Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic and military force in Europe. Both the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm. Several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empire's Greek East and Latin West diverged. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, legalised Christianity. Under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed.
Under the reign of Heraclius, the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use in place of Latin. Thus, although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was centred on Constantinople, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity; the borders of the empire evolved over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Justinian I, the empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering much of the Roman western Mediterranean coast, including North Africa and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries; the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 exhausted the empire's resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when it lost its richest provinces and Syria, to the Arab caliphate. During the Macedonian dynasty, the empire expanded again and experienced the two-century long Macedonian Renaissance, which came to an end with the loss of much of Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia. The empire recovered during the Komnenian restoration, by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. However, it was delivered a mortal blow during the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and the territories that the empire governed were divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small rival states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence, its remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 ended the Byzantine Empire; the last of the imperial Byzantine successor states, the Empire of Trebizond, would be conquered by the Ottomans eight years in the 1461 Siege of Trebizond. The first use of the term "Byzantine" to label the years of the Roman Empire was in 1557, when the German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of historical sources.
The term comes from "Byzantium", the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantine's capital. This older name of the city would be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts; the publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, in 1680 of Du Cange's Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of "Byzantine" among French authors, such as Montesquieu. However, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world; the Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the "Roman Empire", the "Empire of the Romans", "Romania", the "Roman Republic", as "Rhōmais". The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and as late as the 19th century Greeks referred to Modern Greek as Romaiika "Romaic." After 1204 when the Byzantine Empire was confined to its purely Greek provinces the term'Hellenes' was used instead. While the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during most of its history and preserved Romano-Hellenistic traditions, it became identified by its western and northern contemporaries with its predominant Greek element.
The occasional use of the term "Empire of the Greeks" in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Byzantine Emperor as Imperator Graecorum were used to separate it from the prestige of the Roman Empire within the new kingdoms of the West. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known as Rûm; the name millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans through the 20th century to refer to the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire
Yugoslav Wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence and insurgencies fought in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001, which led to the breakup of the Yugoslav state. Its constituent republics declared independence, despite unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, fueling the wars. Most of the wars ended through peace accords, involving full international recognition of new states, but with a massive human cost and economic damage to the region; the Yugoslav People's Army sought to preserve the unity of the whole of Yugoslavia by crushing the secessionist governments, but it came under the influence of the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević, which evoked Serbian nationalist rhetoric and was willing to use the Yugoslav cause to preserve the unity of Serbs in one state. As a result, the JNA began to lose Slovenes, Kosovar Albanians and ethnic Macedonians, became a Serb army. According to a 1994 United Nations report, the Serb side did not aim to restore Yugoslavia, but to create a "Greater Serbia" from parts of Croatia and Bosnia.
Other irredentist movements have been brought into connection with the wars, such as "Greater Albania" and "Greater Croatia". Described as Europe's deadliest conflicts since World War II, the wars were marked by many war crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity and rape; the Bosnian genocide was the first European crime to be formally judged as genocidal in character since World War II, many key individual participants were subsequently charged with war crimes. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established by the UN to prosecute these crimes. According to the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Yugoslav Wars resulted in the death of 140,000 people; the Humanitarian Law Center estimates that in the conflicts in the former Yugoslav republics at least 130,000 people were killed. The war have alternatively been called: "Wars in the Balkans" (although the wars only affected the west side of the Balkans as well as areas outside it "Wars/conflicts in the former Yugoslavia" "Wars of Yugoslav Secession/Succession" "Third Balkan War": a term suggested by British journalist Misha Glenny in the title of his book, alluding to the two previous Balkan Wars fought from 1912–13.
In fact, this term has been applied by some contemporary historians to World War I, because they see it as a direct sequel to the 1912–13 Balkan wars. "Yugoslavia Civil War"/"Yugoslav Civil War"/"Yugoslavian Civil War"/"Civil War in Yugoslavia" Clear ethnic conflict between the Yugoslav peoples only became prominent in the 20th century, beginning with tensions over the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes in the early 1920s and escalating into violence between Serbs and Croats in the late 1920s after the assassination of Croatian politician Stjepan Radić. During World War II the Croatian Ustaše committed a number of atrocities against the Serbs, as did their Serbian Chetnik opponents against the Croats and Bosniaks; the Yugoslav Partisan movement was able to appeal to all groups, including Serbs and Bosniaks. In Serbia and Serb-dominated territories, violent confrontations occurred between nationalists and non-nationalists who criticized the Serbian government and the Serb political entities in Bosnia and Croatia.
