History

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A typical academic classification

• Prehistory
• Ancient history
• Pre-Columbian history of the Americas also see Mesoamerica
• Medieval European history
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Ideological classifications

• Marxist history;
• Feminist history (also called herstory);
• etc.

You may also want to see dubious historical resources and historical myths for a list of false beliefs and histories which were once or are now popular and widespread, but which are proven to be false or dubious.

Guidelines for history on Wikipedia can be found at Wikipedia:History.

• Archaeology
• Evolution of Homo sapiens
• Historian
• List of historians
• List of historians by area of study
• Pseudohistory for more about uncritical history.

External links

Many scholars believe the Albanian people are the direct descendants of a group of tribes known as the Illyrians, who arrived in the Balkans around 2000 BC. They intermingled and made war with the Greeks, Thracians, and Macedonians before succumbing to Roman rule around the time of Jesus Christ.

Following the split of the Roman Empire in 395, the Byzantine Empire established its control over present-day Albania. It was during this time (1043) that the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus made the first recorded reference to a people called the Albanians.

All the Illyrian tribes except the Albanians disappeared during the Dark Ages under the waves of migrating barbarians. A forbidding mountain homeland and resilient tribal society enabled the Albanians to survive into modern times with their identity and their Indo-European language intact.

Ottoman supremacy in the Balkan region began in 1385 but was briefly interrupted in the 15th century, when an Albanian warrior known as Skenderbeg united his countrymen and fought-off Turkish rule from 1443-1478. Upon the Ottomans' return, a large number of Albanians fled to Italy, Greece and Egypt and many of the Albanians who remained (about two-thirds of the Albanian population), converted to the Islamic faith. Many Albanians won fame and fortune as soldiers, administrators, and merchants in far-flung parts of the empire. As the centuries passed, however, Ottoman rulers lost the capacity to command the loyalty of local pashas, who governed districts on the empire's fringes. Soon pressures created by emerging national movements among the empire's farrago of peoples threatened to shatter the empire itself. The Ottoman rulers of the nineteenth century struggled in vain to shore up central authority, introducing reforms aimed at harnessing unruly pashas and checking the spread of nationalist ideas.

At the end of the 19th century, efforts by the Turks to suppress Albanian nationalism failed. Albanians had created The Prizen League, attempting to unify Albanian territory and established the current-day Albanian alphabet. Following the conclusion of the First Balkan War, Albanians issued the Vlorë Proclamation of November 28, 1912, declaring independence. Albania was internationally recognized as an independent state in 1913.

Albania's territorial integrity was confirmed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson dismissed a plan by the European powers to divide Albania amongst its neighbors.

With the complete collapse of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires after World War I, the Albanians looked to Italy for protection against predators. After 1925, however, Benito Mussolini sought to dominate Albania. In 1928 Albania became a kingdom under Zog I, the conservative Muslim clan chief and former prime minister, but Zog failed to stave off Italian ascendancy in Albanian internal affairs. In 1939 Mussolini's troops occupied Albania, overthrew Zog, and annexed the country.

Albanian communists and nationalists fought each other as well as the occupying Italian and German forces during World War II, and with Yugoslav and Allied assistance the communists triumphed.

Following the Second World War, in which both Italy and Germany occupied Albania, communism became the prevailing political ideology within Albania and remained an influential part of its culture for the next 50 years.

Communist strongmen Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu eliminated their rivals inside the communist party and liquidated anticommunist opposition. Concentrating primarily on maintaining their grip on power, they reorganized the country's economy along strict Stalinist lines, turning first to Yugoslavia, then to the Soviet Union, and later to the People's Republic of China for support. In pursuit of their goals, the communists repressed the Albanian people, subjecting them to isolation, propaganda, and brutal police measures. When Communist China opened up to the West in the 1970s, Albania's rulers turned away from Beijing and implemented a policy of strict autarky, or self-sufficiency, that brought their nation economic ruin.

Hoxha's death in 1985 and the fall of communism throughout south central Europe led to widespread changes within Albanian society. The Albanian Government began to seek closer ties with the West in order to improve economic conditions, and initial democratic reforms were introduced including multi-party elections in 1991. Pursuant to a 1991 interim basic law, Albanians ratified a constitution in 1998, establishing a democratic system of government based upon the rule of law and guaranteeing the protection of fundamental human rights. Although Albania has made strides toward democratic reform and maintaining the rule of law, serious deficiencies in the electoral code remain to be addressed.

Related articles

• Timeline of Albanian history to 1993
• Timeline of Albanian history from 1994
• History of Europe
• History of present-day nations and states

External links

Reference

In 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator, is generally credited as the first European to reach Brazil. The colony was thinly settled by various indigenous tribes. Only a few have survived to the present, mostly in the Amazon basin.

In the next centuries, Portuguese colonists gradually pushed inland, bring large numbers of African slaves. (Slavery was not abolished until 1888.) Brazil was developed as a commercial colony, based to a large extent on slavery.

The King of Portugal, fleeing before Napoleon's army, moved the seat of government to Brazil in 1808. Brazil thereupon became a kingdom under Dom Joao VI. Although the royal family returned to Portugal in 1821, the interlude led to a growing desire for independence amongst Brazilians, In 1822, the son of Dom Joao VI, then prince-regent Dom Pedro I, proclaimed the independence, September 7, 1882, and was crowned emperor. The second emperor, Dom Pedro II, was deposed in 1889, and a republic was proclaimed, called the United States of Brazil. (In 1967 the country was renamed the Federative Republic of Brazil.)

On November 15 1889, Deodoro da Fonseca declared the Republic, and deposed the king, Dom Pedro II, assuming the govern of the country.

From 1889 to 1930, the government was a constitutional democracy, with the presidency alternating between the dominant states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. This period ended with a military coup that placed Getúlio Vargas, a civilian, in the presidency; Vargas remained as dictator until 1945.

Brazil received an influx of over 5 million immigrants in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, a period that also saw Brazil industrialise and further expand into its interior.

A military junta took control in 1930; dictatorial power was assumed by Getulio Vargas, until finally forced out by the military in 1945. Since 1930, successive governments have pursued industrial and agriculture growth and development of the vast interior.

Just as the 1889 regime change led to a decade of unrest and painful adjustment, so too did the revolts of 1930. Provisional President Getúlio Dorneles Vargas ruled as dictator (1930-34), congressionally elected president (1934-37), and again dictator (1937-45), with the backing of his revolutionary coalition. He also served as a senator (1946-51) and the popularly elected president (1951-54). Vargas was a member of the gaucho-landed oligarchy and had risen through the system of patronage and clientelism, but he had a fresh vision of how Brazilian politics could be shaped to support national development. He understood that with the breakdown of direct relations between workers and owners in the expanding factories of Brazil, workers could become the basis for a new form of political power—populism. Using such insights, he would gradually establish such mastery over the Brazilian political world that he would stay in power for fifteen years. During those years, the preeminence of the agricultural elites ended, new urban industrial leaders acquired more influence nationally, and the middle class began to show some strength.

A democratic regime prevailed 1945-1964, during which the capital was moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia. If corporatism was the hallmark of the 1930s and 1940s, populism, nationalism, and developmentalism characterized the 1950s and early 1960s. Each of these contributed to the crisis that gripped Brazil and resulted in the authoritarian regime after 1964.

One of the world's most populated urban centers, São Paulo epitomizes the contradictions of modern Brazil, a country with one of the world's most inequitable distributions of wealth. A dynamic, modern city with a sizable middle and upper class, the city center is nonetheless surrounded by high-poverty, high-crime "favelas" or shantytowns. Uneven development and huge disparties between rich and poor are pressing themes in Brazilian history.

In 1964, President Joao Goulart instituted policies that aggravated Brazil's elites; he was overthrown by a military coup. The next five presidents were all military leaders. Censorship was imposed, and much of the opposition was suppressed amid charges of torture. Democratic presidential elections were held in 1985 as the nation returned to civilian rule. Fernando Collor de Mello was elected president in December 1989. In September 1992 Collor was impeached for corruption; he later resigned. Acting president Itamar Franco was sworn in as president. In elections held on October 3, 1994, Fernando Henrique Cardoso was elected president. Reelected in 1998, he guided Brazil through a wave of financial crises.

Highly unequal income distribution remains a pressing problem. By the 1990s, more than one out of four Brazilians continued to survive on less than one dollar a day. These socio-economic contradictions helped usher Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil's first elected leftwing president, into the presidency in 2003.

Sima Qian's account, Records of the Grand Historian, dates the founding of the Xia to some 4,000 years ago, however this date has not yet been corroborated. Some archaeologists connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province, where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period, found on pottery and shells, are alleged to be ancestors of modern Chinese language, however these claims are unsupported. With no clear, written records such as the Shang's oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia remains poorly understood.

At present, archaeological findings provide evidence for the existence of at least the Shang (1600-1046 BC). Shang archaeological evidence is divided into two sets. The first, from the earlier Shang (circa 1600 to 1300) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin period consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang, Henan (1300-1046 BC), has been confirmed as the last of the six capitals of the Shang.

Historians living in the Imperial Chinese period were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding each other, while the actual political situation in early China is known to be much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed at the same time just as the later Zhou (successor state of the Shang), is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang.

By the end of 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou began to emerge in the Huanghe valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. Nevertheless, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period when larger states assimilated smaller states. The Hundred schools of thoughts of Chinese philosophy and knowledge blossomed during this period, which saw the foundation of Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism and Mohism. As the political consolidation continued, there remained seven prominent states by the end of 5th century BC, and the period in which these few states battled each other is known as the period of the Warring States. Though there a nominal Zhou king remained until 256 BC, his position was largely one of title, and he held little power.

Meanwhile neighboring territories of these warring states were gradually annexed, including areas of modern Sichuan and Liaoning, and governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣), which had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and was very loosely a primitive prototype of modern system of Sheng Xian (province and county). A further expansion began during the reign of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin managed to conquer the other states and proclaimed himself the First emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huang Di) after his unification and annexations in modern regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in 214 BC, thereby the Chinese empire was formed under the Qin Dynasty.

Though unified reign of Qin Dynasty lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of Han Chinese residence and to unite them under a tightly centralized government seated in Xian. His sons, however, were not as successful; soon the Qin ended, the Qin imperial structure collapsed.

