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IMPORTANT GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

KHIZAR HAYAT JHUJH

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CONTENTS

Serial Subject Page Number

PART – I (History)
1. American Civil War (1861–1865) 4-5
2. Boer Wars - (1880–1881) & (1899–1902) 5-7
3. Chinese Civil War (1927 - 1949) 7
4. Schlieffen Plan 7-8
5. WW-I (1914 - 1918) 8-9
6. WW-II (1939 - 1945) 9 - 11
7. Korean War (1950 - 1953) 11 - 12
8. Vietnam War (1955 - 1975) 12 - 13
9. Falkland War (1982) 13 - 14
10. Gulf War one (1990 - 1991) 14 - 15
11. Kosovo War (1999) 15
12. Second Gulf War or Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) 15 - 17
13. Yom Kippur War (1973) 17 - 18
PART – II (Geography)
14. Continents 19 - 23
15. Oceans 23 - 26
16. Important Geographic Locations 26 - 33
17. Facts about Pakistan 33 - 36
18. Neighbouring Countries of Pakistan
a. India 36 - 37
b. China 37 - 39
c. Afghanistan 39 - 40
d. Iran 40 - 41
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Serial Subject Page Number

PART – III (IMPORTANT PERSONALITIES OF WORLD)
19. Imp Personalities
a. Alexander the Great 42 - 43
b. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni 43
c. Amir Khusrow 43 - 44
d. Ibn Battuta 44
e. Khalil Gibran 44 - 45
f. Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi 45
g. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 45
h. Adolf Hitler 46 - 47
i. Archimedes 47 - 48
j. Aristotle 48
k. George Bernard Shaw 48 - 49
l. William Shakespeare 49 - 50
m. Ashoka 50 - 51
n. Gautama Buddha 51 - 52
o. Christopher Columbus 52 - 53
p. Dalai Lama 53
q. Genghis Khan 53 - 54
r. Mao Zedong 54 - 55
s. Marco Polo 55
t. Napoleon I 56
u. Pablo Picasso 56 - 57
v. Plato 57
w. Socrates 57 - 58
x. Vasco da Gama 58
y. Winston Churchill 58
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Serial Subject Page Number

PART – IV (IMPORTANT ORGANIZATIONS OF WORLD)
20. Important Organizations of World
a. Arab League 59 - 60
b. Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) 60
c. Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) 60
d. Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 61
e. European Union (EU) 62 - 62
f. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 62
g. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement 62 - 63
h. International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 63
i. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 63 - 64
j. Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries 64 - 65
(OPEC)
k. Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) 65 - 66
l. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) 66
m. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation 66
(SAARC)
n. Warsaw Pact 66
o. International Monetary Fund (IMF) 67
p. World Bank 67
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PART – I (HISTORY)

1. American Civil War. The American Civil War (1861–1865), also known
as the War Between the States (among other names), was a civil war in the
United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession
from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also
known as "the Confederacy." Led by Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy fought
against the United States (the Union), which was supported by all twenty free
states (where slavery had been abolished) and by five slave states that became
known as the border states. In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican
Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery
beyond the states in which it already existed. In response to the Republican
victory in that election, seven states declared their secession from the Union
before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. Both the outgoing administration of
President James Buchanan and Lincoln's incoming administration rejected the
legality of secession, considering it rebellion. Several other slave states rejected
calls for secession at this point. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when
Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South
Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state to
recapture federal property. This led to declarations of secession by four more
slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union assumed control of the
border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. In September
1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a
war goal, and dissuaded the British from intervening.
Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in the east, but in 1863 his
northward advance was turned back with heavy casualties after the Battle of
Gettysburg. To the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River after
their capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two.
The Union was able to capitalize on its long-term advantages in men and
materiel by 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles of attrition against Lee,
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while Union general William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta and marched
to the sea. Confederate resistance ended after Lee surrendered to Grant at
Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The American Civil War was one of
the earliest true industrial wars. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass-
produced weapons were employed extensively. The practices of total war,
developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of trench warfare around Petersburg
foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American
history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number
of civilian casualties. Ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years of age died,
as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40. Victory for the North
meant the end of the Confederacy and of slavery in the United States, and
strengthened the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic
and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted
to 1877.
2. Boer Wars
a. Introduction. The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the
British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Orange
Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic).
b. First Anglo-Boer War. The First Anglo-Boer War (1880–1881), also
known as the "Transvaal War," was a relatively brief conflict in which
Boer (Descendants of Dutch settlers, translates as 'Farmer')
successfully rebelled against British rule in the Transvaal, and re-
established the independence that they lost in 1877 when the Boers
fought the British in order to regain the independence, they had given
up to obtain British help against the Zulus.
c. Second Anglo-Boer War. The Second War (1899–1902), by contrast,
was a lengthy war—involving large numbers of troops from many
British possessions—which ended with the conversion of the Boer
republics into British colonies (with a promise of limited self-
government). These colonies later formed part of the Union of South
Africa. The British fought directly against the Transvaal and the Orange
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Free State. The bloodshed that was seen during the war was alarming.
Two main factors contributed to this. First, many of the British soldiers
were physically unprepared for the environment and poorly trained for
the tactical conditions they faced. As a result, British losses were high
due to both disease and combat. Second, the policies of "scorched
earth" and civilian internment (adopted by the British in response to the
Boer guerrilla campaign) ravaged the civilian populations in the
Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
d. Controversy and Significance. During the Second Boer War, the
British Empire pursued the policy of rounding up and isolating the Boer
civilian population into concentration camps. The wives and children of
Boer guerrillas were sent to these camps with poor hygiene and little
food, although this was remedied to some extent as time went on. The
death and suffering of the civilians, according to many scholars, is
what broke the guerrillas' will. The "pacification" theory has been
repeated many times in warfare since. The Second Boer War was a
major turning point in British history, due to world reaction over the
anti-insurgency tactics the British army used in the region. This led to a
change in approach to foreign policy from the British Empire who now
set about looking for more allies. To this end, the 1902 treaty with
Japan in particular was a sign that the British Empire feared attack on
its Far Eastern empire and saw this alliance as an opportunity to
strengthen its stance in the Far East. This war led to a change from
"splendid isolation" policy to a policy that involved looking for allies and
improving world relations. Later treaties with France ("Entente
cordiale") and Russia, caused partially by the controversy surrounding
the Boer War, were major factors in dictating how the battle lines were
drawn during World War One. The Boer War also had another
significance. The Army Medical Corps discovered that 40% of men
called up for duty were physically unfit to fight. This was the first time in
which the government was forced to take notice of how unfit the British
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Army was and this severe lack of physically-trained armed forces

