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191-601: The main missions of the national Land Forces are to: Since 1996 till today the National Armed Forces' soldiers have been deployed on nine international peace-keeping missions in Afghanistan , Albania , Bosnia , Central African Republic , Georgia , Iraq , Kosovo , North Macedonia and Somalia . Starting from January 1, 2015, Latvian Armed Forces are taking part in EU 's Nordic Battle Group . On March 29, 2004, Latvia became

382-637: A coup d'état in 1973 ), and subsequent infighting prompted the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan in 1979. Mujahideen fought against the Soviets in the Soviet–Afghan War and continued fighting among themselves following the Soviets' withdrawal in 1989 . The Taliban controlled most of the country by 1996, but their Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan received little international recognition before its overthrow in

573-551: A northwest passage to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus , and made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland . He believed he had reached Asia, and there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but did not return; it is unknown what happened to his ships. No further attempts to establish English colonies in

764-606: A proxy war as the Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, the United States supported them through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA regime. Meanwhile, there was increasingly hostile friction between the competing factions of the PDPA ;– the dominant Khalq and

955-465: A century, until Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973 , following which the Republic of Afghanistan was established. Since the late 1970s, Afghanistan's history has been dominated by extensive warfare, including coups, invasions, insurgencies, and civil wars . The conflict began in 1978 when a communist revolution established a socialist state (itself a response to the dictatorship established following

1146-561: A closer relationship with the Soviet Union . Afterward, the 1964 constitution was formed, and the first non-royal prime minister was sworn in. Zahir Shah, like his father Nadir Shah, had a policy of maintaining national independence while pursuing gradual modernization, creating nationalist feeling, and improving relations with the United Kingdom. Afghanistan was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in

1337-465: A contest of ideologies between the two nations. It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was at risk: Napoleon threatened to invade Britain itself, just as his armies had overrun many countries of continental Europe . The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy , which won

1528-644: A contingent of 4,000 Pashtuns . The Abdalis had "unanimously accepted" Ahmad Shah as their new leader. With his ascension in 1747, Ahmad Shah had led multiple campaigns against the Mughal empire , Maratha empire , and then-receding Afsharid empire . Ahmad Shah had captured Kabul and Peshawar from the Mughal appointed governor, Nasir Khan. Ahmad Shah had then conquered Herat in 1750, and had also captured Kashmir in 1752. Ahmad Shah had launched two campaigns into Khorasan , 1750–1751 and 1754–1755. His first campaign had seen

1719-612: A decisive victory over a French Imperial Navy - Spanish Navy fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Overseas colonies were attacked and occupied, including those of the Netherlands, which was annexed by Napoleon in 1810. France was finally defeated by a coalition of European armies in 1815. Britain was again the beneficiary of peace treaties: France ceded the Ionian Islands , Malta (which it had occupied in 1798), Mauritius , St Lucia ,

1910-690: A dependency of the New South Wales colony. From 16 June 1840 New South Wales laws applied in New Zealand. This transitional arrangement ended with the Charter for Erecting the Colony of New Zealand on 16 November 1840. The Charter stated that New Zealand would be established as a separate Crown colony on 3 May 1841 with Hobson as its governor. During the 19th century, Britain and the Russian Empire vied to fill

2101-549: A form that attempted to be more inclusive by showcasing the empire as a family of newly birthed nations with common roots. The last decades of the 19th century saw concerted political campaigns for Irish home rule . Ireland had been united with Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the Act of Union 1800 after the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , and had suffered a severe famine between 1845 and 1852. Home rule

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2292-690: A full member of NATO . The rank structure of the Latvian army is adjusted to the rank structure of the NATO countries in Europe. Rank insignia are worn historically on the collars and today also on shoulder marks. Starting 2016, only the Staff Battalion wears the collar insignia. The following are the current insignia of commissioned officers . The rank insignia of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel . Afghanistan Afghanistan , officially

2483-660: A key role in the transfer of the Avesta to Persia and is thus considered by some to be the "second homeland of Zoroastrianism". Alexander the Great and his Macedonian forces arrived in Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier in the Battle of Gaugamela . Following Alexander's brief occupation, the successor state of the Seleucid Empire controlled the region until 305 BCE, when they gave much of it to

2674-522: A larger decolonisation movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 confirmed Britain's decline as a global power, and the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997 symbolised for many the end of the British Empire, though fourteen overseas territories that are remnants of the empire remain under British sovereignty . After independence, many former British colonies, along with most of

2865-805: A major power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company 's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1783. While retaining control of British North America (now Canada ) and territories in and near the Caribbean in the British West Indies , British colonial expansion turned towards Asia, Africa , and

3056-781: A member state for their official spokesman in Doha , Suhail Shaheen . The United Nations did not recognize the previous Taliban government and chose to work with the then government-in-exile instead. Western nations suspended most of their humanitarian aid to Afghanistan following the Taliban's August 2021 takeover of the country; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund also halted their payments. More than half of Afghanistan's 39 million people faced an acute food shortage in October 2021. Human Rights Watch reported on 11 November 2021 that Afghanistan

3247-568: A minor settlement, and other treaty ports including Shanghai . During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the British Crown began to assume an increasingly large role in the affairs of the company. A series of Acts of Parliament were passed, including the Regulating Act of 1773 , Pitt's India Act of 1784 and the Charter Act of 1813 which regulated the company's affairs and established

3438-519: A movement and militia of students ( talib ) from Islamic madrassas (schools) in Pakistan , who soon had military support from Pakistan. Taking control of Kandahar city that year, they conquered more territories until finally driving out the government of Rabbani from Kabul in 1996, where they established an emirate . The Taliban were condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which resulted in

3629-463: A myriad of campaigns to unite most of Afghanistan in his reign, launching numerous incursions including against the surrounding states such as the Hazarajat campaign , conquest of Balkh , conquest of Kunduz , and the conquest of Kandahar . Dost Mohammad led his final campaign against Herat , conquering it and re-uniting Afghanistan. During his campaigns of re-unification, he held friendly relations with

3820-509: A patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and overseas exploration. That year, Gilbert sailed for the Caribbean with the intention of engaging in piracy and establishing a colony in North America, but the expedition was aborted before it had crossed the Atlantic. In 1583, he embarked on a second attempt. On this occasion, he formally claimed the harbour of the island of Newfoundland, although no settlers were left behind. Gilbert did not survive

4011-541: A perceived violation of the guaranteed Rights of Englishmen . The American Revolution began with a rejection of Parliamentary authority and moves towards self-government. In response, Britain sent troops to reimpose direct rule, leading to the outbreak of war in 1775. The following year, in 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the colonies' sovereignty from

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4202-472: A rapid escalation in the number of slaves transported. British ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the Atlantic—approximately 3.5 million Africans —until the abolition of the trade by Parliament in 1807 (see § Abolition of slavery ). To facilitate the shipment of slaves, forts were established on the coast of West Africa, such as James Island , Accra and Bunce Island . In

4393-474: A security threat to Great Britain or mark the beginning of the break-up of the empire. A second Home Rule bill was defeated for similar reasons. A third bill was passed by Parliament in 1914, but not implemented because of the outbreak of the First World War leading to the 1916 Easter Rising . By the turn of the 20th century, fears had begun to grow in Britain that it would no longer be able to defend

4584-812: A series of Anglo-Mysore wars in Southern India with the Sultanate of Mysore under Hyder Ali and then Tipu Sultan . Defeats in the First Anglo-Mysore war and stalemate in the Second were followed by victories in the Third and the Fourth . Following Tipu Sultan's death in the fourth war in the Siege of Seringapatam (1799) , the kingdom became a protectorate of the company. The East India Company fought three Anglo-Maratha Wars with

