1.
14th century
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As a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century lasting from January 1,1301, to December 31,1400. Political and natural disasters ravaged Europe, as well as the four khanates of the Mongol Empire and this period is considered the height of chivalry and marks the beginning of strong separate identities for both England and France. The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, beginning of the Ottoman Empire, early expansion into the Balkans. Early 14th century, Attributed to Kao Ninga Monk Sewing is made and it is now kept at The Cleveland Museum of Art. 1309, King Jayanegara succeeds Kertarajasa Jayawardhana as ruler of Majapahit, the Avignon papacy transfers the seat of the Popes from Italy to France The Great Famine of 1315-1317 kills millions of people in Europe. 1318, an Italian Franciscan monk, Mattiussi visited Sumatra, Java, in his record he described Majapahit kingdom. 1323, Malietoafaiga ordered cannibalism to be abolished in Tutuila, now known as American Samoa,1325, Forced out of previous locations, the Mexica found the city of Tenochtitlan 1328, Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi succeeds Jayanegara as ruler of Majapahit. Beginning of the Renaissance in Italy The death of the Ilkhan Abu Said in 1335, the Vijayanagara Empire is founded in South India by Harihara in 1336 The Hundred Years War begins when Edward III of England lays claim to the French throne. The French recruit troops and ships in Genoa, Monaco, Black Death kills around a third of the population of Europe. 1347, Adityawarman moved the capital of Dharmasraya and established the kingdom of Malayupura in Pagarruyung,1350, Hayam Wuruk, styled Sri Rajasanagara, succeeds Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi as ruler of Majapahit, his reign is considered the empires Golden Age. Under its military commander Gajah Mada, Majapahit stretches over much of modern-day Indonesia,1357, In the Battle of Bubat, the Sundanese royal family were massacred by the Majapahit army under the order of Gajah Mada. The death toll including Sundanese King Lingga Buana and the princess Dyah Pitaloka Citraresmi that committed suicide,1365, The Old Javanese text Nagarakertagama is written. The end of Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty The Lollardy movement rises in England 1377, palembangs prince, Parameswara flees, eventually finding his way to Malacca and establishing it as a major international port. The Great Schism of the West begins in 1378, eventually leading to 3 simultaneous popes, singapore emerges for the first time as a fortified city and trading centre of some importance. Reunification of Poland under Władysław I of Poland Ciompi Revolt in Florence Peasants Revolt in England Islam reaches Terengganu, the Hausa found several city-states in the south of modern Niger. The Mali Empire expands westward and conquers Tekrur, the Scots win the Scottish Wars of Independence. 1392, Taejo of Joseon established Joseon Dynasty The Kalmar Union is established in 1397, uniting Norway, Sweden, iwan vault, Jamé Mosque of Isfahan, Isfahan, Persia, is built. Work begins on the Great Enclosure at Great Zimbabwe, built of un-cemented, dressed stone, the citys population is now between 10,000 and 40,000
2.
