US: New Expeditionary Force in Afghanistan

Pentagon says it will maintain 25,000 troops in Afghanistan in 2008 to counter Taliban insurgency

"I learn from my mistakes. I repeat them with my eyes closed." Woody Allen's saying fits glove into US foreign policy. The Pentagon has said it plans to maintain a reinforced 25,000-strong contingent of troops in Afghanistan over the next year to counter the Taliban insurgency. The 101st Airborne Division will consist of a general staff and a combat brigade that will replace the units that will return to the US. "This plan reflects the continued commitment of the United States to maintain two expeditionary forces in Afghanistan and to deploy new troops to support NATO forces if needed."Pentagon spokesman Brian Whitman said: "Despite the needs of US forces in Iraq, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decided in January to strengthen the US military presence in Afghanistan. If victory over the Taliban and Saddam was an easy task, the consolidation of US power in Afghanistan and Iraq proves to be a maze from which the superpower can not emerge without diminishing its prestige. sends troops and receives coffins, pursuing a dead-end policy.

Outstanding Facts in Turkey

2016: July 15
In Turkey, on Friday night, sectors of the armed forces carry out a coup and decree martial law. Almost seven hours later, in the early hours of Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears before the media to declare the coup quelled, warning that "those involved will pay a high price." Thus begins an unprecedented purge of the military, police, education and justice. In the next few days, tens of thousands of people will be detained and thousands of judges will be removed from office. (5 years ago)

2001: November 24
The Turkish National Assembly ratifies the amendments to Article 41 of the Constitution to provide for the equality of spouses in marriage. Several notable changes in the Civil Code reflect the new approach to gender equality, for example, the husband is no longer the head of the family and the spouses are partners at the same time, jointly managing the union with equal decision-making power. (19 years ago)

1999: August 17
In northwestern Turkey and shortly after 3 in the morning, an earthquake of more than 7.4 degrees on the Richter scale, hits the area where a third of the country's population lives and where, in addition, the half of your valuable industry. In Izmit, just over 100 km from the capital, the epicenter has taken place. 17,000 people die immediately when their houses collapse on them, as many will die in the following days from dehydration or exhaustion. The material damage will amount to more than 6,000 million dollars. (22 years ago)

1930: March 28
Built as Byzantium around 657 BC, renamed in the 4th century AD as Constantinople after Constantine the Great made it his capital, today, this Turkish city, is officially called Istanbul due, in great measure measure to common use, since during the Ottoman period the Turks called it Istanbul, alteration of the phrase in Greek language "eis-tan-pólei", which literally means "to go to the city". (91 years ago)

1923: October 29
After abolishing the sultanate of the Ottoman Empire on November 1 of the previous year and overthrowing Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin, the Turkish Republic was established with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as its first president. (98 years ago)

1923: July 24
The Treaty of Lausanne (Switzerland) is signed, which establishes the borders of Turkey, a Republic born after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. (98 years ago)

1922: November 1
In Turkey, once the external threats are resolved, Kemal Ataturk leads a coup that abolishes the sultanate, ending the Ottoman empire. Already as president, Ataturk will create a modern secular state, with a broad program of reforms, which will include the abolition of the caliphate, the adoption of penal codes, Western clothing and calendar, the Latin alphabet, etc. (99 years ago)

1916: January 8
In the Gallipoli peninsula (Turkey), in the framework of the First World War, or Great War, after 11 months of bloody and ineffective advances in which 250,000 allied soldiers and as many Turks die, the British and French forces withdraw putting end to the catastrophic invasion of the Ottoman Empire. The Gallipoli peninsula, the key entrance to the Sea of Marmara, has been, during these 11 months, the scene of a terrible massacre when the Allies attacked the Turkish positions in February 1915. The Allied battleships showed their might over the artillery of Turkish land, but the naval mines decimated the Allied fleet and forced the commanders' decision to a land battle. (105 years ago)

1914: November 5
The Triple Entente of the Allied Powers (France, Russia and Great Britain) declares war on the Ottoman Empire. (107 years ago)

1885: June 7
In Constantinople (Turkey), a devastating and gigantic fire consumes more than 300 buildings in ash. (136 years ago)

1883: June 5
It leaves from the East Station in Paris (France), bound for Istanbul (Turkey), a luxury fast train, which will soon be known as the "Orient Express". The entire journey, of more than 3,000 kilometers, will take about 72 hours in glamorous carriages, with sophisticated and comfortable compartments, for millionaire passengers and members of the wealthy European aristocracy. (138 years ago)

1853: November 30
During the Crimean War, the Russians destroy the Turkish fleet located in the port of Sinope (present-day Turkey), on the Black Sea, provoking vigorous protests from Great Britain and France. By ignoring Russia, these two European powers will end up declaring war on it in March 1854. (167 years ago)

1829: September 14
The "Treaty of Andrinópolis" is signed, by means of which the great powers manage to stop the victorious march of the Russian troops on the city of Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire recognizes the political independence of the Greeks in return. (192 years ago)

1787: August 13
Turkey declares war on Russia, following Catherine II's rejection of the ultimatum given by Turkey to abandon its "protectorate" of Crimea. (234 years ago)

1770: July 6
The Russians destroy the Ottoman fleet in the naval battle of Cesme, off the Anatolian coast, accelerating Catherine II's policy of dismembering the Turkish empire. (251 years ago)

1687: November 8
The Janissaries, the elite of the Ottoman army, with an increasingly independent and influential power, overthrow Mehmet IV, and elect Suleiman III sultan of the Ottoman Empire. (334 years ago)

1509: September 14
A strong earthquake completely destroys one of the most populated neighborhoods in Constantinople (Turkey), killing more than 13,000 people and exacerbating the decline in which the ancient Byzantine capital is plunged. A special tax will be established to cover reconstruction work and more wooden houses will be built. (512 years ago)

1453: May 29
After two months of siege and unequal fighting, Constantinople (the largest city in Turkey today) falls. At dawn, 200,000 men under the command of the monarch Mehmet II assault the city defended by 7,000 soldiers. The fall of the city will radically modify the prevailing relationship of forces in the world and will momentarily isolate Europe from trade routes with Asia. (568 years ago)

1453: April 6
The Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, with an army of about 100,000 men and ten artillery batteries, including three huge cannons, begins the siege of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). The artillery will subject the walls to an almost constant bombardment. After several skirmishes, finally, on May 29 the final attack will begin and at sunset the Janissaries will manage to break through the walls destroyed by artillery next to the door of San Romano and the Turkish flag will fly in the, until that moment, impassable walls of Constantinople. (568 years ago)

1423: September 6
In present-day Turkey, Sultan Osmanlí Amurates II orders all his brothers to be strangled to get rid of his rivals to the succession to the throne. (598 years ago)

1402: July 28
Near Ankara, in present-day Turkey, Tamerlane defeats and captures the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I. After this victory the Mongols will occupy Smyrna, where they will destroy the garrison of the Hospitallers, and will reach the Bosphorus Strait. (619 years ago)

1205: April 14
In today's Turkey, on the plains of Adrianople, the scene of fierce battles for centuries to conquer Constantinople, the battle of the same name takes place in which the Bulgarians almost completely destroy the Frankish army, managing to capture their Emperor Baudouin I, from whom it will never be heard again, thus ending the goal of conquering the Byzantine Empire. (816 years ago)

1204: May 16
At the Hagia Sophia in present-day Istanbul, Turkey, Baudouin IX is crowned the first Latin emperor as Baldwin I. The Latin Empire replaces the Byzantine Empire as successor to the Roman Empire in the east, with a Western Catholic emperor in place. of the Eastern Orthodox emperors. This Empire will not achieve political and economic domination over the other Latin fiefdoms and will go into decline until its end in 1261. (817 years ago)

1204: April 12
Alexius V, the last Greek emperor of a united Byzantium and who has led the defense of Constantinople with great courage, flees the city when he sees the desperate situation due to the siege to which the Fourth Crusade is subjecting it, which this very day will conquer the city. (817 years ago)

1098: June 3
The troops of the First Crusade, who in the early hours of the 2nd to the 3rd captured Antioch (Turkey), organize a massacre of the entire Turkish population that is exterminated, without sparing the lives of the elderly, women or children who inhabit the city. The looting and pillaging will continue until late in the afternoon of the following day. Subsequently, on November 5, Antioch will be assigned to Bohemond of Tarentum, becoming part of the Principality of Antioch, in the midst of the opposition of Raymond IV of Tolosa, who will be the only one who will insist on fulfilling the oath of fidelity taken to the emperor Alexius I, but that the other crusaders will refuse to comply, as the emperor did not give them the promised help during the siege of the city. (923 years ago)

1097: October 21
The crusaders, led by Geoffrey of Bouillon, Bohemond of Tarentum, and Raymond IV of Tolosa, begin the siege of Antioch (present-day Turkey), a city that they will conquer on June 2, 1098. (924 years ago)

