the Spanish protectorate over Morocco.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1958: The Spanish government hands over Tarfaya (an area in the South of Morocco) to Morocco. The Moroccan Government also claims Ifni.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1962: HRH Prince Juan Carlos marries the royal princess Sofia de Grecia.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1963: The Co-operation Agreement with the United States is extended for five years more.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1968: Spain grants Equatorial Guinea its independence (October 12th).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1969: The territory of Ifni is handed over to Morocco. The border with Gibraltar is closed. Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon is formally invested as Crown Prince, one day after Franco names him as successor with the title of King.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1970: The Friendship and Co-operation Agreement with the US is renewed for five years.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1973: The head of the government, Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated in the bombing attack by ETA, the Basque separatist organization (December 20th).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1975: In collective pastoral -the first since 1937- the bishops state that the guaranteeing of 'the rights of assembly, association and expression' are 'obligatory'.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The US and Spain announce an agreement of principle on the military bases, which establishes American military aid for Spain (October 4th).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">A decree declares the regional languages -Catalan, Basque and Galician- to be national languages.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The Cortes approve the end of the Spanish presence in Spanish Sahara and the transfer of the territorial administration of the colonial Government (November 18th).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">General Franco dies (November 20th).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">King Juan Carlos takes the oath as King of Spain at a joint session of the Cortes and the Council of the Realm.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">A chapter of Spanish history was forever closed and the doors of freedom and hope were opened for the Spanish people.</span></p><div><br /></div><p></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-79873855625576651212009-11-20T07:43:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:44:14.021-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Spanish Civil War<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Introduction:</span></h3><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1936 to 1939: A military rising originating in Morocco, headed by General Francisco Franco, spreads rapidly all over the country, thus starting the Spanish Civil War.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">After a number of bloody battles in which fortunes changed from one side to the other, the 'nacionales' finally prevailed and made a victorious entry into Madrid (March 28th, 1939).</span></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Significant Events:</span></h3><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1936: The tragic death of Calvo Sotelo had the effect of accelerating a military coup that had been under preparation for a long time. Actually, the conspirators had been awaiting General Franco's decision to begin the uprising. On July 18th it spread to other garrisons in metropolitan Spain and the following day Franco took command of the army in Morocco. The rising was succesful in Seville (directed by General Queipo de Llano), the Balearic Islands (General Goded), the Canary Islands and Morocco (Franco), Navarra (Mola), Burgos and Saragossa. General Yague advanced through Extremadura and Mola took Irun. By the end of 1936 the Nationalist troops controlled the greater part of Andalucia, Extremadura, Toledo, Avila, Segovia, Valladolid, Burgos, Leon, Galicia, a part of Asturias, Vitoria, San Sebastian, Navarra and Aragon, as well as the Canary and Balearic Islands with the exception of Menorca. Castilla la Nueva, Catalunya, Valencia, Murcia, Almeria, Gijon and Bilbao remained in Republican hands.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Republican government formed a coalition Cabinet headed by Giralt which was succeeded by another one under Largo Caballero. It brought the CNT (Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo, the anarcho-syndicalist union) into the Cabinet and moved to Valencia. On September 29, the Junta de Defensa Nacional named Franco head of the government and commander of the armed forces. To offset these circumstances, the Republican government created a Popular army and militarized the militia. Both sides were soon receiving aid from abroad: the International Brigades were supporting Republican Spain and Italian and German troops, Nationalist Spain.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Jarama, Brunete, Quinto, Belchite, Fuentes de Ebro, Teruel, The Retreats and The Ebro are the battlegrounds of the Spanish Civil War in which over twelve hundred Canadian soldiers supporting Republican Spain took part. These men created the most unique military unit in the history of Canada: the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the XVth International Brigade of the Spanish Republican Army: 'the Mac-Paps.'</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1937: The year 1937 was characterized by fighting in the north of the country: Guernica was bombed in April, Bilbao taken in June, Santander in August, and Gijon in October. The reaction of the Republicans was to open fronts in Guadalajara (March),Brunete (July), and Belchite (August). The Battle of Teruel was launched at the end of the year.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1938: The Nationalist transferred their efforts to Aragon, recovered Teruel and divided the Republican zone in two parts after entering Castellon in July 1938. The government replied with the so-called Battle of the Ebro (July-November 1938) which ended with a Republican defeat and 70,000 casualties.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1939: Once government resistance was exhausted, the Republican exile began with many Spaniards fleeing accross the border into France. Catalunya fell on February 10, 1939. Madrid was the only city still resisting, and the proposals of peace made by its Junta de Defensa (headed by Casado and Besteiro) were useless. Nationalist forces occupied the capital on March 28, 1939, and on April 1, General Franco officially ended the war.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-85579025163767175192009-11-20T07:42:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:43:19.395-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Second Republic<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1931: After the municipal elections, the Republic is proclaimed. The revolutionary committee becomes the provisional Government. Niceto Alcala Zamora is named president. The Constituent Cortes draft a new Constitution.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1933: The centre-right parties obtain a majority in the Cartes.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1934: Revolutions take place in Catalonia and Asturias in protest against the participation of the CEDA (Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right-Wing) in the government.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1936: The Popular Front, a left-wing coalition, wins the elections. The new Cortes depose Alcala Zamora and appoint Manuel Azana President of the Republic.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Azana's first government declared a general amnesty and the resumption of the Agrarian Reform and Statutes for Catalunya, the Basque provinces and, eventually, for Galicia. Azana was elected the President of the Republic in May, and Cesares Quiroga was charged with forming the Government. The conflicts continued and after the assassination of Lieutenant Castillo of the Assault Guard by Fascist gunmen, his comrades-in-arms murderes, in turn, the head of the opposition, Calvo Sotelo, on July 12. Five days later, on July 17, the military garrison in Melilla rose. The Civil War had begun.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-69316306092003926262009-11-20T07:41:00.002-08:002009-11-20T07:42:37.857-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Spain and the First World War<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1914 to 1918: Spain remains neutral in the First World War.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Spain's position of neutrality during World War I was no more than a parenthesis. Rising prices and Europe's diminishing market produced increased instability, and in 1917, the General Parliamentary Assembly held in Barcelona decided to introduce constitutional reforms and called for a general strike in August.