Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, JMSDF referred to as the Japanese Navy, is the maritime warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. It is the de facto navy of Japan and was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy after World War II; the JMSDF has a fleet of 154 ships and 346 aircraft and consists of 45,800 personnel. Its main tasks are to patrol territorial waters, it participates in UN-led peacekeeping operations and Maritime Interdiction Operations. Japan has a long history of naval interaction with the Asian continent, involving the transportation of troops, starting at least with the beginning of the Kofun period in the 3rd century. Following the attempts at Mongol invasions of Japan by Kublai Khan in 1274 and 1281, Japanese wakō became active in plundering the coast of the Chinese Empire. Japan undertook major naval building efforts in the 16th century, during the Warring States period, when feudal rulers vying for supremacy built vast coastal navies of several hundred ships.
Around that time, Japan may have developed one of the world's first ironclad warships, when Oda Nobunaga had six iron-covered Oatakebune made in 1576. In 1588, Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a ban on Wakō piracy. Japan built her first large ocean-going warships in the beginning of the 17th century, following contact with European countries during the Nanban trade period. In 1613, the daimyō of Sendai, in agreement with the Tokugawa shogunate, built Date Maru; this 500 ton galleon-type ship transported the Japanese embassy of Hasekura Tsunenaga to the Americas and Europe. From 1604 onwards, about 350 Red seal ships armed and incorporating European technology, were commissioned by the shogunate for Southeast Asian trade. From 1868, the restored Meiji Emperor continued with reforms to industrialize and militarize Japan to prevent the United States and European powers from overwhelming it. On 17 January 1868, the Ministry of Military Affairs was established, with Iwakura Tomomi, Shimazu Tadayoshi and Prince Komatsu-no-miya Akihito as the First Secretaries.
On 26 March 1868, the first Naval Review was held in Japan, with 6 ships from the private domainal navies of Saga, Chōshū, Kurume and Hiroshima participating. The total tonnage of these ships was 2,252 tons, far smaller than the tonnage of the single foreign vessel that participated. In July 1869, the Imperial Japanese Navy was formally established, two months after the last military engagement of the Boshin War – the private navies of the Japanese nobles were abolished and their 11 ships were added to the 7 surviving vessels of the defunct Tokugawa bakufu navy, including Kankō Maru, Japan's first steam warship; this formed the core of the new Imperial Japanese Navy. An 1872 edict separated the Japanese Navy from the Japanese Army. Politicians like Enomoto Takeaki set out to use the Navy to expand to the islands south of Japan in similar fashion to the Army's northern and western expansion; the Navy sought to upgrade its fleet to a blue water navy and used cruises to expand the Japanese consciousness on the southern islands.
Enomoto's policies helped the Navy expand and incorporate many different islands into the Japanese Empire, including Iwo Jima in 1889. The navy continued to expand and incorporate political influence throughout the early twentieth century. Following Japan's defeat in World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy was dissolved by the Potsdam Declaration acceptance. Ships were disarmed, some of them, such as the battleship Nagato, were taken by the Allied Powers as reparation; the remaining ships were used for repatriation of the Japanese soldiers from abroad and for minesweeping in the area around Japan under the control of the Second Bureau of the Demobilization Ministry. The minesweeping fleet was transferred to the newly formed Maritime Safety Agency, which helped maintain the resources and expertise of the navy. Japan's 1947 Constitution was drawn up after the conclusion of the war, Article 9 specifying that "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes."
The prevalent view in Japan is that this article allows for military forces to be kept for the purposes of self-defense. Due to Cold War pressures, the United States was happy for Japan to provide part of its own defense, rather than have it rely on American forces. In 1952, the Coastal Safety Force was formed within the Maritime Safety Agency, incorporating the minesweeping fleet and other military vessels destroyers, given by the United States. In 1954, the Coastal Safety Force was separated, the JMSDF was formally created as the naval branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, following the passage of the 1954 Self-Defense Forces Law; the first ships in the JMSDF were former U. S. Navy destroyers, transferred to Japanese control in 1954. In 1956, the JMSDF received its first domestically produced destroyer since Harukaze. Due to the Cold War threat posed by the Soviet Navy's sizable and powerful submarine fleet, the JMSDF was tasked with an anti-submarine role. Following the end of the Cold War, the role of the JMSDF has vastly changed.