4775-515: A series of events that would dramatically turn Afghanistan from a poor and secluded (albeit peaceful) country to a hotbed of international terrorism. The PDPA initiated various social, symbolic, and land distribution reforms that provoked strong opposition, while also brutally oppressing political dissidents. This caused unrest and quickly expanded into a state of civil war by 1979, waged by guerrilla mujahideen (and smaller Maoist guerrillas) against regime forces countrywide. It quickly turned into

4966-521: A small power like Afghanistan, which is like a goat between these lions [Britain and Russia] or a grain of wheat between two strong millstones of the grinding mill, stand in the midway of the stones without being ground to dust? During the First World War , when Afghanistan was neutral, Habibullah Khan was met by officials of the central powers in the Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition . They called on Afghanistan to declare full independence from

5157-576: A state-supporting elite of Abdālī / Durrānī Afghans, the Sadūzāʾī Durrānī polity that came into being in 1160 / 1747 was not called Afghanistan in its own day. The name became a state designation only during the colonial intervention of the nineteenth century. The term "Afghanistan" was officially used in 1855, when the British recognized Dost Mohammad Khan as king of Afghanistan . Excavations of prehistoric sites suggest that humans were living in what

5348-655: A way station for its ships travelling to and from its colonies in the East Indies . Britain formally acquired the colony, and its large Afrikaner (or Boer ) population in 1806, having occupied it in 1795 to prevent its falling into French hands during the Flanders Campaign . British immigration to the Cape Colony began to rise after 1820, and pushed thousands of Boers , resentful of British rule, northwards to found their own—mostly short-lived— independent republics , during

5539-525: Is $ 81 billion by purchasing power parity and $ 20.1 billion by nominal values. Per capita, its GDP is among the lowest of any country as of 2020 . Some scholars suggest that the root name Afghān is derived from the Sanskrit word Aśvakan , which was the name used for ancient inhabitants of the Hindu Kush . Aśvakan literally means "horsemen", "horse breeders", or " cavalrymen " (from aśva ,

5730-612: Is a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation . Due to the effects of war in recent decades, the country has dealt with high levels of terrorism, poverty , and child malnutrition. Afghanistan remains among the world's least developed countries , ranking 182nd on the Human Development Index . Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP)

5921-811: Is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar in the south of the country) was a center of the Helmand culture . More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilization stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. After 2000 BCE successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan; among them were many Indo-European -speaking Indo-Iranians . These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, and toward Europe via

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6112-524: Is considered the "crossroads of Asia", and the country has had the nickname Heart of Asia. The renowned Urdu poet Allama Iqbal once wrote about the country: British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions , colonies , protectorates , mandates , and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in

6303-476: Is now Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities in the area were among the earliest in the world. An important site of early historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in the historical value of its archaeological sites. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic , Mesolithic , Neolithic , Bronze , and Iron Ages have been found in Afghanistan. Urban civilization

6494-473: Is one of the four founders of the Taliban and was a deputy prime minister of the previous emirate; his appointment was seen as a compromise between moderates and hardliners. A new, all-male cabinet was formed, which included Abdul Hakim Haqqani as minister of justice. On 20 September 2021, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres received a letter from acting minister of foreign affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi to formally claim Afghanistan's seat as

6685-500: Is seen by some historians as the event defining the transition between the first and second empires, in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to

6876-527: The 2014 presidential election where for the first time in Afghanistan's history power was democratically transferred. On 28 December 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. The NATO-led Operation Resolute Support was formed the same day as a successor to ISAF. Thousands of NATO troops remained in the country to train and advise Afghan government forces and continue their fight against

7067-698: The Acts of Union 1707 . The 18th century saw the newly united Great Britain rise to be the world's dominant colonial power, with France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage. Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire continued the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted until 1714 and was concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht . Philip V of Spain renounced his and his descendants' claim to

7258-656: The American War of Independence towards the end of the 18th century, has been referred to by some historians as the "First British Empire". England's early efforts at colonisation in the Americas met with mixed success. An attempt to establish a colony in Guiana in 1604 lasted only two years and failed in its main objective to find gold deposits. Colonies on the Caribbean islands of St Lucia  (1605) and Grenada  (1609) rapidly folded. The first permanent English settlement in

7449-562: The Badakhshan region. During the first century BCE, the Parthian Empire subjugated the region but lost it to their Indo-Parthian vassals. In the mid-to-late first century CE the vast Kushan Empire , centered in Afghanistan, became great patrons of Buddhist culture, making Buddhism flourish throughout the region. The Kushans were overthrown by the Sassanids in the 3rd century CE, though

7640-627: The Battle of Jamrud . Akbar Khan and the Afghan army failed to capture the Jamrud Fort from the Sikh Khalsa Army , but killed Sikh Commander Hari Singh Nalwa , thus ending the Afghan-Sikh Wars . By this time the British were advancing from the east, capitalizing off of the decline of the Sikh Empire after it had its own period of turbulence following the death of Ranjit Singh , which engaged

7831-631: The British economy . Added to this was the cost of suppressing regular slave rebellions . With support from the British abolitionist movement, Parliament enacted the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the empire. In 1808, Sierra Leone Colony was designated an official British colony for freed slaves. Parliamentary reform in 1832 saw the influence of the West India Committee decline. The Slavery Abolition Act , passed

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8022-402: The Cold War . However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure. On a per capita basis, Afghanistan received more Soviet development aid than any other country. In 1973, while the King was in Italy, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became

8213-400: The Emirate of Kabul in the first major conflict during " The Great Game ". In 1839 a British expeditionary force marched into Afghanistan, invading the Principality of Qandahar , and in August 1839, seized Kabul . Dost Mohammad Khan defeated the British in the Parwan campaign , but surrendered following his victory. He was replaced with the former Durrani ruler Shah Shuja Durrani as

8404-418: The First Anglo-Afghan War was a disaster for Britain. When Russia invaded the Ottoman Balkans in 1853, fears of Russian dominance in the Mediterranean and the Middle East led Britain and France to enter the war in support of the Ottoman Empire and invade the Crimean Peninsula to destroy Russian naval capabilities. The ensuing Crimean War (1854–1856), which involved new techniques of modern warfare ,

8595-408: The Government of India Act 1858 , establishing the British Raj , where an appointed governor-general administered India and Queen Victoria was crowned the Empress of India . India became the empire's most valuable possession, "the Jewel in the Crown", and was the most important source of Britain's strength. A series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century led to widespread famines on

8786-435: The Great Game between the British Empire and the Russian Empire . From India, the British attempted to subjugate Afghanistan but were repelled in the First Anglo-Afghan War ; the Second Anglo-Afghan War saw a British victory. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, Afghanistan became free of foreign political hegemony, and emerged as the independent Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1926. This monarchy lasted almost half

8977-458: The Great Trek of the late 1830s and early 1840s. In the process the Voortrekkers clashed repeatedly with the British, who had their own agenda with regard to colonial expansion in South Africa and to the various native African polities, including those of the Sotho people and the Zulu Kingdom . Eventually, the Boers established two republics that had a longer lifespan: the South African Republic or Transvaal Republic (1852–1877; 1881–1902) and

9168-421: The Indo-Sassanids continued to rule at least parts of the region. They were followed by the Kidarites who, in turn, was replaced by the Hephthalites . They were replaced by the Turk Shahi in the 7th century. The Buddhist Turk Shahi of Kabul was replaced by a Hindu dynasty before the Saffarids conquered the area in 870, this Hindu dynasty was called Hindu Shahi . Much of the northeastern and southern areas of

9359-410: The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia . It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south , Iran to the west , Turkmenistan to the northwest , Uzbekistan to the north , Tajikistan to the northeast , and China to the northeast and east . Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land,

9550-420: The Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth. In the early 16th century Babur arrived from Ferghana and captured Kabul from the Arghun dynasty . Babur would go on to conquer the Afghan Lodi dynasty who had ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the First Battle of Panipat . Between the 16th and 18th century, the Uzbek Khanate of Bukhara , Iranian Safavids , and Indian Mughals ruled parts of