The Han Dynasty emerged in 202 BC - it was the first dynasty to embrace Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han dynasty, the Chinese civilization experienced a giant leap on historiography, arts and science. Emperor Wu of Han China (Han Wudi) consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia and wrested modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai from Xiongnu, which in turn facilitated the first time ever opening of the Silk Road — trading connections between China and the occident.

Nevertheless land acquisitions by elite families had gradually drained the tax base. In AD 9 the usurper Wang Mang founded the short-lived Xin Dynasty and zealously redistributed land to peasants and put groundbreaking monetary and economical reforms into effect; however his reformations were never supported by land-holding families and, though aided the peasant and lesser gentry, was too vigorous and constantly modified such that chaos and upraisings broke loose. Emperor Guangwu of Han China reinstated the Han dynasty with the support of land-holding and merchant families at Luoyang, which located east of Xian and hence coined the new era Eastern Han Dynasty. Han power declined again in the midst of land acquisitions, invasions and struggles of consort clans and eunuchs. Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in AD 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the Period of the Three Kingdoms.

Though these three kingdoms were reunited temporarily in AD 280 (Western) Jin by the (Western) Jin dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu) ethnicities ravaged the country since early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Chang Jiang. In 303, Di ethnicity rebelled and later captured Chengdu. Xiongnu under Liu Yuan rebelled near today Linfen County; his successor Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors. More than Sixteen states were established by these ethnic groups. The chaotic north was temporarily unified by Fu Jian and later by Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei after the former was defeated at the Battle of Feishui. The later started off a sequence of local regimes, all ruled over regions north of Chang Jiang and hence coined the Northern Dynasties.

Along with the immigrants and residents of the south, Emperor Yuan of Jin China reinstated the Jin regime at Nanjing which later developed into the sequence of Southern dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang and Chen that all seated at Jiangkang (near today Nanjing). China was ruled by two independent dynasties, one in the south and the other in the north, and hence coined the era of Southern and Northern Dynasties. The short-lived Sui Dynasty managed to reunite the country in AD 589 after almost 300 years of disjunction.

In AD 618, the Tang dynasty was established and a new age of flourishing began. Buddhism, which had slowly seeped into China in the first century, became the prominent religion and widely adopted by the royal family. Xian, the national capital, was supposedly the world's biggest city. Finally, however, the Tang dynasty declined as well and another time of political chaos followed, the Five dynasties and the Ten kingdoms. The Tang and Han are often referenced as the prosperous ages of China; the Tang, similar to the Han, also established jurisdiction on trade routes.

In AD 960, the Song Dynasty (960-1279) gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng whereas the Khitan Liao Dynasty ruled over modern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia. In AD 1115 the Jurchen Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) emerged to prominence. Not only did it annihilate the Liao Dynasty in 10 years, the Song also lost power over northern China and Kaifeng to the Jin Dynasty and moved its capital to Hangzhou. The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. In the ensuing years China was divided between the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty, and the Tangut Western Xia. Southern Song was a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north.

Zhu Yuanzhang, (Hongwu Emperor of China or Hong-wu) the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state disinterested in commerce and more interested in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of his background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of Song, which had preceded the Mongolian and relied on traders and merchant for revenues. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of Song and Mongol period were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out; and private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Yongle Emperor of China, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to social harmony and removed the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked, remained essentially as they had been under the Song, but now the remaining foreign merchants before Ming era also fell under these new laws, and their influence quickly dwindled.

The emperor's role became even more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the Grand Secretaries to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, which included memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records.

During the Mongol rule, the population had dropped 40 percent, to an estimated 60 million. Two centuries later it had doubled. Urbanization thus progressed as population grew and as the division of labor grew more intricate. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing contributed to the growth of private industry as well. In particular, small-scale industries grew specialized often in paper, silk, cotton and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country rather than the growth of a few large cities. Town markets mainly traded food with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil.

The most extraordinary venture, however, during this stage was the dispatch Zheng He's seven naval expeditions, which traversed the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian archipelago. An ambitious Muslim eunuch of Mongol descent and a quintessential outsider in the establishment of Confucian scholar elites, Zheng He led seven maritime expeditions from 1405 to 1433 with six of them under the auspices of Emperor Yongle, probing down into the South Seas, across the Indian Ocean and traversing perhaps as the Cape of Good Hope. His appointment in 1403 to lead a sea-faring task force was a triumph the commercial lobbies seeking to stimulate conventional trade, not mercantilism. The interests of the commercial lobbies and those of the religious lobbies were also linked. Both offensive of the neo-Confucian sensibilities of the scholarly elite, religious lobbies encouraged commercialism and exploration to divert state funds from the anti-clerical efforts of the Confucian scholar gentry. The first expedition in 1405 consisted of 62 ships and 28,000 men — then the largest naval expedition in history. Zheng He's multi-decked ships carried up to 500 troops but also cargoes of export goods, mainly silks and porcelains, and brought back foreign luxuries such as spices and tropical woods.

By the end of the 15th century, Chinese imperial subjects were forbidden from either building oceangoing ships or leaving the country. The consensus among historians of the early 21st century is that this measure was taken in response to piracy and in any case restrictions on emigration and shipbuilding were largely lifted by the mid-17th century.

Some historians have viewed the Qing as continuing the decline started in the Ming, while others have argued that the early and mid-Qing were periods of growth rather than decline. Emperor Kangxi commanded the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time, and under Emperor Qianlong, the compilation of a catalogue of all important works on Chinese culture was made. The Qing Dynasty also continued the growth of popular literature such as the Dream of the Red Mansions and agricultural advances such as triple cropping of rice which caused the population of China to more than double from between 180 million in 1700 to 400 million in 1800.

During the 19th century, Qing control weakened, and prosperity diminished. China suffered massive social strife, economic stagnation, explosive population growth, and Western penetration and influence. Britain's desire to continue its illegal opium trade with China collided with imperial edicts prohibiting the addictive drug, and the First Opium War erupted in 1840. China lost the war; subsequently, Britain and other Western powers, including the United States, forcibly occupied "concessions" and gained special commercial privileges. Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanjing. In addition, the Taiping rebellion and Nian rebellions, along with a Russian-supported Muslim separatist movements in Mongolia and Muslim Xinjiang, drained Chinese resources and almost toppled the dynasty.

China was not a backward country unable to secure the prerequisite stability and security for western-style commerce, but a highly advanced empire unwilling to admit western and often drug-pushing commerce, which may explain the West's contentment with informal "Spheres of Influences". China, unlike tropical Africa, was a securable market without formal control. Following the First Opium War, British commerce, and later capital invested by other newly industrializing powers, was securable with a smaller degree of formal control than in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and the Pacific. In many respects, China was a colony and a large-scale receptacle of Western capital investments. Western powers did intervene military there to quell domestic chaos, such as the horrific Taiping Rebellion and the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion. For instance, General Gordon, later the imperialist 'martyr' in the Sudan, was often accredited as having saved the Manchu dynasty from the Taiping insurrection.

By the 1860s, the Qing dynasty had put down the rebellions with the help of militia organized by the Chinese gentry. The Qing dynasty then proceeded to deal with problem of modernization, which it attempted with the Self-Strengthening Movement. In the Sino-French War (1883-1885) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the New Armies created by the Qing were defeated, which produced calls for greater and more extensive reform.

• The History of the People's Republic of China and the History of the Republic of China/History of Taiwan for their respective histories after 1949.
• List of China-related topics for a collection of Wikipedia articles on China.
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (chinese) for discussions and improvements on how to correctly name Chinese related articles. Those standards should be followed to provide a uniform title format.
• Chinese sovereign for comprehensive lists and proper naming conventions of Chinese rulers.
• Ethnic groups in Chinese history for lists of other groups of people usually not considered as Han Chinese.
• Chinese historiography for an article on scholarship influenced by post-modernism and periodization.
• Timeline of Chinese history for a chronological list of major events and figures.
• History of Hong Kong
• History of Macau

External link

Early copyright statutes

The first copyright law, in the modern sense, was the English Statute of Anne, enacted in 1709. It granted exclusive rights to authors, rather than publishers, and it included protections for consumers of printed works, ensuring that publishers could not control their use after sale. It also limited the duration of such exclusive rights to 28 years (14 years with an optional renewal), after which all works would pass into the public domain.

Although the principal lobbyists for the Statute of Anne were publishers — whose position had suffered from anti-monopoly sentiment in the preceding decades — it was at this point that the publishing industry began arguing for authors rights. This strategy created legal monopoly privileges which could be assigned to a publisher, without the same levels of political opposition as a direct publishers' monopoly [Lowenstein]; the strategy remains in widespread use today.

• Relationship between common law and statutory copyright decided through Millar v. Taylor and Donaldson v. Beckett; English copyright as a matter of policy rather than natural rights.
• the copyright clause in the United States Constitution

Origins of contintental European tradition

Declarations of the rights of authors (and inventors) during the French Revolution. Genesis of the continental European traditions of moral and economic rights.

Diversion: copyright and communism

Analysis: recurring themes in the history of copyright

The history of copyright has several key themes: responses to innovations in media technologies, expansions in the definition, scope and operation of copyright, and international dissemination of the evolutions occuring in particular states.

Regulatory leadership and internationalisation

• Early role of the UK; reciprocity and the Berne convention; the United States as a "pirate" nation
• Shift to leadership by the US during the 20th century; the South as a pirate hemisphere (though some expansions continued to flow from Europe)

References

• 8000-7000 BC Mesolithic Period begins
• 2500 BC Neolithic Period begins
• 1600 BC Bronze Age begins
• 900 BC Immigration of Celtic-speaking peoples
• 400 BC Early Iron Age

In classic Roman style, the Romans constructed a highly effective internal infrastructure to cement their military occupation, building long, straight roads the length and breadth of the country, most of which centred on London. For a deeper account of the Roman occupation of Britain, see Roman Britain. See also the Celtic tribes in the British Isles.

The indigenous, mostly Celtic population were suppressed with customary Roman efficiency, although numerous, and often extremely bloody, uprisings occurred all through their occupation, the most notable that of the Iceni (and other tribes) led by Boudicca, or "Boadicea," in AD 61. The Roman presence strengthened and weakened over the centuries, but by the 4th Century AD their hold may best be described as tenuous.