In 1991, after much international pressure, the JMSDF dispatched four minesweepers, a fleet oiler and a minesweeping tender to the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of the Gulf War, under the name of Operation Gulf Dawn, to clear mines
Chilean Navy
The Chilean Navy is the naval force of Chile. The origins of the Chilean Navy date back to 1817, when General Bernardo O'Higgins prophetically declared after the Chilean victory at the Battle of Chacabuco that a hundred such victories would count for nothing if Chile did not gain control of the sea; this led to the development of the Chilean Navy, the first legal resolutions outlining the organization of the institution were created. Chile's First National Fleet and the Academy for Young Midshipmen, the predecessor of the current Naval Academy were founded, as well as the Marine Corps and the Supply Commissary; the first commander of the Chilean Navy was Manuel Blanco Encalada. However the famous British naval commander Lord Cochrane, a Captain in the Royal navy, was hired by Chileans to organize and command the Navy. Cochrane recruited an all-anglophone complement of officers and midshipmen and crews of British and American seamen, he became a key figure in the war against loyalist forces in Peru and was instrumental in taking control of the fortresses of Valdivia though he failed in his attempt to conquer Chiloé Island.
In March 1824, the Chilean Navy and Army undertook an expedition to expel the Spanish from Chiloé Archipelago. An expedition was dispatched to Chiloé Island however ended in failure when the Chilean Army led by Jorge Beauchef was defeated at the Battle of Mocopulli, it was only after Ramón Freire's Chiloé expedition in 1826 did the royalist forces at Chiloé under the command of Antonio de Quintanilla and Chiloé joined the new Chilean nation. After the wars of independence, a series of conflicts demonstrated the importance of the Navy to the nation. First of these conflicts were the War of the Confederation, the Chincha Islands War and the War of the Pacific; the founding of Fuerte Bulnes in the Strait of Magellan marked the starting point of a series of Chilean Navy explorations, led by navy hydrographers like Francisco Vidal Gormaz and Francisco Hudson, in the unknown zone between the Strait of Magellan and Chiloé. To deal with this new area of activity the navy founded in 1874 the Hydrographic Office whose first director was Francisco Vidal Gormaz.
The Chilean war hero and martyr Arturo Prat is regarded as the ultimate example of the commitment of the Navy to its country, after his death while leading a boarding party onto the enemy ironclad Huáscar at the naval battle of Iquique on 21 May 1879, during the War against Peru and Bolivia. The anniversary of this battle is celebrated every year as a public holiday called Día de las Glorias Navales. Prat is considered to be one of the co-founders of the Naval Seaman Training School in 1868, which began operating a year and was one of the Naval Academy's finest graduate officers that in 1943 it became the National Naval School "Arturo Prat" in his honor; the Navy further distinguished itself during the Battle of Pisagua in 1879, led by both the Navy and the Marine Artillery Groups and Marine Infantry, the world's first modern military landing operation, that resulted in Chilean victories in other parts of Peru's Tarapaca region, resulted to its annexation by Chile. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888.
By occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations. With the Peruvian Navy destroyed, Bolivia becoming a landlocked country and Argentina having only a brown-water navy the Chilean Navy had a regional hegemony in the years following the War of the Pacific. To secure this advantage and not letting new Argentine acquisitions challenge Chilean Naval power the Chilean government decided to modernize its navy; the modernization plan included the ordering of two cruisers, two torpedo boat destroyers and the modernization of two armoured ships in English docks. A new pre-dreadnought battleship, Capitán Prat, was ordered under the new construction program in 1889; the advent of the 1891 Chilean Civil War saw a breach between the two branches of the Chilean Armed forces, while the bulk of navy sided the congress side the majority of the Chilean Army remained loyal to José Manuel Balmaceda. When the majority of the national congress broke relations with the government Jorge Montt took control of the fleet at Valparaíso and with notable politicians, like Ramón Barros Luco, on board the fleet sailed north to the nitrate-rich Tarapacá area which Chile had seized from Peru ten years earlier.
Tarapacá was by that time Chile's richest region in terms of natural resources and was without the fleet out of reach for the Chilean Army. From here the navy organized an army made of nitrate miners which they armed and trained to face the 40,000-men strong Army of Chile. In August 1891 the new army was disembarked in Quintero and defeated the Chilean Army at the Battle of Concón and the Battle of Placilla before the presidential faction disbanded and the congressional side took power. On the elections of October 1891 Jorge Montt was elected president. Not all navy officers sided with the congress; some like Juan Williams Rebolledo, Juan José Latorre and Policarpo Toro remained on the presidential side and Francisco Vidal Gormaz declared his neutrality. After the war these officers were removed from their offices. In contrast to these officers whose career or influence in the navy was truncated by the war, the 1891 Chilean Civil War served as a starting point of a successful career in the navy for a generation of young officers like Francisco Nef and others who sided with the congressionals who won the war.