9741-463: The Karzai administration and provide basic security. By this time, after two decades of war as well as an acute famine at the time, Afghanistan had one of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the world, the lowest life expectancy, much of the population were hungry, and infrastructure was in ruins. Many foreign donors started providing aid and assistance to rebuild the war-torn country. As coalition troops entered Afghanistan to help

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9932-422: The Khedivate of Egypt into the 20th century, it was officially a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire and not part of the British Empire. The French were still majority shareholders and attempted to weaken the British position, but a compromise was reached with the 1888 Convention of Constantinople , which made the Canal officially neutral territory. With competitive French, Belgian and Portuguese activity in

10123-413: The League of Nations in 1934. The 1930s saw the development of roads, infrastructure, the founding of a national bank , and increased education. Road links in the north played a large part in a growing cotton and textile industry. The country built close relationships with the Axis powers , with Nazi Germany having the largest share in Afghan development at the time. Until 1946 King Zahir ruled with

10314-414: The Mahdist Army in 1896 and rebuffed an attempted French invasion at Fashoda in 1898. Sudan was nominally made an Anglo-Egyptian condominium , but a British colony in reality. British gains in Southern and East Africa prompted Cecil Rhodes , pioneer of British expansion in Southern Africa , to urge a " Cape to Cairo " railway linking the strategically important Suez Canal to the mineral-rich south of

10505-447: The Maratha Confederacy . The First Anglo-Maratha War ended in 1782 with a restoration of the pre-war status quo . The Second and Third Anglo-Maratha wars resulted in British victories. After the surrender of Peshwa Bajirao II on 1818, the East India Company acquired control of a large majority of the Indian subcontinent. Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented

10696-409: The Maurya Empire as part of an alliance treaty. The Mauryans controlled the area south of the Hindu Kush until they were overthrown in about 185 BCE. Their decline began 60 years after Ashoka 's rule ended, leading to the Hellenistic reconquest by the Greco-Bactrians . Much of it soon broke away and became part of the Indo-Greek Kingdom . They were defeated and expelled by the Indo-Scythians in

10887-452: The Middle Paleolithic era. Popularly referred to as the graveyard of empires , the land has witnessed numerous military campaigns , including those by the Persians , Alexander the Great , the Maurya Empire , Arab Muslims , the Mongols , the British , the Soviet Union , and a US-led coalition . Afghanistan also served as the source from which the Greco-Bactrians and the Mughals , among others, rose to form major empires. Because of

11078-426: The Munster Plantations , in 16th century Ireland by settling it with English and Welsh Protestant settlers. England had already colonised part of the country following the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. Several people who helped establish the Munster plantations later played a part in the early colonisation of North America, particularly a group known as the West Country Men . In 1578, Elizabeth I granted

11269-440: The Northern Alliance , later joined by others, to resist the Taliban. Dostum's forces were defeated by the Taliban during the Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1997 and 1998; Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Pervez Musharraf , began sending thousands of Pakistanis to help the Taliban defeat the Northern Alliance. By 2000, the Northern Alliance only controlled 10% of territory, cornered in the northeast. On 9 September 2001, Massoud

11460-409: The Orange Free State (1854–1902). In 1902 Britain occupied both republics, concluding a treaty with the two Boer Republics following the Second Boer War (1899–1902). In 1869 the Suez Canal opened under Napoleon III , linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean . Initially the Canal was opposed by the British; but once opened, its strategic value was quickly recognised and became

11651-419: The Pacific . After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. It pursued trade concessions in China and Japan, and territory in Southeast Asia . The " Great Game " and " Scramble for Africa " also ensued. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became

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11842-463: The Principality of Qandahar , Emirate of Herat , Khanate of Qunduz , Maimana Khanate , and numerous other warring polities. The most prominent state was the Emirate of Kabul , ruled by Dost Mohammad Khan . With the collapse of the Durrani Empire, and the exile of the Sadozai Dynasty to be left to rule in Herat , Punjab and Kashmir were lost to Ranjit Singh , ruler of the Sikh Empire , who invaded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in March 1823 and captured

12033-402: The Punjab region The Durranis lost Multan in 1772 after Ahmad Shah's death. Following this victory, Timur Shah was able to lay siege to Multan and recapture it, incorporating it into the Durrani Empire once again, reintegrating it as a province until the Siege of Multan (1818) . Timur Shah was succeeded by his son Zaman Shah Durrani after his death in May 1793. Timur Shah's reign oversaw

12224-411: The Royal African Company was granted a monopoly on the supply of slaves to the British colonies in the Caribbean. The company would transport more slaves across the Atlantic than any other, and significantly grew England's share of the trade, from 33 per cent in 1673 to 74 per cent in 1683. The removal of this monopoly between 1688 and 1712 allowed independent British slave traders to thrive, leading to

12415-500: The Saint John and Saint Croix river valleys, then part of Nova Scotia , felt too far removed from the provincial government in Halifax , so London split off New Brunswick as a separate colony in 1784. The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada (mainly English speaking ) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking ) to defuse tensions between the French and British communities, and implemented governmental systems similar to those employed in Britain, with

12606-407: The Sanskrit and Avestan words for "horse"). Historically, the ethnonym Afghān was used to refer to ethnic Pashtuns . The Arabic and Persian form of the name, Afġān , was first attested in the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam . The last part of the name, " -stan ", is a Persian suffix meaning "place of". Therefore, "Afghanistan" translates to "land of the Afghans", or "land of

12797-443: The Seychelles , and Tobago ; Spain ceded Trinidad ; the Netherlands ceded Guiana , Ceylon and the Cape Colony , while the Danish ceded Heligoland . Britain returned Guadeloupe , Martinique , French Guiana , and Réunion to France; Menorca to Spain; Danish West Indies to Denmark and Java and Suriname to the Netherlands. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution , goods produced by slavery became less important to

12988-425: The Soviet Union and the Weimar Republic . He proclaimed himself King of Afghanistan on 9 June 1926, forming the Kingdom of Afghanistan . He introduced several reforms intended to modernize his nation. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi , an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's 1923 constitution , which made elementary education compulsory. Slavery

13179-592: The Soviet withdrawal , the civil war ensued until the communist regime under People's Democratic Party leader Mohammad Najibullah collapsed in 1992. The Soviet–Afghan War had drastic social effects on Afghanistan. The militarization of society led to heavily armed police, private bodyguards, openly armed civil defense groups, and other such things becoming the norm in Afghanistan for decades thereafter. The traditional power structure had shifted from clergy, community elders, intelligentsia, and military in favor of powerful warlords . Another civil war broke out after

13370-437: The Third Anglo-Afghan War , and entering British India via the Khyber Pass . After the end of the Third Anglo-Afghan War and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi on 19 August 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan declared the Emirate of Afghanistan a sovereign and fully independent state . He moved to end his country's traditional isolation by establishing diplomatic relations with the international community, particularly with

13561-441: The Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for the future of the British Empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power effectively ended with the recognition of British claims to Rupert's Land, and the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. Along with its victory over France in India,

13752-611: The Uppsala Conflict Data Program , at least 212,191 people were killed in the conflict. Though the state of war in the country ended in 2021, armed conflict persists in some regions amid fighting between the Taliban and the local branch of the Islamic State , as well as an anti-Taliban Republican insurgency . The Taliban government is led by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and acting prime minister Hasan Akhund , who took office on 7 September 2021. Akhund

13943-638: The Victorian gold rush , making its capital Melbourne for a time the richest city in the world. The British also expanded their mercantile interests in the North Pacific. Spain and Britain had become rivals in the area, culminating in the Nootka Crisis in 1789. Both sides mobilised for war, but when France refused to support Spain it was forced to back down, leading to the Nootka Convention . The outcome

