First residents
The first settlers of present-day Afghanistan date from the Middle Palaeolithic. The first cities would appear with the Sortugai culture in the 4th century BC. n. and.
From the second century on, various Iranian and Aryan tribes settled on Afghan soil and later, Cyrus the Great incorporated it into the Persian Empire, organizing it into five satrapies, contributing to an unprecedented splendor and embracing the religion of Zoroaster, as well as the contribution of its residents to military campaigns against the Greeks.
Alexander the Great allowed the Bactrian natives to maintain their socio-political structures, making it possible to cross-culturally between the Persian and the Hellenic.
Islamic rule
After periods of Hindu, Aryan and Persian domination, Afghans adopted Islam as their religion. In 1221 Genghis Khan’s troops conquered the country, the Mongols ruled until 1360. The country fell under Timur Lenk (Tamerlane), the Turkish conqueror of Islamic faith, whose descendants ruled Khurasan until the beginning of the 16th century.
With the formation of the third Shiite Persian Empire (1502) and the Great Mughal Empire in India (1526), the region became the scene of constant fighting between the Mongols, who dominated Kabu, the Persians of the Safavid Dynasty who controlled the region south and the Uzbek descendants of Tamerlane, who dominated the northwest. Out of these convulsions arose, in 1747, the unification of the country, when an assembly of local chiefs elected Ahmad Durrani shah, a military chief who had been in the service of the Persian sovereigns. The new shah had to materialize this unity by military means, consolidating national borders, which would be threatened by the expansionist thrust of tsarist Russia and the interests of England, which controlled India.
Anglo-Afghan Wars
The first Anglo-Afghan War (1839 – 1842) ended with the defeat of the British Empire. As a result of the second Anglo-Afghan War (1878 – 1880), the Durrani Dynasty was deposed and Afghanistan stripped of the territories located south of the Khybe. The country thus lost the management of its foreign policy. In 1893, the Durand Line, which was not presented as a division of borders, delimited areas of responsibility for the maintenance of law and order between British India and the Emir Abdor Rahaman Khan, who ruled from Kabul.
In 1919, after a third Anglo-Afghan War, which this time lasted four months, as a country located in Asia according to AREACODESEXPLORER, Afghanistan was liberated from the British protectorate. The 27 of March of 1919 the Soviet government was the first government in the world that recognized the independence and sovereignty of Afghanistan, while developed third Anglo-Afghan war. At the end of this war, Great Britain was forced to sign a peace treaty with Afghanistan, thus recognizing its independence for the first time.
Kingdom of Afghanistan
Between 1919 and 1929, the relationship with the USSR was friendly and fruitful, especially for Afghanistan. In fact, numerous Soviet technicians and instructors came to the country to set up the telephone and telegraph; prepare young Afghan technicians and train the first pilots of the fledgling Afghan Air Force.
The British repeatedly demanded the severing of diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and the USSR. In 1923 they presented to the USSR the so-called “Curzón ultimatum”, one of whose main demands was to revoke the Soviet diplomatic personnel in Afghanistan.
In January 1929, Bachha-i-Saqao occupied Kabul, overthrew the Government and proclaimed himself Emir of Afghanistan with the support and funding of the British Empire. In its number of the 28 of February of 1929, the British newspaper ” Daily Mail ” ” wrote Humphreys, a representative of Britain in Kabul, “helped the strongman of the time (Bachha-i-Saqao) to seize power .
Mohammad Nadir Shah |
Bachha-i-Saqao was led from the throne by Mohammad Nadir Khan and his brothers. The October of October of 1929 was executed along with 17 of his colleagues and immediately a tribal assembly “elected” Nadir Khan as “Sah”. He began a bloody persecution of the opposition to his regime and supporters of the previous government. In 1931, a new Constitution was drafted based on the previous one from 1923, albeit aimed at placating conservative religious and tribal leaders. The 8 as November as 1933 Mohammed Nadir Shah is assassinated by a student during a diploma ceremony, succeeded by his son Mohammed Zahir Shah, who today is considered by Afghans as Father of the Nation (officially recognized in 2002).
Zahir Shah |
The young King Zahir Sha entrusted the formation of the government to his uncle Mohammed Hashem, promoter of a new policy of reforms more in line with social reality: reorganization of the army, compulsory primary education for men, creation of secondary schools and extension – with the help of Turkish doctors who created a medical school – of hygiene measures throughout the country.
The new government turned to the United States to explore the country’s natural resources and to build irrigation and communication systems. The Afghan government offered favorable incentives to US business enterprises (such as very favorable contracts) to achieve rapid development in unproductive geographic areas, such as the Hilmand Valley in the south of the country.
The first 20 years of Zahir Shah’s reign were characterized by cautious policies of national consolidation, an expansion of international relations, and the country’s internal development. The Second World War caused delays in the development process, but Afghanistan maintained its traditional neutrality, although in 1941 agreed to expel the Germans, Japanese and Italian citizens, removing any pretext for an eventual foreign occupation.
Starting in the 1950s, the leadership of Lieutenant General Mohamed Daúd Kan, cousin and brother-in-law of the King who was appointed Prime Minister in 1953, stands out. Daúd Kan nationalized services, built irrigation systems, roads, schools, and hydroelectric dams with financial aid from the United States, reorganized the military with Soviet aid, and was neutral in the Cold War. In addition, it abolished the mandatory use of the chador (veil) for women, and the purdah, the prohibition of women being seen in public.
Starting in 1955, faced with the threat posed by Pakistan, thousands of Afghans were regularly sent to study in the Soviet Union and, mainly, to receive military training.