strengthened the call for the Liberal Reforms of the first decade of the
twentieth century. Thus, this was one of the prime reasons for the
subsequent introduction of compulsory games and at least one hot
meal in British schools.
3. Chinese Civil War. The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between
the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party), the governing party of the
Republic of China and the Communist Party of China (CPC), for the control of
China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China
(now commonly known as Taiwan) and People's Republic of China (Mainland
China). The war began in April 1927, amidst the Northern Expedition. The war
represented an ideological split between the Nationalist KMT, and the
Communist CPC. In mainland China today, the last three years of the war (1947 -
1949) is more commonly known as the War of Liberation. The civil war continued
intermittently until the Second Sino-Japanese War interrupted it, resulting in the
two parties forming a Second United Front. Japan's campaign was defeated in
1945, marking the end of World War II, and China's full-scale civil war resumed in
1946. After a further four years, 1950 saw a cessation of major military hostilities
—with the newly founded People's Republic of China controlling mainland China
(including Hainan Island), and the Republic of China's jurisdiction being restricted
to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and several outlying Fujianese islands. To
this day, since no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed, there is
controversy as to whether the Civil War has legally ended. Today, the two sides
of the Taiwan strait have close economic ties.
4. Schlieffen Plan. The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's
early 20th century overall strategic plan for victory in a possible future war where
it might find itself fighting on two fronts: France to the west and Russia to the
east. The First World War later became such a war with both a Western Front
and an Eastern Front. The plan took advantage of expected differences in the
three countries' speed in preparing for war. In short, it was the German plan to
avoid a two-front war by concentrating their troops in the west, quickly defeating
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the French and then, if necessary, rushing those troops by rail to the east to face
the Russians before they had time to mobilize fully. The Schlieffen Plan was
created by Count Alfred von Schlieffen and modified by Helmuth von Moltke the
Younger after Schlieffen's retirement. It was Moltke who actually put the plan into
action, despite initial reservations about it. In modified form, it was executed to
near victory in the first month of World War I; however, the modifications to the
original plan, a French counterattack on the outskirts of Paris (the Battle of the
Marne), and surprisingly speedy Russian offensives, ended the German
offensive and resulted in years of trench warfare. The plan has been the subject
of intense debate among historians and military scholars ever since. Schlieffen's
last words were "remember to keep the right flank strong".
5. World War I. World War I (WWI) or First World War (called at the time the
Great War) was a major war centered on Europe that began in the summer of
1914. The fighting ended in November 1918. This conflict involved all of the
world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (centred
around the Triple Entente) and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military
personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest
wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, due largely to great
technological advances in firepower without corresponding advances in mobility.
It was the second deadliest conflict in history. The assassination on 28 June
1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-
Hungary, was the proximate trigger of the war. Long-term causes, such as
imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, such as the German
Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire,
the British Empire, France, and Italy, played a major role. Ferdinand's
assassination by a Yugoslav nationalist resulted in a Habsburg ultimatum against
the Kingdom of Serbia. Several alliances formed over the past decades were
invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; via their colonies, the
conflict soon spread around the world. On 28 July, the conflict opened with the
Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, followed by the German invasion of
Belgium, Luxembourg and France; and a Russian attack against Germany. After
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the German march on Paris was brought to a halt, the Western Front settled into
a static battle of attrition with a trench line that changed little until 1917. In the
East, the Russian army successfully fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces
but was forced back by the German army. Additional fronts opened after the
Ottoman Empire joined the war in 1914, Italy and Bulgaria in 1915 and Romania
in 1916. The Russian Empire collapsed in 1917, and Russia left the war after the
October Revolution later that year. After a 1918 German offensive along the
western front, United States forces entered the trenches and the Allies drove
back the German armies in a series of successful offensives. Germany agreed to
a cease-fire on 11 November 1918, later known as Armistice Day. By the war's
end, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and
Ottoman Empires—had been militarily and politically defeated. The latter two
ceased to exist. The revolutionized Soviet Union emerged from the Russian
Empire, while the map of central Europe was completely redrawn into numerous
smaller states. The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing
another such conflict. The European nationalism spawned by the war and the
breakup of empires, and the repercussions of Germany's defeat and the Treaty
of Versailles led to the beginning of World War II in 1939.
6. World War II. World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated
as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, which
involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers: eventually
forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most
widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel
mobilised. In a state of "total war," the major participants placed their entire
economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort,
erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by
significant events involving the mass death of civilians, including the Holocaust
and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in
human history, resulting in 50 million to over 70 million fatalities. The war is
generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of
Poland by Germany and Slovakia, and subsequent declarations of war on
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Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and
Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large empire in Europe. From
late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany
conquered or subdued much of continental Europe; amid Nazi-Soviet
agreements, the nominally neutral Soviet Union fully or partially occupied and
annexed territories of its six European neighbours. Britain and the
Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the
Axis in North Africa and in extensive naval warfare. In June 1941, the European
Axis launched an invasion of the Soviet Union, giving a start to the largest land
theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on, was tying down the major
part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had been at war
with China since 1937, and aimed to dominate Asia, attacked the United States
and European possessions in the Pacific Ocean, quickly conquering much of the
region. The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after the defeat of Japan in a
series of naval battles and after defeats of European Axis troops in North Africa
and, decisively, at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in
Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Fascist Italy, and American victories in the
Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In
1944, the Western Allies invaded France, while the Soviet Union regained all
territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. The war in Europe ended
with the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops and subsequent German unconditional
surrender on 8 May 1945. The Japanese Navy was defeated by the United
States, and invasion of the Japanese Archipelago ("Home Islands") became
imminent. The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and
Japan in 1945. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of
the world. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international
cooperation and prevent future conflicts (such as World War III). The Soviet
Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for
the Cold War, which would last for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of
European great powers started to decline, while the decolonization of Asia and
Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved toward
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economic recovery. Political integration emerged as an effort to stabilise postwar