14134-595: The War of 1812 , and invaded Canadian territory. In response, Britain invaded the US, but the pre-war boundaries were reaffirmed by the 1814 Treaty of Ghent , ensuring Canada's future would be separate from that of the United States. Since 1718, transportation to the American colonies had been a penalty for various offences in Britain, with approximately one thousand convicts transported per year. Forced to find an alternative location after

14325-494: The creation of a dysfunctional coalition government between leaders of various mujahideen factions. Amid a state of anarchy and factional infighting, various mujahideen factions committed widespread rape, murder and extortion, while Kabul was heavily bombarded and partially destroyed by the fighting. Several failed reconciliations and alliances occurred between different leaders. The Taliban emerged in September 1994 as

14516-607: The metropole and the entirety of the empire while at the same time maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation". Germany was rapidly rising as a military and industrial power and was now seen as the most likely opponent in any future war. Recognising that it was overstretched in the Pacific and threatened at home by the Imperial German Navy , Britain formed an alliance with Japan in 1902 and with its old enemies France and Russia in 1904 and 1907, respectively. Britain's fears of war with Germany were realised in 1914 with

14707-489: The protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783 seemed to confirm Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success. The war to the south influenced British policy in Canada, where between 40,000 and 100,000 defeated Loyalists had migrated from the new United States following independence. The 14,000 Loyalists who went to

14898-470: The rebuilding process , the Taliban began an insurgency to regain control. Afghanistan remained one of the poorest countries in the world because of a lack of foreign investment, government corruption , and the Taliban insurgency. The Afghan government was able to build some democratic structures, adopting a constitution in 2004 with the name Islamic Republic of Afghanistan . Attempts were made, often with

15089-497: The siege of Kandahar , the last Hotak stronghold, from Shah Hussain Hotak . Soon after, the Persian and Afghan forces invaded India , Nader Shah had plundered Delhi, alongside his 16-year-old commander, Ahmad Shah Durrani who had assisted him on these campaigns. Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747. After the death of Nader Shah in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani had returned to Kandahar with

15280-505: The spice trade of the East Indies archipelago to the Netherlands and the textiles industry of India to England, but textiles soon overtook spices in terms of profitability. Peace between England and the Netherlands in 1688 meant the two countries entered the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict—waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance—left

15471-475: The "Sugar Revolution" transformed the Caribbean economy in the mid-17th century. Large sugarcane plantations were first established in the 1640s on Barbados, with assistance from Dutch merchants and Sephardic Jews fleeing Portuguese Brazil . At first, sugar was grown primarily using white indentured labour , but rising costs soon led English traders to embrace the use of imported African slaves. The enormous wealth generated by slave-produced sugar made Barbados

15662-687: The "jugular vein of the Empire". In 1875, the Conservative government of Benjamin Disraeli bought the indebted Egyptian ruler Isma'il Pasha 's 44 per cent shareholding in the Suez Canal for £4 million (equivalent to £480 million in 2023). Although this did not grant outright control of the strategic waterway, it did give Britain leverage. Joint Anglo-French financial control over Egypt ended in outright British occupation in 1882. Although Britain controlled

15853-535: The 1730s. This trade, illegal since it was outlawed by China in 1729, helped reverse the trade imbalances resulting from the British imports of tea, which saw large outflows of silver from Britain to China. In 1839, the confiscation by the Chinese authorities at Canton of 20,000 chests of opium led Britain to attack China in the First Opium War , and resulted in the seizure by Britain of Hong Kong Island , at that time

16044-511: The 1920s. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Military, economic and colonial tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War , during which Britain relied heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Although the empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after

16235-405: The 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan . The Taliban returned to power in 2021 after capturing Kabul , ending the 2001–2021 war . The Taliban government remains internationally unrecognized. Afghanistan is rich in natural resources, including lithium , iron, zinc , and copper. It is the second-largest producer of cannabis resin , and third largest of both saffron and cashmere . The country

16426-519: The Afghan government and quickly advanced in front of collapsing Afghan government forces. The Taliban captured the capital city of Kabul on 15 August 2021, after regaining control over a vast majority of Afghanistan. Several foreign diplomats and Afghan government officials, including president Ashraf Ghani, were evacuated from the country, with many Afghan civilians attempting to flee along with them. On 17 August, first vice president Amrullah Saleh proclaimed himself caretaker president and announced

16617-588: The Afghans, as well as accept Afghan sovereignty. Following this, Ahmad Shah sieged Nishapur once again, and captured it. Ahmad Shah invaded India eight times during his reign, beginning in 1748. Crossing the Indus River, his armies sacked and absorbed Lahore into the Durrani Realm . He met Mughal armies at the Battle of Manupur (1748) , where he was defeated and forced to retreat back to Afghanistan. He returned

16808-623: The American invasion. During the initial invasion, US and UK forces bombed al-Qaeda training camps, and later working with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban regime came to an end. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown, the Afghan Interim Administration under Hamid Karzai was formed. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist

16999-730: The Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown by Captain John Smith , and managed by the Virginia Company ; the Crown took direct control of the venture in 1624, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia . Bermuda was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's flagship , while attempts to settle Newfoundland were largely unsuccessful. In 1620, Plymouth

17190-563: The Americas were made until well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I , during the last decades of the 16th century. In the meantime, Henry VIII 's 1533 Statute in Restraint of Appeals had declared "that this realm of England is an Empire". The Protestant Reformation turned England and Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. In 1562, Elizabeth I encouraged the privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off

17381-648: The British Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25 per cent in 1650 to around 80 per cent in 1780, and in the Thirteen Colonies from 10 per cent to 40 per cent over the same period (the majority in the southern colonies). The transatlantic slave trade played a pervasive role in British economic life, and became a major economic mainstay for western port cities. Ships registered in Bristol , Liverpool and London were responsible for

17572-542: The British Empire as the new United States of America . The entry of French and Spanish forces into the war tipped the military balance in the Americans' favour and after a decisive defeat at Yorktown in 1781, Britain began negotiating peace terms. American independence was acknowledged at the Peace of Paris in 1783. The loss of such a large portion of British America , at the time Britain's most populous overseas possession,

17763-589: The British defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, left the British East India Company in control of Bengal and as a major military and political power in India. France was left control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states , ending French hopes of controlling India. In the following decades the British East India Company gradually increased

17954-713: The British despite the First Anglo-Afghan War, and affirmed their status in the Second Anglo-Afghan treaty of 1857, while Bukhara and internal religious leaders pressured Dost Mohammad to invade India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 . Dost Mohammad died in June 1863, a few weeks after his successful campaign to Herat. Following his death, a civil war ensued among his sons, prominently Mohammad Afzal Khan , Mohammad Azam Khan , and Sher Ali Khan . Sher Ali won

18145-494: The Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional , legal , linguistic , and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as " the empire on which the sun never sets ", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of

18336-596: The English a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their military budget to the costly land war in Europe. The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip V of Spain , a grandson of the King of France , raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for England and

18527-692: The First World War, Britain was no longer the world's preeminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War , Britain's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan . Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies , the damage to British prestige and the British economy helped accelerate the decline of the empire. India , Britain's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence in 1947 as part of

18718-673: The French throne, and Spain lost its empire in Europe. The British Empire was territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia , and from Spain, Gibraltar and Menorca . Gibraltar became a critical naval base and allowed Britain to control the Atlantic entry and exit point to the Mediterranean . Spain ceded the rights to the lucrative asiento (permission to sell African slaves in Spanish America ) to Britain. With

18909-575: The Ghurids in 1186 , whose architectural achievements included the remote Minaret of Jam . The Ghurids controlled Afghanistan for less than a century before being conquered by the Khwarazmian dynasty in 1215. In 1219 CE, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army overran the region . His troops are said to have annihilated the Khwarazmian cities of Herat and Balkh as well as Bamyan . The destruction caused by

