1.
Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem
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The Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, also known as the Sanjak of Jerusalem, was an Ottoman district with special administrative status established in 1872. The district encompassed Jerusalem as well as Bethlehem, Hebron, Jaffa, Gaza, during the late Ottoman period, the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, together with the Sanjak of Nablus and Sanjak of Akka, formed the region that was commonly referred to as Southern Syria or Palestine. The district was separated from Damascus and placed directly under Constantinople in 1841, scholars provide a variety of reasons for the separation, including increased European interest in the region, and strengthening of the southern border of the Empire against the Khedivate of Egypt. However, after less than two months, the sanjaks of Nablus and Acre were separated and added to the Vilayet of Beirut, leaving just the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. In 1906, the Kaza of Nazareth was added to the Jerusalem Mutasarrifate, as an exclave, the area was conquered by the Allied Forces in 1917 during World War I and a military Occupied Enemy Territory Administration set up to replace the Ottoman administration. OETA South consisted of the Ottoman sanjaks of Jerusalem, Nablus, the military administration was replaced by a British civilian administration in 1920 and the area of OETA South was incorporated into the British Mandate of Palestine in 1923. The political status of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem was unique to other Ottoman province since it came under the authority of the Ottoman capital Constantinople. The inhabitants identified themselves primarily on religious terms, the districts villages were normally inhabited by farmers while its towns were populated by merchants, artisans, landowners and money-lenders. The elite consisted of the leadership, wealthy landlords and high-ranking civil servants. In 1841, the district was separated from Damascus and placed directly under Constantinople, before 1872, the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem was officially a sanjak within the Syria Vilayet. In 1904, former Jerusalem official Najib Azuri formed in Paris, France the Ligue de la Patrie Arabe whose goal was to free Ottoman Syria and Iraq from Turkish domination. In 1908, Azuri proposed the elevation of the mutassarifate to the status of vilayet to the Ottoman Parliament after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The area was conquered by the Allied Forces in 1917 during World War I, OETA South consisted of the Ottoman sanjaks of Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre. Below are six contemporary Ottoman maps showing the Quds Al-Sharif Sancağı or Quds Al-Sharif Mutasarrıflığı, the Mutasarrıfs of Jerusalem were appointed by the Porte to govern the district. They were usually experienced civil servants who spoke little or no Arabic, but knew a European language - most commonly French - in addition to Ottoman Turkish
2.
Arab Kingdom of Syria
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The Arab Kingdom of Syria was the first modern Arab state to come into existence but only lasted a little over four months. During its brief existence, the kingdom was led by Sharif Hussein bin Alis son Faisal bin Hussein, the kingdom surrendered to French forces on 24 July 1920. The Arab Revolt and the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence are crucial factors in the foundations of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence the promises of an Arab Kingdom were made by the British in return for an Arab uprising against the Ottomans. As the promises of independence were being made by the British, ultimately, the implementation of the Sykes–Picot Agreement would lead to the undermining and destruction of the Arab Kingdom of Syria. This is due in part to the influence of the French. Near the end of World War I, the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force under command of Edmund Allenby captured Damascus on 30 September 1918, shortly thereafter, on 3 October, Faisal entered the city. The jubilation would be short lived, as Faisal would soon be aware of the Sykes–Picot agreement. Faisal had come to expect an independent Arab kingdom in the name of his father but was told of the division of territory. Faisal obviously did not appreciate this betrayal by the British but found reassurance in the knowledge that the settlement would be worked out at a later date when the war had ended. He was probably hoping that by then the British would have changed their support for French pretensions in Syria, thus on 5 October, with the permission of General Allenby, Faisal announced the establishment of a fully and absolutely independent Arab constitutional government. Faisal announced it would be an Arab government based on justice, even reassurances by Allenby that all actions taken were provisional did not ease the looming tensions between the British, the French and the Arabs. For Arab nationalists, and many of the Arabs who fought in the Arab Revolt, after the war, at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Faisal pushed for Arab independence. The status of the Arab lands in the Middle East was the subject of negotiations between the French and British. In May 1919, the French and British Prime Ministers met in Quai d’Orsay to decide between them their respective claims to territories or spheres of influence in the Middle East. The meeting decided that in return for a British guarantee of French control in Syria, at about the same time, an American compromise resulted in an agreement to set up a commission to determine the wishes of the inhabitants. Even though they supported the idea, Britain and France eventually backed out leaving the King–Crane Commission of 1919 solely American. These events in Europe led Syrian nationalist societies like al-Fatat to make preparations for a national congress and these Syrian nationalist societies advocated complete independence for an Arab Kingdom that united Arabs under Faisal. The first official session of the Syrian Congress was held on 3 June 1919, when the King–Crane Commission arrived in Damascus on 25 June 1919, it was met with a flurry of leaflets saying Independence or Death
3.
