Asia
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The history of Vietnam is one of the longest continuous histories in the world, with archaeological findings showing that human settlements as far back as around half a million years ago and a cultural history of over 20,000 years. [ 1 ] Ancient Vietnam was home to some of the world's earliest civilizations and societies - making them one of the world's first people who practiced agriculture. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The Red River valley formed a natural geographic and economic unit, bounded to the north and west by mountains and jungles, to the east by the sea and to the south by the Red River Delta . The need to have a single authority to prevent floods of the Red River, to cooperate in constructing hydraulic systems, trade exchange, and to fight invaders, led to the creation of the first Vietnamese states in 2879 BC . [ 4 ] The first truly influential part of history in Vietnam occurred during the Bronze Age , when the Đông Sơn culture dramatically advanced the civilization.
History of Vietnam
Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War , a 26-part Canadian television documentary on the Vietnam War, was produced in 1980 by Michael Maclear. The documentary series was consolidated into 13 hour-long episodes for American television syndication. The series was released on videocassette format by Embassy and won a National Education Association award for best world documentary. The military, political, and social repercussions of the Vietnam War continue to be felt, in the ways in which it altered the landscape of American life forever. Written by CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, the 13 episodes of Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War trace the entire course of the conflict, from the closing days of World War II when Ho Chi Minh first began to assemble his revolutionary army, to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Documentary filmmaking simply doesn’t get much better than this.
Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War
History of Iraq
Iraq , known in classical antiquity as Mesopotamia , was home to the oldest civilizations in the world, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] with a cultural history of over 10,000 years, [ 3 ] [ 4 ] hence its common epithet, the Cradle of Civilization . Mesopotamia, as part of the larger Fertile Crescent , was a significant part of the Ancient Near East throughout the Bronze Age and the Iron Age . Successively ruled by the Sumerian , Akkadian , Babylonian , Assyrian , Medo-Persian , Seleucid and Parthian empires during the Iron Age and Classical Antiquity, Iraq was conquered by the Arab Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century, and became a center of the Islamic Golden Age during the medieval Abbasid Caliphate . After a series of invasions and conquest by the Mongols and Turks , Iraq fell under Ottoman rule in the 16th century, intermittently falling under Mamluk and Safavid control.
History of Iran
The history of Iran has been intertwined with the history of a larger historical region, comprising the area from the Danube River in the west to the Indus River and Jaxartes in the east and from the Caucasus , Caspian Sea , and Aral Sea in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and Egypt in the south. The southwestern part of the Iranian plateau participated in the wider Ancient Near East with Elam , from the Early Bronze Age . The Persian Empire proper begins in the Iron Age, following the influx of Iranian peoples . Iranian people gave rise to the Median , as the Persian people gave rise to the Achaemenid , the Parthians , and the Sassanid dynasties during the classical antiquity . Once a major empire of superpower proportions, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Persia , as it had long been called, has been overrun frequently and has had its territory altered throughout the centuries.
History of Japan
The history of Japan encompasses the history of the islands of Japan and the Japanese people , spanning the ancient history of the region to the modern history of Japan as a nation state. Following the last ice age , around 12,000 BC, the rich ecosystem of the Japanese archipelago fostered human development. The earliest-known pottery found in Japan belongs to the Jōmon period .They were the knights of medieval Japan, an elite warrior class that held the reins of power and the fascination of the people for more than 700 years. Masters of sword and bow, driven by an unforgiving code of ethics, they proved ferocious in combat. They beat back foreign invaders and fought each other for land, status, honor and glory. The Samurai explores the extraordinary legacy of martial artistry, ceremony, self-discipline and tenacity in battle that reaches to this day. Modern-day samurai explain the ways of life in the Bushido, while scholars detail the pivotal events in their centuries-long history. From the heyday of the Heian Period (794-1185) to the inevitable decline that followed the opening of Japan in 1853, this is the definitive study of some of world’s most famous fighters.
The Samurai
History of India
The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. [ 1 ] The Indus Valley Civilization , which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE in present-day Pakistan and northwest India, was the first major civilization in South Asia. [ 2 ] A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 BCE. [ 3 ] This Bronze Age civilization collapsed before the end of the second millennium BCE and was followed by the Iron Age Vedic Civilization , which extended over much of the Indo-Gangetic plain and which witnessed the rise of major polities known as the Mahajanapadas . In one of these kingdoms, Magadha , Mahavira and Gautama Buddha were born in the 6th or 5th century BCE and propagated their śramanic philosophies.
Approximate territories occupied by different dynasties as well as modern political states throughout the history of China Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the cradle of Chinese civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations . [ 1 ] The written history of China can be found as early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1700–1046 BC), [ 2 ] although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before the Shang. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Much of Chinese culture , literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BC).