After incidents with Chile in 1872, 1877 and 1878 Argentina had decided that a brownwater navy if modern, was not enough to back up its am
Boston Navy Yard
The Boston Navy Yard called the Charlestown Navy Yard and Boston Naval Shipyard, was one of the oldest shipbuilding facilities in the United States Navy. It was established in 1801 as part of the recent establishment of the new U. S. Department of the Navy in 1798. After 175 years of military service, it was decommissioned as a naval installation on 1 July 1974; the 30-acre property is administered by the National Park Service, becoming part of Boston National Historical Park. Enough of the yard remains in operation to support the moored USS Constitution of 1797, built as one of the original six heavy frigates for the revived American navy, the oldest warship still commissioned in the United States Navy. USS Cassin Young, a 1943 World War II-era Fletcher-class destroyer serving as a museum ship, is berthed here; the museum area includes a dock, a stop on the MBTA Boat water transport system. Among local people in the area and the National Park Service, it is still known as the Charlestown Navy Yard.
The South Boston Naval Annex was located along the waterfront in South Boston. The earliest naval shipbuilding activities in Charlestown, Massachusetts across the Charles River and Boston harbor to the north from the city of Boston, began during the American Revolutionary War; the land for the Charlestown Navy Yard was purchased by the United States government in 1800 and the yard itself established shortly thereafter. The yard built the first U. S. ship of the line, "USS Independence", but was a repair and storage facility until the 1890s, when it started to build steel ships for the "New Navy". By it was called the Boston Navy Yard. On 24 June 1833, the staff and dignitaries including Vice President Martin Van Buren, Secretary of War Lewis Cass, Secretary of the Navy Levi Woodbury, many Massachusetts officials, witnessed "one of the great events of American naval history": the early United States frigate Constitution was inaugurating the first naval drydock in New England designed by prominent civil engineer Loammi Baldwin, Jr.
The ropewalk supplied cordage used in the Navy from the time it opened in 1837 until the Yard closed in 1975. After the Civil War, the Yard was downgraded to an Recruit Facility. In the late 1880s and 1890s, the Navy began expanding again bringing into service new modern steel hulled steam-powered warships and that brought new life to the Yard. In the first years of the 20th century, a second drydock was added. During World War II, it worked to fix British Royal Navy warships and merchant transports damaged by the Nazi Germans when crossing the North Atlantic Ocean. On 27 September 1941—Liberty Fleet Day—Boston launched two destroyers, the USS Cowie and the USS Knight. Before the U. S. entered the Second World War after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941, a month before in November, Boston was one of four United States naval shipyards selected to build Captain class frigates under the Lend-Lease military assistance program for the Royal Navy. Since the United States was at war when these ships were completed, some were requisitioned and used by the United States Navy as destroyer escorts.
In the post war period, the shipyard modified World War II ships for Cold War service through Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization. The Korean War, Vietnam War did not bring much work to the Yard since it was so far from the fighting. 1814: USS Independence War of 1812.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, is a United States Navy shipyard covering 179 acres on Puget Sound at Bremerton, Washington in uninterrupted use since its establishment in 1891. It is bordered on the south by Sinclair Inlet, on the west by the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap, on the north and east by the city of Bremerton, Washington, it is the Pacific Northwest's largest naval shore facility and one of Washington state's largest industrial installations. PSNS & IMF provides the Navy with maintenance and technical and logistics support. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was established in 1891 as a Naval Station and was designated Navy Yard Puget Sound in 1901. During World War I, the Navy Yard constructed ships, including 25 subchasers, seven submarines, two minesweepers, seven seagoing tugs, two ammunition ships, as well as 1,700 small boats. During World War II, the shipyard's primary effort was the repair of battle damage to ships of the U.