16th century
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The 16th century begins with the Julian year 1500 and ends with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred, during the 16th century, Spain and Portugal explored the worlds seas and opened worldwide oceanic trade routes. In Europe, the Protestant Reformation gave a blow to the authority of the papacy. European politics became dominated by conflicts, with the groundwork for the epochal Thirty Years War being laid towards the end of the century. In Italy, Luca Pacioli published the first work ever on accounting, in United Kingdom, the Italian Alberico Gentili wrote the first book on public international law and divided secularism from canon law and Roman Catholic theology. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, with the Sultan taking the title of Caliph, China evacuated the coastal areas, because of Japanese piracy. Japan was suffering a civil war at the time. Mughal Emperor Akbar extended the power of the Mughal Empire to cover most of the South Asian sub continent and his rule significantly influenced arts, and culture in the region. These events directly challenged the notion of an immutable universe supported by Ptolemy and Aristotle. Polybius The Histories translated into Italian, English, German and French, medallion rug, variant Star Ushak style, Anatolia, is made. It is now kept at The Saint Louis Art Museum,1500, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain was born. 1500, Guru Nanak the beginning and spreading of the 5th largest Religion in the World Sikhism,1500, Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón encounters Brazil but is prevented from claiming it by the Treaty of Tordesillas. 1500, Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral claims Brazil for Portugal,1500, The Ottoman fleet of Kemal Reis defeats the Venetians at the Second Battle of Lepanto. 1501, Michelangelo returns to his native Florence to begin work on the statue David,1501, Safavid dynasty reunified Iran and ruled over it until 1736. Safavids adopt a Shia branch of Islam,1502, First reported African slaves in The New World 1503, Foundation of the Sultanate of Sennar by Amara Dunqas, in what is modern Sudan 1503, Spain defeats France at the Battle of Cerignola. Considered to be the first battle in history won by gunpowder small arms,1503, Leonardo da Vinci begins painting the Mona Lisa and completes it three years later. 1503, Nostradamus was born on either December 14, or December 21,1504, A period of drought, with famine in all of Spain. 1504, Death of Isabella I of Castile, Joanna of Castille became the Queen,1505, Zhengde Emperor ascended the throne of Ming Dynasty
3.
Printing press
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A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium, thereby transferring the ink. The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, the printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes, in the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing that it lent its name to a new branch of media. The sharp rise of learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating. Technologies preceding the press led to the presss invention included, manufacturing of paper, development of ink, woodblock printing. At the same time, a number of products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. The device was used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century. Gutenberg adopted the design, thereby mechanizing the printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed. The known examples range from Germany to England to Italy, however, the various techniques employed did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps, a goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from a lead-based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a hand mould. Another factor conducive to printing arose from the existing in the format of the codex. Considered the most important advance in the history of the prior to printing itself
4.
Danish literature
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Danish literature, a subset of Scandinavian literature, stretches back to the Middle Ages. The earliest preserved texts from Denmark are runic inscriptions on stones and other objects. In the late 12th century Saxo Grammaticus wrote Gesta Danorum, during the 16th century, the Lutheran Reformation came to Denmark. During this era, Christiern Pedersen translated the New Testament into Danish, fine poetry was created in the early 17th century by Anders Arrebo. The challenges faced during Denmarks absolute monarchy in 1660 are chronicled in Jammersminde by Leonora Christina of the Blue Tower, ludvig Holberg, influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and Humanism, is considered the founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature. Neoclassical poetry, drama, and the essay flourished during the 18th century influenced by French, German influence is seen in the verse of the leading poets of the late 18th century such as Johannes Ewald and Jens Baggesen. Other 18th century writers include the hymn writer Hans Adolph Brorson, during Denmarks Golden Age, literature centred on Romantic thinking, with authors such as philosopher Henrik Steffens and the poet Bernhard Severin Ingemann. One of the most important figures in Danish literary culture was Nikolaj Grundtvig, Hans Christian Andersen is remembered first and foremost for his fairy tales, written between 1835 and 1872. Søren Kierkegaard was an existentialist philosopher and a theologian, Modern Breakthrough was a strong Scandinavian movement covering naturalism and debating literature towards the end of the 19th century, led by Georg Brandes. Henrik Pontoppidan became a Nobel prize winner in 1917 for his descriptions of present-day life in Denmark. Jens Peter Jacobsen began the naturalist movement in Denmark with his romantic, melancholic poems, other writers include Holger Drachmann, Herman Bang, and Sophus Schandorph. The 20th century began with reactions against the naturalist movement, moving instead towards nationalism, a national conservative trend was embodied in the works of Kaj Munk and Valdemar Rørdam. Modern realism was practiced by Bang and J. P. Jacobsen, social realism was practiced by Hans Kirk and Martin Andersen Nexø. Jeppe Aakjær, Johannes Jørgensen and Nobel prize-winner Johannes V. Jensen brought a new dimension to Danish literature, karen Blixen, who also used the penname Isak Dinesen is notable for her memoir Out of Africa. In general, the trade continues to thrive in Denmark despite recent problems triggered by the current economic crisis. The earliest preserved texts from Denmark are runic inscriptions on memorial stones, some of them contain short poems in alliterative verse. Saxos work is an important primary source for the study of Scandinavian myths, other medieval literary works include the Danish ballads, recorded since the 16th century by aristocratic ladies in their manuscript albums. These led to the Book of a Hundred Ballads published by Anders Sørensen Vedel, Collection Tragica by Metter Gøya, the 16th century brought the Lutheran Reformation to Denmark and a new period in the nations literature
5.
