THE WHOLE HISTORY OF IRAQ
Hello Guys:
Welcome to Countries Facts so Today in this Article I will show you the whole Iraq this is asia and here's iraq now let's rock and roll shall we the tale of iraq is an exceedingly ancient one and its present-day borders encompass a sizable chunk of that miraculous region the greeks called mesopotamia the green fertile land between the rivers euphrates and tigris it was along the silt-rich banks of these life-giving waters that the very first civilizations in the world arose the earliest full-fledged one was sumer which sprouted in the 5th millennium bc the sumerians are mostly a mystery but one thing is certain they were exceptionally clever making good use of the verdant ground beneath their feet by extensive agriculture they went on to build big cities like uruk and ur and invented both the wheel and writing we call their script cuneiform they would scratch their markings into wet clay with reed styluses and then bake the tablets leaving them with well a hard copy the sumerians spoke a language isolate speech not related to other tongues and with it they told tales of their gods and heroes like gilgamesh the super strong part god king of uruk who searched in vain for eternal life they built enormous mudbrick step temples to their deities called ziggurats and war was apparently quite common sumer ended up conquered by the semitic speaking acadians under sargon of akkad whose life bridged the 24th and 23rd centuries bc the akkadians were so pleased with sumerian culture that they adopted at wholesale and the acadian empire attained its peak under naram sin who very humbly referred to himself as a god acadian dominance of mesopotamia set the framework for the next two major civilizations of iraq one of which held sway over the north assyria named after the city ashur and the other over the south babylonia named after the city of babylon as if you couldn't tell our attention will now switch from one to the other like heads watching a tennis match as each takes a turn being in the ascendancy we start with the syria which became a noteworthy kingdom after the early 2000s bc enriched by trade as it declined power was augmenting down south which had seen an influx of amorites from the levant they turned the unassuming town of babylon into something mighty conquering a lot of clay with king hamurabi in the 18th century bc who defeated the assyrians and became master of mesopotamia hamurabi is most famed for his code of laws one of which declared if a builder built a house that collapsed then the builder would be executed as is usual with strong kings they are typically followed by weaklings and babylon lost land and ended up sacked by the hittites from the west and then conquered by the casites from the east heading back north we find assyria recharged and more militant than it was before to survive in ancient mesopotamia you had to be tough and desyria was frequently at war with its neighbors and very often the aggressor seeking land and resources and boasting in inscriptions of how great they were be it so assyrian might slowly dwindled in the wake of the bronze age collapse and new migratory arrivals of semi-nomadic aramians and chaldeans brought more changes the simpler alphabet and language of aramaic becoming the common tongue of the middle east for centuries now let's head back to babylonia the casites who'd conquered it proved able administrators and took pains to re-glorify the old sumerian city of nipour but they were constantly harassed by assyria and ended up overrun by the elamites in the 12th century bc back up north we find restless assyria reawakened and ready to roar and they certainly did that the neo-assyrian empire burst forth and conquered a formidable kingdom under impressive monarchs with impressive beards leading updated well-organized armies that saw assyria become a superpower feared by all surrounding nations the assyrians were not the people you wanted to mess around with and rebels would commonly be impaled burned or skinned alive xiaominizer iii called himself king of all peoples digleth pelaza the third conquered babylon sennacherib destroyed it and beautified the assyrian capital of nineveh sarhadan rebuilt babylon and conquered egypt and ashubanapal established a great library which has preserved for us many precious ancient texts after him assyria exhausted from centuries of battle finally fell forever after its enemies joined forces and invaded back south now to babylon which under naboo palasar was freed from the assyrian yoke he founded the neo-babylonian empire which reached its peak in power and prosperity under his famous successor nebuchadnezzar who extended and adorned his capital with glittering temples and bulky walls and gates of glazed brick of brilliant blue and tradition holds he constructed the legendary hanging gardens of babylon one of the seven wonders of the world the glory of babylon was but ephemeral however and after nebuchadnezzar it weakened and ended up like the rest of iraq conquered by the persians under cyrus the great in the 500s bc greek rule followed after alexander galloped onto the scene in the 300s bc but then the forces of iran returned in the second century bc with the parthians rome made several incursions into iraq and the first century saw the assyrian people adopt the christian faith iranian rule continued for centuries more under the sassanid kings and persian culture permeated iraq the 7th century saw the arabs invade and conquer the country and introduce islam which would become the land's majority religion and arabic replaced aramaic as the common language under the abbasid caliphate in the 8th century the city of baghdad was constructed and soon became a flourishing hub of knowledge and culture during what's called the islamic golden age arab scholars worked along with persians jews and christians to study and translate eastern as well as greek philosophy science and mathematics and themselves made a number of