1097: July 1
After the siege of Nicea on June 19, the crusader army of Bohemond of Tarentum advanced towards Jerusalem when, at dawn today, in Dorilea (Anatolia, Turkey), it was attacked by surprise by the soldiers of Kilij Arslan I, leading to the Battle of Dorilea. Godfrey de Bouillon will break the Turkish line and defeat the Muslim army thanks to the later help of Adhemar de Le Puy, who will attack from the rear. (924 years ago)

1097: June 19
At dawn on this day, after a siege that began on May 14, the crusaders wake up observing the Byzantine banners raised on the walls of the city of Nicea (in present-day Turkey), as Sultan Kilij Arslan I surrendered to the Byzantine Emperor Alejo I. Thus the taking of this city takes place during the First Crusade that passes to the power of the crusaders. In a week, on the 26th, the Crusaders will hand over the custody of Nicaea to the Byzantines and set out for Antioch, halfway between Constantinople and Jerusalem, where they will begin another long siege. (924 years ago)

1071: August 26
At the Battle of Manzikert (present-day Turkey), the Seljuk Turks under the command of Alp Arslan defeat the Byzantine troops and capture the Roman Emperor IV Diogenes, who is brought before Alp Arslán who is magnanimous in victory and sets him free. after signing a peace treaty in acceptable conditions: Romano will pay a million coins and deliver Manzikert, Edessa, Manjib and Antioch, which will mark the beginning of the fall of the Byzantine Empire by opening the doors of Anatolia to the Turkish push and the repopulation of numerous areas of Asia Minor. In exchange for this, both empires will remain at peace. Once Roman IV died, Alp Arslam will consider that the deal agreed by both after the battle of Manzikert will have expired and he will feel liberated to continue attacking the Byzantine Empire. (950 years ago)

963: August 16
Nicephorus II "Phocas", prominent general, is crowned Emperor of the Byzantine Empire in Santa Sofia by Patriarch Polyeuctus, after the premature death of Roman II, probably by poisoning. In 969 he was assassinated in a plot in which his wife and nephew Juan Tzimisces participated. (1058 years ago)

867: September 23
In Byzantium, present-day Turkey, after assassinating his protector, Emperor Michael III, Basilio I, a native of Macedonia, ascended to the throne, thus founding the so-called Macedonian dynasty. During his reign, the Byzantine Empire will expand territorially and will become the greatest power in Europe of its time, achieving important victories over its enemies who threaten its borders. Basilio will also initiate a reform of the legal codes, which will end with his son León VI. He will die with high fevers due to a hunting accident in 886. (1154 years ago)

717: August 15
The second Arab siege of the city begins in Constantinople (Turkey), one of the largest Islamic campaigns against the Byzantine Empire that for 12 months will surround the capital of the empire with a great army that by land and sea. Had it succeeded, it could have spelled the end of Europe as we know it. (1304 years ago)

532: January 11
In Byzantium (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) the rebellion of Nika broke out, shaking the throne of Emperor Justinian I, when General Hypatio was proclaimed emperor by the people. This same day, with the fortitude of the Empress Theodora, the troops of Belisarius arrest and execute him. In a week, on January 18, the final triumph of Justinian I over the popular revolt will take place, allowing him to face a vast plan of internal reforms and military expansion in the West. The rebels will be mercilessly slaughtered. (1489 years ago)

475: January 9
A revolt instigated by Verina in favor of her brother Basilisco, forces the Byzantine emperor Zeno to flee from his capital in Constantinople (present-day Turkey). The emperor will hide in a fortress in Antioch where he will spend the next year and a half recruiting an army to march on Constantinople in August 476. Then chaos will reign in the capital where Basilisk is little loved so the entry into the city will take place practically without opposition being Zeno restored to the throne. (1546 years ago)

457: February 7
Supported by the head of the Gothic militias, Leo I the Great (401-474) ascends to the throne of Byzantium, who will establish the divine nature of the Eastern emperors. During his reign, the Balkans will be devastated by the Ostrogoths and the Huns. In October 473, he designated his grandson, Leo II as his successor, dying four months later. (1564 years ago)

451: October 8
Under the authority of Pope Saint Leo I the Great, the ecumenical council of Chalcedon (modern Turkey) begins in which the two natures of Jesus Christ are proclaimed in one person: divine and human. (1570 years ago)

382: October 3
In Constantinople (present-day Turkey), the Roman emperor Theodosius I signs peace with the Visigoths, by which, and with subsidies paid by the imperial government, they are allowed to settle south of the banks of the Danube River with the commitment to fight by the Empire when required. (1639 years ago)

378: August 9
The Battle of Adrianople (in present-day Turkey) takes place when the Visigoths face the Roman army of 60,000 troops led by the Emperor Valente, who falls dead in the battle, along with 40,000 other Romans. After this battle the barbarians will notice the weakness of Rome and will continue to make frequent incursions into Roman territory, being the beginning, to a certain extent, of the decline of the Empire, which after the sack of Rome in 410 by Alaric's troops, will culminate with the final fall at 476. (1643 years ago)

335: September 19
In Byzantium (present-day Turkey), Flavius Dalmatius, censor and nephew of Constantine I the Great, is elevated to the rank of Caesar, with control of Thrace, Aquea and Macedonia. He will be killed by his own soldiers in the late summer of 337. (1686 years ago)

330: May 11
After six years of work, and still without finishing the works, Emperor Constantine the Great proclaims Byzantium (Constantinople, present-day Istanbul, in Turkey) as the new capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, an act that will help transform it into one of the main cities of the world. (1691 years ago)

325: August 25
In the kingdom of Bithynia, the Council of Nicea (city of Asia Minor in Turkey) concludes, the first ecumenical council of the Christian church convened by Emperor Constantine I the Great, to put an end to the Arianism controversy, reaching the conclusion of that the Son of God possesses the same nature as God the Father. From this Council will emerge the "Nicene Creed", which is the most universally accepted Christian creed. (1696 years ago)

324: September 18
In the Battle of Chrysopolis (current Uskudar, Turkey) the final encounter between Constantine the Great and Licinius takes place, who is defeated and captured, establishing the exclusive control of Constantine over the Roman Empire. (1697 years ago)

321: March 7
From Constantinople, present-day Turkey, Constantine I the Great, to reinforce his imperial authority for administrative purposes against Licinius, decrees by edict that the "dies solis" (current Sunday) will be a holiday, gradually entering the traditions of the Church, replacing thus to Saturday, until then the most guarded by Christians. On November 3, 383, another emperor, Theodosius I, established that the day of rest, the "dies solis", would be renamed "dies dominicus." (1700 years ago)

313: June 13
In Nicomedia (present day Izmit, Anatolia, Turkey), the Roman emperor Flavio Galerio Valerio Licinius Licinius publishes what later will be known like "Edict of Milan" admitting the freedom of worship of all the religions in the territories of the Empire. In this way Christianity is legalized, although this edict does not make it the official religion of the Empire, but it does grant Christians the same rights as other citizens. (1708 years ago)

69aC: October 6
In Tigranocerta, former capital of the Armenian Empire (in present-day Turkey), the Battle of Triganocerta takes place where the Roman forces, commanded by the consul Lucius Licinius Lucullus, defeat the army of Tigranes II, which doubles them in number, and takes the capital after the battle. (2090 years ago)

356BC: July 21
In Ephesus, an ancient town in Asia Minor, near the current city of Smyrna, in Turkey, the Temple of Artemis is burned by the arsonist shepherd Erostratus, who does so seeking a path to personal fame at any cost. With its destruction, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World disappears, and a place of worship visited by thousands of worshipers from all over the known world. (2377 years ago)

1906: January 20
Born in Izmir (Turkey) Aristotle Onassis, businessman in the shipping industry and Greek billionaire. (115 years ago)

1792: December 12
Born in Constantinople (Turkey) Alejandro Ypsilantis, who will be the leader of the secret society for the independence of Greece, Philikí Hetairía. In 1821, he will fight against the Ottoman domination, and will enter Moldavia, in Turkish hands, with a small army. In 1822, his brother Dimitros convened an assembly proclaiming the independence of Greece in the theater of Epidaurus. (228 years ago)

1642: January 2
In the Topkapi Palace of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), capital of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV was born, son of Ibrahim I. At just 6 years old, in 1648, he ascended to the throne as sultan, marking the end of a very unstable time for the Ottoman dynasty. In 1687 he was overthrown by the Janissaries and replaced by his brother Suleiman II. (379 years ago)

1566: May 26
Mehmed III, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1595 until his death in 1603, was born in Manisa, Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey). Frivolous and idle ruler, he will order the strangulation of his 19 brothers to achieve the succession. (455 years ago)