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-65503124694082089952009-11-20T07:41:00.001-08:002009-11-20T07:41:50.882-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Loss of the Colonies<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1898: In 1898, Spain lost the last of its overseas colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines) but took on Morocco as a protectorate, which was to prove a new source of friction. The nation's delicate economic and social situation was expressed in serious internal tension, with anarchist uprisings in several regions, and street fighting in Barcelona in 1909 and 1917.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1909: The Moroccan war enters a disastrous stage, giving rise to a wave of protest all over the country and sparking off the events of the 'Semana Tragica' in Barcelona.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1914 to 1918: Spain remains neutral in the First World War.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1921: The troops fighting in Morocco suffer the disaster of Annual.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1923: General Primo de Rivera gained power by a coup d'etat (Sept. 13, 1923) and at first he ruled via the army through a Military Directory.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Primo de Rivera's dictatorship solved some of the multiple problems plaguing the country: he ended the war in Africa, developed local governments and presented an ambitious public works programme. However, the attempt to return to a constitutional government by integrating a consultative National Assembly (1926) failed with the rejection of the Drafts of the Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy (1929).</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-62728037423264855402009-11-20T07:40:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:41:10.214-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The 19th Century<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">When the Spanish diplomats attended the Congress of Vienna in 1814, they represented a victorious State, but a ruined and divided nation. The profound crisis of Spain had seriously undermined the Spanish American empire, because many of the American colonies claimed their independence in the first decades of the 19th century.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The history of the rest of the 19th century was dominated by the dynastic dilemma produced by the death without male heir of Ferdinand VII. His daughter took the throne as Isabel II, but her uncle, the legendary Don Carlos, opposed her claim, thus giving rise to the first of the two Carlist Wars, which chiefly affected Navarre, the Basque Country and El Maestrazgo, the region which bestrides Castellon, Tarragona and Teruel.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Significant dates of the 19th century are:</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1808 to 1813: The Spanish people rise against French domination (May 2nd 1808) and with English help defeat Napoleon.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1814 to 1833: During the reign of Fernando VII, the Spanish colonies of America gain their independence, except Cuba and Puerto Rico.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1833 to 1868: On the death of Ferdinand VII, the rise to power of Isabel II brings about the first Carlist War as the Salic law is abolished.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1841 to 1843: General Espartero is proclaimed regent of the kingdom.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1843: General Narvaez deposes General Espartero.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1854: Leopoldo O'Donnell rebels against Narvaez and alternates with him as Prime Minister.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1868: The revoluction which overthrows Isabel II is headed by Generals Serrano and Prim.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1870: Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, is elected king of Spain. General Prim is assassinated.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1873: Amadeo I abdicates and the Cortes proclaim a republic.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1873 to 1874: The First Republic.- The Republic has to deal with war in Cuba, the third Carlist war and the cantonalist rising of the South and South East of the country. After the presidencies of the Republic by Figueras, Pi y Margall, Salmeron and Castelar, the 'pronunciamiento' of General Pavia dissolves the Cortes and establishes the government of General Serrano.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1874: The Restoration.- General Martinez Campos rises in Sagunto and proclaims the restoration of the Bourbons (Borbones) under Alfonso XII.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1876 to 1878: The defeat of Carlism and the peace of El Zanjon, which brings to an end the ten year war in Cuba, makes it possible to set up a stable Government.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1885 to 1886: Alfonso XII dies and is succeeded by his posthumous son, Alfonso XIII, under the regency of his mother, Maria Cristina de Habsburgo y Lorena.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1895: The Cuban war of independence breaks up.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">1898: The war with the United States puts an end to the remains of the Spanish colonial empire: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines are turned over to the victors.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-40822026362235069502009-11-20T07:39:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:40:04.424-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Peninsular War and the Constitution of 1812<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1808-1813: The Spanish people rise against French domination (May 2nd, 1808) and with English help defeat Napoleon. The Peninsular War (Guerra de la Independencia) was a key factor in the cristalization of Spanish Nationality.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1808: The crisis of the Old Order that had opened the doors to the Napoleonic invasion, also coincided with a dynastic crisis that seriously undermined the enormous prestige of a millenary crown. Fernando the prince of Asturias and heir to the throne, intrigued against Godoy, the Prime Minister, who had been accused by public opinion of being the Queen's lover, and was blamed for all the ills of those troubled times. In March 1808, Godoy fell and Carlos IV abdicated in favour of his son, but the monarchic institution had been irreparably damaged.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Napoleon, who had not recognized the rule of Fernando VII, decided to take advantage of the Spanish dynastic crisis to substitute Bonapartes for Bourbons. To do so, he summoned the Spanish royal family to Bayonne and compelled Fernando VII to abdicate in favour of his father, who abdicated in favour of Jospeh Bonaparte. This was an act that took place with all the legal formalities and was adhered to by all the principal institutions and personnages of the kingdom. The political regime that the Bonapartes attempted to unite was that planned by the Statute of Bayonne on 8 July 1808. Although this document is of great importance from a historical point of view, it has no juridical or practical significance because it never came into force. However, it was the first constitutional text to appear in Spain.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The reforms established by this Statute could not be applied by Joseph Bonaparte since a great part of the Spanish people rejected them as they considered the new monarchy to be illegitimate and the product of a treason.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The result was a generalized uprising which began on 2 May, immortalized by Goya in his paintings.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The Spanish War, as it was known in France, lasted six years. The Spaniards called it the War of Independence, and it was an all-encompassing national war.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1810: But if the Peninsular War was a landmark in the history of revolutions, it is also important to emphasize the juridical and administrative bodies that were created so that the country could defend itself from the invaders using other means. The opening session of the new Cortes was held on 24 September 1810. The following basic principles were ratifies: sovereignty resides in the Nation, the legitimacy of Fernando VII as King of Spain, and the iviolability of the deputies. The work of the Cortes of Cadiz was very intense and the first Spanish constitutional text was promulgated in the city of Cadiz on March 12th 1812.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1812: This is the beginning of the Spanish constitutionalism. Since that time, Spain had a total of seven fully-feldged constitutions, including the one currently in force (1978). This list does not include the Statute of Bayonne, approved by Joseph I in 1808, which many authors do not regard as a constitution in the proper sense, since it was imposed as a result of the Napoleonic invasion.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-65820727816729219852009-11-20T07:36:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:38:58.058-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Bourbons and the Enlightment.