Serbs who publicly opposed the nationalist political climate during the Yugoslav wars were harassed, threatened, or killed. The nation of Yugoslavia was created in the aftermath of World War I, it was composed of South Slavic Christians, though the nation had a substantial Muslim minority; this nation lasted from 1918 to 1941, when it was invaded by the Axis powers during World War II, which provided support to the Ustaše, which conducted a genocidal campaign against Serbs and Roma inside its territory and the Chetniks, who conducted their own campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against ethnic Croats and Bosniaks, while supporting the reinstatement of the Serbian royals. In 1945, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established under Josip Broz Tito, who maintained a authoritarian leadership that suppressed nationalism. After Tito's death in 1980, relations among the six republics of the SFRY deteriorated. Slovenia and Croatia desired greater autonomy within the Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal authority.
As it became clearer that there was no solution agreeable to all parties and Croatia moved toward secession. Although tensions in Yugoslavia had been mounting since the early 1980s, events in 1990 proved decisive. In the midst of economic hardship, Yugoslavia was facing rising nationalism among its various ethnic groups. By the early 1990s, there was no effective authority at the federal level; the Federal Presidency consisted of the representatives of the six republics, two provinces and the Yugoslav People's Army, the communist leadership was divided along national lines. The representatives of Vojvodina and Montenegro were replaced with loyalists of the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević. Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes and was able to influence decision-making at the federal level, since all the other Yugoslav republics only had one vote. While Slovenia and Croatia wanted to allow a multi-party system, led by Milošević, demanded an more centralized federation and Serbia's dominant role in it.
At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists o
Brazil
Brazil the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, its most populated city is São Paulo; the federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers, it borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats; this unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system; the ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Brazil is considered an advanced emerging economy. It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, eight and PPP measures, it is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. It is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country, with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great or a middle power in international affairs. On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power and a potential superpower by several analysts. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Union of South American Nations, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, it is that the word "Brazil" comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.
In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods; the official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross", but European sailors and merchants called it the "Land of Brazil" because of the brazilwood trade. The popular appellation eclipsed and supplanted the official Portuguese name; some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama"; this was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".
Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago; the pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 800 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, complex social formations such as chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people semi-nomadic who subsisted on hunting, fishing and migrant agriculture; the indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups. The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, there were many subdivisions of the other gro
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of Croatia. It is located in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of 122 m above sea level; the estimated population of the city in 2018 is 810,003. The population of the Zagreb urban agglomeration is about 1.2 million a quarter of the total population of Croatia. Zagreb is a city with a rich history dating from the Roman times to the present day; the oldest settlement located in the vicinity of the city was the Roman Andautonia, in today's Ščitarjevo. The name "Zagreb" is recorded in 1134, in reference to the foundation of the settlement at Kaptol in 1094. Zagreb became a free royal town in 1242. In 1851 Zagreb had Janko Kamauf. Zagreb has special status as a Croatian administrative division and is a consolidated city-county, is administratively subdivided into 17 city districts. Most of them are at a low elevation along the river Sava valley, whereas northern and northeastern city districts, such as Podsljeme and Sesvete districts are situated in the foothills of the Medvednica mountain, making the city's geographical image rather diverse.
The city extends over 30 kilometres east-west and around 20 kilometres north-south. The transport connections, concentration of industry and research institutions and industrial tradition underlie its leading economic position in Croatia. Zagreb is the seat of the central government, administrative bodies, all government ministries. All of the largest Croatian companies and scientific institutions have their headquarters in the city. Zagreb is the most important transport hub in Croatia where Central Europe, the Mediterranean and Southeast Europe meet, making the Zagreb area the centre of the road and air networks of Croatia, it is a city known for its diverse economy, high quality of living, museums and entertainment events. Its main branches of economy are the service sector; the etymology of the name Zagreb is unclear. It was used for the united city only from 1852, but it had been in use as the name of the Zagreb Diocese since the 12th century, was used for the city in the 17th century; the name is first recorded in a charter by Ostrogon archbishop Felician, dated 1134, mentioned as Zagrabiensem episcopatum.