advancements to enshrine in baghdad's grand library the baitol beth me pondered algebraic calculations al-kindi philosophized penned his poems commentated on the quran and ibn haitham is known as the father of optics conversely these gleaming endeavors occurred alongside the forced agricultural labor of african slaves called zange who rose up in a bloody revolt in the latter 9th century the power of the abbasid caliphs diminished and control shifted to the seljuk turks 1258 would prove to be among the most unhappy years iraq would ever know for it saw the vicious mongol invasion whose forces mercilessly butchered the population of baghdad mosques and shrines in the great library were burned and it was said the tigris river flowed black from inc devastated iraq long languished amid the miseries of hunger plague and poverty and as if they hadn't endured enough the brutal hordes of the conqueror timur dealt baghdad a blow in 1401 that would have made the mongols queasy in short 120 towers were made from the decapitated heads of baghdad citizens timur also took great delight in killing christians and almost single-handedly exterminated the assyrian church of the east iraq then became a battleground fought over by the safavid persians and the ottoman turks the ottomans gaining the upper hand in the 17th century but there wasn't a lot to rule over in melancholy iraq so the years passed dustily by trade thankfully resumed and manifold arabians migrated into the region then in the early 20th century iraq found itself entangled in world war one due to being part of the ottoman empire which had allied with germany the british invaded defeated ottoman forces and took command in 1917. the mandate they established upset the independence hungry arabs and both sunni and shia tribes arose in revolt as did the kurds up north who wanted their own nation the kurds are an iranian people considered by some to be descended from the ancient medes anyway the british quenched both rebellions but granted iraq more autonomy and arabian prince faisal was installed as king in 1921 and though iraq gained independence in 1932 western influence persisted and to free the country entirely from foreign sway was the goal of the 1958 revolution which overthrew the monarchy the new regime was then toppled in 1963 by the socialist nationalist party you might even say the regime had taken a bath and under ahmed hassan al-bikker the country began doing pretty well oil sales proved very lucrative and living standards improved in 1979 the president stepped down and was replaced by saddam hussein who had pretty much been running things anyway and played a big part in modernizing the country and now swiftly acted to have his opponents executed this was the same year as iran's revolution and while the two countries were already not on good terms they were both majority shia muslim and saddam did not want his people espousing revolutionary sentiments that might threaten his position this and other reasons led to the iraqi invasion of iran but the iranians were not exactly pushovers and the hard-fought war ended with nothing gained but a lot of life lost and iraq was not exactly the most popular country on the block after it was accused of using chemical weapons against civilians such as the kurds the war left iraq very much in debt and unable to repay the multiple billions it had borrowed from oil rich kuwait and kuwait hesitated to answer iraq's appeals for economic forgiveness and tensions escalated after iraq accused kuwait of pinching iraqi oil by diagonal drilling and it ended with iraq invading kuwait in august 1990 and quickly taking control saddam very likely had not anticipated the outrage his invasion would cause in the international community but it did yet he refused to withdraw the united states subsequently led an enormous coalition of forces against iraq in the gulf war the combat phase of which was called operation desert storm and iraqi troops were kicked out of kuwait but made sure to set hundreds of oil wells on fire as they retreated yet something stung iraq more than this defeat and the war-torn wreckage the country had become the crippling u.n sanctions that halted iraq's oil exports and acted like a jack boot on the nation's neck the u.n wanted iraq to disarm and to shut down its weapon facilities iraq's complaint that its national sovereignty was being abused went unheeded in 1995 an oil for food program was formed in which iraq could sell its oil in exchange for humanitarian aid in 2003 the u.s believing that saddam was secretly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction invaded in march taking baghdad in april as the british occupied basra saddam was captured in december and later executed by an iraqi court now as bad as things had been in iraq they only got worse there were no weapons of mass destruction anti-american militias popped up the terrorist organization of al-qaeda caused all sorts of havoc as the americans were torturing and degrading prisoners a most wretched ugly ignoble time estimates for the number of deaths caused by the iraq war vary some positing over a million iraqis killed u.s soldiers were withdrawn in 2011. the same year syria next door collapsed into civil war a considerable measure of additional chaos hurtled into iraq notably the rise of terrorist mob isis who menaced the country committing genocidal massacres against the shia christians and yazidis after 2015 isis began to decline from the combined efforts of the iraqi military kurdish fighters and u.s airstrikes understandably protests over the state of the country began springing up amid all the protracted bad conditions so that's the sad story of iraq so far and one can only hope happier days away to the land where civilization began the land of abraham babylon and the arabian nights as it works to recover and rebuild and repair the cracks and breaches that have for too long hindered the country's course to betterment but as for me it's bye for now bye-bye.