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Carlos II, the last of the Spanish Hapsburg, left no direct descendants, but named as his successor a grandson of his sister Maria Teresa and Louis XIV of France, Felipe of Anjou. Crown as King of Spain and the Indes, Felipe V was the first Spanish Bourbon King inaugurating with his reign the Spain of the Enlightenment, an epoch of hamonious foreign relations, reform and interior development.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">The reign of Felipe V can be deivided into three clearly different phases: first, that of tutelage from France, then independence, and finally, that of an equilibrium with the great neighbouring nation.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">1759 to 1788: During the reign of Charles III, the policies of the Primer Minister, Floridablanca, kept Spain out of the conflict in spite of a cautious intervention in the American War of Independence. Charles III carried out a profound reorganisation of the nation, reformed its agriculture and introduced the very latest in urban concepts from his native Naples. This was the time when Madrid was transformed from just another town in La Mancha into a modern city, replete with elegant buildings on a par with Paris, Milan and Naples. It was equiped with running water, a sewage system, street lighting and a court of great style and splendour.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">Although there was considerable resistance to the introduction of new concepts at grass roots level, the nation's intellectuals were receptive to the ideas of the Enlightment and of Diderot's Encyclopedie. Spain began to produce architects, engineers, geographers and naturalists. Later, the democratic ideas engendered by the French Revolution were to reach Spain, though not to be adopted by the ruling or political classes.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#009900;">After a brief period of enforced alliance with France, which cultimated in the British defeat of a Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, Napoleon's troops invaded Spain. The bloody six-year war which followed - the Peninsular War, known in Spain as the War of Independence - in which guerrilla tactics and a scorched-earth policy were applied, dealt a death blow to the Spanish economy.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-8768770280573832412009-11-20T07:23:00.001-08:002009-11-20T07:23:54.698-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1516: On the death of Fernando of Aragon, the Spanish Crown goes to Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, who unites under a single sceptre the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, plus the Italian and European dominions of the Habsburgs.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1519: Charles is crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (June 28th), which involves Spain in endless wars; the monarch confronts the Ottoman Empire, takes Francois I of France prisoner at Pavia and tries to solve the serious problem of the Reformation.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1556: Charles abdicates and enters the monastery of Yuste (where he dies two years later), dividing his dominions between his son Philip II and his younger brother Ferdinand I. Most of the Empire remains in the hands of the Spanish branch of the House of Austria.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1571: Don Juan de Austria, the half-brother of Philip II, defeats the Turks in the naval battle of Lepanto.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1588: Disaster of the Invencible Armada against England. The decline of Spains becomes more noticeable.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1700: With the death of Charles II, the dinasty of the Habsburg comes to an end and the War of the Spanish Succession breaks out, in which France, England and Austria are involved.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC0000;">1714: The war ends. France imposes Philip of Anjou (Philip V), the grandson of Louis XIV, as king of Spain. Spain loses Belgium, Luxemburg, Milan, Naples, Sardinia, Minorca and Gibraltar.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-91661375505810303752009-11-20T07:18:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:19:16.499-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Discovery of America<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">One of the most significant dates during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs was 12th October 1492: the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The fact that Christopher Columbus (who was not originally Spanish) appealed to a foreign court to offer his services proved that the discovery of America was not incidental.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Portugal and Castilla (Spain) were well-advanced in the exploration of overseas mercantile routes and Sevilla, a wealthy and populous Spanish city, was by then an important commercial centre. We know that the African routes were closed to Castilla in favour of Portugal, In 1479, under the Treaty of Alcacoba, Alfonso V of Portugal renounced his claims to Castilla and recognized the rights of Castilla over the Canary Islands, while Castilla recognized the rights of Portugal over the Azores, Cape Verde and Madeira.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The Canary Islands were an excellent bridgehead for alternate routes. This is what Christopher Columbus offered and he offered it to a State that needed them, but which was also accustomed to and prepared for this type of venture. Unified Spain possessed in 1492 a powerful war machine, a solid economy, an exterior projection, naval experience including the exploration of trade routes and notable scientific-technical potential mathematicians, geographers, astronomers and shipbuilders who had been formed in a melting-pot of three cultures (Jews, Muslims and Christians). Its only rival was its neighbour, Portugal, which, as we know, had put a stop to Spanish expansion in Africa.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Columbus' offer was rapidly accepted in spite of his acknowledged errors. But during his journey to Asia his caravels unexpectedly came across the American continent.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The Spanish were especially well prepared by history to conquer, occupy, populate and exploit new lands and assimilate new people. America thus became the new frontier-land for those people used to its ways and with the military, diplomats and administrative arms at their disposal to face the challenge. By the middle of the 16th century, they had settled in the two most important viceroyalties, Mexico on the Atlantic, and Peru on the Pacific.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-5905827430470338132009-11-20T07:17:00.001-08:002009-11-20T07:17:57.993-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Catholic Monarchs<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1474 to 1516: During the reign of Isabel and Fernando, the outstanding elements are:</span></p><ol><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The taking of Granada (that completed in 1492, January 2nd, the Christian Reconquest against Muslim rule in Spain.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The Discovery of America (12 October 1492) by Christopher Columbus.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The setting up of the Inquisition: a Tribunal that not only had religious implications, but was also an instrument allowing royal power to reinforce the authority of the State. The unity of Spain was possible after the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs in 1464.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The expulsion of the Jews. The search for unity did not stop with the final military gesture of 1492 but was prolonged in pursuit of religious and cultural uniformity, culminating in the expulsion of the Jews who refused to convert in the same year that the Reconquest was completed, and in the ensuing expulsion of the Muslims.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The pacification of the kingdoms. They tried to reinforce the state apparatus and royal authority to do so and they used the juridical and administrative institutions already existing. The Spanish monarchy appears then as one of the first modern states of Renaissance Europe.</span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">An international policy of marriage alliances to consolidate Spanish power. The Spanish monarchy had a foreign policy influenced by the creation of a permanent state, served by functionaries and diplomats, shaped by a unitarian concept, which was both flexible and confederal, of the monarchical institution.</span></li></ol></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-21827960601946944182009-11-20T07:16:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:17:07.344-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-The Reconquest<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">718: Pelayo, a noble Visigoth who has been elected king, defeats the Muslim Army in Alcama in the neighbourhood of Covadonga, thus beginning the Christian Reconquest of Spain.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">750: The Christians, under Alfonso I, occupy Galicia, which had been abandoned by revolting Berber troops.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">778: The army of Charlemagne suffers the defeat of Roncesvalles at the hands of the Vascons; death of Roland.