19100-465: The Hindu Kush. The Ghaznavids rose to power in the 10th century. By the 11th century, Mahmud of Ghazni had defeated the remaining Hindu rulers and effectively Islamized the wider region, with the exception of Kafiristan . Mahmud made Ghazni into an important city and patronized intellectuals such as the historian Al-Biruni and the poet Ferdowsi . The Ghaznavid dynasty was overthrown by

19291-718: The Mongols forced many locals to return to an agrarian rural society. Mongol rule continued with the Ilkhanate in the northwest while the Khalji dynasty administered the Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush until the invasion of Timur (aka Tamerlane), who established the Timurid Empire in 1370. Under the rule of Shah Rukh , the city of Herat served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance , whose glory matched Florence of

19482-549: The Māori population. The UK government finally decided to act, dispatching Captain William Hobson with instructions to take formal possession after obtaining native consent. There was no central Māori authority able to represent all New Zealand so, on 6 February 1840, Hobson and many Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in the Bay of Islands; most other chiefs signing in stages over

19673-634: The Netherlands as a colonial power, in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system and the three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century left it with a stronger position in Asia. Hostilities ceased after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Dutch William of Orange ascended the English throne, bringing peace between the Dutch Republic and England. A deal between the two nations left

19864-468: The Pacific between 1769 and 1777, James Cook visited New Zealand . He was followed by an assortment of Europeans and Americans which including whalers, sealers, escaped convicts from New South Wales, missionaries and adventurers. Initially, contact with the indigenous Māori people was limited to the trading of goods, although interaction increased during the early decades of the 19th century with many trading and missionary stations being set up, especially in

20055-650: The Pacific for the extension of the North American fur trade . Alexander Mackenzie of the North West Company led the first, starting out in 1792, and a year later he became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of the Rio Grande , reaching the ocean near present-day Bella Coola . This preceded the Lewis and Clark Expedition by twelve years. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion, John Finlay , founded

20246-460: The Pakistani government ordered the expulsion of Afghans from Pakistan . Iran also decided to deport Afghan nationals back to Afghanistan. Taliban authorities condemned the deportations of Afghans as an "inhuman act". Afghanistan faced a humanitarian crisis in late 2023. On 10 November 2024, Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry confirmed that Taliban representatives would attend the COP29 summit , marking

20437-598: The Pashtuns" in a historical sense. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam : The name Afghanistan (Afghānistān, land of the Afghans / Pashtuns, afāghina , sing. afghān ) can be traced to the early eighth/fourteenth century, when it designated the easternmost part of the Kartid realm. This name was later used for certain regions in the Ṣafavid and Mughal empires that were inhabited by Afghans. While based on

20628-554: The Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and the two continued to co-operate in arenas outside India: the eviction of the French from Egypt (1799), the capture of Java from the Netherlands (1811), the acquisition of Penang Island (1786), Singapore (1819) and Malacca (1824), and the defeat of Burma (1826). From its base in India, the company had been engaged in an increasingly profitable opium export trade to Qing China since

20819-497: The Seven Years' War therefore left Britain as the world's most powerful maritime power . During the 1760s and early 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's attempts to govern and tax American colonists without their consent. This was summarised at the time by the colonists' slogan " No taxation without representation ",

21010-740: The Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonising the Bahamas . In 1670, Charles II incorporated by royal charter the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), granting it a monopoly on the fur trade in the area known as Rupert's Land , which would later form a large proportion of the Dominion of Canada . Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of attacks by the French, who had established their own fur trading colony in adjacent New France . Two years later,

21201-575: The Taliban. A report titled Body Count concluded that 106,000–170,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the fighting in Afghanistan at the hands of all parties to the conflict. On 19 February 2020, the US–Taliban deal was made in Qatar. The deal was one of the critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF); following the signing of the deal,

21392-471: The US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency , leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on 14 April 2021 that the alliance had agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan by 1 May. Soon after NATO troops began withdrawing, the Taliban launched an offensive against

21583-619: The United Kingdom, join them and attack British India, as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy . The effort to bring Afghanistan into the Central Powers failed, but it sparked discontent among the population about maintaining neutrality with the British. Habibullah was assassinated in February 1919, and Amanullah Khan eventually assumed power. A staunch supporter of the 1915–1916 expeditions, Amanullah Khan invaded British India, beginning

21774-598: The annexation of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, following the capture of New Amsterdam , which was renamed New York . Although less financially successful than colonies in the Caribbean, these territories had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far greater numbers of English emigrants, who preferred their temperate climates. The British West Indies initially provided England's most important and lucrative colonies. Settlements were successfully established in St. Kitts  (1624), Barbados  (1627) and Nevis  (1628), but struggled until

21965-500: The apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838. The British government compensated slave-owners. Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians, around 10 million sq mi (26 million km ) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire. Victory over Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than Russia in Central Asia . Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted

22156-514: The area north of the Caspian Sea . The region at the time was referred to as Ariana . By the middle of the 6th century BCE, the Achaemenids overthrew the Medes and incorporated Arachosia , Aria , and Bactria within its eastern boundaries. An inscription on the tombstone of Darius I of Persia mentions the Kabul Valley in a list of the 29 countries that he had conquered. The region of Arachosia , around Kandahar in modern-day southern Afghanistan, used to be primarily Zoroastrian and played

22347-472: The armies of the Dominions , as well as many thousands of volunteers from the Crown colonies. The contributions of Australian and New Zealand troops during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign against the Ottoman Empire had a great impact on the national consciousness at home and marked a watershed in the transition of Australia and New Zealand from colonies to nations in their own right. The countries continue to commemorate this occasion on Anzac Day . Canadians viewed

22538-463: The assistance of his uncle, who held the post of prime minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another uncle, Shah Mahmud Khan , became prime minister in 1946 and experimented with allowing greater political freedom. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan , a Pashtun nationalist who sought the creation of a Pashtunistan , leading to highly tense relations with Pakistan. Daoud Khan pressed for social modernization reforms and sought

22729-464: The attempted stabilization and consolidation of the empire. However, Timur Shah had over 24 sons, which plunged the empire in civil war over succession crises. Zaman Shah Durrani succeeded to the Durrani Throne following the death of his father, Timur Shah Durrani. His brothers Mahmud Shah Durrani and Humayun Mirza revolted against him, with Humayun centered in Kandahar and Mahmud Shah centered in Herat . Zaman Shah would defeat Humayun and force

22920-426: The brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women . During their rule, the Taliban and their allies committed massacres against Afghan civilians, denied UN food supplies to starving civilians and conducted a policy of scorched earth , burning vast areas of fertile land and destroying tens of thousands of homes. After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum formed

23111-399: The bulk of British slave trading. For the transported, harsh and unhygienic conditions on the slaving ships and poor diets meant that the average mortality rate during the Middle Passage was one in seven. At the end of the 16th century, England and the Dutch Empire began to challenge the Portuguese Empire 's monopoly of trade with Asia, forming private joint-stock companies to finance

23302-408: The business of establishing its own overseas colonies. The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and the establishment of joint-stock companies , most notably the East India Company , to administer colonies and overseas trade. This period, until the loss of the Thirteen Colonies after

23493-413: The city of Peshawar following the Battle of Nowshera . In 1834, Dost Mohammad Khan led numerous campaigns, firstly campaigning to Jalalabad , and then allying with his rival brothers in Kandahar to defeat Shah Shuja Durrani and the British in the Expedition of Shuja ul-Mulk . In 1837, Dost Mohammad Khan attempted to conquer Peshawar and sent a large force under his son Wazir Akbar Khan , leading to

