Italian Libya was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya. Italian Libya was formed from the Italian colonies of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania that were taken by the Kingdom of Italy from the Ottoman Empire in 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 to 1912; the unified colony was established in 1934 with Tripoli as the capital. The territory of the previous two colonies had been referred to sometimes as "Italian Libya" or Italian North Africa, both names kept being used after the unification, with Italian Libya now being the official name of the newly combined colony. In 1923, indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order organized the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya; the rebellion was put down by Italian forces in 1932, after the so-called "pacification campaign", which resulted in the deaths of a quarter of Cyrenaica's population. During World War II, Italian Libya became the setting for the North African Campaign.

Although the Italians were defeated there by the Allies in 1943, many of the Italian settlers still remained in Libya. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya, administrated by the United Kingdom and France until its independence in 1951; the history of Libya as an Italian colony started in 1911 and was characterized by a major struggle with Muslim native Libyans that lasted until 1931. During this period, the Italian government controlled only the coastal areas of the colony. Between 1911 and 1912, over 1,000 Somalis from Mogadishu, the capital of Italian Somaliland, served as combat units along with Eritrean and Italian soldiers in the Italo-Turkish War. Most of the troops stationed never returned home until they were transferred back to Italian Somaliland in preparation for the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. After the Italian Empire's conquest of Ottoman Tripolitania, in the 1911–12 Italo-Turkish War, much of the early colonial period had Italy waging a war of subjugation against Libya's population.

Ottoman Turkey surrendered its control of Libya in the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne, but fierce resistance to the Italians continued from the Senussi political-religious order, a nationalistic group of Sunni Muslims. This group, first under the leadership of Omar Al Mukhtar and centered in the Jebel Akhdar Mountains of Cyrenaica, led the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya. Italian forces under the Generals Pietro Badoglio and Rodolfo Graziani waged punitive pacification campaigns using chemical weapons, mass executions of soldiers and civilians and concentration camps. One-quarter of Cyrenaica's population of 225,000 people died during the conflict. After nearly two decades of suppression campaigns the Italian colonial forces claimed victory. In the 1930s, the policy of Italian Fascism toward Libya began to change, both Italian Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, along with Fezzan, were merged into Italian Libya in 1934; the colony expanded after concessions from the British colony of Sudan and a territorial agreement with Egypt.

The Kufra district was nominally attached to British-occupied Egypt until 1925, but in fact, remained a headquarters for the Senussi resistance until conquered by the Italians in 1931. The Kingdom of Italy at the 1919 Paris "Conference of Peace" received nothing from German colonies, but as a compensation Great Britain gave it the Oltre Giuba and France agreed to give some Saharan territories to Italian Libya. After prolonged discussions through the 1920s, in 1935 under the Mussolini-Laval agreement Italy received the Aouzou strip, added to Libya. However, this agreement was not ratified by France. In 1931, the towns of El Tag and Al Jawf were taken over by Italy. British Egypt had ceded Kufra and Jarabub to Italian Libya on December 6, 1925, but it was not until the early 1930s that Italy was in full control of the place. In 1931, during the campaign of Cyrenaica, General Rodolfo Graziani conquered Kufra District, considered a strategic region, leading about 3,000 soldiers from infantry and artillery, supported by about twenty bombers.

Ma'tan as-Sarra was turned over to Italy in 1934 as part of the Sarra Triangle to colonial Italy by the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, who considered the area worthless and so an act of cheap appeasement to Benito Mussolini's attempts at empire. During this time, the Italian colonial forces built a World War I–style fort in El Tag in the mid-1930s. In 1939 some Libyans were granted special Italian citizenship by Royal Decree No. 70 on 9 January 1939. This citizenship was necessary for any Libyan with ambitions to rise in the military or civil organizations; the recipients were referred to as Moslem Italians. Libya had become the fourth shore of Italy”; the incorporation of Libya into the Italian Empire gave the Italian Army a greater ability to exploit native Libyans for military service. Native Libyans served in Italian formations from the beginning of the Italian occupation of Libya. On 1 March 1940, 2nd Libyan Divisions were formed; these Libyan Infantry divisions were organized along the lines of the binary Italian infantry division.

The 5th Italian Army received the 2nd Libyan Infantry division which it incorporated into the 13th corps. The Italian 10th Army received the 1st Libyan Infantry Division which it incorporated into the reserve; the Italian Libyan infantry divisions were colonial formations. These formations had Italian officers commanding them with Libyan soldiers; these native Libyan formations were made up of people

The early Earth is loosely defined as Earth in its first one billion years, or gigayear. On the geologic time scale, this comprises all of the Hadean eon, as well as the Eoarchean and part of the Paleoarchean eras of the Archean eon; this period of Earth's history involved the planet's formation from the solar nebula via a process known as accretion. This time period included intense meteorite bombardment as well as giant impacts, including the Moon-forming impact, which resulted in a series of magma oceans and episodes of core formation. After formation of the core, delivery of meteoritic or cometary material in a "late veneer" may have delivered water and other volatile compounds to the Earth. Although little crustal material from this period survives, the oldest dated specimen is a zircon mineral of 4.404 ± 0.008 Ga enclosed in a metamorphosed sandstone conglomerate in the Jack Hills of the Narryer Gneiss Terrane of Western Australia. The earliest supracrustals date from the latter half of this period, about 3.8 gya, around the same time as peak Late Heavy Bombardment.

According to evidence from radiometric dating and other sources, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Within its first billion years, life appeared in its oceans and began to affect its atmosphere and surface, promoting the proliferation of aerobic as well as anaerobic organisms. Since the combination of Earth's distance from the Sun, its physical properties and its geological history have allowed life to emerge, develop photosynthesis, evolve further and thrive; the earliest life on Earth arose at least 3.5 billion years ago. Earlier possible evidence of life includes graphite, which may have a biogenic origin, in 3.7-billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in southwestern Greenland and 4.1-billion-year-old zircon grains in Western Australia. Earth – Speed through space – about 1 million miles an hour – NASA &