See also:

• Hengest (Saxon leader, arrived in England in 449, died 488)
• Dark Ages
• Anglo-Saxon Kings

The Venerable Bede (c672 - 735) - Offa (reign 757 - 796) - Alfred the Great (848 - 900)

Beginning with the raid in 793 on the monastery at Lindisfarne, Vikings made many raids on England. Starting with plundering raids, the Vikings later began to settle in England and trade. There are many traces of Vikings in England today, for instance many words in the English language; the similarity of Old English and Old Norse led to much borrowing. One Viking settlement was in York (which they called Jorvik).

It was not until 936, however, that Athelstan was able to evict the Cornish from Exeter, and drew a line at the extent of his kingdom, Wessex, at the River Tamar.

See also:

• Geoffrey of Monmouth (12th century, writer of History of the Kings of Britain stretching from 1100 BC to AD 689)

Henry I, also known as "Henry Beauclerc" (on account of his education), worked hard to reform and stabilise the country and smooth the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norman societies. The loss of his son, William, in the wreck of the White Ship in November 1120, was to undermine his reforms. This problem regarding succession was to cast a long shadow over English history.

The disastrous and incompetent reign of Stephen (1135 - 1154) was to see a major swing in the balance of power towards the feudal barons, as England descended inexorably into civil war and lawlessness. In trying to appease Scottish and Welsh raiders on those borders, he handed over large tracts of land. Moreover, his conflicts with his cousin, the Empress Maud, whom he had earlier promised recognition as heir, were his undoing: She bided her time in France and, in the autumn of 1139, invaded (with her husband, Geoffrey of Anjou and her half-brother, Robert of Gloucester).

Stephen was captured, and his government fell. Matilda was proclaimed queen but was soon at odds with her subjects and was expelled from London. The period of insurrection and civil war that followed continued until 1148, when Matilda returned to France. Stephen effectively reigned unopposed until his death in 1154, a year after reaching an accommodation with Henry of Anjou, (who became Henry II) in which peace between them was guaranteed on the condition that the throne would be his by succession.

The reign of Henry II represents a reversion in power back from the barony to the monarchical state; it was also to see a similar redistribution of legislative power from the Church, again to the monarchical state. This period also presaged a properly constituted legislation and a radical shift away from feudalism.

The Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague that spread over the whole of Europe, arrived in England in 1349 and killed perhaps up to a third of the population. International excursions were invariably against domestic neighbours: the Welsh, Irish, Scots and the French, with the principal notable battles being the Battle of Crécy and the Battle of Agincourt. In addition to this, the final defeat of the uprising led by the Welsh prince, Owen Glendower, in 1412 by Prince Henry (later to become Henry V) represents the last major armed attempt by the Welsh to throw off English rule.

Edward III gave land to powerful noble families, including many people with Royal blood in their veins. Because land was equivalent to power in these days, this meant that these powerful men could now try and make good their claim to the Crown. The autocratic and arrogant methods of Richard II only served to alienate the nobility more, and his forceful dispossession in 1399 by Henry IV lay the seeds for what was to come. In the reign of Henry VI, which began in 1422, things came to a head because of his personal weaknesses and mental instability. Unable to control the feuding nobles, he allowed outright civil war to break out. The conflicts are known as the Wars of the Roses and although the fighting was very sporadic and small, there was a general breakdown in the authority and power of the Crown. Edward IV went a little way to restoring this power but the spadework was generally done by Henry VII

The English Civil War broke out in 1642, largely as a result of an ongoing series of conflicts between the then King Charles I and Parliament. The Parliamentarian army was commanded by Oliver Cromwell, which after much bloodshed and destruction, was ultimately victorious. The capture and subsequent trial of Charles I led to his execution by beheading in January 1649 at Whitehall Gate in London.

In 1664/65 England was swept by a visitation of the Great Plague, and then, in 1666, London, the timbered capital city of England, was swept by fire, the Great Fire of London, which raged for 5 days, destroying c. 15,000 buildings.

In the late 1600s, the Dutch Protestant William of Orange, William III replaced the Catholic King James II. This became known as the Glorious Revolution or 'Bloodless Revolution'. However, in Scotland and Ireland, Catholics loyal to James II were not so content, and a series of bloody uprisings resulted. These Jacobite Rebellions continued until the mid-18th century. NB: After the 1707 Act of Union, the histories of Britain and England are largely overlapping entities. Since England was the dominant hegemony, it is assumed for the purposes of this article that the two are largely coterminous.

The union of Scotland with England, under the Act of Union, saw Scotland 'united' with England and Wales (Wales had already been assimilated in the 1536 Act of Union by Henry VIII). This was no process of harmonisation, for Scotland had effectively capitulated to English economic pressure after the failure of the Darién scheme. This process was lubricated in the Scottish parliament by the self-interested political manoeuverings of the English puppets, John Campbell, the 2nd Duke of Argyll and James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly seamless for workers, many of whom saw their livelihoods threatened by the process. Of these, some frequently sabotaged or attempted to sabotage factories. These saboteurs were known as "Luddites". This view of the Luddite history should also be set against alternative views, such as that of E. P. Thompson.

During the early 1800s, the working classes began to find a voice; concentrations of industry led more or less inevitably to the formation of guilds and unions, which, although at first suppressed, eventually became powerful enough to resist. The revolutions which spread like wildfire throughout mainland Europe during the 1840s did not occur in England, and Queen Victoria's reign was largely one of consensus, despite huge disparities in living standards between the few rich and the multitudinous poor.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) as a separate nation, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom; its official name became "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

See also

• Bretwalda
• Kings & Queens - Royal family trees
• British politics
• Timeline of English history
• Population of England - historical estimates
• History of Britain
• History of London
• History of Scotland
• History of Ireland
• History of Wales
• UK topics
• Commonwealth

External Links

The origins of Japanese civilization are buried in legend, with the country's first written records dating from the sixth to the eighth centuries A.D., after Japan had adopted the Chinese writing system.

February 11, 660 BC is the traditional founding date of Japan by Emperor Jimmu Tenno. This however is a version of Japanese history, which was written down in various annales in 6th - 8th centuries AC when the emperors were struggling for power. In order to legitimate their claims to the throne, they had collections of poems set up, which made up a mythological inheritance of power from the sun-godess Amaterasu, still the most venerable deity in the Shintoist pantheon, via her grandson Ninigi to Jimmu Tenno, who was claimed to be an ancestor of the ruling imperial family. This propaganda-myth was taken up again by 19th century historicians and used as a fundamental pillar of Japan's nationalistic Kokutai ideology. More reliable are Chinese sources, which describe a country "Wa" ruled by various family-clans, adhering to their respective clan-deities. Recent anthropological studies suggest immigration from Siberia and/or Polynesia to be the ancestors of the earliest settlers in Japan.

• First Part: Kofun
• Second Part: Asuka

Russian pressure from the north appeared again after Muraviev had gained Outer Manchuria at Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). This led to heavy Russian pressure on Sakhalin which the Japanese eventually yielded in exchange for the Kuriru islands (1875). The Ryukyu Islands were similarly secured in 1879, establishing the borders within which Japan would "enter the World". In 1898, the last of the "unequal treaties" with Western powers was removed, signalling Japan's new status among the nations of the world. In a few decades, by creating modern social, educational, economic, military, and industrial systems, the Emperor Meiji's "controlled revolution" had transformed a feudal and isolated state into a world power.

During the 1920s, Japan progressed toward a democratic system of government. However, parliamentary government was not rooted deeply enough to withstand the economic and political pressures of the 1930s, during which military leaders became increasingly influential. These shifts in power were made possible by the ambiguity and imprecision of the Meiji constitution, particularly as regarded the position of the Emperor in relation to the constitution.

Japan invaded Inner (Chinese) Manchuria in 1931 and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo under the last Manchu emperor, Pu Yi. In 1933, Japan resigned from the League of Nations. The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 (the second Sino-Japanese War) followed Japan's signing of the "anti-Comintern pact" with Nazi Germany the previous year and was part of a chain of developments culminating in the Japanese attack on United States naval forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

After almost 4 years of war, resulting in the loss of 3 million Japanese lives and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan signed an instrument of surrender on Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2, 1945. As a result of World War II, Japan lost all of its overseas possessions and retained only the home islands. Manchukuo was dissolved, and Inner Manchuria was returned to China; Japan renounced all claims to Formosa; Korea was granted independence; southern Sakhalin and the Kuriles were occupied by the U.S.S.R.; and the United States became the sole administering authority of the Ryukyu, Bonin, and Volcano Islands. International Military Tribunal for the Far East, an international war crimes tribunal sentenced seven Japanese military and government officials to death on November 12, 1948, including General Hideki Tojo, for their roles in World War II.

The 1972 reversion of Okinawa completed the United States' return of control of these islands to Japan. Japan continues to agitate for the corresponding return of the Kuril islands from Russia.

After the war, Japan was placed under international control of the Allies through the Supreme Commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. U.S. objectives were to ensure that Japan would become a peaceful nation and to establish democratic self-government supported by the freely expressed will of the people. Political, economic, and social reforms were introduced, such as a freely elected Japanese Diet (legislature) and universal adult suffrage. The country's constitution took effect on May 3, 1947. The United States and 45 other Allied nations signed the Treaty of Peace with Japan in September 1951. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty in March 20, 1952, and under the terms of the treaty, Japan regained full sovereignty on April 28, 1952.

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

• Military History of Japan

References

External links

Traditional histories of Poland begin with the Polanian tribe ruled by Duke Mieszko I, who became duke of the Polanian tribes around 962 and adopted Christianity in 966 following his marriage to the Czech princess Dubrawka. His country would generations later become Poland, but there was no unified Polish nation at that time, only an assortment of Slavic tribes speaking different dialects such as the (Pomeranian) of the north.

Some historians even question whether Mieszko was Slavic and suggest that he was Scandinavian, and have seen evidence to support this claim in one of the earliest written documents about Mieszko (the Dagome Iudex), where he appears under the name Dagome, which they say could be the Scandinavian name Dago. Some military equipment found in Poland and dated to around Mieszko's time has been claimed to be of Scandinavian appearance, though archaeologists today are generally skeptical, and there is no trace of characteristically Scandinavian architecture among the remains of the Polanian structures, not even in the leaders' quarters. (See summary of arguments at Scandinavian connections to Mieszko I).

Mieszko's successor Boleslaus I extended the early state, and give it international recognition due meeting at the tomb of Saint Adalbert with the emperor of Holy Roman Empire. Given to him by the emperor, title of king was taken in 1025. But at the death of Boleslaus III (1138) the kingdom was divided among his sons, inaugurating the 192-year Fragmentation period (in Polish, Rozbicie dzielnicowe), during which Poland was divided into a number of principalities.