23684-447: The coast of West Africa with the aim of establishing an Atlantic slave trade . This effort was rebuffed and later, as the Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified, Elizabeth I gave her blessing to further privateering raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and shipping that was returning across the Atlantic, laden with treasure from the New World . At the same time, influential writers such as Richard Hakluyt and John Dee (who

23875-416: The colony was abandoned two years later. The Darien scheme was a financial disaster for Scotland: a quarter of Scottish capital was lost in the enterprise. The episode had major political consequences, helping to persuade the government of the Kingdom of Scotland of the merits of turning the personal union with England into a political and economic one under the Kingdom of Great Britain established by

24066-457: The continent. During the 1880s and 1890s, Rhodes, with his privately owned British South Africa Company , occupied and annexed territories named after him, Rhodesia . The path to independence for the white colonies of the British Empire began with the 1839 Durham Report , which proposed unification and self-government for Upper and Lower Canada, as a solution to political unrest which had erupted in armed rebellions in 1837. This began with

24257-464: The country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest , which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. According to the World Population review, as of 2023 , Afghanistan's population is 43 million. The National Statistics Information Authority of Afghanistan estimated the population to be 32.9 million as of 2020 . Human habitation in Afghanistan dates to

24448-549: The country remained dominated by Buddhist culture. Arab Muslims brought Islam to Herat and Zaranj in 642 CE and began spreading eastward; some of the native inhabitants they encountered accepted it while others revolted. Before the arrival of Islam , the region used to be home to various beliefs and cults, often resulting in Syncretism between the dominant religions such as Zoroastrianism , Buddhism or Greco-Buddhism , Ancient Iranian religions , Hinduism , Christianity, and Judaism. An exemplification of

24639-510: The defeat of his brother, Suleiman Mirza. Timur Shah Durrani ascended to the throne in November 1772, having defeated a coalition under Shah Wali Khan and Humayun Mirza. Timur Shah began his reign by consolidating power toward himself and people loyal to him, purging Durrani Sardars and influential tribal leaders in Kabul and Kandahar . One of Timur Shah's reforms was to move the capital of the Durrani Empire from Kandahar to Kabul . Timur Shah fought multiple series of rebellions to consolidate

24830-486: The dominions, joined the Commonwealth of Nations , a free association of independent states. Fifteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain the same person as monarch , currently King Charles III . The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England , following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead an expedition to discover

25021-409: The empire, and he also led campaigns into Punjab against the Sikhs like his father, though more successfully. The most prominent example of his battles during this campaign was when he led his forces under Zangi Khan Durrani – with over 18,000 men total of Afghan, Qizilbash, and Mongol cavalrymen – against over 60,000 Sikh men. The Sikhs lost over 30,000 in this battle and staged a Durrani resurgence in

25212-453: The ethnic Pashtun and Baloch territories were divided by the Durand Line , which forms the modern-day border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Shia -dominated Hazarajat and pagan Kafiristan remained politically independent until being conquered by Abdur Rahman Khan in 1891–1896. He was known as the "Iron Amir" for his features and his ruthless methods against tribes. He died in 1901, succeeded by his son, Habibullah Khan . How can

25403-517: The exception of international relations . Australia and New Zealand achieved similar levels of self-government after 1900, with the Australian colonies federating in 1901 . The term "dominion status" was officially introduced at the 1907 Imperial Conference . As the dominions gained greater autonomy, they would come to be recognized as distinct realms of the empire with unique customs and symbols of their own. Imperial identity, through imagery such as patriotic artworks and banners, began developing into

25594-468: The first president of Afghanistan , abolishing the monarchy. In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a bloody coup d'état against then-President Mohammed Daoud Khan , in what is called the Saur Revolution . The PDPA declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan , with its first leader named as People's Democratic Party General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki . This would trigger

25785-439: The first permanent European settlement in British Columbia , Fort St. John . The North West Company sought further exploration and backed expeditions by David Thompson , starting in 1797, and later by Simon Fraser . These pushed into the wilderness territories of the Rocky Mountains and Interior Plateau to the Strait of Georgia on the Pacific Coast, expanding British North America westward. The East India Company fought

25976-470: The first time the country participated since the Taliban's return to power in 2021. Afghanistan had been barred from previous summits due to the lack of global recognition of the Taliban regime. However, the Taliban's environmental officials stressed that climate change is a humanitarian issue, not a political one, and should be addressed regardless of political differences. Afghanistan is located in Southern-Central Asia. The region centered at Afghanistan

26167-404: The following months. William Hobson declared British sovereignty over all New Zealand on 21 May 1840, over the North Island by cession and over the South Islnd by discovery (the island was sparsely populated and deemed terra nullius ). Hobson became Lieutenant-Governor, subject to Governor Sir George Gipps in Sydney, with British possession of New Zealand initially administered from Australia as

26358-419: The following year, abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834, finally bringing the empire into line with the law in the UK (with the exception of the territories administered by the East India Company and Ceylon, where slavery was ended in 1844). Under the Act, slaves were granted full emancipation after a period of four to six years of "apprenticeship". Facing further opposition from abolitionists,

26549-467: The formation of an anti-Taliban front with a reported 6,000+ troops in the Panjshir Valley , along with Ahmad Massoud . However, by 6 September, the Taliban had taken control of most of Panjshir province , with resistance fighters retreating to the mountains. Clashes in the valley ceased mid-September. According to the Costs of War Project , 176,000 people were killed in the conflict, including 46,319 civilians, between 2001 and 2021. According to

26740-545: The global hegemon was later described as Pax Britannica (Latin for "British Peace"). Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade, and of its oceans, meant that it effectively controlled the economies of, and readily enforced its interests in, many regions , such as Asia and Latin America . It also came to dominate the Middle East . Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies , some of which were formally reclassified as Dominions by

26931-410: The globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France , and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia . A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America . Britain became

27122-679: The government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement , and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788. Unusually, Australia was claimed through proclamation. Indigenous Australians were considered too uncivilised to require treaties, and colonisation brought disease and violence that together with the deliberate dispossession of land and culture were devastating to these peoples. Britain continued to transport convicts to New South Wales until 1840, to Tasmania until 1853 and to Western Australia until 1868. The Australian colonies became profitable exporters of wool and gold, mainly because of

27313-426: The increasingly healthy profits of colonial trade remained in English hands, Parliament decreed in 1651 that only English ships would be able to ply their trade in English colonies. This led to hostilities with the United Dutch Provinces —a series of Anglo-Dutch Wars —which would eventually strengthen England's position in the Americas at the expense of the Dutch. In 1655, England annexed the island of Jamaica from

27504-424: The intention of asserting imperial authority and not allowing the sort of popular control of government that was perceived to have led to the American Revolution. Tensions between Britain and the United States escalated again during the Napoleonic Wars , as Britain tried to cut off American trade with France and boarded American ships to impress men into the Royal Navy . The United States Congress declared war,

27695-436: The larger trade, by 1720, in terms of sales, the British company had overtaken the Dutch. During the middle decades of the 18th century, there were several outbreaks of military conflict on the Indian subcontinent , as the English East India Company and its French counterpart , struggled alongside local rulers to fill the vacuum that had been left by the decline of the Mughal Empire . The Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which

27886-415: The late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of

28077-453: The late 2nd century BCE. The Silk Road appeared during the first century BCE, and Afghanistan flourished with trade, with routes to China, India, Persia, and north to the cities of Bukhara , Samarkand , and Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan. Goods and ideas were exchanged at this center point, such as Chinese silk, Persian silver and Roman gold, while the region of present Afghanistan was mining and trading lapis lazuli stones mainly from

28268-455: The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783, the British government looked for an alternative, eventually turning to Australia . On his first of three voyages commissioned by the government, James Cook reached New Zealand in October 1769. He was the first European to circumnavigate and map the country. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries , traders and adventurers but no attempt

