History of Turkey

                        Turkey's first known human inhabitants hung out in the Mediterranean region
                        as early as 7500 BC, and the cycles of empire building, flexing, flailing and
                        crumbling didn't take long to kick in. The first great civilisation was that of the
                        Hittites, who worshipped a sun goddess and a storm god. The Hittites
                        dominated Anatolia from the Middle Bronze Age (1900-1600 BC), clashing
                        with Egypt under the great Ramses II and capturing Syria, but by the time
                        Achaean Greeks attacked Troy in 1250 BC, the Hittite machine was
                        creaking. A massive invasion of 'sea peoples' from Greek islands and
                        city-states put untenable pressure on the Hittites and a jumble of smaller
                        kingdoms (amongst them Phrygians, Urartians and Lydians) played at border
                        bending until Cyrus, emperor of Persia (550-530 BC) swept into Anatolia
                        from the east. The Persians were booted out by Alexander the Great, who
                        conquered the entire Middle East from Greece to India around 330 BC. After
                        Alexander died his generals squabbled over the spoils and civil war was
                        the norm until the Galatians (Celts) established a capital at Ankara in 279 BC,
                        bedding down more or less comfortably with the Seleucid, Pontic,
                        Pergamum and Armenian kingdoms.

                        Roman rule brought relative peace and prosperity for almost three centuries,
                        providing perfect conditions for the spread of Christianity. St Paul tramped
                        Anatolia, spreading the word, St John is thought to have written the fourth
                        gospel in Ephesus and mother Mary is said to have retired to a cottage
                        nearby. The Roman Empire weakened from around 250 AD until Constantine
                        reunited it in 324. He oversaw the building of a new capital, the great city
                        which came to be called Constantinople. Justinian (527-65) brought the
                        eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire to its greatest strength, reconquering
                        Italy, the Balkans, Anatolia and North Africa, but five years after his death,
                        Muhammed was born in Mecca and the scene was set for one of history's
                        most astounding tales. Sixty years after Mohammed heard the voice of God,
                        and 50 years after his ignominious flight from Mecca, the armies of Islam
                        were threatening the walls of Constantinople (669-78), having conquered
                        everything and everybody from there to Mecca, plus Persia and Egypt. The
                        Islamic dynasties which emerged after Mohammed challenged the power
                        and status of Byzantium from this time, but the Great Seljuk Turkish Empire
                        of the 11th century was the first to rule what is now Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
                        The Seljuks were shaken by the Crusades and overrun by Mongol hordes,
                        but they hung onto power until the vigorous, ambitious Ottomans came
                        along.
                        The Ottoman Empire began as the banding together of late 13th century
                        Turkish warriors fleeing the Mongols. By 1453 the Ottomans under Mehmet
                        the Conqueror were strong enough to take Constantinople. Sultan Sleyman
                        the Magnificent (1520-66) oversaw the apogee of the empire: beautifying
                        Constantinople, rebuilding Jerusalem and expanding the Ottomap to the
                        gates of Vienna. But few of the sultans succeeding Sleyman were capable
                        of great rule and the Ottoman Empire's long, celebrated decline had begun
                        by 1585. By the 19th century, decline and misrule made ethnic nationalism
                        very appealing. The subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire revolted, often
                        with the direct encouragement and assistance of European powers. After
                        bitter fighting in 1832, the Kingdom of Greece was formed; the Serbs,
                        Bulgarians, Rumanians, Albanians, Armenians and Arabs would all seek
                        independence soon after. The European powers hovered vulture-like over
                        the disintegrating empire, while within Turkey various disastrous attempts to
                        revivify, modernise and consolidate the country were finally undone by the
                        unfortunate decision to side with Germany in WWI. In 1918, the victorious
                        Allies set to carving up Turkey. It didn't look good.

                        An Ottoman general, Mustafa Kemal, had begun organising resistance, sure
                        that a new government must seize the fate of Turkey for the Turkish people.
                        When Greece invaded Smyrna and began pushing east, the Turks were
                        first shocked and then galvanised into action. The War of Independence
                        lasted from 1920 to 1922, ending in a bitterly won Turkish victory and the
                        abolition of the sultanate. Mustafa Kemal (Atatrk or Father Turk) undertook
                        the job of completely remaking Turkish society. By the time he died in 1938, a
                        constitution had been adopted, polygamy abolished and the fez, mark of
                        Ottoman backwardness, was prohibited. Islam was removed as the state
                        religion, Constantinople became Istanbul and women obtained the right to
                        vote and to serve in parliament. Atatrk remains a true hero in Turkey: his
                        statue is everywhere and there are laws against defaming or insulting him.

                        Atatrk's successor, Ismet Inn managed a precarious neutrality in WWII, then
                        oversaw Turkey through the transition to a true democracy. The opposition
                        Democratic Party won the election in 1950. In 1960, and again in 1970, an
                        overreaching Democratic Party was brought back into line by watchful army
                        officers, who deemed the government's autocratic ways a violation of the
                        constitution. In 1980 political infighting and civil unrest brought the country to
                        a halt. Left and right fringe groups caused havoc, supported on the one
                        hand by the Soviet bloc and on the other by fanatical Muslim groups. In the
                        centre, the two major political parties were deadlocked so badly that for
                        months they couldn't elect a parliamentary president. The military stepped in
                        again, to general relief, but at the price of strict control and some human
                        rights abuses.

                        The head of the military government, General Kenan Evren, resigned his
                        military commission and became Turkey's new president. Free elections in
                        1983 saw Turgut zal's centre-right party take power and oversee a
                        business boom which lasted through the 1980s. Ozal's untimely death in 1993
                        removed a powerful, innovative force from Turkish politics and set the
                        scene for uncertainty to seep back in: the rest of the decade has seen
                        unstable coalitions formed between unlikely bedfellows and resurgent
                        support for the religious right. In early 1998, Turkey's Constitutional Court
                        banned the Islamic-oriented Welfare Party, and along with it, previous PM
                        Necmettin Erbakan. The Welfare Party was found to be working to
                        undermine Turkey's secular democratic basis. After 1999 elections DSP
                        became major party and its president Bulent Ecevit became P.M.
 

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