Life and History.

 

The history of Iraq goes back a long way. Between 65,000 B.C. and 35,000 B.C., northern Iraq was home to a Neanderthal culture, archaeological remains of which have been found at Shanidar Cave. The same region is also the location of a number of pre-Neolithic cemeteries, dating from approximately 11,000 B.C. From ca. 10,000 B.C., Iraq was part of the large Fertile Crescent region. This region stretched from Asia Minor and to the Levant. The Fertile Crescent has the Neolithic culture known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. In Iraq, this period has been excavated at sites like M'lefaat and Nemrik 9. The following Neolithic period, PPNB, is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum and burnt lime (Vaisselle blanche). Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidence of early trade relations. There was more human advancement found in Jarmo (in ca. 7100 B.C.). There were cities belong to the Halaf culture and Tell al-Ubaid culture. Research called the era of the "Cradle of Civilization" of modern Iraq's early known civilization after the Old Stone Age being the Sumerian civilization. It arose in the fertile Tigris-Euphrates River valley of southern Iraq in the Chalcolithic (Ubaid period). By the late 4th millennium B.C., there was the world's first writing modern system. Recorded history was born. The Sumerians were also the first to harness the wheel and create city states, and whose writings record the first evidence of mathematics, astronomy, astrology, written law, medicine and organized religion. The language of the Sumerians is a language isolate, which was non-Semitic. The major city states of the early Sumerian period were Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larsa, Sippar, Shuruppak, Uruk, Kish, Ur, Nippur, Lagash, Girsu, Umma, Hamazi, Adab, Mari, Isin, Kutha, Der and Akshak.

The cities to the north like Ashur, Arbela (modern Erbil) and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk) were also extant in what was to be called Assyria from the 25th century BC; however, at this early stage, they were Sumerian ruled administrative centers. The Bronze Age empires grew in ancient Iraq too. In the 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash created what was perhaps the first empire in history, though this was short-lived. Later, Lugal-Zage-Si, the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. It was during this period that the Epic of Gilgamesh originated from, which includes the tale of The Great Flood. From the 29th century BC, Akkadian Semitic names began to appear on king lists and administrative documents of various city states. It remains unknown as to the origin of Akkad, where it was precisely situated and how it rose to prominence. Its people spoke Akkadian, an East Semitic language. Between the 29th and 24th centuries BC, a number of kingdoms and city states within Iraq began to have Akkadian speaking dynasties; including Assyria, Ekallatum, Isin and Larsa. However, the Sumerians remained generally dominant until the rise of the Akkadian Empire (2335–2124 BC), based in the city of Akkad in central Iraq. Sargon of Akkad, originally a Rabshakeh to a Sumerian king, founded the empire, he conquered all of the city states of southern and central Iraq, and subjugated the kings of Assyria, thus uniting the Sumerians and Akkadians in one state. Sargon expanded his empire to rule over Gutium, Elam in modern day Iran, and other places. He conquered the Amorites and Eblaites of the Levant. The empire of Akkad ended by the 22nd century B.C. likely. There were no kingdoms until the Third Dynasty of Ur. After the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in the late 22nd century BC, the Gutians occupied the south for a few decades, while Assyria reasserted its independence in the north. Most of southern Mesopotamia was again united under one ruler during the Ur III period, most notably during the rule of the prolific king Shulgi. His accomplishments include the completion of construction of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, begun by his father Ur-Nammu.

In 1792 BC, an Amorite ruler named Hammurabi came to power in this state, and immediately set about building Babylon from a minor town into a major city, declaring himself its king. Hammurabi (who was a Semitic person) conquered the whole of southern and central Iraq, as well as Elam to the east and Mari to the west, then engaged in a protracted war with the Assyrian king Ishme-Dagan for domination of the region, creating the short-lived Babylonian Empire. He eventually prevailed over the successor of Ishme-Dagan and subjected Assyria and its Anatolian colonies. The Hammurabi code was a legal governmental system that inspires future legal laws to this day thousands of years later. By the middle of the eighteenth-century BC, the Sumerians had lost their cultural identity and ceased to exist as a distinct people. Genetic and cultural analysis indicates that the Marsh people of southern Iraq are probably their most direct modern descendants. Southern Iraq became Babylonia. The northern part of Iraq became Assyria. Many people ruled Iraq like the Akkadians and the Kassites. The Middle Asyrian Empire ruled from 1365 B.C. to 1020 B.C. Beginning with the campaigns of Ashur-uballit I, Assyria destroyed the rival Hurrian-Mitanni Empire, annexed huge swathes of the Hittite Empire for itself, annexed northern Babylonia from the Kassites, forced the Egyptian Empire from the region, and defeated the Elamites, Phrygians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Cilicians, Gutians, Dilmunites and Arameans. At its height, the Middle Assyrian Empire stretched from The Caucasus to Dilmun (modern Bahrain), and from the Mediterranean coasts of Phoenicia to the Zagros Mountains of Iran. In 1235 BC, Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria took the throne of Babylon. By the end of the Bronze Age, Babylonia was ruled by Assyria and Elam in chaos. The Chaldeans moved into Babylonian too. The Chaldeans were West Semitic migrants from the southeastern corner of the region. 