relations.
7. Korean War. The Korean War (1950–armistice, 1953) was a military
conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United Nations, and the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, supported by the People's Republic of
China (PRC), with military material aid from the Soviet Union. The war began on
25 June 1950 and an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. The war was a
result of the physical division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at
the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean
peninsula was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following
the surrender of Japan in 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula
along the 38th Parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part
and Soviet troops occupying the northern part. The failure to hold free elections
throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two
sides, and the North established a Communist government. The 38th Parallel
increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas. Although
reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war, tension
intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel persisted. The
situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South
Korea on 25 June 1950. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.
The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of South
Korea in repelling the invasion. A rapid UN counter-offensive drove the North
Koreans past the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, and the People's
Republic of China (PRC) entered the war on the side of the North. The Chinese
launched a counter-offensive that pushed the United Nations forces back across
the 38th Parallel. The Soviet Union materially aided the North Korean and
Chinese armies. In 1953, the war ceased with an armistice that restored the
border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel and created the Korean
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) wide buffer zone between the two
Koreas. Minor outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day. With both North
and South Korea sponsored by external powers, the Korean War was a proxy
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war. From a military science perspective, it combined strategies and tactics of

World War I and World War II: it began with a mobile campaign of swift infantry
attacks followed by air bombing raids, but became a static trench war by July
1951.
8. Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a Cold War military conflict that
occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of
Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was
fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the
government of South Vietnam, supported by the U.S. and other anti-communist
nations. The Viet Cong, a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled
common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the
region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more
conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South
Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to
conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and
airstrikes. The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to
prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy
of containment. The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial
war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South
Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. U.S. military advisors arrived
beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop
levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were
deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and
Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet
Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called
Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in
January 1973, fighting continued. The Case–Church Amendment passed by the
U.S. Congress prohibited use of American military after 15 August 1973, unless
the president secured congressional approval in advance. The capture of Saigon
by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War.
North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a
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huge human cost in terms of fatalities (See: Vietnam War casualties). Estimates
as to the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from less than
one to more than three million. Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians, 20,000–
200,000 Laotians, and 58,159 U.S. servicemembers also died in the conflict.
9. Falklands War. The Falklands War, also called the Falklands
Conflict/Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom
(UK) over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South
Sandwich Islands. The Falkland Islands consist of two large and many small
islands in the South Atlantic Ocean east of Argentina; their name and sovereignty
over them have long been disputed. The Falklands War started on Friday, 2 April
1982, with the Argentine invasion and occupation of the Falkland Islands and
South Georgia. Britain launched a naval task force to engage the Argentine Navy
and Argentine Air Force, and retake the islands by amphibious assault. The
conflict ended with the Argentine surrender on 14 June 1982, and the islands
remained under British control. The war lasted 74 days. It resulted in the deaths
of 257 British and 649 Argentine soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and the deaths of
three civilian Falkland Islanders. It is the most recent external conflict to be
fought by the UK without any allied states and the only external Argentine war
since the 1880s. The conflict was the result of a protracted diplomatic
confrontation regarding the sovereignty of the islands. Neither state officially
declared war and the fighting was largely limited to the territories under dispute
and the South Atlantic. The initial invasion was characterised by Argentina as the
re-occupation of its own territory, and by the UK as an invasion of a British
dependent territory. As of 2011, and as it has since the 19th century, Argentina
shows no sign of relinquishing its claim. The claim remained in the Argentine
constitution after its reformation in 1994. The political effects of the war were
strong in both countries. A wave of patriotic sentiment swept through both: the
Argentine loss prompted even larger protests against the ruling military
government, which hastened its downfall; in the United Kingdom, the government
of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was bolstered. It helped Thatcher's
government to victory in the 1983 general election, which prior to the war was
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seen as by no means certain. The war has played an important role in the culture
of both countries, and has been the subject of several books, films, and songs.
Over time, the cultural and political weight of the conflict has had less effect on
the British public than on that of Argentina, where the war is still a topic of
discussion. Relations between Argentina and UK were restored in 1989 under
the umbrella formula which states that the islands' sovereignty dispute would
remain aside.
10. Gulf War One. The Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 – February 28,
1991), commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-
authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations led by Britain and the United
States, against Iraq. This war has also been referred to (by the former Iraqi
leader Saddam Hussein) as the mother of All Battles, and is commonly, though