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">791 to 842: Alfonso II conquers a number of strongholds and settles the lands south of the river Duero.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">873 to 898: Wilfredo the Hairy, Count of Barcelona, sets up a Christian kingdom with a certain degree of independence from the Frankish kings.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">905 to 926: Sancho I Garces creates a Basque kingdom centred on Navarre.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">930 to 950: Ramiro II, king of Leon, defeats Abd al-Rahman III at Simancas, Osma and Talavera.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">950 to 951: Count Fernan Gonzalez lays the foundations for the independence of Castile.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">981: Ramiro III is defeated by Almansur at Rueda and is obliged to pay tribute to the Caliph of Cordova.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">999 to 1018: Alfonso V of Leon reconstructs his kingdoms.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1000 to 1033: Sancho III of Navarre subdues the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza, takes possession of the County of Castile and makes an arrangement with Bermudo III of Leon with the idea of taking away his dominions from him and proclaiming himself as emperor. However, on his death, he leaves Navarre to his son Garcia III, Castile to Fernando I, and Aragon, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza to Ramiro I.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1035 to 1063: Fernando I conquers Coimbra and obliges the Muslims of Toledo, Seville and Badajoz to pay him tribute. Before his death, he shares out his territories between his sons: Castile goes to Sancho II and Leon to Alfonso VI.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1065 to 1109: Alfonso VI unites the two kingdoms under his sceptre and takes Toledo.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1086: The Christian advance ogliges the Muslim kings of Granada, Seville and Badajoz to call to their aid the Almoravides.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1102: The followers of the Cid leave Valencia and the African Muslims occupy the Peninsula as far as Saragossa (Zaragoza).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1118: Alfonso I of Aragon conquers Saragossa.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1135: Alfonso VII of Leon restores the prestige of the Leonese monarchy and is proclaimed emperor.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1151: The Almohades, another African dynasty who have displaced the Almoravides, retake Almaria.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1162: Alfonso II, son of Petronila and Ramon Berenguer IV, unites in his person the kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1195: The Almohades defeat the Castilians at Alarcos.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1212: Culmination of the Reconquest. Alfonso VIII of Castile, helped by Sancho VIII of Navarre, Pedro II of Aragon and some troops from Portugal and Leon, is victorious in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1229: Jaime I of Aragon, the Conqueror, reconquers Marllorca.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1230: Alfonso IX of Leon advances along the River Guadiana, takes Merida and Badajoz and opens up the way for the conquest of Seville.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1217 to 1252: Fernando III, king of Castile and Leon, conquers Cordova, Murcia, Jaen and Seville. Granada remains as the sole independent Muslim kingdom.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1252 to 1284: Alfonso X the Wise continues the reconquest and is obliged to face the 'Mudejar' revolts of Andalusia and Murcia. He seeks election as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1257. Alfonso X drafts the 'Fuero de las Leyes', the forerunner of the 'Siete Partidas'.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1284: An assembly of nobles, prelates and citizens depose Alfonso X and hand over power to his son Sancho IV.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1309: Fernando IV takes Gibraltar.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1312 to 1350: Alfonso XI fights the kingdom of Granada for 25 years and in 1340 wins the battle of Rio Salado.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1369: Pedro I the Cruel is murdered in Montiel by his half brother Enrique de Trastamara, who then governs as Enrique II.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1385: The Portuguese defeat the Castilians in Aljubarrota.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1464: Enrique IV of Castile names as heir to the throne his sister, the future Isabel I, the Catholic, and disinherits his daughter Juana, nicknamed 'La Beltraneja'.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1469: Isabel I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon are married, thus cunsummating the unity of Spain.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1492: The Catholic Monarchs, Isabel and Fernando, complete the Reconquest by taking Granada (January 2nd), taking advantage of the rivalry of the last Muslim governors of Spain. Discovery of America (October 12th).</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-47707990443479456882009-11-20T07:14:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:15:31.884-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Muslim Spain<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">f you come from Chapter number 6 because you had some problems in understanding the history of Andalucia, please be welcome!</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">If you a newcomer, please be welcome too, and see how interesting is this topic about Muslim Spain!</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">It was one of the noble clans, the Witiza family, that, at the beginning of the 8th century, caused the decline of the Visigoth kingdom, by appealing for aid to Muslim and Berbers warriors from across the Strait of Gibraltar to fight the royal usurper. In fact, the Visigothic state apparatus' disintegration allowed the Muslims to make isolated pacts with an aristocracy that was semi-independent and opposed to the Crown.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">By the middle of the 8th century, the Muslims had completed their occupation and the Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman, who had fled from the Abbasid slaughter of 750 A.D., took refuge among the Berbers. Finally, supported by one of the Peninsular Muslims tribes, the Yemenies, he managed to defeat, in 755, the Abbasid governor of Al-Andalus and have himself proclaimed in Cordoba Emir, independent of Damascus. In the first thrid of the 10th century, one of the Spanish Umayyads, Abd al- Rahman III, restored and extended the Al-Andalus emirate and became the first Spanish Caliph.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The proclamation of the Caliphate had a double purpose. In the interior, the Umayyads wanted to strenghten the Peninsular kingdom. Outside the country, they wanted to consolidate the commercial routes of the Mediterranean, guarantee an economic relationship with the east-Byzantium, and assure the supply of gold. Melilla was occupied in 927 and, by the middle of the same century, the Umayyad controlled the triangle formed by Algeria, Siyimasa and the Atlantic. The power of the Andalucian Caliphate also extended to western Europe, and by 950, the Germano-Roman empire was exchanging ambassadors with the Cordoban Caliphate. A few years prior, Hugo of Arles appealed to the powerful Spanish Caliphate for safe conduct f r his merchant ships in the Mediteranean. The small Christian strongholds in the north of the Peninsula became modest feudal holdings of the Caliphate, recognizing its superiority and arbitrage.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The foundations of Andalucian hegemony rested on a considerable economic capacity based on important trade, a developed craft industry and an agriculture know-how which was much more efficient than anything else in the rest of Europe. The Cordoban caliphate had a currency-based economy, and the injection of coinage played a central role in its financial splendour. The gold Cordobes coin became the principal currency of the period and was probably imitated by the Carolingian empire.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Therefore, the Cordoban caliphate was the first urban and commercial economy that had flourished in Europe since the disappearance of the Roman Wmpire. The capital and most important city of the Caliphate, Cordoba, had some 100,000 inhabitants, making it Europe's principal urban concentration during that epoch.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Muslim Spain produced a flourishing culture, aboce all after the Caliph Al-Hakam II (961-976) came to power. He is credited with founding a library of hundreds of thousands of volumes, which was practically inconceivable in Europe at that time. The most distinctive feature of this calture was the early readoption of classical philosophy by Ibn Masarra, Abentofain, Averroes and the Jew Maimonide. But the Spanish-Muslim thinkers stood out, abouve all in medicine, mathematics andastronomy.