Mandatory Palestine
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Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity under British administration, carved out of Ottoman Southern Syria after World War I. British civil administration in Palestine operated from 1920 until 1948, further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, promising British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. At the wars end the British and French set up a joint Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in what had been Ottoman Syria, the British achieved legitimacy for their continued control by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. The civil Mandate administration was formalized with the League of Nations consent in 1923 under the British Mandate for Palestine, the land west of the Jordan River, known as Palestine, was under direct British administration until 1948. The land east of the Jordan, a region known as Transjordan, under the rule of the Hashemite family from the Hijaz. The divergent tendencies regarding the nature and purpose of the mandate are visible already in the discussions concerning the name for this new entity. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called Southern Syria in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State. During the British Mandate period the area experienced the ascent of two major nationalist movements, one among the Jews and the other among the Arabs, following its occupation by British troops in 1917–1918, Palestine was governed by the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. In July 1920, the administration was replaced by a civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner. The first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, a Zionist recent cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920, following the arrival of the British, Muslim-Christian Associations were established in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem and its main platforms were a call for representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Zionist Commission was formed in March 1918 and was active in promoting Zionist objectives in Palestine, on 19 April 1920, elections were held for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community. The Zionist Commission received official recognition in 1922 as representative of the Palestinian Jewish community, Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organizations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that the British intended to favor Zionism, when Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Kamil al-Husayni died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother Mohammad Amin al-Husseini to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist. As Grand Mufti, as well as the influential positions that he held during this period. In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had created by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds, in addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine
4.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
5.
Sinai and Palestine Campaign
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The Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I was fought between the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire, supported by the German Empire. It started with an Ottoman attempt at raiding the Suez Canal in 1915, fighting began in January 1915, when a German-led Ottoman force invaded the Sinai Peninsula, then part of the British Protectorate of Egypt, to unsuccessfully raid the Suez Canal. After the Gallipoli Campaign, veterans from each side formed the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, after a period of stalemate in Southern Palestine from April to October 1917, General Edmund Allenby captured Beersheba from the III Corps. Serious losses on the Western Front in March 1918, during Erich Ludendorffs German Spring Offensive, Damascus and Aleppo were captured during the subsequent pursuit, before the Ottoman Empire agreed to the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, ending the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. The British Mandate of Palestine and the French Mandate for Syria, the campaign was generally not well known or understood during the war. Australia did not have a war correspondent in the area until Captain Frank Hurley, Henry Gullett, the first Official War Correspondent, arrived in November 1917. The Republic of Turkey came into existence in 1923 after the Turkish War of Independence ended the Ottoman Empire, the Suez Canal was of vital strategic importance to the British, reducing the sailing time from India, New Zealand and Australia to Europe. As a result Egypt became a base during the war. To Germany and the Ottoman Empire the canal was the closest and weakest link in British communications, Defence of the canal posed a number of problems, with its sheer size alone making it hard to control. There was no road from Cairo, while only one railway track crossed the 30 miles of desert from Cairo to Ismaïlia on the Canal before branching north to Port Said and south to Suez. At the beginning of hostilities between Britain and the Ottoman Empire in November 1914 the 30,000 strong British defence force evacuated the Sinai Peninsula, instead they concentrated their defences on the western side of the canal. These were supported by the guns of Allied ships in the canal, opposing them were around 25,000 men, including the 25th Division. The Ottoman Empire demonstrated its interest in being reinstated in Egypt in 1915 when Ottoman forces attacked British forces in Egypt, the Germans also helped to foment unrest among the Senussi in what is now Libya, when they attacked western Egypt and threatened the Sudan during the Senussi Campaign. Egypt was neither an independent ally nor a member of the British Empire, the recently appointed High Commissioner Sir Reginald Wingate and Murray agreed that Egypts contributions would be restricted to the use of the countrys railway and Egyptian personnel. However, Maxwell had proclaimed on 6 November 1914 that Egypt would not be required to aid Britains war effort, martial law allowed the British administration to control foreign European residents, monitor foreign agents and intern dangerous persons who were the subjects of hostile nations. The powers were used to police prostitution and the sale of alcohol. The Capitulations, however provided some protection to the Europeans who controlled both these industries, in the autumn of 1917 GHQ was transferred from Cairo to the front leaving garrison battalions. This move took the commander in chief of the EEF, who was responsible for law, out of touch with the civil authorities
6.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
7.
Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
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The Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate was one of the Ottoman Empires subdivisions following the Tanzimat reform. As the Ottoman Empire began to decline, the structure came under pressure. Both officials were to report to the governor of Sidon, who resided in Beirut, on May 22,1860, a small group of Maronites fired on a group of Druze at the entrance to Beirut, killing one and wounding two. This sparked a torrent of violence which swept through Lebanon, in a mere three days, from May 29 to 31,60 villages were destroyed in the vicinity of Beirut. 33 Christians and 48 Druze were killed, by June the disturbances had spread to the “mixed” neighborhoods of southern Lebanon and the Anti Lebanon, to Sidon, Hasbaya, Rashaya, Deir el Qamar, and Zahlé. The Druze peasants laid siege to Catholic monasteries and missions, burnt them, france intervened on behalf of the local Christian population and Britain on behalf of the Druze after the massacres, in which over 10,000 Christians were killed. Mount Lebanon became a semi-autonomous mutasarrifate, in September 1864, the statute became permanent. The mutasarrıf was to be assisted by a council of twelve members from the various religious communities in Lebanon. Each of the six religious groups inhabiting the Lebanon elected two members to the council and this Mutasarrifate system lasted from 1861 until 1918, although it was de facto abolished by Djemal Pasha in 1915, after which he appointed his own governors. The members of the international commission researched many names for the new administrative division, many titles were considered, Emir was quickly refuted because it was offensive to the Ottoman Porte and was reminiscent of the Emirate system that the Ottomans fought to abolish. The commission members also ruminated over the title of President but the designation was not approved by the Ottoman government, eight mutasarrıfs were appointed and ruled according to the basic mutasarrifate regulation that was issued in 1861 then modified by the 1864 reform. These were, The mnemonic word DaFRuWNaMYO helped school children memorize the name of the mutasarrıfs, when the First World War broke out in 1914, Djemal Pasha occupied Mount Lebanon militarily and revoked the mutasarrifate system. He appointed the mutasarrıfs during this period and those governors were, Ali Münif Bey Ismail Bey Mümtaz Bey The total population in 1895 was estimated as 399,530, with 80,234 Muslims and 319,296 Christians. In 1913, the population was estimated as 414,747. Source, History of Lebanon under Ottoman rule Beirut Vilayet Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem Principality of Lebanon US country studies
8.
Turkish War of Independence
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Few of the occupying British, French, and Italian troops had been deployed or engaged in combat. The Turkish National Movement in Anatolia culminated in the formation of a new Grand National Assembly by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, after the end of the Turkish-Armenian, Franco-Turkish, Greco-Turkish fronts, the Treaty of Sèvres was abandoned and the Treaties of Kars and Lausanne were signed. The Allies left Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey decided on the establishment of a Republic in Turkey, on 3 March 1924, the Ottoman Caliphate was officially abolished and the last Caliph was exiled. On October 30,1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to a close. However, dismantling the Ottoman government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of the war, a wave of seizures took place in the following months by the Allies. On December 1, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of Ottoman territory, including the towns of Antakya, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye and Islahiye. The first bullet was fired by Mehmet Çavuş in Dörtyol against the French on December 19,1918, on January 19,1919, the Paris Peace Conference opened, a meeting of Allied nations that set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917, among the objectives was a new Hellenic Empire based on the Megali Idea. This was promised by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George to Greece, Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St. -Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to control over Hatay, Lebanon and Syria. France signed the French-Armenian Agreement and promised the realization of an Armenian state in the Mediterranean region in exchange to the French Armenian Legion, meanwhile, Allied countries continued to lay claim to portions of the quickly crumbling Ottoman Empire. On April 30, Italy responded to the idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by also sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya, the Greek campaign of Western Anatolia began on May 15,1919, as Greek troops began landing in Smyrna. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandirma for Samsun on the evening of May 16,1919, resistance to Allied demands began at the very onset of the Ottoman Empire′s defeat in World War I. Many Ottoman officials organized the secret Sentinel Association in reaction to the policies of the Allies, the objective of the Sentinel Association was to thwart Allied demands through passive and active resistance. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia. Munitions initially seized by the Allies were secretly smuggled out of Constantinople into Central Anatolia, mirliva Ali Fuad Paşa in the meantime had moved his XX Corps from Ereğli to Ankara and started organizing resistance groups, including Circassian immigrants under Çerkes Ethem. The most prominent idea given for the Sultan’s decision was by assigning these officers out of the capital, Mustafa Kemal Paşa and his colleagues stepped ashore on May 19 and set up their first quarters in the Mintika Palace Hotel
9.