mistakenly, known as Operation Desert Storm for the operational name of the
military response, the First Gulf War, Gulf War I, or the Iraq War, before the term
became identified with the 2003-2010 Iraq War. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi
troops that began 2 August 1990 was met with international condemnation, and
brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN
Security Council. U.S. President George H. W. Bush deployed American forces
to Saudi Arabia almost 6 months afterwards, and urged other countries to send
their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the Coalition. The great
majority of the military forces in the coalition were from the United States, with
Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that
order. Around US$36 billion of the US$60 billion cost was paid by Saudi Arabia.
The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial
bombardment on 17 January 1991. This was followed by a ground assault on 23
February. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated
Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased their advance, and
declared a cease-fire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and
ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on the border of Saudi
Arabia. However, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition military targets in
Saudi Arabia and against Israel.
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11. Kosovo War. The term Kosovo War or Kosovo Conflict is used to
describe two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo. From
early 1998 to 1999, the war was between the army and police of FR Yugoslavia,
and the Kosovo Liberation Army. From March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999, NATO
attacked Yugoslavia, and ethnic Albanian militants continued battles with
Yugoslav forces, amidst a massive displacement of population in Kosovo
estimated to be close to 1 million people. The war in Kosovo was believed to be
the first humanitarian war. It was the centre of news headlines for months, and
gained a massive amount of coverage and attention from the international
community and media. Kosovo and the bombing of Yugoslavia was also a very
controversial war and still remains a controversial issue. The Kosovo war was a
direct reason for the Kosovo refugee crisis.
12. Second Gulf War or Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Iraq War, Second
Gulf War or Operation Iraqi Freedom was a military campaign that began on
March 20, 2003, with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops
from the United States under the administration of President George W. Bush
and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Tony Blair. Prior to the invasion,
the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that the
possibility of Iraq employing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threatened
their security and that of their coalition/regional allies. In 2002, the United Nations
Security Council passed Resolution 1441 which called for Iraq to completely
cooperate with UN weapon inspectors to verify that it was not in possession of
weapons of mass destruction and cruise missiles. The United Nations
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was given
access by Iraq under provisions of the UN resolution but found no evidence of
weapons of mass destruction. Additional months of inspection to conclusively
verify Iraq's compliance with the UN disarmament requirements were not
undertaken. Head weapons inspector Hans Blix advised the UN Security Council
that while Iraq's cooperation was "active", it was not "unconditional" not
"immediate". Iraq's declarations with regards to weapons of mass destruction
could not be verified at the time, but unresolved tasks concerning Iraq's
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disarmment could be completed in "not years, not weeks, but months". Following
the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its
nuclear, chemical, and biological programs in 1991 and had no active programs
at the time of the invasion but that Iraq intended to resume production once
sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or
abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the
weapons which had been the main argument to justify the invasion. Some U.S.
officials also accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harboring and
supporting al-Qaeda, but no evidence of a meaningful connection was ever
found. Other reasons for the invasion included Iraq's financial support for the
families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuse,
and an effort to spread democracy to the country. The invasion of Iraq led to an
occupation and the eventual capture of President Hussein, who was later tried in
an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government. Violence against
coalition forces and among various sectarian groups soon led to the Iraqi
insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and the
emergence of a new faction of al-Qaeda in Iraq. In 2008, the UNHCR reported an
estimate of 4.7 million refugees (~16% of the population) with 2 million abroad (a
number close to CIA projections and 2.7 million internally displaced people. In
2007, Iraq's anti-corruption board reported that 35% of Iraqi children, or about
five million children, were orphans. The Red Cross stated in March 2008 that
Iraq's humanitarian situation remained among the most critical in the world, with
millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources. In
June 2008, U.S. Department of Defense officials claimed security and economic
indicators began to show signs of improvement in what they hailed as significant
and fragile gains. In 2007, Iraq was second on the Failed States Index; though its
ranking has steadily improved since then, moving to fifth on the 2008 list, sixth in
2009, and seventh in 2010. As public opinion favoring troop withdrawals
increased and as Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for security, member
nations of the Coalition withdrew their forces. In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi
governments approved a Status of Forces Agreement effective through January
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1, 2012. The Iraqi Parliament also ratified a Strategic Framework Agreement with
the U.S., aimed at ensuring cooperation in constitutional rights, threat deterrence,
education, energy development, and other areas. In late February 2009, newly
elected U.S. President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal
window for combat forces, with approximately 50,000 troops remaining in the
country "to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and
surveillance". General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said
he believes all U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011, while UK
forces ended combat operations on April 30, 2009. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-
Maliki has said he supports the accelerated pullout of U.S. forces. In a speech at
the Oval Office on 31 August 2010 Obama declared "the American combat
mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people
now have lead responsibility for the security of their country."Beginning
September 1, 2010, the American operational name for its involvement in Iraq
changed from "Operation Iraqi Freedom" to "Operation New Dawn." The
remaining 50,000 U.S. troops are now designated as "advise and assist
brigades" assigned to non-combat operations while retaining the ability to revert
to combat operations as necessary. Two combat aviation brigades also remain in
Iraq.