The restoration of royal power under Ladislaus I (1320) and dynastic union (1386) with the grand duchy of Lithuania to the north-east paved the way for the extension of Polish power far to the east and the creation (Lublin union, 1569) of a unified Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) stretching from the Baltic and the Carpathians to present-day Belarus and western Ukraine.

In the north-west, the Teutonic Knights, in control of Prussia since the 13th century, were forced after their defeats by a combined Polish-Lithuanian force in the Battle of Grunwald (1410) and in the later Thirteen Years War to surrender to the Polish crown the western half of the territory they had controlled (the areas known afterwards as Royal Prussia) and to accept Polish suzerainty over the remainder (the later Ducal Prussia) in the 1466 Second Treaty of Thorn.

Although most accounts of Polish history show the two centuries after the end of the Jagiellon dynasty as a time of decline leading to foreign domination, Poland-Lithuania remained an influential player in European politics and a vital cultural entity through most of the period.

Polish independence ended in a series of partitions (1772, 1793 and 1795) undertaken by Russia, Prussia and Austria, with Russia gaining most of the Commonwealth's territory including nearly all of the former Lithuania. Austria gained the populous southern region henceforth named Galicia, as well as the area to its north-east, named Lodomeria by its new Habsburg rulers. Prussia acquired the western lands from the Baltic to Krakow, as well as Warsaw and territories to the north-east. The last heroic attempt to save Poland's independence was a national uprising (1794) led by Tadeusz Kosciuszko, however it was eventually quenched.

Following the French emperor Napoleon I's defeat of Prussia, a Polish state was again set up in 1807 under French tutelage as the Duchy of Warsaw. Upon Austria's defeat in 1809, Lodomeria was added, giving the new state a population of some 3.75 million, a quarter of that of the former commonwealth. Polish nationalists were to remain among the staunchest allies of the French as the tide of war turned against them, inaugurating a relationship that continued into the twentieth century.

The upcoming World War I and the political turbulence that was sweeping throughout Europe in 1914 offered the Polish nation hopes for regaining independence. By the end of World War I, Poland had seen the defeat or retreat of all three occupying powers. The new Polish state had had only 20 years of relative stability and peace before Poland's aggresive, totalitarian neigbours tried to wipe her from the map of Europe again.

On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov nonaggression pact, which secretly provided for the dismemberment of Poland into Nazi and Soviet-controlled zones. On September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered his troops into Poland. On September 17, Soviet troops invaded and then occupied eastern Poland under the terms of this agreement. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Poland was completely occupied by German troops.

The Poles formed an underground resistance movement and a government in exile, first in Paris and later in London, which was recognized by the Soviet Union. During World War II, 400,000 Poles fought under Soviet command, and 200,000 went into combat on Western fronts in units loyal to the Polish government in exile.

In April 1943, the Soviet Union broke relations with the Polish government in exile after the German military announced that they had discovered mass graves of murdered Polish army officers at Katyn, in the U.S.S.R. (The Soviets claimed that the Poles had insulted them by requesting that the Red Cross investigate these reports.) In July 1944, the Soviet Red Army entered Poland and established a communist-controlled "Polish Committee of National Liberation" at Lublin.

Resistance against the Nazis in Warsaw, including uprisings by Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and by the Polish underground, was brutally suppressed. As the Germans retreated in January 1945, they leveled the city.

During the war, about 6 million Poles were killed, and 2.5 million were deported to Germany for forced labor. More than 3 million Jews (all but about 100,000 of the Jewish population) were killed in death camps like those at Oswiecim (Auschwitz), Treblinka, and Majdanek.

Following the Yalta Conference in February 1945, a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in June 1945; the U.S. recognized it the next month. Although the Yalta agreement called for free elections, those held in January 1947 were controlled by the Communist Party. The communists then established a regime entirely under their domination.

In October 1956, after the 20th ("de-Stalinization") Soviet Party Congress at Moscow and riots by workers in Poznan, there was a shakeup in the communist regime. While retaining most traditional communist economic and social aims, the regime of First Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka liberalized Polish internal life.

In 1968, the trend reversed when student demonstrations were suppressed and an "anti-Zionist" campaign initially directed against Gomulka supporters within the party eventually led to the emigration of much of Poland's remaining Jewish population. In December 1970, disturbances and strikes in the port cities of Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin, triggered by a price increase for essential consumer goods, reflected deep dissatisfaction with living and working conditions in the country. Edward Gierek replaced Gomulka as First Secretary.

Fueled by large infusions of Western credit, Poland's economic growth rate was one of the worlds highest during the first half of the 1970s. But much of the borrowed capital was misspent, and the centrally planned economy was unable to use the new resources effectively. The growing debt burden became insupportable in the late 1970s, and economic growth had become negative by 1979.

In October 1978, the Bishop of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, became Pope John Paul II, head of the Roman Catholic Church. Polish Catholics rejoiced at the elevation of a Pole to the papacy and greeted his June 1979 visit to Poland with an outpouring of emotion.

Onn July 1 1980, with the Polish foreign debt at more than $20 billion, the government made another attempt to increase meat prices. A chain reaction of strikes virtually paralyzed the Baltic coast by the end of August and, for the first time, closed most coal mines in Silesia. Poland was entering into an extended crisis that would change the course of its future development.

On 31 August 1980, workers at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, led by an electrician named Lech Walesa, signed a 21-point agreement with the government that ended their strike. Similar agreements were signed at Szczecin and in Silesia. The key provision of these agreements was the guarantee of the workers' right to form independent trade unions and the right to strike. After the Gdansk agreement was signed, a new national union movement "Solidarity" swept Poland.

The discontent underlying the strikes was intensified by revelations of widespread corruption and mismanagement within the Polish state and party leadership. In September 1980, Gierek was replaced by Stanislaw Kania as First Secretary.

Alarmed by the rapid deterioration of the PZPR's authority following the Gdansk agreement, the Soviet Union proceeded with a massive military buildup along Poland's border in December 1980. In February 1981, Defense Minister Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski assumed the position of Prime Minister as well, and in October 1981, he also was named party First Secretary. At the first Solidarity national congress in September-October 1981, Lech Walesa was elected national chairman of the union.

On December 12-13, the regime declared martial law, under which the army and special riot police were used to crush the union. Virtually all Solidarity leaders and many affiliated intellectuals were arrested or detained. The United States and other Western countries responded to martial law by imposing economic sanctions against the Polish regime and against the Soviet Union. Unrest in Poland continued for several years thereafter.

In a series of slow, uneven steps, the Polish regime rescinded martial law. In December 1982, martial law was suspended, and a small number of political prisoners were released. Although martial law formally ended in July 1983 and a general amnesty was enacted, several hundred political prisoners remained in jail.

In July 1984, another general amnesty was declared, and 2 years later, the government had released nearly all political prisoners. The authorities continued, however, to harass dissidents and Solidarity activists. Solidarity remained proscribed and its publications banned. Independent publications were censored.

A "shock therapy" program during the early 1990s enabled the country to transform its economy into one of the most robust in Central Europe. Hopes for early admission to the EU were realized on April 16, 2003, when Poland and nine other countries signed a Treaty for EU membership from May 1, 2004. Poland joined NATO in March 1999.

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Radio Communication

In St. Louis, Missouri, Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication in 1893. Addressing the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and the National Electric Light Association, he described and demonstrated in detail the principles of radio communication. The apparatus that he used contained all the elements that were incorporated into radio systems before the development of the vacuum tube.

In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi sent a telegraph message without wires, but he didn't send voice over the airwaves; Reginald Fessenden, in 1900, accomplished that. On Christmas Eve, 1906, using his heterodyne principle, Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast in history from Brant Rock Station, Massachusetts. Ships at sea heard a broadcast that included Fessenden playing the song O Holy Night on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible.

The first benefit seen to radio telegraphy was the ability to communicate with ships at sea. A company called British Marconi was established to make use of Marconi's and others' patents. This company along with its subsidiary American Marconi, had a stranglehold on ship to shore communication. It operated much the way American Telephone and Telegraph operated until 1983, owning all of its own equipment and refusing to communicate with non-Marconi equipped ships. Many inventions improved the quality of radio, and amateurs experimented with uses of radio, thus the first seeds of broadcasting were planted.

Spark Gap Wireless Telegraphy (1896--1920)

• Quickly becomes popular on ships after the Titanic.

Audio Broadcasting (1915--)

• Invention of the triode amplifier, generator, and detector enables audio radio

Radio broadcasting is born

Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Scripps' Detroit News in Detroit, Michigan were the first US broadcasters in the early 1920s. Broadcasting was not yet commercially supported; the stations owned by the manufacturers and department stores were established to sell radios and those owned by newspapers to sell newspapers and express the opinions of the owners. Westinghouse was brought into the patent allies group, General Electric, American Telephone and Telegraph, and Radio Corporation of America, and became a part owner of RCA. All radios made by GE and Westinghouse were sold under the RCA label 60% GE and 40% Westinghouse. ATT's Western Electric would build radio transmitters. The patent allies attempted to set up a monopoly, but they failed due to successful competition. Much to the dismay of the patent allies, several of the contracts for inventor's patents held clauses protecting "amateurs" and allowing them to use the patents. Whether the competing manufacturers were really amateurs was ignored by these competetors.

• Commercial (United States) or governmental (Europe) station networks
• Federal Radio Commission
• Federal Communications Commission
• Birth of the soap opera
• Race towards shorter waves and FM

FM radio

VHF television and FM radio both use frequencies on the VHF band.

FM radio, and later stereo FM radio, were both developed in the United States.

W1XOJ was the first experimental FM radio station, granted a construction permit by the FCC in 1937.

