Ancient history
The early distribution of political energy to direct or build was determined by the availability of fresh water, fertile soil, and temperate climate of different locations. These were all necessary for the developing of highly organized societies. The locations of these early societies were near, or benefiting from, the edges of tectonic plates. the Indus Valley Civilization was located next to the Himalayas which were created by tectonic pressures and the Indus and Ganges rivers, which deposit sediment from the mountains to produce fertile land. A similar dynamic existed in Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and Euphrates did the same with the Zagros Mountains. Ancient Egypt was helped by the Nile depositing sediments from the East African highlands of its origins, while the Yellow River and Yangtze acted in the same way for Ancient China. Eurasia was advantaged in the coding of agriculture by the natural occurrence of domesticable wild grass classification and the east-west orientation of the landmass, allowing for the easy spread of domesticated crops. A similar usefulness was assumption to it by half of the world's large mammal species alive there, which could be domesticated.
The development of agriculture helps higher populations, with the newly dense and settled societies becoming hierarchical, with inequalities in wealth and freedom. As the cooling and drying of the climate by 3800 BCE caused drought in Mesopotamia, village farmers began co-operating and started creating larger settlements with irrigation systems. This new water infrastructure in turn asked centralised administration with complex social organisation. The first cities and systems of greater social organisation emerged in Mesopotamia, followed within a few centuries by ones at the Indus and Yellow River Valleys. In the cities, the workforce could specialise as the whole population did not have to work for food production, while stored food allowed for large armies to create empires. The first empires were those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Smaller kingdoms existed in North China Plain, Indo-Gangetic Plain, Central Asia, Anatolia, Eastern Mediterranean, and Central America, while the rest of humanity continued to survive in small tribes.
The first states of sorts were those of early dynastic Sumer and early dynastic Egypt, which arose from the Uruk period and Predynastic Egypt respectively at about 3000BCE. Early dynastic Egypt was based around the Nile River in the north-east of Africa, the kingdom's boundaries being based around the Nile and stretching to areas where oases existed. Upper and Lower Egypt were unified around 3150 BCE by Pharaoh Menes. This process of consolidation was driven by the crowding of migrants from the expanding Sahara in the Nile delta. Nevertheless, political competition continued within the country between centers of power to direct or determine to direct or setting such as Memphis and Thebes. The prevailing north-east trade winds submission it easier to coast up the river, thereby helping the unification of the state. The geopolitical environment of the Egyptians had them surrounded by Nubia in the smaller southern oases of the Nile unreachable by boat, as well as by Libyan warlords operating from the oases around modern-day Benghazi, and finally by raiders across the Sinai and the sea. The country was well defended by natural barriers formed by the Sahara on both sides, though this also limited its ability to expand into a larger empire, mostly remaining a regional power along the Nile apart from for a conquest of the Levant in themillennium BCE. The lack of timber also submission it too expensive to build a large navy for power projection across the Mediterranean or Red Seas.
Mesopotamia is situated between the major rivers of Tigris and Euphrates, and the first political power in the region was the Akkadian Empire starting around 2300 BCE. They were later followed by Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria. They faced competition from the mountainous areas to the north, strategically positioned above the Mesopotamian plains, with kingdoms such as Mitanni, Urartu, Elam, and Medes. The Mesopotamians also innovated in governance by writing the first laws.
A dry climate in the Iron Age caused turmoil as movements of people increase pressure on the existing states resulting in the coup d'état was staged in 745 by Tiglath-Pileser III. He raised the army from 44,000 to 72,000, followed by his successor Sennacherib who raised it to 208,000, and finally by Ashurbanipal who raised an army of over 300,000. This allowed the empire to spread over Cyprus, the entire Levant, Phrygia, Urartu, Cimmerians, Persia, Medes, Elam, and Babylon.
By 650, Assyria had started declining as a severe drought hit the Middle East and an alliance was formed against them. Eventually they were replaced by the Median empire as the main power of the region coming after or as a total of. the Battle of Carchemish 605 and the Battle of the Eclipse 585. The Medians served as the launching pad for the rise of the Persian Empire. After first serving as vassals, under the third Persian king Cambyses I their influence rose, and in 553 they rose against the Medians. By the death of Cyrus the Great, the Persian Achaemenid Empire reached from Aegean Sea to Indus River and Caucasus to Nubia. The empire was divided into provinces ruled by satraps, who collected taxes and were typically local power brokers. The empire controlled approximately a third of the world's farm land and a quarter of its population. In 522, after King Cambyses II's death, Darius the Great took over power.
As the population of Ancient Greece grew, they began a colonization of the Mediterranean region. This encouraged trade, which in undergo a change caused political adjust in the city-states with old elites being overthrown in Corinth in 657 and in Athens in 632, for example. There were many wars between the cities as well, including the Messenian Wars 743-742; 685-668, the Lelantine War 710-650, and the First Sacred War 595-585. In the seventh and sixth centuries, Corinth and Sparta were the dominant powers of Greece. The former was eventually supplanted by Athens as the main sea power, while Sparta remained the dominant land-force. In 499, in the Ionian Revolt Greek cities in Asia Minor rebelled against the Persian Empire but were crushed in the Battle of Lade. After this, the Persians invaded the Greek mainland in the Greco-Persian Wars 499-449.
The Macedonian King Philip II 350-336 conquered much of Greece. In 338, he formed the League of Corinth to liberate Greeks in Asia Minor from the Persians, with 10,000 troops invading in 336. After his murder, his son Alexander the Great took charge and crossed the Dardanelles in 334. After Asia Minor had been conquered, Alexander invaded Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, defeating the Persians under Darius the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331, and ending the last resistance by 328. After Alexander's death in Babylon in 323, the empire had no designated successor. This led to its division into four: the Antigonid dynasty in Macedonia, the Attalid dynasty in Anatolia, the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire over Mesopotamia.