Swedish literature
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Swedish literature refers to literature written in the Swedish language or by writers from Sweden. The first literary text from Sweden is the Rök Runestone, carved during the Viking Age circa 800 AD, with the conversion of the land to Christianity around 1100 AD, Sweden entered the Middle Ages, during which monastic writers preferred to use Latin. Therefore, there are only a few texts in the Old Swedish from that period, Swedish literature only flourished when the Swedish language was standardized in the 16th century, a standardization largely due to the full translation of the Bible into Swedish in 1541. This translation is the so-called Gustav Vasa Bible, with improved education and the freedom brought by secularisation, the 17th century saw several notable authors develop the Swedish language further. In Sweden, the period starting in 1880 is known as realism because the writing had a focus on social realism. In the late 19th and early 20th century, other writers included Ola Hansson. In the 1900s, one of the earliest novelists was Hjalmar Söderberg, the early 20th century continued to produce notable authors, such as Selma Lagerlöf and Pär Lagerkvist. In the 1960s, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö collaborated to produce a series of internationally acclaimed detective novels, the most successful writer of detective novels is Henning Mankell, whose works have been translated into 37 languages. In the spy genre, the most successful writer is Jan Guillou. In recent decades, a handful of Swedish writers have established themselves internationally, such as the detective novelist Henning Mankell, also well-known outside of Sweden is the childrens book writer Astrid Lindgren, author of works such as Pippi Longstocking and Emil of Maple Hills. Most runestones had a practical, rather than a literary, purpose and are mainly of interest to historians. Several runic inscriptions are also nonsensical by nature, being used for magical or incantatory purposes, the most notable literary exception is the Rök Runestone from circa 800 AD. It contains the longest known inscription, and encompasses several different passages from sagas and legends, part of it is written in alliterative verse, or fornyrdislag. It is generally regarded as the beginning of Swedish literature, the Christianization of Sweden was one of the main events in the countrys history, and it naturally had an equally profound impact on literature. The Gök runestone is a case in point of how the older literature dissolved and it uses the same imagery as the Ramsund carving, but a Christian cross has been added and the images are combined in a way that completely distorts the internal logic of events. Whatever the reason may have been, the Gök stone illustrates how the pagan heroic mythos was going towards its dissolution, Literature now looked to foreign texts to provide models. By 1200, Christianity was firmly established and a Medieval European culture appeared in Sweden, only a selected few mastered the written language, but little was written down. Complete manuscripts are found from the early 14th century, written in Latin
6.