S. fleet and those of its allies. Following World War II, Navy Yard Puget Sound was designated Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, it engaged in an extensive program of modernizing carriers, including converting conventional flight decks to angle decks. During the Korean War, the shipyard was engaged in the activation of ships. In the late 1950s, it entered an era of new construction with the building of a new class of guided missile frigates. In 1965, USS Sculpin became the first nuclear-powered submarine to be maintained at PSNS; the shipyard was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992. The historic district includes 22 contributing buildings and 42 contributing structures, as well as 49 non-contributing buildings and objects; the most visible feature of the shipyard is its huge green hammerhead crane, built in 1933. The PSNS hammerhead crane is 80 feet wide with a lifting capacity of 250 tons; the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard contains five historic districts: Officers' Row Historic District. These five units are a comprehensive representation of the historic features of the naval shipyard.
In 1990 the Navy authorized the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program to recycle nuclear-powered ships at PSNS. 25% of the shipyard's workload involves inactivation, reactor compartment disposal, recycling of ships. It has pioneered an environmentally safe method of recycling nuclear-powered ships; this process places the U. S. Navy in the role of being the world's only organization to design, build and recycle nuclear-powered ships. On 15 May 2003 PSNS and IMF were consolidated into what is now known as PSNS & IMF. PSNS is the only U. S. facility certified to recycle nuclear ships. During all this period Puget Sound Naval Shipyard has scrapped more than 125 submarines and some cruisers; the shipyard contains a portion of the United States Navy reserve fleet, a large collection of inactive U. S. Navy vessels, including the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. Kitty Hawk is mothballed, meaning that she is stored in case she is needed by the Navy in the future. Gorst Creek Ravine near Port Orchard, Washington was a hazardous waste dump for the Navy's shipyard waste between 1969 and 1970, when the site was not permitted by local authorities to take waste.
After several collapses since 1997 the landfill could blow out Highway 3. The landfill is an "ongoing source of pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls and metals flowing downstream with the potential to affect groundwater wells, sport fisheries and the Suquamish Tribe's fish hatchery. In October 2014, the US EPA ordered the Navy to fix the problems. List of U. S. National Historic Landmark ships and shipyards Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility
Italian Navy
The Italian Navy is the Navy of the Italian Republic. It is one of the four branches of Italian Armed Forces and was formed in 1946 from what remained of the Regia Marina after World War II; as of August 2014, the Italian Navy had a strength of 30,923 active personnel with 184 vessels in service, including minor auxiliary vessels. It is considered a blue-water navy; the Regia Marina was formed on March 1861, after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. The Italian Navy assumed its present name after the Italian monarchy was abolished following a popular referendum held on June 2, 1946. At the end of its five years involvement in World War II, Italy was a devastated nation. After the end of hostilities the Regia Marina, which at the beginning of the war was the fourth largest navy in the world with a mix of modernised and new battleships, started a long and complex rebuilding process; the important combat contributions of the Italian naval forces after the signing of the armistice with the Allies on September 8, 1943, the subsequent cooperation agreement on September 23, 1943, left the Regia Marina in a poor condition, with much of its infrastructure and bases unusable and its ports mined and blocked by sunken ships.
However, a large number of its naval units had survived the war, albeit in a low efficiency state, due to the conflict and the age of many vessels. The vessels that remained were: 5 battleships 10 cruisers 10 destroyers 20 frigates 20 corvettes 50 fast coastal patrol units 50 minesweepers 19 amphibious operations vessels 5 school ships 1 support ship and plane transport The peace treaty signed on February 10, 1947 in Paris was onerous for Regia Marina. Apart from territorial and material losses the following restrictions were imposed: A ban on owning, building or experimenting with atomic weapons, self-propulsion projectiles or relative launchers, etc. A ban on owning Battleships, Aircraft carriers and Amphibious Assault units. A ban on operating military installations on the islands of Pantelleria, Pianosa and on the archipelago of Pelagie Islands; the treaty ordered Italy to put the following ships at the disposals of the victorious nations United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, Greece and Albania as war compensation: 3 Battleships: Giulio Cesare, Vittorio Veneto.
Great changes in the international political situation, which were developing into the Cold War, convinced the United Kingdom and United States to discontinue the transfer of Italy's capital ships as war reparations. Some had been dismantled in La Spezia between 1948 and 1955, including the flagship aircraft carrier Aquila. However, the Soviet Union demanded the surrender of the battleship Giulio Cesare and other naval units designated for transfer; the cruisers Attilio Regolo and Scipione Africano became the French Chateaurenault and Guichen, while Eugenio di Savoia became the Greek Helli. After break up and/or transfers, only a small part of the fleet remained to be recommissioned into the Marina; as Western attention turned to the Soviets and the Mediterranean Sea, Italian seas became one of the main sites of confrontation between the two superpowers, contributing to the re-emergence of Italy's naval importance thanks to her strategic geographical position. With the new elections in 1946, the Kingdom of Italy became a Republic, the Regia Marina took the name of Marina Militare.