FM radio had been assigned the 42 to 50 MHz band of the spectrum in 1940. The Federal Communications Commission in late 1943 asked the radio manufacturers to establish the Radio Technical Planning Board, which would advise the Federal Communications Commission on allocation and other technical matters. The Radio Technical Planning Board was divided into pannels on various subjects which would make recommendations to the whole board, which the board might support. The Radio Technical Planning Board FM panal recommended that more frequencies should be given to FM in the 50 MHz area where FM was already assigned and operating. Unfortunately for FM and the nearly 400,000 FM receiver owners the Radio Technical Planning Board as a whole did not agree with the panel. The reason the board made this decision was that it had been given flawed evidence by a former Federal Communications Commission engineer named Kenneth Norton. He believed that sunspots, which appear every eleven years, would cause severe disruption to the FM signal. Norton never explained why television signals at the same frequency wouldn't be disrupted. The Radio Technical Planning Board thus recommended that FM radio be relocated near 100 MHz. The Federal Communications Commission heeded the advice of the Radio Technical Planning Board and moved FM to the frequencies between 88 and 106 MHz on June 27, 1945. Later the Federal Communications Commission added the frequencies from 106 to 108 MHz which had been given to facsimile transmission but had never been used for that purpose. This change gave FM radio 100 channels whereas it only had 40 before, it also added to the number of reserved educational stations.

When in 1945 the Federal Communications Commission moved FM radio to the higher frequencies, it made all prewar FM radios worthless. The FM interests said it would cost $75,000,000 to convert and that it would set back the medium for years, which it did. Of course the FM interests fought back, Edwin Armstrong began fighting in 1944 to keep the frequencies FM already had. Armstrong went to court and to Congress, but lost in court and in a Congress that paid him lip service and little else. In 1945 when the change was ordered, there were already 55 pioneer FM stations on the air, and no nonexperimental television stations. The Federal Communications Commission had its most extensive hearings to that date, September 28 to November 2, 1944, on allocations decisions. When the Federal Communications Commission was making these decisions it had to balance several factors, but because of the wartime freeze it had time. The factors were the international responsibilities of the United States with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the American Armed Forces need for spectrum, television and FM desiring the same VHF band, and the competing television systems, color later on UHF and/or black and white now on VHF.

The FCC made later decisions that further hurt the acceptance of FM radio. One decison it made was to allow owners to own AM-FM combines in the same market. Eighty percent of FM stations were owned by AM station owners in the same market as an AM station of the owner. This lessoned the pursuit of FM stations for financial success because that would hurt profits from the AM station.

Duplication and simulcasting of programs was permitted by the Federal Communications Commission. This meant that AM and FM stations would often if not always play the same programs. Because of this there was even less reason to buy an FM receiver, and since no one could or would listen, advertisers wouldn't advertise. Since advertisers did not advertise the station made no money and little was spent on new programming. The vicious circle would not be broken for years to come.

In Europe the FM radio broadcast was introduced in Germany after World War II. In 1948 a new wave-length plan was set up for Europe at a meeting in Copenhagen. Because of the recent war, Germany (who were not even invited) were only given a few medium-wave frequencies, which are not very good for broadcasting. For this reason Germany began broadcasting on USW, "ultra short wave" (nowadays called VHF). After some amplitude modulation experience with VHF, it was realized that FM radio was a much better alternative for VHF radio than AM.

Television

• Nationwide networks
• Satellite transmission

Internet Radio (1995--)

The term "internet radio" is a misnomer: its consists of putting out radio-style audio programming over streaming Internet connections: no radio transmitters need be involved at any point in the process.

Satellite Radio (2001--)

The modern Scots are stereotyped as Celtic, but these early human inhabitants were of unknown ethnicity, and it is likely that they will never be fully identified. The first Celts came to Scotland about 500 BC and were a Brythonic type, which is to say they were closely related to the Celts of the European mainland, and somewhat less related to those of Ireland. The language and culture of the original peoples of Scotland people soon disappeared, and remains in only a few very old place names.

A series of invasions failed to conquer Caledonia, and in 121 AD the Roman emperor Hadrian fixed the border on a line running from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. Twenty years later the Roman governor Lollius Urbicus built the Antonine Wall (so-named after the Roman emperor at the time, Antoninus Pius) further north, across the Forth-Clyde isthmus. At half the length of Hadrian's Wall, this border was considerably shorter and more easily defended, but nevertheless it represented the northern reach of the Roman Empire for only the next two decades. By approximately 160 AD the border once again ran along Hadrian's, and stayed there until the fourth-century withdrawal of the Romans from Britain.

The failure of the Romans to conquer Caledonia can be seen as a triumph of the Caledonians and perhaps even as a source of national pride. However, the practical consequences were that Scotland was cut off from the main currents of European thought and culture, and thus remained a fringe, backward nation for almost a thousand years.

Christianity was first introduced to Scotland by the British Saint Ninian. From his base, the Candida Casa, on the Solway Firth he spread the faith in the south and east of Scotland and the north of England. However, in the century between his death and the arrival of Saint Columba, the Picts appear to have renounced Christianity according to the writings of Saint Patrick and Saint Columba. The reason is not known. Christianity was re-introduced into Pictish Scotland by the Scotti, gradually pushing out worship of the older Celtic gods. The most famous evangelist of that period is Saint Columba, who came to Scotland in 563 AD and settled on the island of Iona. Some consider his (possibly apocryphal) conversion of the Pictish King Brude the turning point in the Christianization of Scotland.

The Scotti began their rise to prominence in Scotland at the expense of the Britons and Picts. In the 7th and 8th centuries, Pictavia suffered invasions by Norsemen, a preoccupation which allowed the Scots King Kenneth Mac Alpin to make himself King of the Picts in 843 by inviting all rival claimants to a banquet and then killing them. The resulting unified Scottish/Pictish Kingdom was called Alba.

Scotland, in the geographical sense it has retained for nearly a millennium, was then rounded out by the gradual subsumation of the Britons' kingdom of Strathclyde into Alba. In 1034, Duncan I inherited Alba from his grandfather Malcolm II after having been appointed to the crown of Strathclyde some years earlier. With the exception of the Western Isles, which had come under the sway of the Norse, Scotland stood unified.

Duncan was defeated in battle in 1040 by Macbeth, the Pictish candidate for the throne whose family had been suppressed by Malcolm II. Macbeth then ruled for seventeen years before being overthrown by Duncan's son Malcolm III, more commonly known as Malcolm Canmore. These events were later immortalized (in a heavily fictionalized way) by William Shakespeare in his play Macbeth.

In 1066 the Norman Conquest shook England to its foundations, and one of the claimants of the English throne opposing William the Conqueror, Edgar, came to Scotland. Malcolm married Edgar's sister Margaret, and thus came into opposition to William. When Malcolm died in 1093, his brother Donald III succeeded to the throne, but his son by his first marriage (Duncan) was backed by William as a pretender. With the English behind him Duncan briefly seized power as Duncan II, but was murdered within a few months and Donald returned to the throne. The eldest son of Malcolm's marriage to Margaret supported him, but the next two younger fled to England, and returned supported once again by the English. Donald and the eldest son were imprisoned for life, and the eldest of the two refugees became King Edgar.

Margaret is notable for one other event: the restoration of the Scottish church to the rule of Rome. Scotland and Ireland had been cut off from the bulk of European Christianity by the pagan Norse and Danish invasions in the centuries previous, and had evolved along their own path. Margaret was English, however, and had been raised in the Roman Catholic church. At her instigation, a Benedictine monastery was founded at Dunfermline, and the rites of the Scottish church were gradually folded back into Catholicism from that base.

When Edgar died, Margaret's third son Alexander became king, and when he in turn passed away quickly the crown passed to her fourth son David I. Half-English, David was to a large extent responsible for the partial anglicization of the Lowlands of Scotland, thus introducing the second great thread in Scottish history up until the middle of the 18th century: the tensions between Anglophone Lowlands and Gaelic Highlands. David was greatly impressed by the governmental and cultural innovations introduced by the Norman conquerors of England, and he arranged for several notables to come north and take their place within the Scottish aristocracy. With this act, Scotland was finally wedded to the mainstream of European civilization, after being relegated to beyond the fringe as far back as Roman times.

In a mirror of the invitation of the Normans north, David received lands south of the border in fee from the English kings. This meant that the Kings of Scotland were also the Earls of Huntingdon, and that the Earls paid ceremonial homage to the English kings for the lands received. This homage was problematic, however, as Malcolm Canmore as the King of Scotland had paid homage to the Kings of England twice after defeats during his various campaigns against the English on behalf of Margaret's brother. The English maintained that this meant Scotland was subordinate to England.

During David's reign this claim was fended off, but David's grandson, William the Lion was defeated by Henry II and hauled to the English holdings in Normandy. There he was forced to swear fealty in 1174, not as Earl but as King. For the first time, Scotland was nominally unified with England. The vow was nullified in 1189 when Richard I accepted a payment from William, needed for Richard's crusade to the Middle East, but the submission hung over the Scottish kings for some time afterwards.

In 1263 the Battle of Largs was fought between Scotland and Norway for control over the Western Isles. The battle was a success for the Scots, and in 1266 the Norwegian king Magnus signed the Treaty of Perth, which acknowledged Scottish suzerainty over the islands.

A series of deaths in the line of succession in the 1280s, followed by King Alexander III's death in 1286 left the Scottish crown in disarray. His grand-daughter Margaret, a four-year old girl, became queen of Scotland.

Edward I of England was Margaret's great-uncle, and he suggested that his son (also a child) and Margaret should be married, stabilizing the Scottish line of succession. In 1290, this was agreed to by Margaret's guardians, but Margaret died before the marriage could take place.

Balliol soon tried to back out of the arrangement, largely because Edward put considerable ingenuity into ways of emphasising that he was the Scottish king's formal overlord. In 1295 John renounced his allegiance, and entered into an alliance with France. This renewed the Auld Alliance first arranged by William the Lion.

Edward invaded Scotland in 1296 and swiftly brought Balliol to heel, moving to establish full English control over Scotland. Into this environment William Wallace came, and raised parts of Scotland into rebellion. Wallace's army defeated the English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, and for a short time ruled Scotland in the name of John Balliol.

Edward retaliated in 1298 and defeated Wallace, who escaped but lost control of Scotland to John Comyn and Robert the Bruce, the latter a failed claimant to the throne during Edward's arbitration years earlier. In 1304, all Scottish notables were forced into giving homage to Edward. Wallace was betrayed and handed over to the English for execution in 1305.

From this low point, Scottish independence from England was regained and reinforced during the first two decades of the 14th century. Robert the Bruce quarrelled with John Comyn for unknown reasons in 1306 and stabbed him to death. Facing murder charges in England, he instead opted for rebellion. He was crowned King in 1307, and the country was soon overrun by his forces. By 1314 the English were reduced to holding only Bothwell and Stirling. Edward I had died in the meantime, and his heir Edward II moved an army north to try once again to end Scottish intransigence. Robert defeated that army at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, securing de facto independence. The various acts of submission by Scottish kings to English ones were then nullified by an appeal to the Pope from the nobles of Scotland (the Declaration of Arbroath), in 1320.