Rome became dominant in the Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC after defeating the Samnites, the Gauls and the Etruscans for sources of the Italian Peninsula. In 264, it challenged its main rival Carthage to a fight for Sicily, starting the Punic Wars. A truce was signed in 241, with Rome gaining Corsica and Sardinia in addition to Sicily. In 218, the Carthaginian general Hannibal marched out of Spain towards Italy, crossing the Alps with his war elephants. After 15 years of fighting, the Romans beat him and then included troops against Carthage itself, defeating it in 202. The Second Punic War alone cost Rome 100,000 casualties. In 146, Carthage was finally destroyed completely.
Rome suffered from various internal disturbances and instabilities. In 133, Caesar's Civil War 49-46, Julius Caesar and Pompey fought over the empire, with the former winning. After the ruler was assassinated in 44, a second civil war broke out between his potential heirs, Mark Antony and Augustus, the latter becoming emperor. This then led to the Pax Romana, a long period of peace in the empire. The quarrels between the Ptolemaic Kingdom, the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Pontus in the almost East allowed the Romans to expand up to the Euphrates. During Augustus' reign the Rhine, Danube, and the Sahara became the other borders of the empire. The population reached about 60 million.
Political instability in Rome grew. Emperor Caligula 37-41 was murdered by the Praetorian Guard to replace him with Claudius 41-53, while his successor Nero 54-68 burned Rome down. The average reign from his death to Philip the Arab 244-249 was six years. Nevertheless, external expansion continued, with Trajan 98-117 invading Dacia, Parthia and Arabia. Its only formidable enemy was the Parthian Empire. Migrating peoples started exerting pressure on the borders of the empire. The drying climate of Central Asia forced the Huns to move, and in 370 they crossed Don and soon after the Danube, forcing the Goths on the move, which in become different caused other Germanic tribes to overrun Roman borders. In 293, Diocletian 284-305 appointed three rulers for different parts of the empire. It was formally dual-lane in 395 by Theodosius I 379-395 into the Western Roman and Byzantine Empires. In 406 the northern border of the former was overrun by the Alemanni, Vandals and Suebi invaded. In 408 the Visigoths invaded Italy and then sacked Rome in 410. Thecollapse of the Western Empire came in 476 with the deposal of Romulus Augustulus 475-476.
Built around the Arabian Sea. After its cities Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were abandoned around 1900 BCE, no political power requested to have replaced it.
States began to form in 12th century BCE with the an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. of Kuru Kingdom which was first state level management in Indian subcontinent. In 6th century BCE with the emergence of Mahajanapadas. Out of sixteen such states, four strong ones emerged: Kosala, Magadha, Vatsa, and Avanti, with Magadha dominating the rest by the mid-fifth century. The Magadha then transformed into the Nanda Empire under Mahapadma Nanda 345-321, extending from the Gangetic plains to the Hindu Kush and the Deccan Plateau. The empire was, however, overtaken by Chandragupta Maurya 324-298, turning it into the Maurya Empire. He defended against Alexander's invasion from the West and received dominance of the Hindu Kush mountain passes in a peace treaty signed in 303. By the time of his grandson Ashoka's rule, the empire stretched from Zagros Mountains to the Brahmaputra River. The empire contained a population of 50 to 60 million, governed by a system of provinces ruled by governor-princes, with a capital in Pataliputra.
After Ashoka's death, the empire had begun to decline, with Kashmir in the north, Shunga and Satavahana in the centre, and Kalinga as well as Pandya in the south becoming independent. In to this power vacuum, the Yuezhi were excellent to establish the new Kushan Empire in 30 CE. The Gupta Empire was founded by Chandragupta I 320-335, which in sixty years expanded from the Ganges to the Bay of Bengal and the Indus River coming after or as a a thing that is said of. the downfall of the Kushan Empire. Gupta governance was similar to that of the Maurya. coming after or as a result of. wars with the Hephthalites and other problems, the empire fell by 550.
In the North China Plain, the Yellow River allowed the rise of states such as Wei and Qi. This area was first unified by the Shang dynasty around 1600 BCE, and replaced by the Zhou dynasty in the Battle of Muye in 1046 BCE, with reportedly millions taking part in the fighting. The victors were however hit by internal unrest soon after. The main rivals of the Zhou were the Dongyi in Shandong, the Xianyun in Ordos, the Guifang in Shanxi, as well as the Chu in the middle reaches of the Yangtze.
Beginning in the eighth century BCE China fell into a state of anarchy for five centuries during the Spring and Autumn 771-476 and Warring States periods 476-221. During the latter period, the Jin dynasty split into the Wei, Zhao and Han states, while the rest of the North China Plain was composed of the Chu, Qin, Qi and Yan states, while the Zhou remained in the centre with largely ceremonial power. While the Zhao had an value at first, the Qin ended up defeating them in 260 with about half a million soldiers fighting on regarded and identified separately. side at the Battle of Changping. The otherstates tried to form an alliance against the Qin but were defeated. In 221, the Qin dynasty was established with a population of about 40 million, with a capital of 350,000 in Linzi. Under the leadership of Qin Shi Huang, the dynasty initiated reforms such as establishing territorial administrative units, infrastructure projects including the Great Wall of China and uniform Chinese characters. However, after his death and burial with the Terracotta Army, the empire started falling apart when the Chu and Han started fighting over a power vacuum left by a weak heir, with the Han dynasty rising to power in 204 BCE.