13. Yom Kippur War. The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October war
also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973,
between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. The war
began when the coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israel on Yom
Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which coincided with the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the
Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights respectively, which had been
captured and occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. The conflict led to a near-
confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the
Soviet Union, both of whom initiated massive resupply efforts to their allies during
the war. The war began with a massive and successful Egyptian attack across
 19

the heavily fortified Suez Canal during the first three days, after which they dug
in, settling into a stalemate. The Syrians attacked the Golan Heights at the same
time and initially made threatening gains against the greatly outnumbered
Israelis. Within a week, Israel recovered and launched a four-day counter-
offensive, driving deep into Syria. To relieve this pressure, the Egyptians went
back on the offensive, but were decisively defeated; the Israelis then
counterattacked at the seam between two Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez
Canal, and advanced southward and westward in over a week of heavy fighting.
An October 22 United Nations-brokered ceasefire quickly unraveled, with each
side blaming the other for the breach. By 24 October, the Israelis had improved
their positions considerably and completed their encirclement of Egypt's Third
Army. This development prompted superpower tension, but a second ceasefire
was imposed cooperatively on October 25 to end the war. At the conclusion of
hostilities, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and
101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo. The war had far-reaching implications. The
Arab World, which had been humiliated by the lopsided rout of the Egyptian-
Syrian-Jordanian alliance in the Six-Day War, felt psychologically vindicated by
early successes in the conflict. In Israel, despite impressive operational and
tactical achievements on the battlefield, the war effectively ended its sense of
invincibility and complacency. The war also challenged many American
assumptions; the United States initiated new efforts at mediation and
peacemaking. These changes paved the way for the subsequent peace process.
The Camp David Accords that followed led to the return of the Sinai to Egypt and
normalized relations—the first peaceful recognition of Israel by an Arab country.
Egypt continued its drift away from the Soviet Union and left the Soviet sphere of
influence entirely.

PART – II (GEOGRAPHY)
 20

Continents
1. Asia. Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located
primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's
total surface area (or 29.9% of its land area) and with approximately 4 billion
people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population. During the 20th
century Asia's population nearly quadrupled. Asia is traditionally defined as part
of the landmass of Eurasia—with the western portion of the latter occupied by
Europe—located to the east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains and
south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma-Manych Depression) and the
Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the
south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Given its size
and diversity, Asia—a toponym dating back to classical antiquity—is more a
cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples than a
homogeneous physical entity. The wealth of Asia differs very widely among and
within its regions, due to its vast size and huge range of different cultures,
environments, historical ties and government systems. Asia is the birthplace of all
world religions.
2. Australia. Australia officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country
in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent,
the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific
Oceans.N4 Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua
New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to
the northeast and New Zealand to the southeast. For at least 40,000 years
before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by
indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language
groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was
claimed by Britain in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the
colony of New South Wales, formally founded on 7 February 1788 (although
formal possession of the land had occurred on 26 January 1788). The population
grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an
additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established. On 1 January
 21

1901, the six colonies became a federation and the Commonwealth of Australia
was formed. Since Federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal
democratic political system and is a Commonwealth realm. The population is 22
million, with approximately 60% concentrated in and around the mainland state
capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The nation's
capital city is Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory.
A prosperous developed country, Australia is the world's thirteenth largest
economy. Australia ranks highly in many international comparisons of national
performance such as human development, quality of life, health care, life
expectancy, public education, economic freedom and the protection of civil
liberties and political rights. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20,
Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, OECD, APEC, Pacific Islands Forum and
the World Trade Organization.
3. Europe. Europe is, by convention, considered to be one of the world's
seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is
generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains,
the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (specification of borders)
and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and
other bodies of water to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the
Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea and connected waterways to
the southeast. Yet the borders for Europe—a concept dating back to classical
antiquity—are somewhat arbitrary, as the term continent can refer to a cultural
and political distinction or a physiographic one. Europe is the world's second-
smallest continent by surface area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres
(3,930,000 sq mi) or 2% of the Earth's surface and about 6.8% of its land area.
Of Europe's approximately 50 states, Russia is the largest by both area and
population (although the country has territory in both Europe and Asia), while the
Vatican City is the smallest. Europe is the third-most populous continent after
Asia and Africa, with a population of 731 million or about 11% of the world's
population. Europe, in particular Ancient Greece, is the birthplace of Western
culture. It played a predominant role in global affairs from the 16th century
 22