28459-509: The lower Congo River region undermining orderly colonisation of tropical Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 was held to regulate the competition between the European powers in what was called the " Scramble for Africa " by defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of territorial claims. The scramble continued into the 1890s, and caused Britain to reconsider its decision in 1885 to withdraw from Sudan . A joint force of British and Egyptian troops defeated

28650-491: The loyalty of Mahmud Shah Durrani. Securing his position on the throne, Zaman Shah led three campaigns into Punjab . The first two campaigns captured Lahore , but he retreated due to intel about a possible Qajar invasion. Zaman Shah embarked on his third campaign for Punjab in 1800 to deal with a rebellious Ranjit Singh. However, he was forced to withdraw, and Zaman Shah's reign was ended by Mahmud Shah Durrani. However, just under two years into his reign, Mahmud Shah Durrani

28841-583: The more moderate Parcham . In October 1979, PDPA General Secretary Taraki was assassinated in an internal coup orchestrated by then-prime minister Hafizullah Amin , who became the new general secretary of the People's Democratic Party . The situation in the country deteriorated under Amin, and thousands of people went missing. Displeased with Amin's government, the Soviet Army invaded the country in December 1979, heading for Kabul and killing Amin. A Soviet-organized regime, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions (Parcham and Khalq), filled

29032-433: The most successful colony in the Americas, and one of the most densely populated places in the world. This boom led to the spread of sugar cultivation across the Caribbean, financed the development of non-plantation colonies in North America, and accelerated the growth of the Atlantic slave trade , particularly the triangular trade of slaves, sugar and provisions between Africa, the West Indies and Europe. To ensure that

29223-467: The new ruler of Kabul , a de facto puppet of the British. Following an uprising that saw the assassination of Shah Shuja , the 1842 retreat from Kabul of British-Indian forces and the annihilation of Elphinstone 's army, and the punitive expedition of The Battle of Kabul that led to its sacking, the British gave up on their attempts to try to subjugate Afghanistan, allowing Dost Mohammad Khan to return as ruler. Following this, Dost Mohammad pursued

29414-462: The new Amir, leading to Britain gaining control of Afghanistan's foreign relations as part of the Treaty of Gandamak of 1879, making it an official British Protected State . An uprising however, re-started the conflict, and Yaqub Khan was deposed. During this tumultuous period, Abdur Rahman Khan began his rise to power, becoming an eligible candidate to become Amir after he seized much of Northern Afghanistan . Abdur Rahman marched on Kabul , and

29605-471: The next year in 1749 and captured the area around Lahore and Punjab , presenting it as an Afghan victory for this campaign. From 1749 to 1767, Ahmad Shah led six more invasions, the most important being the last; the Third Battle of Panipat created a power vacuum in northern India, halting Maratha expansion. Ahmad Shah Durrani died in October 1772, and a civil war over succession followed, with his named successor, Timur Shah Durrani succeeding him after

29796-428: The north. The first of several Church of England missionaries arrived in 1814 and as well as their missionary role, they soon become the only form of European authority in a land that was not subject to British jurisdiction: the closest authority being the New South Wales governor in Sydney. The sale of weapons to Māori resulted from 1818 on in the intertribal warfare of the Musket Wars , with devastating consequences for

29987-454: The other powers of Europe. In 1701, England, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession , which lasted for thirteen years. In 1695, the Parliament of Scotland granted a charter to the Company of Scotland , which established a settlement in 1698 on the Isthmus of Panama . Besieged by neighbouring Spanish colonists of New Granada , and affected by malaria ,

30178-495: The outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739, Spanish privateers attacked British merchant shipping along the Triangle Trade routes. In 1746, the Spanish and British began peace talks, with the King of Spain agreeing to stop all attacks on British shipping; however, in the 1750 Treaty of Madrid Britain lost its slave-trading rights in Latin America . In the East Indies, British and Dutch merchants continued to compete in spices and textiles. With textiles becoming

30369-421: The outbreak of the First World War. Britain quickly invaded and occupied most of Germany's overseas colonies in Africa. In the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand occupied German New Guinea and German Samoa respectively. Plans for a post-war division of the Ottoman Empire, which had joined the war on Germany's side, were secretly drawn up by Britain and France under the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement . This agreement

30560-434: The passing of the Act of Union in 1840, which created the Province of Canada . Responsible government was first granted to Nova Scotia in 1848, and was soon extended to the other British North American colonies. With the passage of the British North America Act, 1867 by the British Parliament , the Province of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were formed into Canada, a confederation enjoying full self-government with

30751-448: The power vacuums that had been left by the declining Ottoman Empire , Qajar dynasty and Qing dynasty . This rivalry in Central Asia came to be known as the "Great Game". As far as Britain was concerned, defeats inflicted by Russia on Persia and Turkey demonstrated its imperial ambitions and capabilities and stoked fears in Britain of an overland invasion of India. In 1839, Britain moved to pre-empt this by invading Afghanistan , but

30942-405: The region in 1878 and on all outstanding matters in 1907 with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente . The destruction of the Imperial Russian Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 limited its threat to the British. The Dutch East India Company had founded the Dutch Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa in 1652 as

31133-440: The resulting Afghan Civil War (1863–1869) and ruled Afghanistan until his death in 1879. In his final years, the British returned to Afghanistan in the Second Anglo-Afghan War to fight perceived Russian influence in the region. Sher Ali retreated to northern Afghanistan, intending to create a resistance there similar to his predecessors, Dost Mohammad Khan, and Wazir Akbar Khan. His untimely death however, saw Yaqub Khan declared

31324-563: The return journey to England and was succeeded by his half-brother, Walter Raleigh , who was granted his own patent by Elizabeth in 1584. Later that year, Raleigh founded the Roanoke Colony on the coast of present-day North Carolina , but lack of supplies caused the colony to fail. In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended (as James I) to the English throne and in 1604 negotiated the Treaty of London , ending hostilities with Spain. Now at peace with its main rival, English attention shifted from preying on other nations' colonial infrastructures to

31515-450: The role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica , and a foreign policy of " splendid isolation ". Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many countries, such as China, Argentina and Siam , which has been described by some historians as an " Informal Empire ". British imperial strength

31706-465: The siege of Mashhad , however, he was forced to retreat after four months. In November 1750, he moved to siege Nishapur , but he was unable to capture the city and was forced to retreat in early 1751. Ahmad Shah returned in 1754 ; he captured Tun , and on 23 July, he sieged Mashhad once again. Mashhad had fallen on 2 December, but Shahrokh was reappointed in 1755. He was forced to give up Torshiz , Bakharz , Jam , Khaf , and Turbat-e Haidari to

31897-423: The size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or via local rulers under the threat of force from the Presidency Armies , the vast majority of which was composed of Indian sepoys , led by British officers. The British and French struggles in India became but one theatre of the global Seven Years' War (1756–1763) involving France, Britain, and the other major European powers. The signing of

32088-450: The sovereignty of the Crown over the territories that it had acquired. The company's eventual end was precipitated by the Indian Rebellion in 1857, a conflict that had begun with the mutiny of sepoys, Indian troops under British officers and discipline. The rebellion took six months to suppress, with heavy loss of life on both sides. The following year the British government dissolved the company and assumed direct control over India through

32279-419: The subcontinent in which it is estimated that over 15 million people died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated policy to deal with the famines during its period of rule. Later, under direct British rule, commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect. On each of his three voyages to

32470-428: The support of foreign donor countries, to improve the country's economy, healthcare, education, transport, and agriculture. ISAF forces also began to train the Afghan National Security Forces . Following 2002, nearly five million Afghans were repatriated. The number of NATO troops present in Afghanistan peaked at 140,000 in 2011, dropping to about 16,000 in 2018. In September 2014 Ashraf Ghani became president after