1524: May 28
In the city of Istanbul (Turkey), the one who will be sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death was born: Selim II. Son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his favorite Aleksandra, he will come to the throne through palace intrigues and family disputes. He will be the first sultan who will not continue with the military campaigns and will leave power in the hands of his ministers, to be left alone during their revelries and orgies. For this reason he will be known as Selim "the Beodo". (497 years ago)

1432: March 30
In Edirne (Turkey), capital of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed II, nicknamed "the Conqueror", was born, son of Murad II, who will be the Ottoman Sultan of the Osmanli dynasty between 1451 and 1481. In 1453 he will take Constantinople, which will mean the end of the Byzantine Empire. He will establish the borders of his empire on the Danube. (589 years ago)

905: September 2
In Constantinople, present-day Istanbul (Turkey), he was born who from 912, and first under the regency of his uncle Alexander, and after his mother Zoé and later dominated by his father-in-law, and until his death in 959, will be Emperor Byzantine under the name of Constantine VII. It will continue the wars against the Muslims of Mesopotamia and Syria, stop the advance of the Hungarians and maintain diplomatic relations with Russia. He will be known as a scholar and writer. (1116 years ago)

Reported deaths in Turkey
2006: November 5
In Ankara, the capital of Turkey, the Turkish politician Bulent Ecevit, a secular and modernist mindset, and close from a young age to the Turkish left, died of a stroke. He was Prime Minister of his country several times and champion of the renewal and modernization of Turkey in order to achieve the approach to the Western model. (15 years ago)

1938: November 10
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, President of the Republic and sponsor of the secularization of Islamic society, dies in Turkey. (83 years ago) 1774: January 21In Costantinople, Turkey, the caliph and sultan of the Ottoman empire Mustafa III, who attempted government and military reforms aimed at halting the fall of the empire, passed away. In spite of everything, his reign has been characterized by the loss of power and territories. His brother Abdul Hamid will succeed him. (247 years ago)

1574: December 12
In the city of Istanbul (Turkey), Selim II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death today, dies. He was one of the sons of Suleiman the Magnificent and his favorite Aleksandra. After acceding to the throne through palace intrigues and family disputes, he became the first sultan who did not want to continue with the military campaigns, delegating control to his ministers, in exchange for being left free for his great revelries and orgies. So he was known as Selim "the Beodo". (446 years ago)

1448: October 31
In Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire (now Turkey), Emperor Juan VIII Palaiologos, son of Manuel II, dies. In his fight against the Ottoman Turks, he requested military support in the West and tried to contain the fall of the Empire by uniting the Greek and Roman churches at the Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1439. (573 years ago)

1425: July 21
The Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, who during his reign suffered border pressure from the Ottoman Turks under the command of Sultan Bayezid, dies in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), the Byzantine emperor since 1391, a situation that was appeased by the appearance of the Turkish-Mongolian Tamerlane. who went to war against Bayezid. Thanks to his great diplomatic work, the final conquest of the Byzantine Empire at the hands of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II will be delayed until 1453. (596 years ago)

1282: December 11
In Turkish Thrace, along the shores of the Sea of Marmara, Michael VIII, emperor of Byzantium since 1261 and founder of the Palaiologos dynasty that will rule until the end of the Byzantine empire in 1453, dies. (738 years ago)

1190: June 10
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa), whose reign represents the heyday of the Holy Roman Empire by consolidating imperial power, both within Germany and in northern Italy, and introducing a unified legislative body, again resorting to law Roman, falls from his horse and suffocates from the weight of his armor while trying to cross the Saleph River in Anatolia, present-day Turkey, during the Third Crusade to the Holy Land. (831 years ago)

1133: February 19
In Constantinople, Irene Ducas, Byzantine empress, married to Emperor Alexios I at the age of fifteen, died. He had nine children, including John II Komnenos, who succeeded his father to the Byzantine throne in 1118, and the historian Ana Komnenos. (888 years ago)

1056: August 31
In Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey), the Empress Teodora Porfirogeneta died suddenly without leaving an heir, thus ending the Macedonian dynasty. Power struggles will be unleashed between various noble families that will last until 1081 when Alexios I begins the dynasty of the Comnenos. (965 years ago)

1034: April 11
The Roman Emperor of Byzantium Romano III is assassinated in Constantinople (present-day Turkey), probably by order of his wife Zoé, for ignoring a plot that his sister Theodora was preparing to overthrow them. In life he tried to win over his subjects with a tax reduction policy that put the empire's coffers in serious difficulties. (987 years ago)

711: November 4
On the outskirts of Damatrys, Bithynia, present-day Turkey, Justinian II, emperor of the Romans, is executed for two separate periods, from 685 to 695 and from 705 to 711. Justinian II, who had assumed command of the empire in 685 with just 16 years ago, he soon revealed his lust for power characteristic of the Heraclian dynasty, exercising an aggressive despotism. This led to a revolt that in 695, the intermediate period, reached its peak, being overthrown and occupied by the usurping generals Leoncio and Tiberio III. Leontius ordered Justinian's nose to be cut off to incapacitate him as emperor. In spite of everything, in 705 Justianiano regained power by pursuing his enemies with blood and fire and murdering hundreds of people in the capital, accused of possible collaborations against him. So much nonsense took its toll and, finally, on this day, an officer cuts off his head, which he will send to Rome and Ravenna to be exhibited. His son Tiberius will also be assassinated, putting an end, in this tragic way, to the Heracleian dynasty. (1310 years ago)

565: November 14
Justinian I the Great, emperor of the Romans from August 1, 527 until his death, dies in Constaninople, present-day Turkey. He wanted to restore the old empire. (1456 years ago)

548: June 28
The empress Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian I, died of cancer in Constantinople who, with her determined attitude, saved her husband's life and throne during the Nika uprising in 532. As a co-regent with her husband, she had great He influenced the politics of the Eastern Empire and was in charge of enacting various laws to protect the rights of women. She was originally a circus actress and Justiniano, to marry, had to annul the existing prohibition against marriages between the nobility and former actresses. (1473 years ago)

450: July 28
After reigning for 42 years, the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire Theodosius II died in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey). During his tenure, his Empire warred against the Huns and Persians, ordered the construction of the Walls of Constantinople, and two important Christological controversies took place with Nestorians and Eutychians. Also, in the year 429 he dictated the compilation of the laws in force known as the "Theodosian Code" that finally saw the light in the year 438. (1571 years ago)

337: May 22
Constantine I the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, and the first of them converted to Christianity, died in Ancycrona (present-day Turkey). He founded Constantinople (modern Istanbul), as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. (1684 years ago)

Outstanding Events in Afghanistan

2021: August 15
After 20 years of war, with the Taliban taking over Kabul, with practically no resistance following the flight of President Ghani and the abandonment of Western international troops, Afghanistan becomes an Islamic State. (Less than a year ago)

2004: October 9
In Afghanistan, the first presidential elections are held after the fall of the Taliban regime with a very high turnout and without major logistical or security problems. Confirming the forecasts, Hamid Karzai, who has been acting president of the Afghan transitional administration since December 2001, proclaims himself the winner with more than 55% of the votes. Among strong security measures, he will take office on December 7 in the capital, Kabul, in an act that will be attended by 150 international leaders announcing, a few days later, the formation of a new government. (17 years ago)

2001: December 7
The Taliban regime relinquishes its stronghold of Kandahar, marking the beginning of the end of the 61-day war in Afghanistan, after Taliban fighters have laid down their weapons after weeks of bombardment by US planes. Karzai, the head of Afghanistan's new interim administration, has helped ensure the surrender of the hardliners in this Taliban stronghold. (19 years ago)

2001: November 13
In response to the bloody terrorist attacks of September 11 in New York, Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, whose Taliban regime has provided support and refuge to Al Qaeda, is captured by the anti-Taliban forces, called the Northern Alliance, led by states. United. (20 years ago)

2001: September 11
The most barbaric and stark terrorism shakes the heart of the West. The Twin Towers of New York (USA) are reduced to rubble when they hit two previously hijacked airliners. The Pentagon is also seriously damaged by a third hijacked plane. A fourth plane crashes in Pennsylvania after its passengers mutiny against hijackers. It is the worst attack suffered by the United States in its more than two hundred years of history. The result 2,997 dead and missing. Islamist terrorism is behind the action. The answer will materialize in a war in Afghanistan. (20 years ago)

1989: February 15
Following the orders of President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union withdraws its last occupation troops from neighboring Afghanistan, after staying there since 1979. More than 15,000 Soviet soldiers have lost their lives. (32 years ago)