Antakya
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Antakya, is the seat of the Hatay Province in southern Turkey. In ancient times, Antakya was known as Antioch, and was for one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire. It was an early center of Christianity. It has a population of about 250,000, most of the population speaks Turkish as their native language, while a minority are native Arabic speakers. Antakya is situated in a well-watered and fertile valley, the area of Antioch has been occupied by humans since the Calcolithic era, as revealed by archeological excavations of the mound of Tell-Açana, among others. The King of Macedonia and Greece Alexander the Great, after defeating the Persians in the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, followed the Orontes south into Syria and occupied the area. The city of Antioch was founded in 300 BC, after the death of Alexander, AD with the rise of Islam, and after the 10th c. In 637, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, the city became known in Arabic as أنطاكيّة. In 969, the city was recovered for the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas by Michael Bourtzes and the stratopedarches Peter. It soon became the seat of a dux, who commanded the forces of the themes and was the most important officer on the Empires eastern border. In 1078, Philaretos Brachamios, an Armenian rebel seized power and he held the city until the Seljuk Turks captured it from him in 1084. The Sultanate of Rum held it only fourteen years before the Crusaders arrived, the Crusaders Siege of Antioch resulted in its fall and the Crusaders caused significant damage during the First Crusade including a 3-day massacre of its population both Christian and Muslim. Following the defeat of the Turkish garrison, Bohemond I became its overlord and it remained the capital of the Latin Principality of Antioch for nearly two centuries. In 1268 it fell to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultan Baibars after another siege, Baibars proceeded to massacre the Christian population. In addition to suffering the ravages of war, the city lost its importance because trade routes to the Far East moved north following the 13th-century Mongol conquests. Antioch never recovered as a city, with much of its former role falling to the port city of Alexandretta. An account of both cities as they were in 1675 appears in the diary of the English naval chaplain Henry Teonge, the city was the center of the Sanjak of Antakya, part of the Damascus Eyalet. In 1822, Antakya was hit by an earthquake and damaged, when Ottoman general Ibrahim Pasha established his headquarters in the city in 1835, it had only some 5,000 inhabitants
10.
Ethiopia
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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and it occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres, and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa. Some of the oldest evidence for modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from modern humans first set out for the Middle East. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era, tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopias flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations, Ethiopias ancient Geez script, also known as Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A slight majority of the population adheres to Christianity, while around a third follows Islam, the country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s, Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromiffa, Amhara, Somali, and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches, additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by the nations Nilotic ethnic minorities. Ethiopia is the place of origin for the coffee bean which originated from the place called Kefa and it is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile West, jungles, and numerous rivers, and the worlds hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are Africas largest continuous mountain ranges, and Sof Omar Caves contain Africas largest cave, Ethiopia has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Ethiopia is one of the members of the UN, the Group of 24, the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia suffered from civil wars, the country has begun to recover recently however, and now has the largest economy in East Africa and Central Africa. According to Global Fire Power, Ethiopia has the 42nd most powerful military in the world, the origin of the word Ethiopia is uncertain
11.
Libya
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The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya, the other large city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age, the Phoenicians established trading posts in western Libya, and ancient Greek colonists established city-states in eastern Libya. Libya was variously ruled by Carthaginians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks before becoming a part of the Roman Empire, Libya was an early center of Christianity. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century, in the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights of St John occupied Tripoli, until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya was involved in the Barbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, Ottoman rule continued until the Italian occupation of Libya resulted in the temporary Italian Libya colony from 1911 to 1943. During the Second World War Libya was an important area of warfare in the North African Campaign, the Italian population then went into decline. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951, a military coup in 1969 overthrew King Idris I, beginning a period of sweeping social reform. Since then, Libya has experienced a period of instability, the European Union is involved in an operation to disrupt human trafficking networks exploiting refugees fleeing from wars in Africa for Europe. At least two political bodies claim to be the government of Libya, the Council of Deputies is internationally recognized as the legitimate government, but it does not hold territory in the capital, Tripoli, instead meeting in the Cyrenaica city of Tobruk. Parts of Libya are outside of either governments control, with various Islamist, rebel, the United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the Tobruk and Tripoli-based factions. An agreement to form an interim government was signed on 17 December 2015. Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council, the leaders of the new government, called the Government of National Accord, arrived in Tripoli on 5 April 2016. Since then the GNC, one of the two governments, has disbanded to support the new GNA. The name Libya was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, reviving the name for Northwest Africa. The name was based on use in 1903 by Italian geographer Federico Minutilli. It was intended to supplant terms applied to Ottoman Tripolitania, the region of what is today Libya having been ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911