History of China
History of China
Zheng He
Zheng He (1371–1433), formerly romanized as Cheng Ho , was a Hui-Chinese court eunuch , mariner , explorer , diplomat and fleet admiral , who commanded voyages to Southeast Asia , South Asia , the Middle East , Somalia and the Swahili coast , collectively referred to as the "Voyages of Zheng He" from 1405 to 1433. As a favorite of the Yongle Emperor , whose usurpation he assisted, he rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing . These voyages were long neglected in official Chinese histories but have become well known in China and abroad since the publication of Liang Qihao's "Biography of Our Homeland's Great Navigator, Zheng He" [ 2 ] in 1904. [ 3 ] A trilingual stele left by the navigator was discovered on Sri Lanka shortly thereafter. [ edit ] Life Zheng He, born as Ma He ( t 馬和 , s 马和 ), [ 4 ] was the second son of a family from Kunyang, [ a ] Yunnan. [ 5 ] His family were Hui people .
In one of the few times in its 5,000-year history, the oldest, most populous nation on earth has opened its doors to the rest of the world. Coupling insightful storytelling with spectacular and groundbreaking photographic techniques, Discovery Atlas: China Revealed brings to life the fascinating and complex contemporary life of this extraordinary country. In today’s China, the economics of feudalism and communism are out, while capitalism is in… with a Chinese twist. Old walls are being torn down, and a futuristic landscape of glass and steel is shooting up in their place.
Discovery Atlas: China Revealed
The area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires , including the Xiongnu , the Xianbei , the Rouran , the Gökturks , and others. The Mongol Empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, the Mongols returned to their earlier patterns of internal strife. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Mongolia came under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism . At the end of the 17th century, what is now Mongolia had been incorporated into the area ruled by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty .
History of Mongolia
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan ( pron.: / ˈ k uː b l ə ˈ k ɑː n / ; Mongolian : Хубилай хаан , Xubilaĭ xaan ; Middle Mongolian : Qubilai Qaγan , "King Qubilai"; September 23, 1215 – February 18, 1294), [ 1 ] [ 2 ] born Kublai ( Mongolian : Хубилай , Xubilaĭ ; Middle Mongolian : Qubilai ; Chinese : 忽必烈 ; pinyin : Hūbìliè ; also spelled Khubilai ) and also known by the temple name Shizu ( Chinese : 元世祖 ; pinyin : Yuán Shìzǔ ; Wade–Giles : Yüan Shih-tsu), was the fifth Khagan (Great Khan) of the Ikh Mongol Uls ( Mongol Empire ), reigning from 1260 to 1294, and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China. Kublai was the second son of Tolui and Sorghaghtani Beki , and a grandson of Genghis Khan . He succeeded his older brother Möngke as Khagan in 1260, but had to defeat his younger brother Ariq Böke in a succession war lasting till 1264.Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan ( / ˈ ɡ ɛ ŋ ɡ ɪ s ˈ k ɑː n / or / ˈ dʒ ɛ ŋ ɡ ɪ s ˈ k ɑː n / , [ 4 ] [ 5 ] Mongol: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ( listen ) ; 1162? – August 1227), born Temujin , was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire , which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his demise. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed "Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate , Caucasus , Khwarezmid Empire , Western Xia and Jin dynasties.History of Asia
The history of Asia can be seen as the collective history of several distinct peripheral coastal regions such as, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East linked by the interior mass of the Eurasian steppe . The coastal periphery was the home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, with each of the three regions developing early civilizations around fertile river valleys. These valleys were fertile because the soil there was rich and could bear lots of root crops.Pashtun people ( Pashto : پښتانه Pax̌tānə ; also spelled Pushtun , Pakhtun or Pukhtun ), also known as ethnic Afghans ( Persian : افغان ) or Pathans ( Urdu : پٹھان , Hindi : पठान Paṭhān ), [ 13 ] [ 14 ] are an Iranic ethnic group belonging to Afghanistan and Pakistan . [ 15 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ] They are typically characterised by the usage of the Eastern Iranian Pashto language and practice of Pashtunwali , which is a traditional set of ethics guiding individual and communal conduct. Their origins are unclear but historians have come across references to various ancient peoples called Pakthas ( Pactyans ) between the 2nd and the 1st millennium BC , [ 18 ] [ 19 ] inhabiting the region between the Hindu Kush and Indus River , who may be the early ancestors of the Pashtun people. Since the 3rd century AD onward, they have been referred to by the ethnonym " Afghan " . [ 20 ] [ 21 ] [ 22 ] [ 23 ]