1979: December 27
International tension heats up when Soviet Union troops break into Afghanistan, swiftly attack Hafizullah Amin's presidential palace, and execute him. In just six days 55,000 soldiers will make an appearance in the Islamic country without being prepared for a guerrilla war, with heavy weapons almost useless to fight in the mountains, thus initiating an occupation that will last until 1988 and that will cause more of 15,000 Soviet casualties, about 18,000 Afghans and about 80,000 mujahideen (within Islam, the one who makes the "holy war"). (41 years ago)

1934: September 26
Afghanistan is admitted as a member of the League of Nations. (87 years ago)

1879: May 26
In Afghanistan, the Gandamak peace treaty is signed, imposing a British semi-protectorate over Afghanistan. (142 years ago)

1842: January 6
After long years of fighting between the British army and Afghan Muslim nationalists, Afghanistan consolidates its independence by forcing British imperial forces to retreat to India. (179 years ago)

Outstanding Facts in Albania

1946: January 11
The Albanian Constituent Assembly, which has been elected the previous month, proclaims the People's Republic of Albania. A new constitution and a new government will be promulgated in March, headed by Enver Hoxha. The communist regime will initiate a wide campaign of purges to eliminate the opponents and initiate the socialization of the State. (75 years ago)

1912: November 28
In Vlorë, nationalist Albanian delegates, led by Ismail Qemali, proclaim the independence of Albania and the formation of an independent government, raising the Albanian flag in the city, after forming the Albanian National Congress. This fact means the end of the domination of almost 500 years of the Ottoman Empire. Ismail Qemali will be the Prime Minister of Albania between 1912 and 1914. (108 years ago)

48aC: July 10
In the territories of present-day Albania the battle of Dirraquio takes place in which Cneo Pompeyo defeats Julius Caesar but, having everything in his favor, he does not take advantage of the opportunity to annihilate him and end the Civil War. (2069 years ago)

Outstanding births in Albania
1910: August 26
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, later known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was born in Albania, a Catholic nun famous for her brilliant humanitarian work in India, alongside the poorest. After her death in 1997, she will be beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003. (111 years ago)

Reported deaths in Albania
1985: April 11
In Tirana, the capital of Albania, Enver Hoxha, the Albanian communist dictator, dies, who was in close harmony with Stalin, and took advantage of Tito's Yugoslavia break with the Soviet regime to break with Yugoslavia and strengthen his control over the Party Albanian Communist, purging him of pro-Tito elements. Later he rejected de-Stalinization and the opening that Khrushchev introduced into the Soviet Union, breaking with that country in 1961. (36 years ago)

Outstanding Events in Germany

1994: September 8
In Berlin, Germany, the Allied troops (UK, France and USA) who have occupied Berlin during the Cold War are fired. Soviet troops withdrew on August 31. (27 years ago)

1992: February 7
A Treaty is signed in Maastricht (Holland) by which Western European nations, after centuries of armed conflict, unite in a spirit of economic cooperation, seeking common security policies and cooperation between police and other authorities against crime, terrorism and immigration. The treaty is signed by the Ministers of 12 countries of the European Community (Great Britain, France, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands) and will enter into force from of January 1, 1993. establishes rules for the future single currency and a common foreign and security policy. The "European Union" officially replaces the "European Community". (29 years ago)

1990: October 3
By signing a Unification Treaty, East and West Germany are reunited, thus ending 45 years of division and the Cold War. As a result of World War II, Germany was divided among the four victorious allies: the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. In 1949, the United States, Great Britain, and France reunified their zones of occupation and created the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviets, by contrast, maintained their zone of occupation and established the German Democratic Republic. In November 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first serious steps towards reunification were taken. The new German state adopts the structure of the Federal Republic of Germany and Berlin recovers its status as capital in the new unified state. (31 years ago)

1989: November 9
The perestroika that Gorbachev has brought to the European countries of the Soviet orbit, has its culminating symbol in the fall and physical demolition of the Berlin wall by the angry population. Berlin is no longer divided and becomes one again. (32 years ago)

1972: September 5
During the celebration of the Olympic Games in Munich, Palestinian terrorists attack the rooms of the Israeli delegation in the Olympic village, murdering two members of the team while kidnapping nine others. The terrorist command demands the release of 200 Arabs who are in Israeli prisons and that of imprisoned German terrorists, in exchange for the lives of the athletes. On the evening of the following day, September 6, the East German authorities will take the terrorists and their hostages to the airport, as they have demanded. There snipers of the German police will open fire trying a desperate rescue. In the ensuing chaos, the Palestinians will kill five Israeli athletes with grenades and four others will be shot to death. In addition, five Palestinians and one German will lose their lives in the skirmish. Despite what happened, and after being suspended for twenty-four hours, the Games will continue as normal. Very few athletes and delegations will leave the Olympic village in Munich. (49 years ago)

1972: August 26
With the presence of 121 countries and 10,088 athletes, the XVII Olympics of the Modern Era are inaugurated in Munich (Germany). During its course, Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group, will kidnap the Israeli delegation, assassinating 2 of its components and, after a disastrous rescue, 9 more will die. The Games will close on September 11. (49 years ago)

1970: March 19
For the first time, in the middle of the "Cold War", the leaders of the governments of West Germany and the German Democratic Republic, Willy Brandt and Willi Stoph respectively, meet in the city of Erfurt, in East Germany. Chancellor Brandt's decision to maintain his "Ostpolitik", or "Eastern Policy", involves reversing the traditional isolation that West Germany has sought of the Democratic Republic from the rest of the world. The efforts will bear fruit and three years later, both countries will agree to diplomatic recognition and their integration into the UN. For his policy of rapprochement and détente between the two Europes, Willy Brandt will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971. (51 years ago)

1963: June 26
The President of the USA, John F Kennedy, after returning from a visit on foot to one of the most well-known border crossings of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, and before 120,000 Berliners has a pioneering speech in American solidarity with the citizens of West Germany when pronouncing in his speech the phrase: "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am Berliner"). (58 years ago)

1961: August 13
In the German Democratic Republic, as the rate of flight to the western area increased, the order was given to begin the construction of a wall that delimits both areas of the city while completely isolating western Berlin. The "wall of shame", as it will be called by the outrage it will cause in the West, will become a painful symbol of the Cold War and communist oppression. The concrete wall will be 5 meters high and will be crowned by electrified barbed wire and guarded by turrets with guards and machine guns. In its vicinity, antipersonnel mines will be laid and will eventually stretch more than 120 kilometers, dividing Berlin in two and completely encircling the western area. The wall will be torn down on November 9, 1989. (60 years ago)

1957: March 25
In Rome, the representatives of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg sign the Treaties of Rome, which are the founding Treaties of the European Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). (64 years ago)

1951: October 18
In Cologne (Germany), Werner Meyer-Eppler, Robert Beyer, Fritz Enkel and Herbert Eimert meet to explain the content of a program on electronic music broadcast on the radio the day before. Thus the foundations of electronic music are created that will break down the barriers on the composition and performance of music to date, illuminating new instruments, methods of composition and recording. Two years later they founded the so-called Electronic Music Studio, located in the West German Radio facilities of this city. (70 years ago)

1949: October 7
The Democratic Republic of Germany is born, the first forays of the Cold War that divided the Germans and their capital, Europe, and the world into two opposing blocs. (72 years ago)

1949: September 15
The Christian Democrat Konrand Adenauer is elected by the Bundestag as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. (72 years ago) 1948: June 25After Stalin ordered the Red Army yesterday to block all land accesses to West Berlin (Germany), it is today when the allied airlift begins in order to supply the civilian population, some two million inhabitants who he would not be able to survive long without food. This first blockade will last almost a year. (73 years ago)

1948: March 17
As during the previous two years the USSR has established socialist regimes in central and eastern Europe, the climate of mutual distrust between the former allies against Hitler's Germany grows in the face of western fear of an extension of Soviet power. For this reason, today, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sign the so-called "Treaty of Brussels", by means of which they promise each other assistance in case of aggression. This treaty lays the foundations of what will be the future NATO, which will finally see the light of day on April 4, 1949 by signing the "North Atlantic Treaty" the "Brussels Five", plus Canada, Denmark, the United States, Iceland, Italy, Norway and Portugal. (73 years ago)

1945: November 20
The chamber of the International Military Tribunal to judge the War Crimes committed by Nazi Germany opens in Nuremberg (Germany). 24 high-ranking Hitler officials are on trial as guilty of atrocities committed during World War II. The court is made up of British, Soviet, American and French magistrates. On October 1, 1946, a sentence will be passed condemning to death 12 ideologues of the Nazi doctrine of extermination (Hermann Goering, head of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe, who will commit suicide before his execution and Joachim von Ribbentrop, minister of affairs exteriors are among them). Another seven will be sentenced to prison and three will be released. Those sentenced to death will be hanged on October 16. (76 years ago)