32661-401: The syncretism in the region would be that people were patrons of Buddhism but still worshipped local Iranian gods such as Ahura Mazda , Lady Nana , Anahita or Mihr (Mithra) and portrayed Greek gods as protectors of Buddha. The Zunbils and Kabul Shahi were first conquered in 870 CE by the Saffarid Muslims of Zaranj. Later, the Samanids extended their Islamic influence south of

32852-469: The territory. During the medieval period, the northwestern area of Afghanistan was referred to by the regional name Khorasan , which was commonly used up to the 19th century among natives to describe their country. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak , a local Ghilzai tribal leader, successfully rebelled against the Safavids . He defeated Gurgin Khan , the Georgian governor of Kandahar under the Safavids, and established his own kingdom. Mirwais died in 1715, and

33043-557: The vacuum. Soviet troops in more substantial numbers were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal, marking the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War . Lasting nine years, the war caused the deaths of between 562,000 and 2 million Afghans, and displaced about 6 million people who subsequently fled Afghanistan, mainly to Pakistan and Iran . Heavy air bombardment destroyed many countryside villages, millions of landmines were planted, and some cities such as Herat and Kandahar were also damaged from bombardment. After

33234-411: The various conquests and periods in both the Iranian and Indian cultural spheres, the area was a center for Zoroastrianism , Buddhism, Hinduism, and later Islam. The modern state of Afghanistan began with the Durrani Afghan Empire in the 18th century, although Dost Mohammad Khan is sometimes considered to be the founder of the first modern Afghan state . Afghanistan became a buffer state in

33425-440: The voyages—the English, later British, East India Company and the Dutch East India Company , chartered in 1600 and 1602 respectively. The primary aim of these companies was to tap into the lucrative spice trade , an effort focused mainly on two regions: the East Indies archipelago , and an important hub in the trade network, India. There, they competed for trade supremacy with Portugal and with each other. Although England eclipsed

33616-405: The west and the Sikh Empire in the east. Fateh Khan , leader of the Barakzai tribe , installed many of his brothers in positions of power throughout the empire. Fateh Khan was brutally murdered in 1818 by Mahmud Shah . As a result, the brothers of Fateh Khan and the Barakzai tribe rebelled, and a civil war brewed. During this turbulent period, Afghanistan fractured into many states, including

33807-405: Was a humiliation for Spain, which practically renounced all sovereignty on the North Pacific coast. This opened the way to British expansion in the area, and a number of expeditions took place; firstly a naval expedition led by George Vancouver which explored the inlets around the Pacific North West, particularly around Vancouver Island . On land, expeditions sought to discover a river route to

33998-602: Was abolished in 1923. King Amanullah's wife, Queen Soraya , was an important figure during this period in the fight for woman's education and against their oppression. Some of the reforms, such as the abolition of the traditional burqa for women and the opening of co-educational schools, alienated many tribal and religious leaders, leading to the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929) . King Amanullah abdicated in January 1929, and soon after Kabul fell to Saqqawist forces led by Habibullah Kalakani . Mohammed Nadir Shah , Amanullah's cousin, defeated and killed Kalakani in October 1929, and

34189-463: Was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers in Panjshir Valley . Around 400,000 Afghans died in internal conflicts between 1990 and 2001. In October 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power after they refused to hand over Osama bin Laden , the prime suspect of the September 11 attacks , who was a "guest" of the Taliban and was operating his al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans supported

34380-432: Was declared Amir, being recognized by the British as well. Another uprising by Ayub Khan threatened the British, where rebels confronted and defeated British forces in the Battle of Maiwand . Following up on his victory, Ayub Khan unsuccessfully besieged Kandahar , and his decisive defeat saw the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War, with Abdur Rahman secured firmly as Amir. In 1893, Abdur Rahman signed an agreement in which

34571-520: Was declared King Nadir Shah. He abandoned the reforms of King Amanullah in favor of a more gradual approach to modernization, but was assassinated in 1933 by Abdul Khaliq . Mohammed Zahir Shah succeeded to the throne and reigned as king from 1933 to 1973. During the tribal revolts of 1944–1947 , King Zahir's reign was challenged by Zadran , Safi , Mangal , and Wazir tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran , Salemai , and Mirzali Khan , among others – many of whom were Amanullah loyalists . Afghanistan joined

34762-403: Was deposed by his brother Shah Shuja Durrani on 13 July 1803. Shah Shuja attempted to consolidate the Durrani Realm but was deposed by his brother at the Battle of Nimla (1809) . Mahmud Shah Durrani defeated Shah Shuja and forced him to flee, usurping the throne again. His second reign began on 3 May 1809. By the early 19th century, the Afghan empire was under threat from the Persians in

34953-616: Was facing widespread famine due to an economic and banking crisis. The Taliban have significantly tackled corruption, now being placed as 150th on the corruption watchdog perception index. The Taliban have also reportedly reduced bribery and extortion in public service areas. At the same time, the human rights situation in the country has deteriorated. Following the 2001 invasion, more than 5.7 million refugees returned to Afghanistan; however, in 2021, 2.6 million Afghans remained refugees, primarily in Iran and Pakistan, and another 4 million were internally displaced. In October 2023,

35144-481: Was founded as a haven by Puritan religious separatists, later known as the Pilgrims . Fleeing from religious persecution would become the motive for many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage : Maryland was established by English Roman Catholics  (1634), Rhode Island  (1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions and Connecticut (1639) for Congregationalists . England's North American holdings were further expanded by

35335-404: Was made to settle the country or establish possession. The coast of Australia had been discovered for Europeans by the Dutch in 1606 , but there was no attempt to colonise it. In 1770, after leaving New Zealand, James Cook charted the eastern coast, claimed the continent for Britain, and named it New South Wales . In 1778, Joseph Banks , Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to

35526-429: Was not divulged to the Sharif of Mecca , who the British had been encouraging to launch an Arab revolt against their Ottoman rulers, giving the impression that Britain was supporting the creation of an independent Arab state. The British declaration of war on Germany and its allies committed the colonies and Dominions, which provided invaluable military, financial and material support. Over 2.5 million men served in

35717-466: Was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz , who was soon killed by Mirwais's son Mahmud for possibly planning to sign a peace with the Safavids. Mahmud led the Afghan army in 1722 to the Persian capital of Isfahan , and captured the city after the Battle of Gulnabad and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Afghan dynasty was ousted from Persia by Nader Shah after the 1729 Battle of Damghan . In 1738, Nader Shah and his forces captured Kandahar in

35908-427: Was supported by the British prime minister , William Gladstone , who hoped that Ireland might follow in Canada's footsteps as a Dominion within the empire, but his 1886 Home Rule bill was defeated in Parliament. Although the bill, if passed, would have granted Ireland less autonomy within the UK than the Canadian provinces had within their own federation, many MPs feared that a partially independent Ireland might pose

36099-585: Was the first to use the term "British Empire") were beginning to press for the establishment of England's own empire. By this time, Spain had become the dominant power in the Americas and was exploring the Pacific Ocean, Portugal had established trading posts and forts from the coasts of Africa and Brazil to China , and France had begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River area, later to become New France . Although England tended to trail behind Portugal, Spain, and France in establishing overseas colonies, it carried out its first modern colonisation, referred to as

36290-481: Was the only global war fought between Britain and another imperial power during the Pax Britannica and was a resounding defeat for Russia. The situation remained unresolved in Central Asia for two more decades, with Britain annexing Baluchistan in 1876 and Russia annexing Kirghizia , Kazakhstan , and Turkmenistan . For a while, it appeared that another war would be inevitable, but the two countries reached an agreement on their respective spheres of influence in

36481-401: Was underpinned by the steamship and the telegraph , new technologies invented in the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to control and defend the empire. By 1902, the British Empire was linked together by a network of telegraph cables, called the All Red Line . The East India Company drove the expansion of the British Empire in Asia. The company's army had first joined forces with

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