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The fragmentation of the Cordoban Caliphate took place at the end of the first decade of the 11th century; this came about as a result of the enormous war effort deployed by the last Cordoban leaders and the suffocating fiscal pressures. The thirty-nine successors of the united Caliphate became known as the first (1009-1090) Ta'ifas (petty kingdoms), a name which has passed into the Spanish language as a synonym for the ruin generated by the fragmentation and disunity of the Peninsula. This division occurred twice again, thereby creating second and third Ta'ifas and producing a series of new invasions from the north of Africa. The first time the Almoravides (1090), invaded the Peninsula, the second time it was the Almohads (1146) and the third, the Banu Marins (1224). This progressive weakening meant that by the middle of the 13th century, Islamic Spain was reduced to the Nasrid Kingdom in Granada. Located between the Srait of Gibraltar and Cape Gata, this historical relic did not capitulate until 2 January 1492, at the end of the Reconquest.</span></p><div><br /></div><p></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-74697336512720006982009-11-20T07:13:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:14:41.297-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Visigothic Kingdom<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">By the 5th century A.D., the Visigoths were already a romanized poeple who considered themselves the heirs of the defunct imperial power. Around the middle of this century, the threefold prossures of the Suevi, from the west (Galicia), the Cantabrian-Pyrenaic herdsmen from the north and the Byzantines from the south, the Betica, forced them to establish their capital in Toledo, in the centre of the Peninsula. This decision had implications of great significance; in the first place, because, instead of an east-west delineation of the Peninsula, pivoting between Lisbon and Cartagena, a north-south delineation from Cantabria to the Strait of Gibraltar was created.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">In the second place, it was significant because it constituted a first attempt at Peninsular unity idependent of the rest of the empire, and therefore the Visigoths have been considered, practically to up to the present day, the creators of the first Peninsular kingdom, Moreover the Visigothic kingdom would serve, time and again, as the source of legitimacy for any power which tried to unite Hispania; and thirdly, because the Pyrenees and Gibraltar, no longer considered mere places of passage or points within a larger imperial circuit, became the limits or frontiers of a state to be defended.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The Visigoths defended themselves well against the Suevi in Galicia and subdued them in the 6th century A.D.; however, in the north, the Basques, Cantabrians and Asturians were more successful in resisting the Visigoth onslaught than they had been in resisting the Romans, and were almost as adept as they would be against the Moors. The Betica, from the 6th to the 11th century A.D., constituted an exception within western Europe. Facinf a continental Europe which was increasingly closed and fragmented, it would maintain its urban culture and its commercial and cultural connections within the Mediterranean domain; firstly, with the eastern Roman Empire, with Byzantium and later with the Muslim Caliphate.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Significant dates of this period are:</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">587: Recared, Leovigild's heir, is converted to Catholicism and removes the barriers between Goths and the Hispano-Romans.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">633: The 4th. Synod of Toledo takes on the right to confirm elected kings. The Jews are obliged to be baptized. The vernacular language, of Latin origin, prevails over that of the Visigoths.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">711: The Muslim troops cross the Strait of Gibraltar and defeat the Visigoth king Rodrigo at the battle of Guadalete.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">712: Muza ben-Nosair completes the Muslim conquest. End of Visigothic period.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-87080624269251428702009-11-20T07:12:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:13:48.261-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-Roman Presence.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The Roman presence in the Peninsula followed the route of the Greek commercial bases; however, it commenced with a struggle between this great empire and Carthage for the control of the western Mediterranean during the second century B.C. In any case, it was at that time that the Peninsula would enter as an entity in the international political circuit then in existence, and from then on became a coveted strategic objective due to its singular geographic position between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and to the agricultural and mineral wealth of its southern part.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The penetration and the subsequent Roman conquest of the Peninsula covered the prolonged period streching from 218 to 19 B.C. Significant dates of that period are:</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">209 B.C.: Decline of Hannibal's army in Italy and beginning of the great Roman conquest of Spain. Rome annexes the country and divides it into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">143 to 139 B.C.: Viriatus and the Lusitanians fight the Roman legions.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">133 B.C.: The inhabitants of Numantia prefer to die in the flames of their city rather than surrender to Scipio Aemilianus.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">27 B.C.: The Romans pacify the Peninsula once and for all and divide it into three provinces: Tarraconense, Baetica and Lusitania. The Roman presence in Hispania lasted for seven centuries during which the basic frontiers of the Peninsula in relation to other European countries were shaped. However the Romans did not only bequeath a territorial administration, but also left a legacy of social and cultural characters such as the family, language, religion, law and municipal government, the assimilation of which definitively placed the Peninsula within the Greco-Latin and later the Judeo-Christian worlds.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">98 A.D.: Beginning of rule of Trajan, the first Roman emperor of Spanish origin.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">264 A.D.: Franks and suevi invade the country and temporarily occupy Tarragona.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">411 A.D.: The Barbarian tribes sign an alliance with Rome, which enables them to establish military colonies within the Empire.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">568-586.: The Visigoth king Leovigild expels the imperial civil servants and attempts to unify the Peninsula. The end of the Roman empire in Spain.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-60414897070751231402009-11-20T07:11:00.002-08:002009-11-20T07:12:50.824-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-First Human Settlements.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">25,000 to 10,000 B.C.: The cave paintings of Pinal, Pena de Candamo, El Pendal, Pasiega, Ribadesella and Altamira express the existence of a fine culture in the Magdalenian period.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1,100 B.C.: The Phoenicians found Gadir or Gades (Cadiz), Baria Adra, Almunecar and Malaga.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">1,000 B.C.: Civilization of the Tartessians. The Celts begin to arrive from across the Pyrenees.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">7th century B.C.: The Greeks found Hemeroscopion and Manake.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">6th century B.C.: Emporio (Ampurias) and Rhodaes (Rosas) founded.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">237 B.C.: Hamilcar takes the S. and SE. and founds Akra Leuke (Alicante). Hasdrubal founds Cartago Nova (Cartagena)</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">218 to 201 B.C.: Hannibal takes Saguntum (Punic War). The Carthaginians invade Italy. Scipio lands in Spain and defeats Hasdrubal in Tarraco (Tarragona), Illipa (Alcala del Rio) and Gadir. Rome annexes the country and divides it into two provinces: Hispanis Citerior and Hispania Ulterior.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-26734005534099220192009-11-20T07:11:00.001-08:002009-11-20T07:11:51.075-08:00SPANISH HISTORY-INTRODUCTION<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">One of the characteristic features of the early history of Spain is the succesive waves of different peoples who spread all over the Peninsula. The first to appear were the Iberians, a Libyan people, who came from the south. Later came the Celts, a typically Aryan people, and from the merging of the two there arose a new race, the Celtiberians, who, divided into several tribes (Cantabrians, Asturians, Lusitanians) gave their name to their respective homelands. The next to arrive, attracted by mining wealth, were the Phoenicians, who founded a number of trading posts along the coast, the most important being that of Cadiz. After this came Greek settlers, who founded several towns, including Rosas, Ampurias and Sagunto. The Phoenicians, in their struggle against the Greeks, called on the Carthaginians, who, under the orders of Hamilcar Barca, took possession of most of Spain. It was at this time that Rome raised a border dispute in defence of the areas of Greek influence, and thus began in the Peninsula the Second Punic War, which decided the fate of the world at that time. After the Roman victory, Publius Cornelius Scipio, Africanus, began the conquest of Spain, which was to be under Roman rule for six centuries.