1945: April 29
American troops liberate the Dachau concentration camp (Germany), the first extermination camp established by the Nazi regime, in an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the city. This camp opened in 1933, five weeks after Hitler became German Chancellor. At Dachau, humans have been used as guinea pigs for medical and scientific tests in which all sorts of things have been experimented with without any ethical limits. As of April 1945 there are 67,665 registered prisoners. Approximately 32,000 people have died within its walls. When the American troops arrive there, they are so impressed by the cruel living conditions of the prisoners that they immediately execute about thirty German guards. After liberation, (76 years ago)

1945: February 13
A massive aerial bombardment of the allies takes place against the German city of Dresden. Over 3 days, 1,300 British and American planes will drop 3,900 tons of bombs and incendiary material, reducing the city to rubble and killing between 35,000 (official sources) and 135,000 people (civilian sources). Some Allied middle managers strongly disagree with this action against defenseless civilians, since Dresden is not an industrial city for the production of war material. The instigators of the attack say that it will serve to break the lines of communication that have hindered the Soviet offensive in the East. Despite this, many will continue to believe that the attack was planned to terrorize the German civilian population and thus force the Nazi surrender. (76 years ago)

1944: September 6
During World War II, Germany, which already has 1,800 missiles in storage, used its long-range secret weapon, the "V-2" missile, for the first time, with two inaccurate launches against the city of Paris. Two days later, on September 8, the attack on London will begin. At the beginning of the attacks and to avoid panic among the population, the British government will inform the population that the explosions are caused by faulty gas pipes; However, after a few days, he will have to admit the truth, since the Nazi propaganda will then reveal the existence of the retaliatory weapon called "V-2". (77 years ago)

1944: July 20
Colonel Von Stauffenberg attacks Hitler, who escapes unscathed, in Rastenburg (East Prussia). The conspirators will be hunted down and more than 5,000 people will be executed, of whom 200 have taken direct part in the July 20 bombing. Hitler will establish the legal responsibility of the families of the accused with what will proceed to their arrest. (77 years ago)

1943: May 17
During World War II, the RAF, the British air force, bombarded the industrial heartland of Germany by destroying three dams in the Ruhr Valley. The attack disrupts water and electricity supplies in a key German war munitions manufacturing area. (78 years ago)

1941: December 11
Adolf Hitler, Nazi president of Germany, declares that he is going to war against the United States, and Benito Mussolini for Italy does the same. At the request of the President, the United States Congress responds immediately by declaring war on the two axis powers. (79 years ago)

1941: June 22
Germany, with Hitler as leader, violates the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty by initiating Operation Barbarossa at 3:05 a.m., with which the Army Group of the South advances on Kiev, thus beginning the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans will take thousands of Soviet prisoners, but their advance will slow down slowly with a rainy July that will muddy the territory, causing trucks to jam and tanks to block. The Beresina river will definitively abort the operation. Hitler, with the failure of the Battle of Britain and this decision to invade the Soviet Union, will put Germany into a two-front war that will prove fatal for the Third Reich. (80 years ago)

1940: April 9
In the middle of World War II, and on the occasion of the so-called "Operation Weserubung", Nazi Germany invaded neutral Denmark and Norway, violating their neutrality and surprising everyone. With this surprise attack, he gains control of several strategic sites on the Norwegian coast. In June, the Norwegian resistance will be anecdotal so the country will definitely fall into German hands. Quisling, leader of the Norwegian Nazi party, will be the visible head of a Nazi-led government. At the end of the war in 1945, Quisling will be arrested, tried, convicted as a traitor, and executed. (81 years ago)

1939: September 1
Without any prior warning or declaration of war, at dawn today, following orders from the Nazi Adolf Hitler, a million and a half German soldiers, who are part of five armies made up of infantry, tanks and cavalry troops, penetrate into Polish territory on different fronts. Soon after, German planes bombard the cities of Katowice, Krakovia, Tczew and Tunel with incendiary bombs. In Warsaw the air strikes begin at 9:00 local time. Faced with this violation of international law, Britain and France have mobilized their forces and are preparing for war against Germany for the second time this century. Thus begins what will be the devastating and cruel World War II. (82 years ago)

1939: August 30
At dawn, German troops disguised as Poles "invade" Germany, which serves as a trigger for German warmongering. Two days later Germany will invade Poland, without any prior warning or declaration of war, beginning the Second World War. (82 years ago)

1939: May 22
In Berlin (Germany), the foreign ministers of Italy and Germany sign the Steel Pact, a political and military alliance between the two countries of fascist ideology. (82 years ago)

1939: February 14
In Hamburg (Germany), Nazi naval forces launch the war battleship Bismarck, 260 meters long and with an empty displacement of 41,000 tons (50,900 tons at full load), in order to be the flagship of the fleet of German surface. (82 years ago)

1938: November 9
On the night of 9-10, what will be known as "the night of broken glass" takes place in Austria and Germany, in which a murder serves as an excuse to launch a revolt against Jewish citizens throughout the country. The attack, engineered to look like a spontaneous act, is orchestrated by the German government. Some 1,600 synagogues, cemeteries, more than 7,000 shops and 29 Jewish warehouses are damaged or destroyed. More than 30,000 Jews are arrested and interned in concentration camps, many are lynched, some even to death and many of them are subjected to all kinds of humiliations suffering the ridicule of their compatriots who, until recently, had been their friends and neighbors. (83 years ago)

1938: September 30
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French leader Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Pact with the German Chancellor and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, by which the Sudetenland is ceded to the Germans, thinking that this pact will bring "peace to our time". The following day Germany, in an arrogant gesture, will annex the Sudetenland and six months later almost all of Czechoslovakia will be under despotic German rule. In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland causing Great Britain and France to declare war on him, thus initiating World War II. (83 years ago)

1936: October 25
At the request of Italy, which is facing the League of Nations on the occasion of its wars of occupation in Somalia and Abyssinia (Ethiopia), Germany and Italy establish the Berlin-Rome Axis. Japan will join once World War II begins. (85 years ago)

1936: August 9
During the celebration of the Berlin Olympics, Jesse Owens, an African-American athlete, wins his fourth gold medal, breaking the world record for 4 x 100 relays. Adolf Hitler, who wishes to use these Olympics as a showcase for the supremacy of the Aryan race, is disheartened when Owens wins the 100 and 200 meter sprints, long jump and the relay race. Hitler, who plans to shake hands with all the winners of these games, leaves the stadium with a disgruntled gesture rather than congratulating the black athletes. (85 years ago)

1936: August 1
With the presence of 49 countries and 3,632 athletes, the X Olympics of the Modern Era are inaugurated in Berlin (Germany). They will close on August 16. (85 years ago)

1935: September 15
In Germany, Hitler's xenophobic madness continues "in crescendo" and promulgates the "Laws of Nuremberg" whereby the German population is divided into "citizens" of the Reich and "subjects" (minorities of non-German blood) deprived of any rights. constitutional, prohibiting Jews marriage or extramarital relations with German citizens or of similar blood, among many other similar measures. (86 years ago)

1934: August 2
Adolf Hitler, until now chancellor, becomes the sole leader of Germany after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg. The army swears obedience to the Führer. In just over ten years, Hitler's National Socialist Party has grown from a radical group to a ruling party. With the death of Hindenburg, the last vestiges of democratic government in Germany are completely dismantled. (87 years ago)

1933: December 1
In Germany, after winning the elections last March, the National Socialist party of Adolf Hitler becomes the only party of the State when the "Law to ensure the unity of the party and the State" enters into force. (87 years ago)

1933: April 7
In Germany, Adolf Hitler, continuing his crazy racist escalation, enacts discriminatory laws that prohibit Jews from practicing law, medicine, or holding public office. (88 years ago)

1933: March 10
Shortly after Adolf Hitler has been appointed German Chancellor, the first concentration camp opens in Dachau (Germany), in which at least 32,000 people will die of disease, malnutrition, physical abuse or simply executed, in an absolutely disgusting attitude of the Nazi regime. (88 years ago)

1933: March 5
In Germany they vote to choose the composition of the Reichstag and the National Socialist party of Adolf Hitler sweeps with 17,266,823 votes. The Social Democrats get 7,176,050, the Communists 4,845,379 and the Nationalists 3,132,595 votes. The foundations have been laid for the beginning of the most cruel dictatorship. (88 years ago)

1933: February 2
In Germany, just two days after being appointed Chancellor, Hitler dissolves Parliament. (88 years ago)

1932: July 31
In Germany, after Chancellor Franz von Papen has dissolved Parliament, early parliamentary elections take place to elect members of the Reichstag. The Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler becomes the first political force in the country by obtaining 230 seats, but does not achieve an absolute majority (305 seats out of 608). On March 5 of next year, the National Socialists will sweep the elections, initiating the most cruel dictatorship. (89 years ago)

