The history of Iraq

The history of Iraq is one of a series of civilizations that all come to an end, usually through violent takeovers by new, more powerful civilizations. The new, supposedly better "civilization" always makes an effort to destroy the remains of the previous one. This continues to this very day...

 


Below a short description is given of the amazing history of the country, of the rise and fall of different empires in the fertile alluvial planes of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.


Earlier called Mesopotamia, it is home to some of the oldest civilizations in the world. This is where the Neolithic Revolution started around 10.000 BC. This is where important developments in human history took place like the invention of the wheel, of irrigation, the domestication of the first cereals, the domestication of the goat, sheep and pig, the development of cursive script. One can add to that the distilling of alcohol and the potter's wheel. Hence its epithet, the Cradle of Civilization. It was ruled by Assyrian, Medo-Persian, Seleucid and Parthian empires. It became a center of the Islamic Golden Age during the medieval Abbasid Caliphate. After invasions and conquest by the Mongols and Turkmens, the territory came under Ottoman rule in the 16th century. This rule ended with World War I. Iraq was administered by the British Empire until the establishment of the short lived Kingdom of Iraq in 1932. The breakup of the Ottoman empire gave rise to the call for autonomy by the Kurdish people who found themselves living in three different countries: Turkey, Iran and Iraq.

 

 

The Republic of Iraq was established in 1958 following a coup d'état. At that time the Kurdish Revolt started. What most of us know about Iraq is that the republic was ruled by Saddam Hussein and his party from 1979 to 2003. In the north of Iraq, the Kurdish people continued to struggle for independence. Saddam is infamous for using chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians. Some know about the Iraq-Iran war and the First Persian Gulf War. After the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003 following the US-led invasion of Iraq. During the invasion, much of its infrastructure was destroyed, leaving the country in a state of civil and religious war. It also led to the Kurdistan Region in the North of Iraq. It is part of Iraq but is fairly autonomous in some aspects.

 

 

 


This is where Babylon brandy has its home.