Christine de Pizan
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Christine de Pizan was an Italian French late medieval author. She served as a writer for several dukes and the French royal court during the reign of Charles VI. She wrote both poetry and prose works such as biographies and books containing practical advice for women and she completed forty-one works during her 30-year career from 1399 to 1429. She married in 1380 at the age of 15, and was widowed 10 years later, much of the impetus for her writing came from her need to earn a living to support her mother, a niece and her two surviving children. She spent most of her childhood and all of her life in Paris and then the abbey at Poissy. Her early courtly poetry is marked by her knowledge of aristocratic custom and fashion of the day, particularly involving women, supported and encouraged by important royal French and English patrons, she influenced 15th-century English poetry. In recent decades, Christine de Pizans work has returned to prominence by the efforts of scholars such as Charity Cannon Willard, Earl Jeffrey Richards. Certain scholars have argued that she should be seen as an early feminist who efficiently used language to convey that women could play an important role within society. This characterization has been challenged by critics, who say that it is either an anachronistic use of the word or a misinterpretation of her writing. Christine de Pizan was born in 1364 in Venice, Italy and she was the daughter of Tommaso di Benvenuto da Pizzano, a physician, court astrologer, and Councillor of the Republic of Venice. Following her birth, Thomas de Pizan accepted an appointment to the court of Charles V of France, as the astrologer, alchemist. In this atmosphere, Christine was able to pursue her intellectual interests, but she did not assert her intellectual abilities, or establish her authority as a writer until she was widowed at the age of 25. She married Etienne du Castel, a secretary to the court. She had three children, a daughter, a son Jean, and another child who died in childhood, Christines family life was threatened in 1387 when her husband, while in Beauvais on a mission with the king, suddenly died in an epidemic. Following Castels death, she was left to support her mother, a niece, when she tried to collect money from her husbands estate, she faced complicated lawsuits regarding the recovery of salary due her husband. Note that in letters he signed as secretary of the king in 1381 and 1382 the signature of Etienne was Ste de Castel. The abbreviation of his first name could be both as a phonetic abbreviation of Estienne and as the first letters of his name in Latin. In order to support herself and her family, Christine turned to writing, by 1393, she was writing love ballads, which caught the attention of wealthy patrons within the court
7.
Shinto
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Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written historical records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 8th century. Still, these earliest Japanese writings do not refer to a unified Shinto religion, practitioners express their diverse beliefs through a standard language and practice, adopting a similar style in dress and ritual, dating from around the time of the Nara and Heian periods. The word Shinto was adopted, originally as Jindō or Shindō, from the written Chinese Shendao, the oldest recorded usage of the word Shindo is from the second half of the 6th century. Kami are defined in English as spirits, essences or gods, Kami and people are not separate, they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity. Shinto is the largest religion in Japan, practiced by nearly 80% of the population, Shinto has 81,000 shrines and 85,000 priests in the country. According to Inoue, In modern scholarship, the term is used with reference to kami worship and related theologies, rituals. In these contexts, Shinto takes on the meaning of Japans traditional religion, as opposed to religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam. Shinto religious expressions have been distinguished by scholars into a series of categories, Shrine Shinto and it consists in taking part in worship practices and events at local shrines. Before the Meiji Restoration, shrines were disorganized institutions usually attached to Buddhist temples, the current successor to the imperial organization system, the Association of Shinto Shrines, oversees about 80,000 shrines nationwide. Folk Shinto includes the folk beliefs in deities and spirits. Practices include divination, spirit possession, and shamanic healing, some of their practices come from Buddhism, Taoism or Confucianism, but most come from ancient local traditions. Sect Shinto is a designation originally created in the 1890s to separate government-owned shrines from local organised religious communities. These communities originated especially in the Edo period, the basic difference between Shrine Shinto and Sect Shinto is that sects are a later development and grew self-consciously. They can identify a founder, a set of teachings. Sect Shinto groups are thirteen, and usually classified under five headings, pure Shinto sects, Confucian sects, mountain worship sects, purification sects, and faith-healing sects. Koshintō, literally Old Shinto, is a reconstructed Shinto from before the time of Buddhism, today based on Ainu religion and it continues the restoration movement begun by Hirata Atsutane. Many other sects and schools can be distinguished, Kami or shin is defined in English as god, spirit, spiritual essence, all these terms meaning the energy generating a thing. Since the Japanese language does not distinguish between singular and plural, kami refers to the divinity, or sacred essence, that manifests in multiple forms, rocks, trees, rivers, animals, places, and even people can be said to possess the nature of kami
8.