1923: November 9
In Germany there is the failure of the Munich Putsch, a failed coup attempt started yesterday and carried out by members of the German National Socialist Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler decides to march on Munich accompanied by some 2,500 men towards the Odeonplatz, where a police force will block their way. After a shooting, Hitler will be wounded and will be later arrested, tried and sentenced to prison along with other Nazi leaders. This will be the origin of the rise of fascism to power 10 years later. (98 years ago)

1919: August 11
The Weimar Constitution is formally declared, which incorporates conservative principles coupled with democratic elements, and establishes Germany as a federal republic with nine states and designates the election of a president by popular vote, who in turn will have the ability to elect the chancellor to form a government. The president may dissolve the cabinet and veto the laws of the legislative branch. Its powers will include the possibility of intervening in the federal states, in order to prevent problems of social order. It also proclaims the colors of its flag: black, red and gold, which symbolize Greater Germany, which should include Austria, a matter that will be postponed because the Treaty of Versailles explicitly prohibits it. (102 years ago)

1919: June 28
In the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles in Paris (France) the Treaty of Versailles is signed, which creates the League of Nations, an international body that aims to establish the bases for peace and the reorganization of the international relations after the First World War. At the same time, a peace agreement is signed between Germany and the victorious allied powers, through which the Germans will have to face a large compensation (269 billion gold marks to be paid in 42 annual installments), as war reparations for to compensate the allied powers for the damages caused during the conflict. John Maynard Keynes, British economist, warns that the war indemnities imposed on Germany in this Treaty will wreak havoc on the world economy and that the Treaty itself, rather than a peace agreement, is a declaration of war. The German hyperinflation of 1923 and the world depression of 1929 will prove him right. Keynes will defend government spending to create jobs. The creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will be due in large part to the ideas of this brilliant economist. (102 years ago)

1919: April 12
In Weimar, Germany, the Staatliche Bauhaus, or simply Bauhaus, was founded, a school of architecture, design, crafts and art founded by the socialist architect Walter Gropius, with the idea of the necessary reform of artistic teachings as the basis for a subsequent transformation of bourgeois society. In 1933 it will be closed by the Prussian authorities in the hands of the Nazi Party. In its two decades, it will leave an important legacy to future architectural generations. (102 years ago)

1918: November 9
In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates the Crown after the defeat of his country in the First World War. The Weimar Republic is proclaimed. (103 years ago)

1917: April 2
Although initially neutral in World War I, since it did not make the slightest gesture of condemnation to the German regime until the sinking of the British ship "HMS Lusitania" in May 1915, where 114 Americans died, it is today when US President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, which is approved. On April 6, the House of Representatives will do the same by 373 votes in favor and 50 against. (104 years ago)

1897: August 10
Felix Hoffmann, a 29-year-old German chemist working for Bayer, synthesizes acetylsalicylic acid in the laboratory. Salicylic acid has been used as a medicine, although with serious effects on the digestive system. Hoffmann's merit was to solve this contraindication through acetylation on salicylic acid, obtaining acetylsalicylic acid, the active principle of aspirin. (124 years ago)

1895: December 28
Wilhem Conrad Roentgen, a German physicist, presents his preliminary work on the nature of X-rays to the Medical Physical Academy of Wurtzburg (Germany), which will be decisive for the beginning of radiological explorations, enabling the diagnosis of many pathologies. For this important discovery he will be deservedly awarded in 1901 with the first Nobel Prize in Physics. (125 years ago)

1895: November 8
In Germany, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, while experimenting with cathode ray tubes, makes a momentous discovery that will revolutionize the world of medicine. While experimenting in his laboratory, he realizes that by means of a type of radiation he is able to see through materials, including his own body. He calls this phenomenon "X-rays" because of the unknown nature of radiation. Thanks to this, he will be awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. (126 years ago)

1886: January 29
In Germany, the German engineer Karl Benz patented the first car powered by an internal combustion engine. (135 years ago)

1871: January 18
In the Palace of Versailles, France, Otto von Bismarck proclaims the German Empire in which William I, King of Prussia, becomes the Kaiser of Germany, after the victory of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War and as a result of the effort of the Otto von Bismarck himself, who has worked to achieve German unity to the exclusion of Austria. In this way, the South German States (Bavaria, Baden, Hesse and Württemberg), carried away by the patriotic enthusiasm that the war has aroused, immediately join the North German Confederation and institute the German Empire, or II Reich, that will last until 1918, coinciding with the end of World War I. (150 years ago)

1867: September 14
In Hamburg (Germany), the first volume of Karl Marx's work on economic and social theory, "Capital. Critique of Political Economy," is published. (154 years ago)

1862: September 22
In Berlin (present-day Germany), Bismarck is elevated to the Presidency of the Government and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Prussia by King William I. (159 years ago)

1813: October 19
The coalition army made up of Russians, Austrians and Prussians, defeats that of the French Emperor Napoleon I, after three days of fierce fighting in the Battle of the Nations, in Leipzig (Germany). 70,000 French and 50,000 Allied soldiers lost their lives. In November, Napoleon with the rest of his troops, will cross the Rhine to return to France. The disintegration of the Empire begins. At the end of this year, the allied armies will manage to enter France. (208 years ago)

1813: October 16
Napoleon leads his troops during the Battle of Leipzig, in Germany, against the allied forces made up of the armies of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden. On the night of the 18th to the 19th, Napoleon will finally see that the battle is lost and will begin to withdraw most of his army across the Elster River. Total casualties are estimated at 95,000, the Coalition will suffer about 55,000 casualties, and the French about 40,000, with around 30,000 French captured as prisoners. (208 years ago)

1763: February 15
Austria, Prussia and Saxony, seal the Peace of Hübertusburg which marks the end of the so-called Seven Years War, by means of which Prussia annexes the Silesian region. With this Prussia becomes a great European power under the mandate of Frederick II the Great, who will emerge with a clearly strengthened position. (258 years ago)

1745: October 11
In the German city of Leyden, the clergyman Ewald Jurgen von Kleist presents an invention that allows to store electrical charges and that will be known as "Leyden bottle", the first type of capacitor. (276 years ago)

1704: August 13
During the War of the Spanish Succession (international conflict that goes from 1701 until the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, originated mainly by the death without descendants of Carlos II of Spain) takes place the Second Battle of Höchstädt, or Battle of Blenheim (Germany ), in which the armies of the Grand Alliance (England, Austria, the United Provinces, Prussia, Denmark, Hesse and Hannover) commanded by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, face the Franco-Bavarian forces led by the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of Tallard and the Count of Marsin. They fight more than 100,000 troops from both sides and their balance is about 12,500 casualties, between dead and wounded, for the Grand Alliance, and 20,000 for the Franco-Bavarians, in addition to 14,000 prisoners. (317 years ago)

1520: December 10
In Wittenberg (Germany), Martin Luther, after the Pope's request to retract his thesis, publicly burns the papal bull that condemns him and is called "Exsurge Domine". With this act, he clearly shows his firm will to maintain his critical stance towards the Church while reaffirming his reformist theses. On January 3, he will be excommunicated. (500 years ago)

1517: October 31
In Wittenberg (Germany) the Augustinian monk Martin Luther sent a letter to the Archbishop of Mainz, while exposing it to the public by nailing it to the door of the local church. In the letter he warns him of the dangers that, in his opinion, is the doctrine of the Church by reason of the sale of indulgences. Attached to this writing is his 95 theses on the value of the bull of indulgences. Quickly, these theses will spread throughout the Holy Empire, giving rise to the Reformation. (504 years ago)

1158: June 14
The document "Der Augsburger Schied (The Augsburg Decision)", dated today, contains a concession made by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa to the Bavarian Duke Enrique de León, of a permit to build a bridge that crosses the river Isar (Germany), in an area that has been inhabited by religious since the 8th century, and which is mentioned for the first time with the name of Munich. That is why this document is considered the founding act of the German city of Munich. (863 years ago)

1122: September 23
In the plain of Worms, present-day Germany, the Concordat that puts an end to the investiture struggle is signed, through which the Church regains the freedom to choose a bishop, while the Emperor maintains some interference in the election of his vassal prelates. (899 years ago) 1039: June 4In Germany Henry III the Negro is crowned king. On December 25, 1046, he will be crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement II. During his reign he successfully faced constant civil wars against Duke Godfrey of Lorraine and against the nobility of Saxony and Bavaria. According to some historians, with him, the Holy Empire will reach its apogee. (982 years ago)

Outstanding births in Germany
1929: June 12Born in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), Anne Frank, a young Jewish woman, whose diary about her family's clandestine life in an attic of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years, during the cruel German occupation of the Netherlands, will become a symbol against Nazi barbarism. He will die in an extermination camp in 1945. (92 years ago)