The older form of the name is Zagrab. The modern Croatian form Zagreb is first recorded in a 1689 map by Nicolas Sanson. An older form is reflected in Hungarian Zabrag. For this, Hungarian linguist Gyula Décsy proposes the etymology of Chabrag, a well-attested hypocorism of the name Cyprian; the same form is reflected in a number such as Csepreg. The name might be derived from Proto-Slavic word * grębъ which means uplift. An Old Croatian reconstructed name *Zagrębъ is manifested through the German name of the city Agram; the name Agram was used in German in the Habsburg period. In Middle Latin and Modern Latin, Zagreb is known as Zagrabia or Mons Graecensis. In Croatian folk etymology, the name of the city has been derived from either the verb za-grab-, meaning "to scoop" or "to dig". One folk legend illustrating this derivation ties the name to a drought of the early 14th century, during which Augustin Kažotić is said to have dug a well which miraculously produced water. In another legend, a city governor is thirsty and orders a girl named Manda to "scoop" water from Manduševac well, using the imperative: zagrabi, Mando!.
The oldest settlement located near today's Zagreb was a Roman town of Andautonia, now Šćitarjevo, which existed between the 1st and the 5th century AD. The first recorded appearance of the name Zagreb is dated to 1094, at which time the city existed as two different city centres: the smaller, eastern Kaptol, inhabited by clergy and housing Zagreb Cathedral, the larger, western Gradec, inhabited by craftsmen and merchants. Gradec and Kaptol were united in 1851 by ban Josip Jelačić, credited for this, with the naming the main city square, Ban Jelačić Square in his honour. During the period of former Yugoslavia, Zagreb remained an important economic centre of the country, was the second largest city. After Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, Zagreb was proclaimed its capital; the history of Zagreb dates as far back as 1094 A. D. when the Hungarian King Ladislaus, returning from his campaign against Croatia, founded a diocese. Alongside the bishop's see, the canonical settlement Kaptol developed north of Zagreb Cathedral, as did the fortified settlement Gradec on the neighbouring hill.
Today the latter is one of the best preserved urban nuclei in Croatia. Both settlements came under Tatar attack in 1242; as a sign of gratitude for offering him a safe haven from the Tatars the Croatian and Hungarian King Bela IV bestowed Gradec with a Golden Bull, which offered its citizens exemption from county rule and
Colombia
Colombia the Republic of Colombia, is a sovereign state situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and Peru, it shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Colombia is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments, with the capital in Bogota. Colombia has been inhabited by various indigenous peoples since 12,000 BCE, including the Muisca and the Tairona, along with the Inca Empire that expanded to the southwest of the country; the Spanish arrived in 1499 and by the mid-16th century conquered and colonized much of the region, establishing the New Kingdom of Granada, with Santafé de Bogotá as its capital. Independence from Spain was achieved in 1819, but by 1830 the "Gran Colombia" Federation was dissolved, with what is now Colombia and Panama emerging as the Republic of New Granada.
The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903. Beginning in the 1960s, the country suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict and rampant political violence, both of which escalated in the 1990s. Since 2005, there has been significant improvement in security and rule of law. Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, with its rich cultural heritage reflecting influences by indigenous peoples, European settlement, forced African migration, immigration from Europe and the Middle East. Urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains and the Caribbean coast. Colombia is among the world's 17 megadiverse countries, the most densely biodiverse per square kilometer. Colombia is a middle power and regional actor in Latin America, it is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and a member of the UN, the WTO, the OAS, the Pacific Alliance, other international organizations.
Colombia's diversified economy is the fourth largest in Latin America, with macroeconomic stability and favorable long-term growth prospects. The name "Colombia" is derived from the last name of Christopher Columbus, it was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but to those portions under Spanish rule. The name was adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819, formed from the territories of the old Viceroyalty of New Granada; when Venezuela and Cundinamarca came to exist as independent states, the former Department of Cundinamarca adopted the name "Republic of New Granada". New Granada changed its name in 1858 to the Granadine Confederation. In 1863 the name was again changed, this time to United States of Colombia, before adopting its present name – the Republic of Colombia – in 1886. To refer to this country, the Colombian government uses the terms Colombia and República de Colombia. Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to the Andes and Amazon basin.
The oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 kilometres southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period. At Puerto Hormiga and other sites, traces from the Archaic Period have been found. Vestiges indicate that there was early occupation in the regions of El Abra and Tequendama in Cundinamarca; the oldest pottery discovered in the Americas, found at San Jacinto, dates to 5000–4000 BCE. Indigenous people inhabited the territory, now Colombia by 12,500 BCE. Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes at the El Abra, Tibitó and Tequendama sites near present-day Bogotá traded with one another and with other cultures from the Magdalena River Valley. Between 5000 and 1000 BCE, hunter-gatherer tribes transitioned to agrarian societies. Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Zenú, Tairona developed the political system of cacicazgos with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques; the Muisca inhabited the area of what is now the Departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca high plateau where they formed the Muisca Confederation.
They farmed maize, potato and cotton, traded gold, blankets, ceramic handicrafts and rock salt with neighboring nations. The Tairona inhabited northern Colombia in the isolated mountain range of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; the Quimbaya inhabited regions of the Cauca River Valley between the Western and Central Ranges of the Colombian Andes. Most of the Amerindians practiced agriculture and the social structure of each indigenous community was different; some groups of indigenous people such as the Caribs lived in a state of permanent war, but others had less bellicose attitudes. The Incas expanded their empire onto the southwest part of the country. Alonso de Ojeda reached the Guajira Peninsula in 1499. Spanish explorers, led by Rodrigo de Bastidas, made the first exploration
Yugoslav Partisans
The Yugoslav Partisans, or the National Liberation Army the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, was the Communist-led resistance to the Axis powers in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. It is considered to be Europe's most effective anti-Axis resistance movement during World War II compared to the Polish resistance movement, albeit the latter was a non-communist autonomous movement; the Yugoslav Resistance was led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia during World War II. Its commander was Marshal Josip Broz Tito. One of two objectives of the movement, the military arm of the Unitary National Liberation Front coalition, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and represented by the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav wartime deliberative assembly, was to fight the occupying forces; until British supplies began to arrive in appreciable quantities in 1944, the occupiers were the only source of arms. The other objective was to create a federal multi-ethnic communist state in Yugoslavia.
To this end, the KPJ attempted to appeal to all the various ethnic groups within Yugoslavia, by preserving the rights of each group. The objectives of the rival resistance movement which emerged some weeks earlier, the Chetniks, were the retention of the Yugoslav monarchy, ensuring the safety of ethnic Serb populations, the establishment of a Greater Serbia through the ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs from territories they considered rightfully and Serbian. Relations between the two movements were uneasy from the start, but from October 1941 they degenerated into full-scale conflict. To the Chetniks, Tito's pan-ethnic policies seemed anti-Serbian, whereas the Chetniks' royalism was anathema to the communists. In the early part of the war Partisan forces were predominantly composed of Serbs. In that period names of Muslim and Croat commanders of Partisan forces had to be changed to protect them from their predominantly Serb colleagues. By late 1944, the total forces of the Partisans numbered 650,000 men and women organized in four field armies and 52 divisions, which engaged in conventional warfare.
By April 1945, the Partisans numbered over 800,000. The movement was referred to as the "Partisans" throughout the war. However, due to frequent changes in size and structural reorganizations, the Partisans throughout their history held four full official names: National Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia National Liberation Partisan and Volunteer Army of Yugoslavia National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia. From November 1942, the Partisan military as a whole was referred to as the National Liberation Army, whereas the term "Partisans" acquired a wider sense in referring to the entire resistance faction. Yugoslav Army – on 1 March 1945, the National Liberation Army was transformed into the regular armed forces of Yugoslavia and renamed accordingly; the movement was named National Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia and held that name from June 1941 to January 1942. Because of this, their short name became the "Partisans", stuck henceforward. Between January 1942 and November 1942, the movement's full official name was National Liberation Partisan and Volunteer Army of Yugoslavia.
The changes were meant to reflect the movement's character as a "volunteer army". In November 1942 the movement was renamed into the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, a name which it held until the end of the war; this last official name is the full name most associated with the Partisans, reflects the fact that the proletarian brigades and other mobile units were organized into the National Liberation Army. The name change reflects the fact that the latter superseded in importance the partisan detachments themselves. Shortly before the end of the war, in March 1945, all resistance forces were reorganized into the regular armed force of Yugoslavia and renamed Yugoslav Army, it would keep this name until 1951. On 6 April 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded from all sides by the Axis powers by German forces, but including Italian and Bulgarian formations. During the invasion, Belgrade was bombed by the Luftwaffe; the invasion lasted little more than ten days, ending with the unconditional surrender of the Royal Yugoslav Army on 17 April.
