The United States of America achieved its independence from Great Britain after a revolution in 1776-1783 CE. Its constitution was proclaimed in 1789, making the country one of the first modern representative republics. The United States then started to expand its territory, first on the North American mainland and later also overseas. By the 20th century the country had become a world superpower; its cultural, economic and political influence on the rest of the world is enormous.
The Apaches are a group of Athabascan speaking Indian tribes living in Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Apache groups include the Western, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan and Plains Apache. They came from the Far North around 1000 CE. The Apache are known as fierce warriors. In the 19th century it took the United States half a century to subdue them.
The first mention of Arabs appeared in the mid-9th century BCE as a tribal people in eastern and southern Syria, and the north of the Arabian Peninsula.
The origins of Austria date back to the time of the Roman Empire when a Celtic kingdom was conquered by the Romans in approximately 15 BCE, and later became Noricum, a Roman province, in the mid 1st century CE - an area which mostly encloses today's Austria. In 788 CE, the Frankish king Charlemagne conquered the area, and introduced Christianity. Under the native Habsburg dynasty, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918 with the end of World War I. After establishing the First Austrian Republic in 1919, Austria joined Nazi Germany in the Anschluss in 1938. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Austria was occupied by the Allies.
The Azteca, a Nahuatl speaking people from the Sonoran desert, seized control of the Toltec-derived civilizations of Central Mexico during the 15th century, reviving the practice of human sacrifice. They were conquered by the Spanish under Cortés in 1521.
Babylon was the dominant city of Mesopotamia from the 18th to 7th centuries BCE under a succession of peoples including Amorites, Kassites, Assyrians, and Chaldeans.
Brazil was founded as a colony of Portugal but became independent in 1822 as a result of Portugal's occupation by Napoleonic France. The country was first established as an empire under the exiled Portuguese royal family. The empire lasted until the establishment of a republican government in 1889.
At the time of the decline of the old Roman empire, the Emperor Constantine moved the empire's capital to Byzantium and formed a new empire mostly known as the Eastern Roman empire or the Byzantine empire. This empire lasted until 1453 when its capital fell to the Ottomans. At the time of Justinian I, the Byzantines controlled nearly all of the Middle East, northern Africa, Italy, and parts of Spain.
The Carthaginians, descendants of Phoenician traders, ran a naval empire in the Mediterranean from the 5th to 2nd centuries BCE. Carthage was destroyed by Rome in 146 BCE.
The Celts were an Indo-European ethno-linguistic complex in Western Europe, probably originating from the area between the upper Rhine and upper Danube, from the Urnfield culture and the western group of the Hallstatt culture. The Celts were known as cruel and savage warriors who terrorized the ancient civilized peoples of Europe and Asia Minor. The Celts colonized much of Europe and had a large influence on the development of European civilization.
The Cherokee nation is the largest Native American nation in North America today.
China is the oldest major civilization that is still in existence today, with written records dating back over 3,500 years. After first being unified by the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, China alternated between periods of unity and disunity, and was occasionally conquered by external ethnicities. Today, the People's Republic of China, established by the Communists in 1949, rules the mainland, while the former government of the Republic of China governs the island of Taiwan.
The founding of the Danish kingdom is generally assigned to the reign of Harald Blåtand, who unified what is now Denmark between 958 CE and 988 CE.
When the Holy Roman Emperor sentenced the entire population to death, the people of the Netherlands revolted and declared themselves independent, forming the Union of Utrecht in 1579. The Netherlands grew to be a dominant maritime and economic power in the 17th century.
Egypt was the second-oldest of the world's civilizations. Since ancient times it has been unusually urbanized, supporting a large population on silt deposited by the annual floodings of the Nile.
England was unified by Alfred the Great of Wessex in the late 9th century, only to be conquered by William of Normandy a century later, in the last successful invasion of the country.
Ethiopia is the oldest nation in Africa and the only one to remain independent during European colonialism.