onwards, especially after the beginning of colonialism. Between the 16th and
20th centuries, European nations controlled at various times the Americas, most
of Africa, Oceania, and large portions of Asia. Both World Wars were largely
focused upon Europe, greatly contributing to a decline in Western European
dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the United States and
Soviet Union took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along
the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east.
European integration led to the formation of the Council of Europe and the
European Union in Western Europe, both of which have been expanding
eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
4. Africa. Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous
continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including
adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the
total land area. With 1.0 billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about
14.72% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the
Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the
Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the
Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent has 54 sovereign states, including
Madagascar, various island groups, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic,
a member state of the African Union whose statehood is disputed by Morocco.
Africa, particularly central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific
community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes), as
evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well
as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago – including
Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo
erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern
human) found in Ethiopia being dated to circa 200,000 years ago. Africa
straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only
continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.
The African expected economic growth rate is at about 5.0% for 2010 and 5.5%
in 2011.
 23

5. North America. North America is the northern continent of the Americas,

situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is
bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic
Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North
Pacific Ocean; South America lies to the southeast. North America covers an
area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), about
4.8% of the planet's surface or about 16.5% of its land area. As of July 2008, its
population was estimated at nearly 529 million people. It is the third-largest
continent in area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth in population after
Asia, Africa, and Europe.
6. South America. South America is the southern continent of the Americas,
situated in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere,
with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It is bordered on the
west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North
America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest. The word America was
coined in 1507 by cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann,
after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the lands
newly discovered by Europeans were not India, but a New World unknown to
Europeans. South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers
(6,890,000 sq mi), or almost 3.5% of the Earth's surface. As of 2005, its
population was estimated at more than 371,090,000. South America ranks fourth
in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia,
Africa, Europe and North America).
7. Antarctica. Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, encapsulating
the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the southern hemisphere,
almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern
Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in
area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. About 98% of
Antarctica is covered by ice, which averages at least 1.6 kilometres (1.0 mi) in
thickness. Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent,
and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is
 24

considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 inches) along

the coast and far less inland. There are no permanent human residents, but
anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research
stations scattered across the continent. Only cold-adapted plants and animals
survive there, including penguins, seals, nematodes, tardigrades, mites, many
types of algae and other microorganisms, and tundra vegetation. Although myths
and speculation about a Terra Australis ("Southern Land") date back to antiquity,
the first confirmed sighting of the continent is commonly accepted to have
occurred in 1820 by the Russian expedition of Fabian Gottlieb von
Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The continent, however, remained largely
neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack
of resources, and isolation. The first formal use of the name "Antarctica" as a
continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John
George Bartholomew. The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by twelve
countries; to date, forty-six countries have signed the treaty. The treaty prohibits
military activities and mineral mining, supports scientific research, and protects
the continent's ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than
4,000 scientists of many nationalities and with various research interests.
Oceans
1. Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic
divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the
south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
At 165.25 million square kilometres (63.8 million square miles) in area, this
largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers
about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface.
The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean,
with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the
equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the
western North Pacific is the deepest point in the Pacific and in the world,
reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft). The Pacific Ocean was sighted by
Europeans early in the 16th century, first by the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez
 25

de Balboa who crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it Mar del
Sur (South Sea). Its current name was given by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand
Magellan during the Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation in 1521, who
encountered calm seas during the journey and called it Tepre Pacificum in Latin,
meaning "pacific" or "peaceful sea".
2. Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's
oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres
(41,100,000 sq mi), it covers approximately twenty percent of the Earth's surface
and about twenty-six percent of its water surface area. The first part of its name
refers to Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas". The
oldest known mention of "Atlantic" is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450
BC. Another name historically used was the ancient term Ethiopic Ocean,
derived from Ethiopia, whose name was sometimes used as a synonym for all of
Africa and thus for the ocean. Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the
term "ocean" itself was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of
Gibraltar that we now know as the Atlantic. The Greeks believed this ocean to be
a gigantic river encircling the world. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated,
S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between the Americas to the west, and
Eurasia and Africa to the east. As one component of the interconnected global
ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean (which is sometimes
considered a sea of the Atlantic), to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the
Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south. (Other
definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica.) The
equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.
3. Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic
divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is
bounded on the north by the Indian subcontinent; on the west by East Africa; on
the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the
Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, by Antarctica). The ocean is named
after the geographic location called India. As one component of the
interconnected global ocean, the Indian Ocean is delineated from the Atlantic
 26

Ocean by the 20° east meridian running south from Cape Agulhas, and from the
Pacific by the meridian of 146°55' east. The northernmost extent of the Indian
Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf. The Indian Ocean has
asymmetric ocean circulation. This ocean is nearly 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi)
wide at the southern tips of Africa and Australia; its area is 73,556,000 square
kilometres (28,350,000 sq mi), including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The
ocean's volume is estimated to be 292,131,000 cubic kilometres (70,086,000 mi).
Small islands dot the continental rims. Island nations within the ocean are
Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island; Reunion Island; Comoros;
Seychelles; Maldives; Mauritius; and Sri Lanka. The archipelago of Indonesia
borders the ocean on the east.

4. Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean, also known as the Great

Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Ocean and the South Polar Ocean, comprises the
southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S
latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of
the five principal oceanic divisions. This ocean zone is where cold, northward
flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer sub-Antarctic waters.
Geographers disagree on the Southern Ocean's northern boundary or even its
existence, with some considering the waters part of the South Pacific, South
Atlantic, and Indian Oceans instead. Others regard the Antarctic Convergence,
an ocean zone which fluctuates seasonally, as separating the Southern Ocean
from other oceans, rather than the 60th parallel. The International Hydrographic
Organization (IHO) has not yet ratified its 2000 definition of the ocean as being
south of 60°S. Its latest published definition of oceans dates from 1953; this does
not include the Southern Ocean. However, the more recent definition is used by
the IHO and others. Australian authorities regard the Southern Ocean as lying
immediately south of Australia.

5. Arctic Ocean. The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and
mostly in the Arctic North Polar Region, is the smallest, and shallowest of the
world's five major oceanic divisions. The International Hydrographic Organization
 27

(IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic

Mediterranean Sea or simply the Arctic Sea, classifying it as one of the
mediterranean seas of the Atlantic Ocean. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be
seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean. Almost
completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America, the Arctic Ocean is partly
covered by sea ice throughout the year (and almost completely in winter). The
Arctic Ocean's temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts
and freezes; its salinity is the lowest on average of the five major oceans, due to
low evaporation, heavy freshwater inflow from rivers and streams, and limited
connection and outflow to surrounding oceanic waters with higher salinities. The
summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and
Ice Data Center (NSIDC) uses satellite data to provide a daily record of Arctic
Sea ice cover and the rate of melting compared to an average period and
specific past years.

Important Geographic Locations

1. Adriatic Sea. The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian
Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula and the system of the Apennine Mountains
from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges. The Adriatic Sea is a
northwest-to-southeast arm of the Mediterranean Sea. The western coast is
Italian, while the eastern coast runs along Slovenia (47 km), Croatia (5,835 km),
Bosnia and Herzegovina (26 km), Montenegro (294 km), and Albania (295 km).
Major rivers joining the Adriatic are the Reno, Po, Adige/Etsch, Brenta, Piave,
Soča/Isonzo, Zrmanja, Krka, Cetina, Neretva, and Drin (Drini).
2. Aegean Sea. The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the
Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian
peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is
connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus.
The Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern
periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The Aegean Region consists of nine
provinces in southwestern Turkey, in part bordering on the Aegean Sea. The sea
 28

was traditionally known as Archipelago, the general sense of which has since
changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally, to any island group
because the Aegean Sea is remarkable for its large number of islands.
3. Arabian Sea. The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded
on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the
Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape
Guardafui in the northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India. Some of the
ancient names of this body of water include Sindhu Sagar (Sea of Sindh) and
Erythraean Sea.
4. Arafura Sea. The Arafura Sea lies west of the Pacific Ocean overlying the
continental shelf between Australia and New Guinea.
5. Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in
Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It
is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the
Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt
and the Little Belt. The Kattegat continues through Skagerrak into the North Sea
and the Atlantic Ocean. The Baltic Sea is connected by man-made waterways to
the White Sea via the White Sea Canal, and to the North Sea via the Kiel Canal.
The Baltic Sea might be considered to be bordered on its northern edge by the
Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, and on its
eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga. However, these various gulfs can be
considered to be simply offshoots of the Baltic Sea, and therefore parts of it.
6. Black Sea. The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia
and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the
Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait
connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to
the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters separate eastern
Europe and western Asia. The Black Sea also connects to the Sea of Azov by
the Strait of Kerch.
7. Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean
situated in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and
 29

Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles,
and to the east by the Lesser Antilles. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the
numerous islands of the West Indies, and adjacent coasts, are collectively known
as the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest salt water seas and
has an area of about 2,754,000 km² (1,063,000 sq. mi.). The sea's deepest point
is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at 7,686 m
(25,220 ft) below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays:
the Gulf of Gonâve, Gulf of Venezuela, Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos
and Gulf of Honduras.
8. Coral Sea. The Coral Sea is a marginal sea off the northeast coast of
Australia. It is bounded in the west by the east coast of Queensland, thereby
including the Great Barrier Reef, in the east by Vanuatu (formerly the New
Hebrides) and by New Caledonia, and in the north approximately by the southern
extremity of the Solomon Islands. It merges with the Tasman Sea in the south,
with the Solomon Sea in the north and with the Pacific Ocean in the east. On the
west, it connects with the Arafura Sea through the Torres Strait. The sea is
characterised by its warm and stable climate, with frequent rains and tropical
cyclones. It contains numerous islands and reefs, as well as the world's largest
reef system, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), which was declared a World Heritage
Site by UNESCO in 1981. All previous oil exploration projects were terminated at
the GBR in 1975, and fishing is restricted in many areas. The reefs and islands of
the Coral Sea are particularly rich in birds and aquatic life and are a popular
tourist destination, both nationally and internationally.
9. East China Sea. The East China Sea is a marginal sea east of China. It is
a part of the Pacific Ocean and covers an area of 1,249,000 km² or 750,000
square miles.
10. Red Sea. The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying
between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the
Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai
Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez (leading to the Suez Canal).
The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion. Occupying a part of the Great Rift
 30