In 1603, following the death of the childless Queen Elizabeth I, the crown of England was passed to the Stuart family, then the current rulers of Scotland. James VI of Scotland took the title James I of England, thus unifying the two countries under his personal rule. For the time being, this was the sole connection between two independent nations, but it foreshadowed the eventual union of Scotland and England under the banner of the United Kingdom.

One of the primary differences between the two countries was religious. While both were technically Protestant, they were almost as different as two sects under that banner could be. The Church of England broke with Catholicism primarily for political reasons. Thus they replaced very little traditional Catholic theology, except to substitute the Crown for the Pope as the head of the Church. The Scots on the other hand were primarily Presbyterian, a movement which was the result of a strong theological rejection of certain Catholic teachings. In particular they were sceptical of the authority of the Pope and priesthood generally, which they rejected in favour of the priesthood of all believers. This doctrine was seen by both sides as radically undermining the authority not just of the priestly class, but of the aristocracy.

Inevitably this led to conflict with the Church of England as well as the British monarchs. While James challenged the status quo, he was wise enough not to force the issue when his efforts to promote the Church of England in Scotland were roundly ignored. His son Charles I was not.

Perversely, towards the end of the Civil War, Scotland was the stronghold of support for the King. The Stuarts were of Scottish descent, after all, and Charles even promised the Presbyterian church a chance to spread into England in return for an alliance. After Charles' execution in 1648, his eldest son was proclaimed King Charles II in Edinburgh. Oliver Cromwell invaded in 1650 to assert the English Parliament's control, and defeated the Scottish army in a series of battles. Charles II fled to France.

From 1652 to 1658, Scotland was an integral part of the puritan Commonwealth. Upon its collapse, nominal independence was returned with the restoration of Charles II to the throne.

Charles largely ignored Scotland for the next two decades, concentrating on extending his power in England. He did, however, continue his father's policy of introducing Anglican worship into Scotland. This eventually provoked another rebellion in 1679. Charles largely contained the rebellion, but made little progress in stamping out Presbyterianism. When he died in 1685 and was succeeded by his Catholic brother, James II, matters came to a head.

The Lowland Scots were reasonably happy with the new royal family, but the Highland Scots remained sympathetic to the Scottish-descended Stuarts. The Highlands rapidly developed into the primary hotbed of Jacobitism, and a series of attempts to restore the Stuarts to the throne soon followed.

Despite the Jacobite forces defeating William's forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, the uprising did not achieve its objective owing to the death of its leader (and main driving force) at the battle. Future strife was hinted at, however, when King Louis XIV of France declared his support for the Stuart family. The English soon stamped out matching Jacobite rebellions in Ireland, then staved off an attempted French invasion, and peace descended on the British Isles for a few decades.

The late 17th century was difficult economically for the Scots. A number of remedies for the desperate situation were enacted by the Parliament of 1695. The Bank of Scotland was established. The Act for the Settling of Schools established a parish-based system of public education throughout Scotland. Given the late development and deplorable state of banking and public education in England this gave a substantial advantage to Scots for centuries to come. The Company of Scotland was chartered with capital to be raised by public subscription to trade with "Africa and the Indies."

The Stuarts were not inclined to take this lying down however, and continued their attempts to regain the throne of the UK. An abortive uprising took place in 1708, then a more serious one occurred in 1715.

"The Fifteen", as the second revolt was known, was supposed to be a simultaneous uprising in the south-west of England and in Scotland, but the former failed to materialize. James III landed in Scotland and advanced on Newcastle, but was unable to take the city. England itself and much of Lowland Scotland was staunchly behind the House of Hanover, and James eventually had to return to France.

In 1745, the final Stuart pretender to the throne and son of James III, Charles Stuart (commonly known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie"), entered Great Britain via Scotland. Several Highland clans joined his cause, Edinburgh was taken, and the army fought its way south as far as Derby, England. The Jacobite army was over-extended, however, and retreated back to Scotland.

"The Forty-Five" and the last hopes of the Jacobites were finally crushed with the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Charles hid in Scotland with the aid of the Highlanders until September, when he escaped back to France with the help of Flora MacDonald. He was then expelled from France as part of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, effectively ending any chance of a Stuart Restoration.

In the wake of the rebellion, British authorities were anxious to uproot Highland culture in an effort to prevent yet another rebellion. Numerous legislative attempts were made to stamp out or alter aspects of Scottish society, and were largely successful, though there is reason to believe that the first glimmerings of the Industrial Revolution and a modern money economy had much to do with the final breakdown.

Leading the charge in this Scottish Enlightenment, however, was Sir Walter Scott. Scots by birth and a prolific writer of historical novels, he was more or less single-handedly responsible for setting off a pan-European fad for all things Scottish in the first part of the 19th century. His, unfortunately, less-than-accurate portrayals of Scottish life in centuries past continue to have a disproportionate effect on the public perception of "authentic Scottish culture," even though his books are no longer so widely read. George MacDonald also influenced British and American views of Scotland in the latter parts of the 19th century.

While Lowland Scotland was charging ahead, the Highlands were in full retreat. Continuing a process that had been taking place all over Europe for the previous few centuries, many of the small Highland farming communities were enclosed and converted to sheep pasture. The consequences for the crofters were dire, as many were forcibly removed from their land (the so-called "Highland Clearances") and the population of the Scottish Highlands dropped precipitously. Significant numbers of Highlanders relocated to the Lowlands and elsewhere in the British Empire, particularly Nova Scotia, the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and Upper Canada (later known as Ontario).

As the 19th century wore on, Lowland Scotland turned more and more towards heavy industry. Glasgow and the mouth of the River Clyde became a major ship-building centre, to the point that Glasgow was briefly one of the largest cities in the world and the second largest city in the British Empire after London.

20th century Scotland

During the 1920s and 1930s, as ship-building and other industrial pursuits came to be more profitable outwith the British Isles, Glasgow and Clydebank slowly decayed and fell into economic depression.

Scotland's location on the north-western periphery of Europe did not mean the country had a small part in the Second World War. The shipyards and heavy engineering factories in Glasgow and Clydeside were key to the war effort, and soon became targets for the Luftwaffe. The town of Clydebank in particular suffered great destruction and loss of life during the blitz. The Highlands again provided a disproportionate number of troops for the war effort. Many thousands of Commando's and resistance fighters were also trained in the harsh conditions of the Lochaber mountains. Scotland was also of great strategic importance in the battle of the North Atlantic, as most trans-atlantic ships had to negotiate the waters around the north-west of Scotland. As in WWI, Scapa Flow in Orkney became an important base for the Royal Navy. Shetland's relative proximity to Norway and its cultural links, resulted in the Shetland Bus - the name given to the fishing boats which helped many Norwegians flee the Nazis, and others to return back across the North Sea to assist saboteurs. Perhaps the most unusual wartime event on Scotland's shores was in 1941 when Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland in an attempt to broker a peace deal via the Duke of Hamilton, who he had met at the Berlin Olympics.

After the war, the economic situation became progressively worse until the 1970s, and only began to turn around after the discovery and development of North Sea oil and gas. It was in this period that the Scottish National Party refocused their arguments for Scottish independence around their It's Scotland's Oil campaign.

In 1997, the Labour government of the United Kingdom arranged for a referendum on the issue of devolution: the creation of a "provincial" parliament in each of the three major divisions of the UK besides England. All three, including Scotland, voted in the affirmative, reversing parts of the three hundred year old Union of the Parliaments. The site of the Scottish Parliament is next to Holyrood House in Edinburgh.

• Historic Sites in Scotland
• Perth, Scotland

• UK topics

External links

The Visigoths article is excellent, but it does not discuss Visigothic Spain in nearly as much detail as it was traditional in Spanish schools a few decades ago.

The rulers of Al-Andalus were granted the rank of Emir by the Umayyad Caliph in Damascus. After the Umayyad were overthrown by the Abbasids, Abd-ar-rahman I declared Cordoba an independent emirate. Al-Andalus was rife with internal conflict between the Arab Umayyad rulers, the Berber (North African) commoners and the Visigoth-Roman Christian population.

In the 10th century Abd-ar-rahman III declared the Caliphate of Cordoba, effectively breaking all ties with the Egyptian and Syrian Caliphs. The Caliphate reached its peak around the year 1000, under Al-Mansur (a.k.a. Almanzor), who sacked Barcelona (985) and other Christian cities. After Almanzor's death the Caliphate plunged into a civil war and collapsed into the so-called "Taifa Kingdoms". Taifa kings competed against each other not only in war, but also in the protection of the arts. The Taifa kingdoms lost ground to the Christian realms in the north and, after the loss of Toledo in 1085, the Almoravides invaded Al-Andalus from North Africa and established an empire. In the 12th century the Almoravide empire broke up again, only to be taken over by the Almohade invasion. After the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, only the kingdom of Granada remained, until 1492.

Córdoba became one of the most beautiful and advanced cities of Europe, and an important scholarly center. (See also Abbadides, Almohades).

While in the east of the peninsula, the Frankish emperors established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785, Barcelona in 801.

The idea of the Reconquista as a single process spanning 8 centuries is historically inaccurate. The Christian realms in northern Spain warred against each other as much as against the Muslims. El Cid, the 11th-century hero of Spain's epic poem was banished by king Alfonso VI and found refuge with the Muslim king of Zaragoza. With the collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba Al-Andalus broke apart into a number of small, warring domains, which contributed to the success of the southward expansionist drive of the Christian kingdoms. In the 11th century the Muslim realms asked for help from the North African Almoravides, who then took control of all of Al-Andalus and some Christian land. The Almohades were defeated in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. By the mid-13th century Granada was the only independent Muslim realm in Spain, and the 13th and the 15th centuries were spent in internal strife among the Christian kingdoms. The reconquest of Spain was declared a crusade at the turn of the 13th century.