France has long been a major power in Europe. French conquerors like Emperor Napoleon and King Charlemagne united large parts of Europe under the French flag. The country also built the world's second largest colonial empire. The French kingdom first came into existence when it grew out of the western part of the Frankish empire during the High Middle Ages. France - and indeed the world - was shaken on its foundations by the French Revolution of 1789.
Germany was united in 1871 by the Prussian military force. After World War I it became a republic, but fell into Nazism in 1933 and started World War II. After the war it was split into two states, which reunited in 1990 at the end of the Cold War.
The ancient Greeks, between Mycenae and the Roman conquest.
The Hittite kingdom lasted from about 1680 BCE to about 1180 BCE. They were the first civilization to discover iron working. At its height, they controlled central Anatolia, north-western Syria and Mesopotamia down to Babylon.
The European Huns were an ancient tribal confederation who first appeared in the 4th century. The Huns inhabited the Eurasian steppes and were known as formidable horse archers. In the fifth century CE they created a powerful military empire under the leadership of Attila, famous for his campaigns against the Roman Empire. Attila died in 453, and the empire fell apart one year later. The origins of the Huns are still a matter of dispute; they have long been associated with the Xiongnu mentioned in Chinese sources, but that link has still not been unequivocally proven. Hunnic ethnic relations and language are likewise controversial.
The Inca were an Amerind people of the Northern Andes who conquered an empire stretching along the west coast of South America from what is now southern Chile nearly to the Equator. They had the bad timing to do it just a few decades before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in their part of the world in the 1530s CE. In that short time frame, the Inca were able to build over 15,000 km of roads throughout their realm. Their state was the largest in the Americas prior to the Spanish conquest and was maintained through a complex, hierarchical and pragmatic administrative system. They were, however, wracked as many kingdoms have been by crises of succession. When the Spanish arrived, the Inca were in the middle of one such crisis - the war between Atawallpa and Waskhar. They were the sons of the late ruler Wayna Qhapaq, who had died from disease - likely smallpox - that was sweeping through the land.
The Republic of India was created in 1950 following a non-violent independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi. With more than a billion inhabitants it is the world's second most populous country as well as the world's largest democracy.
Indonesia is a large country on the Malay Archipelago with central government on the island of Java. The country has a Muslim majority and is one of the most populous in the world.
The Iroquois Confederacy - known as Haudenosaunee in their own language - was a North American group of nations with common language and culture. They were based in what is now upstate New York and consisted originally of five nations: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk. The confederacy had a written constitution and a currency system making them the most advanced state in North America upon the arrival of the Europeans.
The Italian nation was unified in 1870 CE after decades of campaigning by indigenous nationalists. It was a monarchy under the House of Savoy until 1922, then a fascist state until 1945 after which democracy was restored by the World War II victors.
According to traditional Japanese mythology, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE by the ancestral Emperor Jimmu.
The Khmer Empire, established in 802 CE, dominated Southeast Asia for many centuries during the Middle Ages. Heavily influenced by Indian culture, the Khmers were great builders who erected innumerable stone temples to Hindu deities. The Khmers today are the majority ethnicity of Cambodia.
According to legend, the first Korean kingdom was founded in prehistory by the ancestral Tangun in southern Manchuria. The Korean kingdoms were united in 668 by king Munmu. Today the Korean peninsula is divided into two states, North and South Korea, as a result of the stalemate after the Korean war in 1953.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been a cultural and ethnical melting pot for millennia. In medieval times, the region was home to a succession of empires called the Sahelian kingdoms. Of these, the Islamic Mali Empire was the most influential. This empire reigned from the 14th to the 17th century and was famed for its wealth and benevolent kings. The modern Republic of Mali derives its name from this empire.
The Mayans were a Mesoamerican civilization. They are famous for building great pyramids and palaces in the jungle.
In the centuries after their unification by Chinggis Khan, the Mongols conquered the largest empire in human history, encompassing most of the continent of Asia.
The first Persian (Achaemenid) Empire lasted from 550 BCE to 330 BCE; the second (Sassanid) from 226 CE to 642 CE.
The Polish state was formed about a millennium ago, and reached its Golden Age near the end of the 16th century.
Polynesian culture stretches from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island and covers all the islands in between.