The Neo Assyrian Empire ruled Iraq from 935 to 605 B.C. The Neo-Assyrian Empire is considered by researchers to be the first major world empire in history. It had the strongest military in the world during its peak. It ruled all of Mesopotamia, Levant, Egypt, parts of Anatolia, parts of Arabia, parts of Iran, and Armenia. Its rulers were Adad-Nirari II, Ashurnasirpal, Shalmaneser III, Semiramis, Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. It spread as far as parts of Nubia too. The Arabic people and the Chaldeans are first mentioned in written history (circa 850 BC) in the annals of Shalmaneser III. They ruled Israel for a time too. Judaism grew during this period. Civil wars and other issues ending the Assyrian Empire. The Babylonians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians and Cimmerians, were able to attack Assyria, finally bringing its empire down by 605 BC. The Neo-Babylonian Empire ruled Iraq. Nebuchadnezzar II was its greatest king. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon existed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Cyrus the Great of Persia defeated the Neo-Babylonian Empire at the Battle of Opis and Mesopotamia. The Achaemenid Empire ruled for a time until Alexander the Great ruled the region in the Hellenistic Empire.  The Parthians and the Romans conquered Iraq too. Christianity spread in Iraq early on, especially the Church of the East with Syriac literature. By 224, the Sassanids of Persia under Ardashir I destroyed the Parthian Empire and conquered the region in 224 AD. During the 240s and 250's AD, the Sassanids gradually conquered the independent states, culminating with Assur in 256 AD. The region was thus a province of the Sassanid Empire for over four centuries and became the frontier and battle ground between the Sassanid Empire and Byzantine Empire, with both empires weakening each other, paving the way for the Arabic-Muslim conquest of the Mesopotamia in the mid-7th century.

Muslim people of Arabic descent defeated Persian forces in Iraq by 634 A.D. There was a force of some 5,000 Muslims under Abū `Ubayd ath-Thaqafī, which was routed by the Persians. This was followed by Khalid ibn al-Walid's successful campaign which saw all of Iraq come under Arabic rule within a year, with the exception of the Persian Empire's capital, Ctesiphon. Around 636, a larger Arabic Muslim force under Sa`d ibn Abī Waqqās defeated the main Persian army at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah and moved on to capture the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. By the end of 638, the Muslims had conquered all of the Western Sassanid provinces (including modern Iraq), and the last Sassanid Emperor, Yazdegerd III, had fled to central and then northern Persia, where he was killed in 651. Muslim dynasties ruled Iraq. In 1257, Hulagu Khan amassed an unusually large army, a significant portion of the Mongol Empire's forces, for the purpose of conquering Baghdad. When they arrived at the Islamic capital, Hulagu Khan demanded its surrender, but the last Abbasid Caliph Al-Musta'sim refused. This angered Hulagu, and, consistent with Mongol strategy of discouraging resistance, he besieged Baghdad, sacked the city and massacred many of the inhabitants. Estimates of the number of dead range from 200,000 to a million. The Mongols destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate and Baghdad's House of Wisdom, which contained countless precious and historical documents. The city has never regained its previous pre-eminence as a major center of culture and influence. Some historians believe that the Mongol invasion destroyed much of the irrigation infrastructure that had sustained Mesopotamia for millennia. Other historians point to soil salination as the culprit in the decline in agriculture. The Black Death disease killed many in Iraq. The Ottoman Empire ruled Iraq after Tamerlane (a person of Mongol descent) conquered Baghdad. They ruled for centuries until WWI.  