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Once the Peninsula had been completely subdued, it was Romanized to such an extent that it produced writers of the stature of Seneca and Lucan and such eminent emperors as Trajan and Hadrian.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Rome left in Spain four powerful social elements: the Latin language, Roman law, the municipality and the Christian religion.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Suevi, Vandals and Alans entered Spain, but they were defeated by the Visigoths who, by the end of the 6th century, has occupied virtually the whole of the Peninsula.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">At the beginning of the 8th century the Arabs entered from the south. They conquered the country swiftly except for a small bulwark in the North which would become the initial springboard for the Reconquest, which was not completed until eight centuries later. The period of Muslim sway is divided into three periods: the Emirate (711 to 756), the Caliphate (756-1031) and the Reinos de Taifas (small independent kingdoms) (1031 to 1492).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">In 1469, the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, prepared the way for the union of the two kigdoms and marked the opening of a period of growing success for Spain, since during their reign, Granada, the last stronghold of the Arabs in Spain, was conquered and, at the same time, in the same historic year of 1492, the caravels sent by the Crown of Castile under the command of Christopher Columbus discovered America. The Canary Islands became part of Spanish territory (1495), the hegemony of Spain in the Mediterranean, to the detriment of France, was affirmed with the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples, and Navarre was incorporated into the Kingdom.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The next two centuries, the 16th and the 17th, witnessed the construction and apogee of the Spanish Empire as a result of which the country, under the aegis of the Austrias, became the world's foremost power, and European politics hinged upon it.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The War of Succession to the Spanish Crown (1701-1714) marked the end of the dynasty of the Habsburgs and the coming of the Bourbons. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 formalized the British occupation of the Rock of Gibraltar, giving rise to an anachronistic colonial situation which still persists today and constitutes the only dispute between Spain and the United Kingdom.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">In 1808 Joseph Bonaparte was installed on the Spanish throne, following the Napoleonic invasion, although the fierce resistance of the Spanish people culminated in the restoration of the Bourbons in the person of Fernando VII.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">In 1873, the brief reign of Amadeo of Savoy ended with his abdication, and the First Republic was proclaimed. However, a military pronunciamiento in 1875, restored the monarchy and Alfonso XII was proclaimed King of Spain. He was succeeded in 1886 by his son Alfonso XIII, although his mother Queen Maria Cristina of Habsburg acted as regent until 1902, when he was crowned king.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Prior to this, a brief war with the United States resulted in the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, in 1898, thus completing the dissolution of the Spanish overseas empire.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">In the municipal elections of April 12th, 1931, it became clear that in all the large towns of Spain the candidates who supported the Monarchy had been heavily defeated. The size of the Republican's vote in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona was enormous. In the country districts the Monarchy gained enough seats to secure for them a majority in the nation as a whole. But it was well known that in the country the 'caciques' were still powerful enough to prevent a fair vote. By the evening of the day following the elections, great crowds were gathering in the streets of Madrid. The king's most trusted friends advised him to leave the capital without delay, to prevent bloodshed. As a result, Alfonso XIII left Spain and the Second Republic was established in April 14th. During its five-year lifetime, it was ridden with all kind of political, economic and social conflicts, which inexorably split opinions into two irreconcilable sides. The climate of growing violence culminated on July 18th 1936 in a military rising which turned into a tragic civil war which did not end until three years later.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">On October 1st, 1936, General Franco took over as Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The Spanish State embarked on a period of forty years' dictatorship, during which the political life of the country was characterized by the illegality of all the political parties with the exception of the National Movement. Franco died in 1975, bringing to an end a period of Spanish history and opening the way to the restoration of the monarchy with the rise to the Throne of the present King of Spain, Juan Carlos I de Borbon y Borbon.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The young monarch soon established himself as a resolute motor for change to a western-style democracy by means of a cautious process of political reform which took as its starting point the Francoist legal structure. Adolfo Suarez, the prime minister of the second Monarchy Government (july 1976) carried out with determination and skill -though helped, certainly, by a broad social consensus- the so-called transition to democracy which, after going through several stages (recognition of basic liberties, political parties, including the communist party, the trade unions, an amnesty for political offences, etc.), culminated in the first democratic parliamentary elections in 41 years, on June 15th, 1977. The Cortes formed as a result decided to start a constituent process which concluded with the adoption of a new Constitution, ratified by universal suffrage, on December 6th, 1978.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">Between 1980 and 1982, the regions of Catalonia, the Basque Country, Galicia and Andalusia approved statutes for their own self-government and elected their respective parliaments. In January 1981, the prime minister, Adolfo Suarez, resigned and was succeeded by Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">On August 27th, 1982, Calvo-Sotelo presented to the King a decree for the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of a general election to be held on October 28th. Victory of the polls went to the Spanish Socialist Worker Party (PSOE) and its secretary general, Felipe Gonzalez. The socialists obtained 202 seats out of the 350 of which the Lower House consists and approximately 48% of the popular vote. Felipe Gonzalez was elected prime minister (December 2nd) after the parliamentary vote of investiture. The major losers were the Union of the Democratic Centre -which has split up following the defection of a number of its members- and the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). The Popular Alliance, whose chairman was Manuel Fraga Iribarne, made considerable gains (106 seats and approximately 26% of the vote).</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FF0000;">The subsequent general elections of 1986, 1989 and 1993 were also won by the Spanish Socialist Party and consolidated the the position of the Popular Party, led by Jose Maria Aznar, as the second largest political force in the country.</span></p></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3678190042447340707.post-36834169804261671972009-11-20T07:05:00.000-08:002009-11-20T07:10:01.702-08:00Australian History<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" vspace="0" hspace="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr bgcolor="#095AA5" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td colspan="2" class="navigationw" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">EARLY HISTORY</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" width="100" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>50,000 BC</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td valign="middle" colspan="2" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><p align="justify">The first settlers are thought to have arrived around 50,000 years ago. This would have most likely been at a time when the sea levels were low, the land was more humid and animals larger.</p><p align="justify">Although much of Australia became populated, the central dry areas didn't attract settlers until around 25,000 years ago. The population grew proportionately quicker around 10,000 years ago as the climate improved.