Besides being hopelessly ill-equipped when compared to the Wehrmacht, the Army attempted to defend all borders but only managed to thinly spread the limited resources available. The terms of the capitulation were severe, as the Axis proceeded to dismember Yugoslavia. Germany occupied northern Slovenia, while retaining direct occupation over a rump Serbian state and considerable influence over its newly created puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia, which extended over much of today's Croatia and contained all of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina and Syrmia region of modern-day Serbia. Mussolini's Italy occupied the remainder of Slovenia and large chunks of the coastal Dalmatia region (along with nearly
Ecuador
Ecuador the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west. Ecuador includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres west of the mainland; the capital city is Quito, the largest city. What is now Ecuador was home to a variety of Amerindian groups that were incorporated into the Inca Empire during the 15th century; the territory was colonized by Spain during the 16th century, achieving independence in 1820 as part of Gran Colombia, from which it emerged as its own sovereign state in 1830. The legacy of both empires is reflected in Ecuador's ethnically diverse population, with most of its 16.4 million people being mestizos, followed by large minorities of European and African descendants. Spanish is the official language and is spoken by a majority of the population, though 13 Amerindian languages are recognized, including Quichua and Shuar; the sovereign state of Ecuador is a middle-income representative democratic republic with a developing economy, dependent on commodities, namely petroleum and agricultural products.
It is governed as a democratic presidential republic. One of 18 megadiverse countries in the world, Ecuador hosts many endemic plants and animals, such as those of the Galápagos Islands. In recognition of its unique ecological heritage, the new constitution of 2008 is the first in the world to recognize enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights, it has the fifth lowest homicide rate in the Americas. Various peoples had settled in the area of the future Ecuador before the arrival of the Incas; the archeological evidence suggests that the Paleo-Indians' first dispersal into the Americas occurred near the end of the last glacial period, around 16,500–13,000 years ago. The first Indians who reached Ecuador may have journeyed by land from North and Central America or by boat down the Pacific Ocean coastline. Much migrations to Ecuador may have come via the Amazon tributaries, others descended from northern South America, others ascended from the southern part of South America through the Andes.
They developed different languages while emerging as unique ethnic groups. Though their languages were unrelated, these groups developed similar groups of cultures, each based in different environments; the people of the coast developed a fishing and gathering culture. Over time these groups began to interact and intermingle with each other so that groups of families in one area became one community or tribe, with a similar language and culture. Many civilizations arose in Ecuador, such as the Valdivia Culture and Machalilla Culture on the coast, the Quitus, the Cañari; each civilization developed its own distinctive architecture and religious interests. In the highland Andes mountains, where life was more sedentary, groups of tribes cooperated and formed villages. Through wars and marriage alliances of their leaders, a group of nations formed confederations. One region consolidated under a confederation called the Shyris, which exercised organized trading and bartering between the different regions.
Its political and military power came under the rule of the Duchicela blood-line. When the Incas arrived, they found that these confederations were so developed that it took the Incas two generations of rulers—Topa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac—to absorb them into the Inca Empire; the native confederations that gave them the most problems were deported to distant areas of Peru and north Argentina. A number of loyal Inca subjects from Peru and Bolivia were brought to Ecuador to prevent rebellion. Thus, the region of highland Ecuador became part of the Inca Empire in 1463 sharing the same language. In contrast, when the Incas made incursions into coastal Ecuador and the eastern Amazon jungles of Ecuador, they found both the environment and indigenous people more hostile. Moreover, when the Incas tried to subdue them, these indigenous people withdrew to the interior and resorted to guerrilla tactics; as a result, Inca expansion into the Amazon Basin and the Pacific coast of Ecuador was hampered.
The indigenous people of the Amazon jungle and coastal Ecuador remained autonomous until the Spanish soldiers and missionaries arrived in force. The Amazonian people and the Cayapas of Coastal Ecuador were the only groups to resist Inca and Spanish domination, maintaining their language and culture well into the 21st century. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Inca Empire was involved in a civil war; the untimely death of both the heir Ninan Cuchi and the Emperor Huayna Capac, from a European disease that spread into Ecuador, created a power vacuum between two factions. The northern faction headed by Atahualpa claims that Huayna Capac gave a verbal decree before his death about how the empire should be divided, he gave the territories pertaining to present-day Ecuador and northern Peru to his favorite son Atahualpa, to rule from Quito. He willed that his heart be buried in Quito, his favorite city, the rest of his body be buried with his ancestors in Cuzco. Huáscar did not recognize his fa