With this declaration came the urge for religious purity in Spain, which was capitalized on by the "Catholic monarchs" (Reyes Católicos in Spanish) Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in order to justify their invasion of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews and the forceful conversion of the Moors. In the 15th century, the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united under Isabella and Ferdinand. These two able rulers ruled jointly and worked to consolidate the power of the monarchy at the expense of the nobility. During their reign, the castles of many nobles (symbols of aristocratic independence from the monarchy) were demolished, and a system of regular taxation was established. Ferdinand and Isabella established the basis for the unification of Spain religiously as well as politically and economically. Under their rule the Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. Aragon was at that time already an important maritime power in the Mediterranean, and Castile was in competition with Portugal for domination of the Atlantic Ocean. After the final conquest of the last Moorish stronghold at Granada in 1492, Spain started financing voyages of exploration. Those of Christopher Columbus brought a New World to Europe's attention, and were followed by the Conquistadores who brought the native empires of Mesoamerica and the Inca under Spanish Control. At the same time, the Jews of Spain were ordered on March 30, 1492 to convert to Christianity or be exiled from the country.

Through a policy of alliances with other European nobility and the conquest of most of South America and the West Indies, Spain began to establish itself as an empire. The Treaty of Tordesillas, negotiated by Pope Alexander VI between Portugal and Spain, effectively divided up the non-European world between these two budding empires. Massive amounts of gold and silver were imported from the New World into Spain's coffers. However, in the long run this hurt the Spanish economy much more than it helped it. The bullion caused high inflation rates, which undermined the value of Spain's currency. Additionally, Spain became dependent on her colonies for income, and when Queen Elizabeth I of England began to capture Spanish vessels on the way to and from the New World, Spain suffered massive economic losses. These effects, combined with the expulsion of Spain's most economically vital classes in the late 15th century (the Jews and the Moors), caused Spain's econmoy to collapse several times in the 16th century, brining the Golden Age of Spain to a close.

The Habsburg dynasty became extinct in Spain and the War of Spanish Succession ensued in which the other European powers tried to assume control of the Spanish monarchy. King Louis XIV of France eventually "won" the War of Spanish Succession, and control of Spain passed to the Bourbon dynasty.

Under the Bonapartes, Spain failed to embrace the mercantile and industrial revolutions of the 18th century, and also failed to absorb the ideals that of the Enlightenment that were revolutionizing European thought. These missed opportunities, combined with the economic failures of the 17th century, caused the country to fall desperately behind Britain, France, and Germany in economic and political power.

Under Franco, Spain actively sought the return of Gibraltar by the UK, and gained some support for its cause at the United Nations. During the 1960s, Spain began imposing restrictions on Gibraltar, culminating in the closure of the border in 1969. It was not fully reopened until 1985.

Spain also relinquished its colonies in Africa, with Spanish rule in Morocco ending in 1956. Spanish Guinea was granted independence as Equatorial Guinea in 1968, while the Moroccan enclave of Ifni had been ceded to Morocco in 1969.

The latter years of Franco's rule saw some economic and political liberalisation, the so called Spanish Miracle, including the birth of a tourism industry. Francisco Franco ruled until his death on November 20th 1975 when control was given to King Juan Carlos.

In the last few months before Franco's death, the Spanish state went into a paralysis. This was capitalized upon by King Hassan of Morocco, who ordered the 'Green March' into Western Sahara, Spain's last colonial possession.

On May 15, 1948 David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the state of Israel. His first order was the formation of the IDF - The Israeli Defence Forces. The IDF was based on the people who had served in the Haganah and the Palmach and was declared as the only legal armed force in Israel. Another main source of manpower was the immigrants from Europe. Some of them Holocaust survivors and others veterans from World War II.

Following the declaration of independence, Arab armies invaded Israel. Egypt came from the south, Lebanon and Syria from the north, Jordan from the east and Iraqi and Saudi troops were sent to help the Palestinian Arabs fight off the Zionists.

The IDF was in the initial phase of the war inferior in numbers and armaments. Due to a number of reasons, the Arabs never managed to exploit their superiority i numbers. The Zionists managed to successfully defend themselves in virtually all battlefields with the notable exception of East Jerusalem. After the first truce June 11 - July 8, the Zionists managed to seize the initiative due to enrollments and supplies of arms. Notable achievements of the IDF incclude the conquest of Eilat (Um Rashrash), Zefat, Nazareth, Haifa and the liberation of the Gallile and the Negev. The war continued until July 20, 1949, when the cease-fire with Syria was signed. By then the IDF had managed to repel the Egyptions to the Gaza Strip while Jordan took over the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

In 1954 or 1955 Egypt erected a special force unit known as the Fedayeen, its purpouse was similar to the purpouse that Unit 101 had had. It led to the escalation of hostilities over the Israeli-Egyptian border and eventually resulted in the 1956 Suez War. When President Gamal Abdul Nasser, encouraged by support from the Soviet Union, nationalized the Suez Canal IDF launched a full scale attack into Sinai. Israeli armour, equipped with tanks, such as M4 Sherman and AMX13 quickly defeated the Egyptian forces and took control over the canal. Israel withdrew from Sinay under international pressure from the USA. But it had achieved numerous goals; the borders dramatically tranquilized, Nasser promised to dispand the Fedayeen, the Suez Canal was once again open to shipping and maybe most important of all, Israel had given lesson that it wouldn't forget. The successful war elevated the reputation of the IDF and contributed a lot to the moral of the soldiers.

The reasons for the war were the concentration of 100,000 Egyptian troops in the Sinai Peninsula anf the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. Those two steps of Gamal Abdul Nasser were interperated by the Israeli government as Egytptian prepartion for war, and after forming a unity government, despite of international pressure, the Israelis decided on a massive preemptive strike.

In the morning of June 5, 1967, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) launched a massive airstrike that destroyed the majority of the Egyptian air force on the ground. At noon, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian air forces, about 450 aircrafts, were annihilated. This preemptive strike known as Operation Red Sheet, Mivtza Sadin Adom.

The Egyptian presuaded Syria and Jordan to join the war by lying to them and reporting on "amazing victories" at Sinai. The two Arab countries reluctantly joined the war. Jordan by shelling West Jerusalem and Syria by entering Israel from the Golan Heights.

Meanwhile, the IDF ground quickly overran the Eygptian army in Sinai and were about to reach Alexandria. About 15,000 Egyptian soldiers were killed, 4482 fell into captive and 80% of the Egyptian tanks were destroyed. Only 338 Israeli were killed in Sinai and the Israel losses there were only about 63 tanks.

All Sinai was captured again. The IDF later captured the Golan Heights from the Syrians and the West Bank from Jordan.

On June 7th Israeli troops - "Harel" unit, "Jerusalem" unit and elite paratroopers accompanied by tank - captured the Old City of Jerusalem The conquest of the Western Wall and Temple Mount was considered as the highlights of the war and a dramatical and emotional peak by the Israeli people. The reunifaction of east and west Jerusalem as one city under Jewish control were celebrated widely in Israel.

The Six Day War had great implents toward the state of Israel and the IDF. In 6 days Israel has tripled its territories and defeated 3 Arab armies - Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, Israel Tal, Moshe Peled and Mordechai Gur were admired by the public as "war heroes" while the IAF pilots won unprecedented prestige and was considered as "the best pilots in the world" (even today, the IAF is considered to be one of the most competent air forces in the world).

Because of Israel's strike in the Six Day Wars, France cast an embargo and banned all weapons sales to Israel. Israel overcome the embargo by finding other suppliers (such as the USA) and developing its own weapons - for example: The Kfir fighter jet.

After the Six Day War was over, IDF outposts on the Suez Canal were shelled by the Egyptian army. It was a long and bitter war that ended after 3 years due to Israeli air superiority.

There were also frictions and battles with Syrian forces on the northern border. In the Israeli reprisal operation ("Three Days Battles" June 24 - June 27, 1970) about 350 Syrian soldiers were killed.

The Yom Kippur War, also known as the "October War" in Arab countries broke the Israeli over-confidence created after the glorious victory of the Six Day War. This time, Jordan stayed out and wasn't involved in the war. The war opened on October 6th 1973, the Jewish holdiday of Yom Kippur.

Egypt and Syria attempted to regain the territory under Israeli occupation by force. Their armies launched a joint surprise attack on the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday (the most sacred day of all in which each Jew must atton for his sins, pray and avoid eating and drinking) -- the Syrian forces attacking fortifications in the Golan Heights and the Egyptian forces attacking fortifications around the Suez Canal and on the Sinai Peninsula. The troops inflicted heavy casualties on the Israeli army. After three weeks of fighting, though, and with U.S air-lifted reinforcements of weapons and equipments (first shipment arrived on October 14th), the IDF pushed the forces back beyond the original lines.

In the Golan Heights, small groups of brave tank commanders such as Avigdor Kahalani has managed to hold back dozens of Syrian tank. By October 10th, the IDF recaptured the entier Golan Heights and on October 11th Israeli armour forces invaded into Syria and destroy the Iraqi reinforcements. On October 22nd, the Golani infantry brigade has capture mount Hermon (an important strategic outpost).

In the Sinai Penisula, Israeli armour barely managed to stop the overwhelming Egyptian attack. The Egyptians attack with 2000 tanks while there were only 300 Israeli tanks to defend the area. Israeli armour forces suffered a lot of casualties on the first three days and were forced to withdraw from the Suez Canal outposts. After being strengthen by reserve forces, the IDF laaunched counter attack. On October 14th, General Ariel Sharon managed to breach through the Suez Canal and cause havoc in the logistic back of the Egyptian army. On October 24th, after Israeli troops were 101 km away from Cairo, and under heavy international pressure, a cease-fire treaty was signed and the war was over.

The price of the war was heavy. 2700 Israelis were killed and 5600 were wounded. About 300 Israeli soldiers taken into captive. The Egyptian paid higher price with 12000 dead, 35000 wounded and 8400 taken captive. 3000 Syrian soldiers were killed, 5600 were wounded and 411 taken captive.

In Israel, the war caused a civil outrage, forcing the government to appoint an investigation commission. The Agranat commission found serious flaws in the functioning of the intelligence forcasting branch who failed in forseeing the war and ignored various warning. The Chief of Staff, David Elazar ("Dadu") have resigned after harsh criticism by the commission. Although the commission praised Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on her leadership during the war, she resigned following the war and was replaced by Yitzhak Rabin.

Other famous generals and soldiers

The United States of America was founded in 1776 from British colonies along the Atlantic Coast of North America. In 1775 frustration with various British crown practices had led to revolt by colonists in Massachusetts. The next year, representatives of thirteen of the British colonies in North America met in Philadelphia and declared their independence in a remarkable document, the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. With the help of their French allies they were eventually able to win the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain, settled by the Treaty of Paris. Until 1789, the United States was governed by the Articles of Confederation.