</p></td><td valign="middle" width="10" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="right"><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="10" height="1" alt="Aboriginal History" border="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" /></div></td><td valign="middle" width="133" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><p align="center"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/photographs/other/photograph_aboriginal.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/photographs/other/aboriginal_small.jpg" width="133" height="200" vspace="0" hspace="0" alt="Aboriginal playing the didgeridoo" border="2" loop="0" /></a><b><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/didgeridoo.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><br />How to Play the Didgeridoo</a></b></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p align="justify">At the time of British settlement at Sydney Cove it is estimated that 300,000 aboriginal people, speaking around 250 languages inhabited Australia.</p><p align="justify">On arrival, finding no obvious political structure, the Europeans took the land as their own. The Indigenous people were driven out of their homes and many killed. Various new European diseases spread rapidly amongst the indigenous people, killing many. The introduction of feral and domestic animals contributed to the destruction of natural habitats.</p><p align="justify">Fighting wiped out the Aboriginal population in <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/tasmania.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Tasmania</a></strong> and greatly reduced the numbers in the rest of Australia.</p><p align="justify">During the early part of the 20th century legislation's were passed to segregate and protect Aboriginals. This involved restrictions on where they could live and work and families being broken up.</p><p align="justify">After World War II, assimilation became the governments aim. All rights were taken away from the Aboriginals and attempts made to 'Europeanise' them.</p><p align="justify">During the 1960's the legislation was reviewed and the Federal Government passed legislation for all Aboriginals to be given citizen status. However, it wasn't until 1972 that the indigenous people were given back limited rights to their own land. The situation has been steadily improving for Australia's Indigenous people, although many feel more needs to be done.</p></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" width="100" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="75" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" /></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "> </td></tr></tbody></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" vspace="0" hspace="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr bgcolor="#095AA5" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td colspan="2" class="navigationw" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a name="17th"></a>17th CENTURY</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" width="100" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1606</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">The first European sightings of Australia were made by a Dutchman called Willem Janszoon on the Duyfken (Little Dove). Janszoon sailed into the Australian waters charting 300 km of the coast on the journey. Janszoon also met with the Aboriginal people on the journey. Janszoon was the first recorded European to achieve such feats. Later that year Louis Vaez de Torres sailed through the Torres Strait, named after himself. Both Captains have been recorded as having sighted the Cape York Peninsula.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" width="100" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1642</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><p>Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman's, first journey to Australia. It was in 1644 that Abel Tasman established that Australia was made up of four coasts North, West, East and South. The Australian state of Tasmania was named after this famous explorer.</p></div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" width="100" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="75" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" /></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "> </td></tr></tbody></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" vspace="0" hspace="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr bgcolor="#095AA5" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td colspan="2" class="navigationw" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a name="18th"></a>18th CENTURY</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1770</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australian_explorers.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><b>Captain Cook</b> </a>lands in Botany Bay on the Eastern side of Australia in the ship named HM Bark Endeavour. and claims <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">New South Wales</a></strong> for Britain.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1788</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">The First Fleet arrives at Sydney Cove under Captain Arthur Phillip to establish the first settlement in Australia. This was to be a penal colony - <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/sydney_information.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Sydney</a></strong> was founded. The date of his arrival, 26 January, went on to mark Australia Day.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="75" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" /></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "> </td></tr></tbody></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" vspace="0" hspace="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr bgcolor="#095AA5" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td colspan="2" class="navigationw" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a name="19th"></a>19th CENTURY</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right">1801 - 1899</div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">The great age of exploration: coastal surveys (Bass, Flinders), interior (Sturt, Eyre, Leichhardt, Burke and Willis, McDouall Stuart, Forrest). Also the era of the bushrangers, overlanders, and squatters, and individuals such as William Buckley and Ned Kelly.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1803</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Mathew Flinders completes the first voyage around Australia in the 'Investigator'.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1804</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Castle Hill Rising by Irish convicts in <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">New South Wales</a></strong>.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1813</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Barrier of the <a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/blue_mountains.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Blue Mountains</strong></a> Crossed.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1825</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/tasmania.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Tasmania</strong></a> seceded from <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">New South Wales</a></strong>.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1829</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/western_australia.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Western Australia</strong></a> formed.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1836</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/south_australia.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>South Australia</strong></a> formed.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1840 - 1868</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Convict transportation ended.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><p align="right"></p><p align="right"><b>1851 - 1861</b></p></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Gold rushes (<strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/ballarat.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Ballarat</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/bendigo.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Bendigo</a></strong>).</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1851</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/victoria.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Victoria</strong></a> seceded from <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">New South Wales</a></strong>.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1855</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/victoria.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Victoria</strong></a> achieved government.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1856</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>New South Wales</strong></a>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/south_australia.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">South Australia</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/tasmania.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Tasmania</a></strong> achieved government.