1906: October 14
Hannah Arendt is born in Hannover, Germany, who will be a German philosopher and politician of Jewish origin. With the arrival of Hitler to power, he will have to flee and will end up obtaining American citizenship. The basic points of his work will be occupied by topics such as totalitarianism, revolutions and action, understood as political activity. His main work will be "The origins of totalitarianism. " His thinking will be one of the most influential of the 20th century. (115 years ago)

1900: June 22
In Gelnhausen (Germany), Oskar Fischinger was born. Before becoming an animator and filmmaker, he was a musician and an architectural and tool design technician. His works will be a combination of geometry and music and, therefore, he will be considered the father of the video clip and one of the great experimental artists of the early 20th century. In 1936 he will escape the Nazi regime and flee to the USA (121 years ago)

1899: June 2
In Berlin, Germany, Lotte Reiniger was born who with scissors and paper will contribute to the world of cinema the first feature film that remains of what would later be the animated film, "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" released in 1926, which will take her three years to produce. A pioneer in the multiplane camera, and using silhouettes with true mastery, she will show the way to Walt Disney himself. (122 years ago)

1898: June 22
In the German city of Osnabrück, the writer Erich Maria Remarque, author of "Without novelty on the front," was born. (123 years ago)

1898: February 10Bertolt Brecht was born in Ausburg (Germany), a German playwright and poet, one of the most influential of the 20th century, creator of the so-called Epic Theater that always seeks the viewer's reflection. (123 years ago)

1892: July 15
In Berlin, Germany, the philosopher Walter Benjamin is born. A great theorist of modernity, he will advocate a universal, fairer and humane European culture, far from authoritarianism and consumerism. His thinking will pick up elements from German Idealism, Romanticism, historical materialism, and Jewish mysticism, enabling him to make lasting and influential contributions to aesthetic theory and Western Marxism. His thought is associated with the Frankfurt School. (129 years ago)

1882: December 11
Born in Breslau (Kingdom of Prussia and now Poland) Max Born, a German mathematician and physicist considered the father of quantum mechanics and one of the most decisive researchers in the fields of physics and mathematics. He introduced the concept of probability into the Schrödinger equation and stated one of the fundamental principles of physics that founds quantum mechanics, that of complementarity. He will win the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum mechanics, an award shared with the German physicist Walter Bothe. (138 years ago)

1882: March 23
In southern Germany, in Erlanguen, Emmy Noether was born, who will be a German mathematician, later a nationalized American, known for revolutionizing the fields of theoretical physics and abstract algebra. After Hitler's rise to power, Emmy Noether will have to go into exile in the United States. Albert Einstein will consider her a genius. (139 years ago)

1880: November 1
In Berlin, Germany, Alfred Lothar Wegener was born, a German meteorologist and interdisciplinary scientist who, in 1911, became interested in the discovery of plant fossils with identical morphological characteristics in opposite parts of the Atlantic, developing the theory of continental drift and plate tectonics, for what will be recognized as the founding father of one of the major scientific revolutions of the twentieth century. He will meet his death during a meteorological observing expedition in Greenland in 1930. (141 years ago)

1879: March 14
Physicist Albert Einstein was born in Ulm (Germany). His "Theory of Relativity" will drastically alter the view of the Universe. (142 years ago) 1876: January 5In Cologne, Germany, Konrad Adenauer, German statesman, first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and one of the so-called "fathers of Europe" was born. (145 years ago)

1859: January 27
In Berlin, Germany, Wilhelm II is born who will be the last German emperor and the last king of Prussia. With an extreme megalomaniac personality, he will rule between 1888 and 1918. (162 years ago)

1852: May 31
In Barmen (Germany), Julius Richard Petri was born who will work as an assistant to Robert Koch, a Nobel laureate who will discover the tuberculosis bacillus. In 1877, Julius had a brilliant idea by using glass disks to house the culture media used in bacteriology, and thus he will get his teacher to solve the culture problems he has. Petri dishes, so called from then on, will represent a true revolution in microbiology and will be able to isolate most of the microorganisms responsible for contagious diseases. (169 years ago)

1847: October 2
In Poznan (present-day Poland), Paul von Hindenburg, a German military and politician, was born, the last president of the Weimar Republic from 1925 until his death from cancer in 1934. (174 years ago)

1844: October 15
Born in the Rocken municipality (present-day Germany) the one who will be the nihilist and vitalist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. His work will have a great influence at the end of the 19th century and a good part of the 20th century, due to its critical nature and for proposing to transform the values of Western culture, expressed in its ideal of the superman. (177 years ago)

1843: December 11
In Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Prussia (now Germany), Heinrich Robert Koch was born, a German doctor who discovered the tuberculosis and cholera bacillus, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1905. (177 years ago)

1837: December 24
Born in Munich (now Germany) Isabel de Wittelsbach, better known by the diminutive Sissí, who will be Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from 1854 until her death in 1898. (183 years ago)

1822: January 6
Born near Rostock (Germany), the German archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, who will go down in history by discovering the cities of Troy and Mycenae. (199 years ago)

1818: May 5
Born in Trier (Germany), the German politician, economist and philosopher Karl Marx, author, together with his friend Federico Engels, whom he met in Paris in 1844, of "Capital". (203 years ago)

1815: April 1
Born in Magdeburg (now Germany) Otto von Bismarck, politician and Prime Minister of Prussia, who will be called the "Iron Chancellor", for his authoritarian regime, despite appearances and universal suffrage aimed at neutralizing the middle classes, architect of German unification and key piece of international relations in the second half of the 19th century. (206 years ago)

1814: August 10
Henri Nestlé, a Swiss apothecary and businessman of German origin, was born in Frankfurt am Main (Germany), founder of the Nestlé company, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world. In 1867 he developed condensed milk. Your baby flour will be instrumental in combating infant mortality by solving the problem of fresh milk supply. (207 years ago)

1813: May 22
In the city of Leipzig (Germany) the German romantic composer Richard Wagner was born, one of the most important figures in music of the 19th century. His operas "The Flying Dutchman" , "Tannhauser" or "The Ring of the Nibelung" are well known. (208 years ago)

1806: October 25
In the German city of Bayreuth, Johann Kaspar Schmidt was born, who will be known as Max Stirner, a German educator and philosopher whose positions will delve into radical selfishness. His philosophical-political reflections on the sovereign individual will have a marked impact on anarchist ideologies in the second half of the 19th century. In 1845 he published what may be his main work, "The only one and his property" , where he will criticize that religions and ideologies are based on empty concepts, which superimposed on the personal (selfish) interests of individuals, will reveal their invalidity, while defending self-responsibility and individual competence. Man will only be able to achieve his freedom when he breaks with religion and politics. (215 years ago)

1797: March 22
Wilhelm I, Kaiser of Germany, was born in Berlin (Germany) from January 18, 1871 until his death, on March 9, 1888, and King of Prussia from January 2, 1861. During his reign, Germany underwent a process of great industrialization, which will make it one of the richest countries in the world. (224 years ago)

1789: March 16
Born in the town of Erlangen (Germany), Georg Simon Ohm, physicist and mathematician who will contribute Ohm's Law, one of the fundamental laws of electric current circuits. (232 years ago)

1786: February 24
In Hanau, Germany, Wilhelm Grimm was born, who will be a German linguist and writer, whose name is always accompanied by that of his older brother Jakob. Both, the Grimm brothers, will be famous and loved by the children of the world for their collection of short stories in two volumes "Kinder und Hausmärchen (Tales of children and the home)" published between 1812 and 1815. (235 years ago)

1777: October 18
In the German city of Frankfurt on the Oder, Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was born. Very influenced by romanticism and interested in the human mind, the work of this poet, playwright and novelist considered one of the main dramatic writers of the so-called German romanticism and of all German literature, will try to reconcile destiny with individuality, conflict between emotion and reason. Among his most important works include The family Schroffenstein , drama Catherine of Heilbronn , the comedy The Broken Pitcher , the patriotic work The Prince of Homburg , or short story The Marquise of O. (244 years ago)

1776: January 24
In Königsberg (Prussia, now Russia), the German writer and composer ETA Hoffmann was born, who would exert a great influence on the romantic movement of German literature. (245 years ago)

1770: December 16
Born in Bonn (Germany), the German classical music composer, Ludwing van Beethoven, considered the main precursor of the transition from classicism to romanticism and universal genius of music, whose life will have three different creative periods. (250 years ago)

1770: August 27
Born in Sttugart (Germany), Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel, a great German philosopher who will reach the top of the nineteenth-century Teutonic movement of philosophical idealism, which will have such a prominent impact on the historical materialism of Karl Marx, another great of philosophy. (251 years ago)

1769: September 14
Born in Berlin (Germany) Alexander von Humbolt, father of maritime physics and volcanology. (252 years ago)

1755: April 10
Born in Meissen (Germany) Christian Friedrich Sammuel Hahnemann, a German doctor who will be considered the founder of homeopathy. Faced with the incomprehension of his people for his discoveries, he will move to France where he will enjoy a great reputation. (266 years ago)