During World War I, the Ottomans sided with Germany and the Central Powers. In the Mesopotamian campaign against the Central Powers, British forces invaded the country and initially suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Turkish army during the Siege of Kut (1915–1916). However, subsequent to this the British began to gain the upper hand and were further aided by the support of local Arabic people and Assyrians. In 1916, the British and French made a plan for the post-war division of Western Asia under the Sykes-Picot Agreement. British forces regrouped and captured Baghdad in 1917 and defeated the Ottomans. An armistice was signed in 1918. The British lost 92,000 soldiers in the Mesopotamian campaign. Ottoman losses are unknown, but the British captured a total of 45,000 prisoners of war. By the end of 1918, the British had deployed 410,000 men in the area, of which 112,000 were combat troops. 

During the Ottoman Empire until the partition of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century, Iraq was made up of three provinces, called vilayets in the Ottoman language: Mosul Vilayet, Baghdad Vilayet, and Basra Vilayet. These three provinces were joined into one Kingdom by the British after the region became a League of Nations mandate, administered under British control, with the name "State of Iraq." A fourth province (Zor Sanjak), which Iraqi nationalists considered part of Upper Mesopotamia was ultimately added to Syria. In line with their "Sharifian Solution" policy, the British established the Hashemite king on August 23, 1921, Faisal I of Iraq, who had been forced out of Syria by the French, as their client ruler. The official English name of the country simultaneously changed from Mesopotamia to the endonymic Iraq. Likewise, British authorities selected Sunni Arabic elites from the region for appointments to government and ministry offices. Faced with spiraling costs and influenced by the public protestations of the war hero T. E. Lawrence in The Times, Britain replaced Arnold Wilson in October 1920 with a new Civil Commissioner, Sir Percy Cox. Cox managed to quell a rebellion yet was also responsible for implementing the fateful policy of close co-operation with Iraq's Sunni minority. The institution of slavery was abolished in the 1920s. Britain allowed the Kingdom of Iraq to have independence in 1932. King Faisal allowed British forces to have its military bases in Iraq. Many rulers existed in Iraq. By April 1, 1941, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and members of the Golden Square staged a coup d'état and overthrew the government of 'Abd al-Ilah. During the subsequent Anglo-Iraqi War, the United Kingdom (which still maintained air bases in Iraq) invaded Iraq for fear that the Rashid Ali government might cut oil supplies to Western nations because of his links to the Axis powers. The war started on 2 May, and the British, together with loyal Assyrian Levies, defeated the forces of Al-Gaylani, forcing an armistice on May 31. Qasim led a coup against Iraq by 1958. He wanted anti-imperial and anti-monarchical policies to exist. Numerous people were killed in the coup, including King Faysal II, Prince Abd al-Ilah, and Nuri al-Sa'id. Qasim ruled Iraq until the February 1963 coup. The Ba'ath Party view Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr ruled Iraq. 

Later, the Ba'ath party movement gradually came under the control of Saddam Hussein, who acceded to the presidency and control of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), then Iraq's supreme executive body, in July 1979. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution took place. Following months of cross-border raids between the two countries, Saddam declared war on Iran in September 1980, initiating the Iran–Iraq War (or First Persian Gulf War). Taking advantage of the post-revolution chaos in Iran, Iraq captured some territories in southwest of Iran, but Iran recaptured all of the lost territories within two years, and for the next six years Iran was on the offensive. The war, which ended in stalemate in 1988, had cost the lives of between half a million and 1.5 million people.

In 1981, Israeli aircraft bombed an Iraqi nuclear material testing reactor at Osirak and was widely criticized at the United Nations. During the eight-year war with Iran, Saddam Hussein extensively used chemical weapons against Iranians. In the final stages of the Iran–Iraq War, the Ba'athist Iraqi regime led the Al-Anfal Campaign, a genocidal campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurds, and led to the killing of 50,000–100,000 civilians.

The Persian Gulf War of the 1990's had a long history. It occurred when I was in elementary school. Iraq didn't have the ability to pay Kuwait more than 14 billion dollars (in U.S. dollars) that it had borrowed to finance the Iran-Iraq War. Kuwait had a surge in petroleum production levels which kept revenues down. Iraq interpreted Kuwait's refusal to decrease its oil production as an act of aggression. Throughout much of the 1980's, Kuwait's oil production was above its mandatory OPEC quota, which kept the oil prices down. Therefore, in August 1990, Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait. This led to a military intervention by the United States led forces in the First Gulf War. The coalition forces proceeded with a bombing campaign targeting military targets. Then, the coalition Western forces launched a 100-hour-long ground assault against Iraqi forces in Southern Iraq and those occupying Kuwait.  Iraq's armed forces were devastated during the war. Shortly after it ended in 1991, Kurdish Iraqis led several uprisings against Saddam Hussein's regime, but these were successfully repressed using the Iraqi security forces and chemical weapons. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people, including many civilians were killed. During the uprisings the US, UK, France and Turkey, claiming authority under UNSCR 688, established the Iraqi no-fly zones to protect Kurdish population from attacks by the Saddam regime's fixed-wing aircraft (but not helicopters).