In 1789, the Constitution of the United States was adopted, and George Washington was elected the first President of the United States. Congress passed the first of many laws organizing the government. Despite a desire on the part of Washington to remain isolationist, (as detailed in his farewell address), the United States has a rich diplomatic history.

In 1812, the United states entered a second war with the British Empire, known as the War of 1812. It was caused in large part by the British policy of Impressment (the forcible seizure of American seamen for service in the British Royal Navy) and the British blockade of French seaports where Americans desired to carry on trade. Other parties supported the war due to the desire to add Canadian lands to the United States, but all of the invasions of Canada failed. The burning of Fort York, now Toronto, was one reason that Washington D.C. was burned in retaliation by the British. Though the British held the upper hand in most engagements, several of the battles entered the American mythos -- including the Battle of New Orleans (1815), when General Andrew Jackson handed the British one of the worst defeats in their history. Ironically, the battle was fought two weeks after the peace Treaty of Ghent, which ended the hostilities, and restored pre-war conditions.

During the 19th century the country expanded its territory greatly through two major acquisitions. In 1802, the size of the country doubled with the Louisiana Purchase, when France sold all of its territories west of the Mississippi River to the United States. The Lewis and Clark expedition quickly explored the north western territories from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The nation's territory continued to expand by the annexation of Texas, which led to the Mexican-American War, where the United States obtained territory in the southwest from Mexico. The Oregon territory was purchased from Great Britain, Alaska from Russia, and the kingdom of Hawaii was annexed at the end of the century, completing the present territory of the United States.

Westward expansion by official acts of the United States Government was accompanied by the western (and northern in the case of New England) movement of settlers into the trans-Appalachia region and beyond The Frontier. Daniel Boone was one frontiersman who pioneered the settlement of Kentucky. This pattern was followed throughout the West as men traded with the Indians, trapped fur, and explored. Skilled fighters and hunters, these Mountain Men in small groups trapped beaver throughout the Rocky Mountains. After the demise of the Fur Trade they established trading posts throughout the west, continuing trade with the Indians, and serving the western migration of settlers to Utah, Oregon and California.

Major events in the western movement of the American people were The Homestead Act, a law by which, for a nominal price, a settler was given title to land to farm; the opening of the Northwest Territory to settlement; The Texas Revolution; the opening of the Oregon Trail; the Mormon Emigration to Utah in 1846-7; The California gold rush of 1849; the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859; and the completion of the US Transcontinental Railroad May 10, 1869.

In response to the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, most of the Southern states seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. The American Civil War ensued. U. S. military leadership was mediocre, at first, compared to that of Confederate generals, particularly Robert E. Lee. But the Union government managed to invade the Southern states, and defeat the Confederate army, by means of an overwhelming advantage in materials and number of soldiers, and the gradual appearance of skilled generals like Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman.

The destructiveness of the Union invasion and defeat of the South, followed by exploitive economic policies in the defeated region after the war, caused lasting bitterness among white Southerners toward the U.S. government. This failure of the Federal government to effectively reunite the country contributed to the government's failure for many decades to enforce the Civil Rights of the formerly enslaved African-Americans in the South.

The end of the 19th century ushered in a period of imperialist expansion, pushing the USA on to the World stage:

• 1893 Queen Liliuokalani deposed by an American coup; leading to the annexation of Hawaii to USA in 1898.
• 1898 Spanish-American War the USA gained control of the Spanish colonies of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
• 1903 intervention in Colombia to achieve the independence of Panama and to fetch the zone to build the canal.

With American help, Great Britain, France and Italy won the war, and imposed severe economic penalties on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. Despite President Woodrow Wilson's calls for agreeable terms, the economic impact of the reparations mandated by the Treaty were severe. The misery they helped produce in Germany helped Adolf Hitler to seize power in Germany in 1933. The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles; instead, the United States signed separate peace treaties with Germany and her allies.

Disillusioned by the failure of the war to achieve the high ideals promised by President Woodrow Wilson, the American people chose isolationism: they turned their attention inward, away from international relations and solely toward domestic affairs.

During most of the 1920s the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity: prices for agricultural commodities and wages fell at the end of the war while new industries (radio, movies, automobiles, and chemicals) flourished. The unevenness was also geographic: the standard of living in rural areas fell increasingly behind that of urban and suburban areas which saw dramatic improvements in housing and urban planning. The boom was reflected by the extension of credit to a dangerous degree, including in the Stock Market, which rose to dangerously inflated levels.

In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by an amendment to the constitution in order to alleviate various social problems. It was enacted through the Volstead Act. Prohibition ended in 1933 by another change to the constitution; it is considered to have been a failure by most: consumption of alcohol did not decrease markedly while organized crime was strengthened. But it did represent the first instance of a constitutional amendment that directly regulated social activity. The 18th Amendment, then, represented the growing strength of the state in the early 20th century.

The Stock Market crash in 1929 and the ensuing economic depression have been endlessly debated, often along ideological lines. The limited amount of reliable economic information suggests that construction and housing stagnated after 1926, joining declines in the agriculture, mining, and petroleum industries. In all of these overproduction dragged down prices and profits. Wages did not rise fast enough to enable consumers to purchase all the new homes and home products available. Foreign trade was constrained by growing protectionism in the industrialized world. The Stock Market Crash drained away remaining consumer confidence and, more importantly, the confidence of financial institutions. They were extremely reluctant to invest. Thus, the economy sank into a severe depression, referred to by Americans as the "Great Depression", marked by punishing levels of unemployment, negligible investment, and falling prices and wages.

In response to the depression, Congress and the Hoover administration enacted a somewhat isolationist Smoot-Hawley tariff and, with its public works acts, tried to fix prices for farmers, and enacted a public works program based on the belief that the federal government was obliged to maintain high employment levels. These efforts were unprecedented, but the Depression overwhelmed them: indices of prices, profits, production, and unemployment worsened.

With millions unemployed, political ferment and discontent greatly increased among the working classes. An unsympathetic or repressive response from the U.S. government might well have sparked a Socialist uprising, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected in 1932, implemented a number of programs to aid the poor and unemployed. He also contributed to the future stability of the economy by instituting new regulations in business, particularly banking. Over the past twenty years, historians have de-emphasized the "revolutionary" legislation of the Roosevelt administration, seeing instead a logical, and even conservative, outgrowth of Hoover administration policies.

The recovery, however, was very slow. The nadir of the Great Depression was in 1933, but the economy showed very little improvement through the end of the decade, and remained grim until it was dramatically reshaped through America's involvement in World War II.

Isolationist sentiment in America had ebbed, but the United States at first declined to enter the war, limiting itself to giving supplies and weapons to Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union. American feeling changed drastically with the sudden Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the United States quickly joined the British-Soviet alliance against Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany, known as the "Axis Alliance". Even with American participation, it took nearly four more years to defeat Germany and Japan. Though the Soviet Union suffered far more casualties than its allies, America's active involvement in the war was vital to preventing an eventual Axis victory.

After the second world war, America experienced a period of great economic growth characterized by the growth of suburban housing, etc. The United States financed the reconstruction of Germany and Japan and eventually turned the former foes into allies.

Stockholm, which is the capital of Sweden, was founded approximately 1250. It is divided between two provinces, where the southern half lies in Sudermannia and the northern half in Uplandia.

The city of Uppsala wasn't chartered until 1286, however it possesses a long pre-history.

• Enköping (approximately 1300)
• Lidingö (1926)
• Norrtälje (1622)
• Sigtuna (approximately 990)
• Solna (1943)
• Sundbyberg (1927)
• Vaxholm (1652)
• Öregrund (1491)
• Östhammar (approximately 1300)

See also

Ancient Israelites

Traditionally Jews around the world claim descendance mostly from the ancient Israelites (also known as Hebrews), who settled in the land of Israel. The Israelites traced their common lineage to the biblical patriarch Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. A kingdom was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon. King David conquered Jerusalem (first a Canaanite, then a Jebusite town) and made it his capital. After Solomon's reign the nation split into two kingdoms, the Israel (in the north) and the Judah (in the south). Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Shalmaneser V in the 8th century BC. The kingdom of Judah was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BC. The Judahite elite was exiled to Babylonia, but later at least a part of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylonia by the Persians.

After the Persians were defeated by Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Kingdom was formed which sought to incorporate Greek culture into the Persian world. When the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, supported by hellenized Jews, attempted to rededicate the Jewish temple to Zeus, the orthodox Jews revolted under the leadership of the Maccabees and created an independent Jewish kingdom known as the Hasmonaean Dynasty which lasted from 165 BCE to 63 BCE. This was followed by a period of Roman rule. In 66 CE, Judeans began to revolt against the Roman rulers of Judea. The revolt was smashed by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus Flavius. The Romans destroyed all but a single wall of the Temple in Jerusalem and stole the holy menorah. Judeans continued to live in their land in significant numbers, and were allowed to practice their religion, until the 2nd century when Julius Severus ravaged Judea while putting down the bar Kokhba revolt. After 135, Jews were not allowed to enter the city of Jerusalem, although this ban must have been at least partially lifted, since at the destruction of the rebuilt city by the Persians in the 7th century, Jews are said to have lived there.

Many of the Israeli Jews were sold into slavery while others became citizens of other parts of the Roman Empire. This is the traditional explanation to the diaspora. However, a majority of the Jews in Antiquity were most likely descendants of convertites in the cities of the Hellenistic-Roman world, especially in Alexandria and Asia Minor, and were only affected by the diaspora in its spiritual sense, as the sense of loss and homelessness which became a cornerstone of the Jewish creed, much supported by persecutions in various parts of the world. The policy of conversion, which spread the Jewish religion throughout the Hellenistic civilization, seems to have ended with the wars against the Romans and the following reconstruction of Jewish values for the post-Temple era.

Before the rise of Islam the Jews inhabited the entire Roman empire; with the Arab expansion, some of them would move as far as India and China. Some Jewish people are also descended from converts to Judaism outside the Mediterranean world. It is known that some Khazars, Edomites, and Ethiopians, as well as many Arabs, particularly in Yemen before, converted to Judaism in the past; today in the United States and Israel some people still convert to Judaism. In fact, there is a greater tradition of conversion to Judaism than many people realize. The word "proselyte" originally meant a Greek who had converted to Judaism. As late as the 6th century the rump Roman empire (ie Byzantium) was issuing decrees against conversion to Judaism, implying that conversion to Judaism was still occurring.