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1859</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/queensland.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Queensland</strong></a> formed from <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">New South Wales</a></strong> and achieved government.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1890</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/western_australia.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Western Australia</strong></a> achieved government.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1891</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Depression gave rise to the Australian Labor Party.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1899 - 1900</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">South African War - forces offered by the individual colonies.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="75" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" /></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "> </td></tr></tbody></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" vspace="0" hspace="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td colspan="2" class="navigationw" bgcolor="#095AA5" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a name="20th"></a>20th CENTURY</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1901</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Creation of the Commonwealth of Australia. This was a federation of the States of <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/new_south_wales.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">New South Wales</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/victoria.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Victoria</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/tasmania.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Tasmania</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/queensland.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Queensland</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/western_australia.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Western Australia</a></strong> and <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/south_australia.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">South Australia</a></strong>.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1911</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Site for capital at <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/canberra_information.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Canberra</a></strong> acquired.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1914 - 1918</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">World War I - Anzac troops in Europe including Gallipoli. Australia experiences her first major losses in a war during in 1915 on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1939 - 1945</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">World War II - Anzac troops in Greece, Crete, and N Africa (El Alamein) and the Pacific. The Japanese bomb <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/darwin_information.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Darwin</a></strong> in 1942.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1941</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Curtin's appeal to USA for help in the World War marked the end of the special relationship with Britain.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1944</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Liberal party founded by Menzies.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1948 - 1975</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Two million new immigrants, the majority from continental Europe</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1950 - 1953</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Korean War - Australian troops part of the United Nations forces.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1964 - 1972</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Vietnam War - Comonwealth troops in alliance with US forces.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1966 - 1974</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Mineral boom typified by the Posiedon nickel mine.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1967</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">The ASEAN was established</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1973</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Britain entered the Common Market, and in the 1970's Japan became Australia's chief trading partner.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1974</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Whitlam abolishes 'white Australia' policy.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1975</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Constitutional crisis; Prime Minister Whitlam dismissed by the governor general.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1975</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">United Nations trust territory of Papua New Guinea became independent.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1975</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">The Liberal Party under Malcolm Fraser comes to power.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1978</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify"><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/northern_territory.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><strong>Northern Territory</strong></a> achieved self-government.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1979</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Opening of uranium mines in <strong><a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/northern_territory.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Northern Territory</a></strong>.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1983</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Hawke convened first national economic summit - The Fraser Government is defeated in the election and the Australian Labour Party under Bob Hawke forms a government.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1988</b></div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Australia celebrates its Bicentennial - 200 years since the first European settlement.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1991</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Paul Keating replaced Bob Hawke as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right">1994</div></td><td width="100%" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; ">The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) was established</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1996</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Labour Party ousted in general election by Liberal-National Coalition.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>1996</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">John Howard replaced Paul Keating as Prime Minister.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right">1901 - 1999</div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Australian <a href="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australian_prime_ministers.htm" style="color: rgb(9, 90, 165); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; "><b>Prime Ministers </b></a>of the 20th Century</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="75" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" /></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "> </td></tr></tbody></table><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" vspace="0" hspace="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><tbody><tr bgcolor="#095AA5" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td colspan="2" class="navigationw" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><a name="21st"></a>21st CENTURY</td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>2000</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Australia hosts the 2000 Olympic Games.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>2001</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Australia celebrates the Centenary of the Federation of Australia.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>2007</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Liberal-National Coalition lost in the general election to the Australian Labor Party (ALP).</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" bgcolor="#B8E0F4" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><div align="right"><b>2007</b></div></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><div align="justify">Kevin Rudd replaced John Howard as Prime Minister.</div></td></tr><tr valign="top" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><td class="textsmall" nowrap="" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; "><img src="http://www.australianexplorer.com/australia/graphic_spacer.gif" width="75" height="1" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" /></td><td width="100%" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "> </td></tr></tbody></table></span>Knowledge Thirsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02497606333433379719noreply@blogger.com0