1750: March 16
In Hannover (Prussia, present-day Germany), Caroline Herschel was born, a woman ahead of her time, who being an assistant to her brother William, astronomer royal discoverer of Uranus, she will be the first woman to discover a comet and more than a thousand double stars, dedicating her life to the study of the universe and music. For this reason, in 1828, she became the first woman to be an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society. (271 years ago)

1749: August 28
Born in Frankfurt on the Main (Germany) Johann Wolfang von Goethe, who will be considered the most important German poet of all time. From his prodigious pen will come the great drama "Faust". (272 years ago)

1719: November 14
Johann Georg Leopold Mozart, composer, conductor, excellent teacher and violinist was born in the city of Augsburg (now Germany). She will take great interest in the education of her son, the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who at six years of age will be an advanced keyboard player and an efficient violinist with an extraordinary ability to improvise and read sheet music. In 1765, Johann published in Augsburg his book "Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule" , a complete treatise on the technique of the violin that will be translated into several languages. (302 years ago)

1688: August 15
Frederick I of Prussia was born in Berlin, now Germany, who during his tenure will achieve a great internal development of Prussia by establishing a rigid and efficient economic system by transferring the public financial administration from local governments to the central authority. It will also establish compulsory primary education. (333 years ago)

1685: March 31
In Eisenach (Germany), Johann Sebastian Bach was born, German composer of the Baroque period and one of the greatest of all time, author of a fruitful and renowned work of cantatas, oratorios, suites, concerts, canons, fugues, parades, overtures , corals, etc. and organ artist, whose work will have great intellectual depth, emotional power, and virtuosity. At the age of 64, Bach began to lose vision, probably due to untreated diabetes, and died on July 28, 1750, at the age of 65, after undergoing a failed eye operation. (336 years ago)

1653: September 1
In Nuremberg, Germany, Johann Christoph Pachelbel was born, musician and composer, outstanding organist and harpsichord player, famous for his "Canon in D major". (368 years ago)

1646: July 1
In Leipzig, Germany, Gottfried Leibniz was born, a German philosopher and mathematician, who discovered the infinitesimal calculus and the binary system, the basis of current computation. (375 years ago)

1577: June 28
Born in Siegen (now Germany) Pedro Pablo Rubens, a genius Flemish Baroque painter who became the main representative of Flemish painting in the 17th century. (444 years ago)

1571: December 27
Johannes Kepler was born in Wüttemberg (Germany), a German astronomer who will become famous for the "Kepler's Laws" that will deal with celestial mechanics and the movement of the stars, elliptical orbits, swept areas and the relationship between revolution and average distance to the sun. that will revolutionize the world of astronomy. (449 years ago)

1483: November 10
In Eisleben (Germany), Martin Luther, theologian and German religious reformer, was born, an important figure of the Modern Age in Europe at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. "Lutheranism" will extend beyond religion, and will encompass all areas of life, proclaiming the definitive authority of the Word of God, as recorded in the Bible, in matters of faith and Christian life, and will show Jesus Christ as the teaching for the understanding of the Sacred Scriptures. (538 years ago)

1471: May 21
In Nuremberg (Germany), Albrecht Dürer was born, an engraver and painter who introduced the Renaissance to northern Europe. Italian masters will regard him as an equal and will admire the creative gifts of his engravings. (550 years ago)

Reported deaths in Germany
1992: October 8
Willy Brandt, German Social Democratic statesman, Chancellor from 1969 to 1974 and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1971, whose leadership was of the utmost importance for the development of the Federal Republic of Germany as a world power, dies in Bonn (Germany), victim of cancer. (29 years ago)

1956: August 14
Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright and poet, one of the most influential of the twentieth century, the creator of the so-called "epic theater", dies in Berlin (Germany). (65 years ago)

1945: April 30
In his bunker in Berlin, a city taken over by the Soviet army, and leaving behind an invaded and defeated Germany, the fascist and intolerant fanatic Adolf Hitler commits suicide by taking poison along with what had long been his companion and converted yesterday. in his legitimate wife, Eva Braun. (76 years ago)

1945: March 12
In the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, located in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, Anne Frank, a 15-year-old Jewish girl, dies of typhus, the author of a diary (a gift given to her when she turned 13) about the The clandestine life of his family in an attic of a warehouse in Amsterdam for two years in the cruel German occupation of the Netherlands. His father, Otto Frank, sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, will be the only survivor of the family when he is liberated by the Russians in January 1945. He will be in charge of publishing the Diary that will become a symbol against oppression and violence. Nazi barbarism and in favor of freedom. (76 years ago)

1898: July 30
Dies in Friedrichsruh (now Germany) Otto von Bismarck, politician and Prime Minister of Prussia called the "Iron Chancellor", was the architect of German unification and a key player in international relations in the second half of the 19th century. (123 years ago)

1884: July 10
Carl Richard Lepsius, a German Egyptologist who founded the science of Egyptology, dies in Berlin (Germany) at the age of 74. (137 years ago)

1860: September 21
Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, dies in Frankfurt on the Main (Germany). (161 years ago)

1859: May 6
Alexander von Humbolt, naturalist, father of meteorological geography, maritime physics, volcanology and phytogeography (relationship of vegetation with the terrestrial environment) dies in Berlin (Germany). (162 years ago)

1856: July 29
In Eindenich (Germany), the German composer Robert Schumann, exponent of the musical romanticism of the 19th century, dies. (165 years ago)

1847: November 4
The German romantic composer Félix Mendelsohn, author, among others, of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" , a work containing the famous "Wedding March", dies in Leipzig (Germany). (174 years ago)

1843: June 7
Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin, a great German lyric poet, whose work bridges the classical and romantic schools, dies in Tübingen (Germany). Perhaps his best known works are "Hyperion or the hermit in Greece" and "The Death of Empedocles". (178 years ago)

1832: March 22
In Weimar (Germany) the romantic writer Johann Wolfang von Goethe, considered the most important German poet of all time, dies at the age of 82. (189 years ago)

1831: November 14
Dies in Berlin (Germany) victim of a cholera epidemic, Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher at the top of the nineteenth-century Teutonic movement of philosophical idealism, whose thought will have a profound impact on the historical materialism of Karl Marx. (190 years ago)

1716: November 14
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, a great German thinker, philosopher, mathematician, jurist and politician, dies in Hannover, now Germany. Among his many writings, "De Ars combinatoria" stands out. He was born in Leipzig in July 1646. (305 years ago)

1630: November 15
In Regensburg (Germany) Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer famous for the "Laws of Kepler" , which deals with celestial mechanics and the movement of the stars, dies. He also made great contributions in the field of optics, explaining the formation of the image in the eye. (391 years ago)

1594: December 2
In Duisburg (Germany), Gerardo Mercator, Dutch cartographer and geographer, dies. He conceived a new projection for use on maps, being the most innovative of his system that the lines of longitude were parallel, which facilitated navigation by sea by being able to mark the directions of the compasses in straight lines. (426 years ago)

1546: February 18
In Eisleben (Germany), Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and German religious reformer, died. His call for the Church to return to the teachings of the Bible prompted the transformation of Christianity and sparked the Counter-Reformation. (475 years ago)

1543: May 24
In Frauenburg (Germany) the Polish astronomer Nicolás Copernicus died at the age of 70, who with his theory moved the center of our planetary system from the Earth to the Sun. (478 years ago)

1528: April 6
In Nuremberg (Germany), Albrecht Dürer, a German printmaker and painter who introduced the Renaissance to northern Europe, dies at the age of 56. (493 years ago)

1525: May 7
In Muhlhausen (Germany) Thomas Munzer, a German Protestant theologian, promoter of a true democracy in the Church and leader of the German peasants during their recent war, is tortured and executed to protest against the social and political oppression to which they are being subjected, vindicating the establishment of the kingdom of God, ruled by equality and fraternity, on earth. 100,000 insurgents have lost their lives in the fighting. (496 years ago)

1468: February 3
Johannes Gutenberg, a German craftsman, inventor of the printing press, dies in Mainz (Germany), thereby revolutionizing culture. (553 years ago)

1231: September 15
Louis I, Duke of Bavaria since 1183 and Count Palatine of the Rhine, died in Kelheim (present-day Germany), a title that implied being elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 1214. (790 years ago)

1024: July 13
He dies in the castle of Grona, Germany, Henry II, king of Germany and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, kind to his subjects. With his death without issue, the House of Saxony loses the imperial scepter. The Church will canonize this emperor in 1146, and his wife Cunegund in 1200. (997 years ago)

814: January 28
Dies in Aachen (Germany), Charlemagne, emperor of the Holy Empire of the West, the most important European kingdom of his time. To keep it he had to fight. (1207 years ago)