Iraq was ordered to destroy its chemical and biological weapons and the UN attempted to compel Saddam's government to disarm and agree to a ceasefire by imposing additional sanctions on the country in addition to the initial sanctions imposed following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The Iraqi Government's failure to disarm and agree to a ceasefire resulted in sanctions which remained in place until 2003. The effects of the sanctions on the civilian population of Iraq have been disputed. Whereas it was widely believed that the sanctions caused a major rise in child mortality, recent research has shown that commonly cited data were fabricated by the Iraqi government and that "there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions." An oil for food program was established in 1996 to ease the effects of sanctions.

Following the September 11 attacks, the George W. Bush administration began planning the overthrow of Saddam's government and in October 2002, the US Congress passed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. In November 2002, the UN Security Council passed UNSCR 1441 and in March 2003 the United States and its allies invaded Iraq. 

Our heroes from the past and the present always fought back. One of the most disrespectful sayings in the world is how some say that "this isn't our grandfather's movement" and "we aren't our ancestors." Those phrases disrespect the legacy of our people who fought for justice. There are tons of heroes that we should honor, and many of them are unsung human beings. David Walker was an anti-slavery activist. He was an abolitionist too. His father was enslaved, and his mother was free. He lived in Boston, Massachusetts a lot. He called for black unity against slavery in his work of "An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World." He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. He used political and religious principles to fight for black justice in the world. His son, Edward G. Walker, was an attorney. By 1866, Edward G. Walker was one of the first two black men elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature. David Walker loved his wife, Eliza Butler. John Brown helped to get the volume of Henry Highland Garnet printed. 

Fannie Lou Hamer is one of the most unsung civil rights leaders of all time. Not only was she was born in the Deep South of Mississippi. She inspired courage among our people to stand up against Jim Crow apartheid tyranny. Jim Crow was tyranny as it restricts where people can live, eat, be educated at, and even go showing at. Some believe in the myth that Jim Crow segregation is equivalent to black independence. That is not true. Black independence is about black people having self-determination to live where we want, set up our own institutions that we control, and having total justice in eliminating racial oppression once and for all. Jim Crow apartheid is about tyranny set up to restrict the fundamental human rights of black Americans in America via the law. That is why civil rights activists fought to eliminate unjust laws. Fannie Lou Hamer worked with Freedom Summer, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and she was the co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus (to help recruit, train, and support women of every color to seek governmental office). Fannie Lou Hamer helped to register black voters and formed programs like the Freedom Farm cooperative to grow agriculture power. She used church hymns to inspire people to fight for justice. She confronted the Democratic Party establishment over restricting seats in 1964. Hamer opposed the Vietnam War in public too. Fannie Lou Hamer fought for housing rights for people as well. 

Hallie Quinn Brown was a trailblazing teacher, writer, and women's activist. She was one of the founders of the Colored Women's League of Washington, D.C. By 1894 the organization merged with the National Association of Colored Women. She was born on March 10, 1850, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of former slaves who migrated to Ontario, Canada. She wanted to do public speaking, and she graduated from Wilberforce College in 1873. Later, she taught schools for free black Americans in Mississippi. She moved into Columbia, South Carolina to be an instructor in the city's public school. She educated at Allen University. She taught in Dayton, Ohio public schools too. She supported the rights of black people constantly. She lived to be almost 100 years old as she passed away on September 16, 1949. 

Madison Washington was an American enslaved man who led a slave rebellion in America on November 7, 1841. He was on board the brig of Creole. It was transporting 134 other slaves from Virginia for sale in New Orleans, as part of the coastwide slave trade. Washington led 18 of his fellow slaves into rebellion. John R. Hewell was killed. The members of Washington's team ruled the ship. They sailed to Nassau, a British colony back then. The United Kingdom already banned slavery in 1833 in the British Empire. Despite the protests from the American government, the British declared the slaves to be free persons under their law and refused American demands for their return. Washington and his team were on trial and were found innocent of munity. They were freed by April 1842. As 128 slaves gained freedom resulting from this revolt, it is considered the most successful in United States history. Authors like Lydia Maria Child, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglas, and Henry Highland Garnet wrote about Madison Washington's contribution to the black freedom struggle. 

By Timothy