Japanese tea ceremony
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The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called chanoyu or sadō, chadō, while the manner in which it is performed, Zen Buddhism was a primary influence in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony. Much less commonly, Japanese tea ceremony uses leaf tea, primarily sencha, in case it is known in Japanese as senchadō as opposed to chanoyu or chadō, see sencha tea ceremony. Tea gatherings are classified as a tea gathering chakai and a formal tea gathering chaji. A chakai is a simple course of hospitality that includes confections, thin tea. A chaji is a more formal gathering, usually including a full-course kaiseki meal followed by confections, thick tea. A chaji can last up to four hours, chadō is counted as one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement, along with kōdō for incense appreciation, and kadō for flower arrangement. The first documented evidence of tea in Japan dates to the 9th century, the entry in the Nihon Kōki states that Eichū personally prepared and served sencha to Emperor Saga who was on an excursion in Karasaki in the year 815. It was practiced by Japanese nobles, by imperial order in the year 816, tea plantations began to be cultivated in the Kinki region of Japan. However, the interest in tea in Japan faded after this, in China, tea had already been known, according to legend, for more than a thousand years. The form of tea popular in China in Eichūs time was cake tea or brick tea —tea compressed into a nugget in the manner as Pu-erh. This then would be ground in a mortar, and the resulting ground tea mixed together various other herbs. The custom of drinking tea, first for medicinal, and then largely also for reasons, was already widespread throughout China. In the early 9th century, Chinese author Lu Yu wrote The Classic of Tea, Lu Yus life had been heavily influenced by Buddhism, particularly the Zen–Chán school. His ideas would have an influence in the development of the Japanese tea ceremony. He also took tea seeds back with him, which eventually produced tea that was considered to be the most superb quality in all of Japan and this powdered green tea was first used in religious rituals in Buddhist monasteries. This period, approximately 1336 to 1573, saw the budding of what is regarded as Japanese traditional culture as we know it today. The Japanese tea ceremony developed as a practice, and began to evolve its own aesthetic
9.
Anime
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Anime is Japanese hand-drawn or computer animation. The word is the pronunciation of animation in Japanese, where this term references all animation. Arguably, the abstract approach to the words meaning may open up the possibility of anime produced in countries other than Japan. For simplicity, many Westerners strictly view anime as a Japanese animation product, some scholars suggest defining anime as specifically or quintessentially Japanese may be related to a new form of orientalism. The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917, and Japanese anime production has continued to increase steadily. Anime is distributed theatrically, by way of television broadcasts, directly to home media and it is classified into numerous genres targeting diverse broad and niche audiences. Anime is an art form with distinctive production methods and techniques that have been adapted over time in response to emergent technologies. It consists of an ideal story-telling mechanism, combining art, characterization, cinematography. The production of anime focuses less on the animation of movement and more on the realism of settings as well as the use of effects, including panning, zooming. Being hand-drawn, anime is separated from reality by a gap of fiction that provides an ideal path for escapism that audiences can immerse themselves into with relative ease. Diverse art styles are used and character proportions and features can be quite varied, the anime industry consists of over 430 production studios, including major names like Studio Ghibli, Gainax, and Toei Animation. Despite comprising only a fraction of Japans domestic film market, anime makes up a majority of Japanese DVD sales and it has also seen international success after the rise of English-dubbed programming. This rise in popularity has resulted in non-Japanese productions using the anime art style. Anime is an art form, specifically animation, that all genres found in cinema. In Japanese, the term refers to all forms of animation from around the world. In English, anime is more used to denote a Japanese-style animated film or television entertainment or as a style of animation created in Japan. The etymology of the anime is disputed. The English term animation is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション and is アニメ in its shortened form, in English, anime—when used as a common noun—normally functions as a mass noun
10.