As the Marshall Plan began to rebuild Italy and Europe was being divided into two geopolitically antagonistic blocs, Italy began talks with the United States to guarantee adequate security considerations. The US government in Washington wished to keep its own installations on the Italian Peninsula and relaxed the Treaty restrictions by including Italy in the Mutual Defense Assistance Programme. On April 4, 1949, Italy joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and, in order for the navy to contribute in the organization, the Treaty restrictions were definitively repealed by the end of 1951, with the consent of all of Western nations. Within NATO, the Italian Navy was assigned combat control of the Adriatic Sea and Strait of Otranto, as well as the defence of the naval routes through the Tyrrhenian Sea. To ensure these tasks a "Studio sul potenziamento della Marina italiana in relazione al Patto Atlantico" was undertaken, which researched the structures and the methods for the development of the navy.
The ensign of the Italian Navy is the Italian tricolour defaced with the coat of arms of the Marina Militare. The quarters refer to the four Medieval Italian Thalassocracies, or "Maritime Republics": 1st quarter: on red, a golden winged lion wielding a sword; the shield has a golden crown, that distinguishes military vessels from merchant: the crown, "corona rostrata", was proposed in 1939 by Admiral Domenico Cavagnari to the Government, as an acknowledgement of the Italian Navy's origin in Roman times. In the proposal, Adm. Cavagnari wrote that "in order to recall the common origin from the Roman sailorship, the Insignia wi
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south; the kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", it is called the "Land of the Rising Sun". Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands; the four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area and are referred to as home islands. The country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions, with Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one; the population of 127 million is the world's tenth largest. 90.7 % of people live in cities. About 13.8 million people live in the capital of Japan. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with over 38 million people. Archaeological research indicates; the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD.
Influence from other regions China, followed by periods of isolation from Western Europe, has characterized Japan's history. From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shōguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. After nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection, the Imperial Court regained its political power in 1868 through the help of several clans from Chōshū and Satsuma – and the Empire of Japan was established. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism; the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the Japanese surrender. Since adopting its revised constitution on May 3, 1947, during the occupation led by SCAP, the sovereign state of Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Diet.
Japan is a member of the ASEAN Plus mechanism, UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the G20, is considered a great power. Its economy is the world's third-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity, it is the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Japan benefits from a skilled and educated workforce. Although it has renounced its right to declare war, Japan maintains a modern military with the world's eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a developed country with a high standard of living and Human Development Index, its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, but is experiencing issues due to an aging population and low birthrate. Japan is renowned for its historical and extensive cinema, influential music industry, video gaming, rich cuisine and its major contributions to science and modern technology; the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, pronounced Nihon or Nippon and means "the origin of the sun".
The character nichi means "sun" or "day". The compound therefore means "origin of the sun" and is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun"; the earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, the Old Book of Tang. At the end of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan requested that Nihon be used as the name of their country; this name may have its origin in a letter sent in 607 and recorded in the official history of the Sui dynasty. Prince Shōtoku, the Regent of Japan, sent a mission to China with a letter in which he called himself "the Emperor of the Land where the Sun rises"; the message said: "Here, I, the emperor of the country where the sun rises, send a letter to the emperor of the country where the sun sets. How are you". Prior to the adoption of Nihon, other terms such as Yamato and Wakoku were used; the term Wa is a homophone of Wo 倭, used by the Chinese as a designation for the Japanese as early as the third century Three Kingdoms period.
Another form of Wa, Wei in Chinese) was used for an early state in Japan called Nakoku during the Han dynasty. However, the Japanese disliked some connotation of Wa 倭, it was therefore replaced with the substitute character Wa, meaning "togetherness, harmony"; the English word Japan derives from the historical Chinese pronunciation of 日本. The Old Mandarin or early Wu Chinese pronunciation of Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. In modern Shanghainese, a Wu dialect, the pronunciation of characters 日本; the old Malay word for Japan, Japun or Japang, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect Fukienese or Ningpo – and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia in the 16th century. These Early Portuguese traders brought the word
Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
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