Portugal founded the first of the great mercantile empires in the 1400s on the shipbuilding advances funded by Prince Henry the Navigator.
Rome was, in legend, founded by Romulus in 753 BCE. At its height, Rome controlled much of Europe, northern Africa and the Near East. Roman culture adopted much of the civilizations it conquered, such as the Greeks and Etruscans, and forms one of the bases of the Western culture. Even today, Roman influence in fields such as law, philosophy and language remains enormous. The Roman civilization spanned more than a millennium; first as a kingdom, later as a republic and then from 27 BCE onward as an empire. The empire was split in the 4th century CE. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE, the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire survived almost a thousand years more; its capital Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.
Russia is the largest country in the world, occupying a huge part of both Europe and Asia. According to legend, Slavic tribes of Novgorod invited the Varangian (Viking) king Oleg to bring order to their land. Oleg established the Kievan Rus' in this realm, the first Russian state. By the 11th century, the Kievan Rus' had disintegrated into lesser princedoms, which were once again united into one state by Ivan III in the 15th century. After a decisive victory over Sweden and large territorial gains, Peter I pronounced the Russian Empire in 1721. The Russian Empire lasted until 1917 when a socialist revolution dethroned the last Russian emperor. After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 Russia appeared on the world map again, now as a federal republic.
The Sioux was a North American nation that fought several decisive battles against the United States. It consisted of three distinct groups of tribes: the Lakota, the Dakota and the Nakota.
The Songhai people established a state in the 11th century CE centered on the city of Gao. Following the decline of the Mali empire a few hundred years later, the Songhai established an empire of their own which eventually grew to become one of the largest in the history of Africa. The rulers of Songhai became known for their wealth as well as their devotion to the Muslim faith.
The modern Spanish nation was formed when the rulers of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon led the recapture of the Iberian peninsula from the Moslems. The Reconquista was completed in 1492, the same year Columbus sailed. Spain then went on to create an empire on which the sun never set.
Sumer controlled southern Mesopotamia until the rise of Babylonia. Tablets of Sumerian writing some 5500 years old have been found, pre-dating every other writing in history.
The Kingdom of Sweden was christianized and consolidated as a political entity by the 12th century CE. The country rose to prominence as one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th century, following substantial military conquests by the so called Warrior Kings. However, due to a worsening economy and several disastrous defeats to Russia, Sweden soon lost most of its gained territory. The country has not been involved in an armed conflict since 1814.
Native inhabitants of the Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and other Caribbean islands who gave us the root words for hurricane, tobacco, potato, canoe, barbeque, hammock, and yucca. They were a matrilineal people, and the first that Columbus came into contact with in 1492. Though numbering the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, throughout the Caribbean, the Taino fell victim to slavery and disease, and their population declined rapidly as a result. Spanish accounts paint them as a peaceful people compared to their Carib neighbors to the south. Their dugout canoes, which were often nearly as long as Columbus' ships, ferried traders between islands. Recent genetic studies show that roughly half of Puerto Ricans have Taino maternal descent.
The Thai kingdom was the only country in Southeast Asia to preserve its independence through the colonial era of the 18th and 19th centuries CE.
The Tupi are a native Brazilian people related to the Guarani who inhabited the modern Brazilian states of Paraiba, Pernambuco, Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Alagoas, Sergipe and others as well. Their chiefdoms were destroyed through Portuguese slave-raids, the creation of mission-villages, and disease. The Tupi intermarried with African slaves and Europeans alike and a great many Brazilian place names are derived from Tupi words.
Modern Turkey is the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed and was dismembered by the victors in World War I after backing the Central Powers. The country was subsequently reformed and secularized by Kemal Mustapha, the hero of the defense of Gallipoli.
The Vikings raided and traded along the coasts of Europe between 800 CE and 1100 CE. Viking raiders eventually became the rulers of Normandy, Russia, and a short-lived kingdom in Sicily.
The Zulus are a warlike Bantu people who migrated from west-central Africa into southern Africa beginning in the early 1700s, conquering the native Khoisan peoples and clashing with European settlers.