Japanese poetry
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Much of the literary record of Japanese poetry begins when Japanese poets encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang dynasty. For example, in the Tale of Genji both kanshi and waka are frequently mentioned, since the middle of the 19th century, the major forms of Japanese poetry have been tanka, haiku and shi or western-style poetry. Today, the forms of Japanese poetry include both experimental poetry and poetry that seeks to revive traditional ways. Poets writing in tanka, haiku and shi may seldom write poetry other than in their specific chosen form, although some active poets are eager to collaborate with poets in other genres. Also, much of Japanese poetry features short verse forms, often collaborative, older forms of Japanese poetry include kanshi, which shows a strong influence from Chinese literature and culture. Kanshi literally means Han poetry and it is the Japanese term for Chinese poetry in general as well as the written in Chinese by Japanese poets. Kanshi from the early Heian period exists in the Kaifūsō anthology, Waka are composed in Japanese, and are contrasted with poetry composed by Japanese poets in Classical Chinese, which are known as kanshi. The Manyōshū anthology preserves from the eighth century 265 chōka,4,207 tanka, one tan-renga, one bussokusekika, four kanshi, and 22 Chinese prose passages. However, by the time of the tenth century Kokinshū anthology, waka had become the term used for short poems of the tanka form. Tanka are poems written in Japanese with five lines having a 5-7-5-7-7 metre, the tanka form has shown some modern revival in popularity. As previously stated, it used to be called waka, much traditional Japanese poetry was written as the result of a process of 2 or more poets contributing verses to a larger whole piece, such as in the case of the renga form. Typically, the honored guest would begin by composing a few beginning lines and this initial sally would be followed by a stanza composed by the host. This process could continue, sometimes with many composed by numerous other guests. Other collaborative forms of Japanese poetry also evolved, such as the renku form, haiku are a short, 3-line verse form, which have achieved significant global popularity, and the haiku form has been adapted from Japanese into other languages. Typical of the form is the metrical pattern of 3 lines with a distribution of 5,7. Other features include the juxtaposition of two images or ideas with a kireji between them, and a kigo, or seasonal reference, usually drawn from a saijiki, much of Japanese poetry has been transmitted historically through published anthologies, many of them with imperial patronage. Important collections are the Manyōshū, Kokin Wakashū, Shin Kokin Wakashū, the history of Japanese poetry is tied to the history of Japanese literature, that is in the purely historical sense of having extant written records. However, the early pre-history and mythology of Japan involve or include some references to poetry, and, the earliest preserved works in the Japanese language also preserve some previous poetry from this earlier period
11.
Bengal
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Bengal is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in Asia, which is located in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, in 2011, the population of Bengal was estimated to be 250 million, making it the most densely populated region in South Asia. An estimated 160 million people live in Bangladesh, while 91.3 million people live in West Bengal, the predominant ethno-linguistic group are the Bengali people, who speak the Indo-Aryan Bengali language. Bengali Muslims are the majority in Bangladesh, Bengali Hindus are the majority in West Bengal. Dense woodlands, including rainforests, cover Bengals northern and eastern areas. In the littoral southwest are the Sunderbans, the worlds largest mangrove forest, in the coastal southeast lies Coxs Bazaar, the longest beach in the world at 125 km. The region has a climate, which the Bengali calendar divides into six seasons. Bengal has played a role in the history of Asia. In antiquity, its kingdoms were known as seafaring nations, at times an independent regional empire, or a bastion of larger empires, the historical region was a leading power of the Indian subcontinent and the Islamic East. Bengali culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature, music, art, architecture, sports, currency, commerce, politics and cuisine. The name of Bengal is derived from the ancient kingdom of Banga, theories on the origin of the term Banga point to the Proto-Dravidian Bong tribe that settled in the area circa 1000 BCE and the Austric word Bong. The term Bangaladesa is used to describe the region in 11th century South Indian records, the modern term Bangla is prominent from the 14th century, which saw the establishment of the Sultanate of Bengal, whose first ruler Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah was known as the Shah of Bangala. The Portuguese referred to the region as Bengala in the Age of Discovery, most of the Bengal region lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but there are highlands in its north, northeast and southeast. The Ganges Delta arises from the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra, the total area of Bengal is 232,752 km2—West Bengal is 88,752 km2 and Bangladesh 147,570 km2. The flat and fertile Bangladesh Plain dominates the geography of Bangladesh, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet regions are home to most of the mountains in Bangladesh. Most parts of Bangladesh are within 10 metres above the sea level, because of this low elevation, much of this region is exceptionally vulnerable to seasonal flooding due to monsoons. The highest point in Bangladesh is in Mowdok range at 1,052 metres, a major part of the coastline comprises a marshy jungle, the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to diverse flora and fauna, including the royal Bengal tiger. In 1997, this region was declared endangered, West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south