Valley, the Red Sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 km² (169,100 square
miles ). It is about 2250 km (1398 miles) long and, at its widest point, is 355 km
(220.6 miles) wide. It has a maximum depth of 2211 metres (7254 feet) in the
central median trench, and an average depth of 490 metres (1,608 feet).
However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and
corals. The sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft
and hard corals. It is the world's northernmost tropical sea.
11 Ross Sea. The Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean in
Antarctica between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land. It was discovered by
James Ross in 1841. In the west of the Ross Sea is Ross Island with the Mt.
Erebus volcano, in the east Roosevelt Island. The southern part is covered by
the Ross Ice Shelf. Roald Amundsen started his South Pole expedition in 1911
from the Bay of Whales, which was located at the shelf. In the west of the Ross
Sea, McMurdo Sound is a port which is usually free of ice during the summer.
The southernmost part of the Ross Sea is Gould Coast, which is approximately
two hundred miles from the Geographic South Pole. All land masses in the Ross
Sea are claimed by New Zealand to fall under the jurisdiction of the Ross
Dependency, but a few non-Commonwealth nations recognize this claim.
12. Sea of Japan. The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific
Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It
is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the
Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure
from the Pacific Ocean. This isolation also reflects in the fauna species and in the
water salinity, which is lower than in the ocean. The sea has no large islands,
bays or capes. Its water balance is mostly determined by the inflow and outflow
through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas and Pacific Ocean. Few
rivers discharge into the sea and their total contribution to the water exchange is
within 1%. The seawater is characterized by the elevated concentration of
dissolved oxygen that results in high biological productivity. Therefore, fishing is
the dominant economic activity in the region. The intensity of shipments across
the sea has been moderate owing to political issues, but it is steadily increasing
 31

as a result of the growth of East Asian economies. A controversy exists about the
sea name, with South Korea promoting the appellation East Sea.
13. South China Sea. The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of
the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca
Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 km². Depending on
measurement, it is the largest or second largest body of water after the five
oceans.
14. Yellow Sea. The Yellow Sea is the name given to the northern part of the
East China Sea, which is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It is located
between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula. Its name comes from the
sand particles from Gobi Desert sand storms that turn the surface of the water
golden yellow. In North Korea and South Korea, the sea is sometimes called the
West Sea. The innermost bay of the Yellow Sea is called the Bohai Sea
(previously Pechihli Bay or Chihli Bay). Into it flow both the Yellow River (through
Shandong province and its capital Jinan) and Hai He (through Beijing and
Tianjin). Deposits of sand and silt from those rivers contribute to the sea color.
15. Strait of Gibraltar. The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects
the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe
from Morocco in Africa. The name comes from Gibraltar, which in turn originates
from the Arabic Jebel Tariq, albeit the Arab name for the Strait is Bab el-Zakat or
"Gate of Charity". It is also known erroneously as the Straits of Gibraltar, or
STROG (Strait Of Gibraltar), in naval use and as "Pillars of Hercules" in the
ancient world. Europe and Africa are separated by 7.7 nmi (14.3 km; 8.9 mi) of
ocean at the strait's narrowest point. The Strait's depth ranges between 300 and
900 m (980 and 3,000 ft) which possibly interacted with the lower mean sea level
of the last major glaciation 20,000 years before present when the level of the sea
was believed to be lower by 110–120 m (360–390 ft). Ferries cross between the
two continents every day in as little as 35 minutes. The Spanish side of the Strait
is protected under El Estrecho Natural Park.
16. Strait of Malacca. The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, 805 km (500 mile)
stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) and the
 32

Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is named after the Malacca Sultanate that ruled
over the archipelago between 1414 to 1511.
17. Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait (formerly Black Ditch)
is a 180-km-wide (111.85-mile-wide) strait between China and Taiwan. The strait
is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast.
The narrowest part is 131 km (81.4 mi.) wide.
18. Bosphorus. The Bosphorus or Bosporus also known as the Istanbul Strait
is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of
the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles. The world's narrowest strait used
for international navigation, it connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara
(which is connected by the Dardanelles to the Aegean Sea, and thereby to the
Mediterranean Sea).
19. Algoa Bay. Algoa Bay is a wide inlet along the South African east coast,
some 425 miles (683 kilometres) east of the Cape of Good Hope. It is bounded in
the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to 436
m deep. The harbour city of Port Elizabeth is situated adjacent to the bay, as is
the new Coega deep water port facility.
20. Botany Bay. Botany Bay is a bay in Sydney, New South Wales, a few
kilometres south of the Sydney central business district. The Cooks River and the
Georges River are the two major tributaries that flow into the bay. Two runways
of Sydney Airport extend into the bay. On 29 April 1770, Botany Bay was the site
of James Cook's first landing of HMS Endeavour on the continent of Australia,
after his extensive navigation of New Zealand. Later the British planned Botany
Bay as the site for a penal colony. Out of these plans came the first European
habitation of Australia at Sydney Cove.
21. Hudson Bay. Hudson Bay is a large body of water in northeastern
Canada. It drains a very large area, about 3,861,400 square kilometres
(1,490,900 sq mi), that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan,
Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North
Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana. A smaller offshoot of the bay,
James Bay, lies to the south.
 33

22. Aru Islands. The Aru Islands are a group of about ninety-five low-lying
islands in the Maluku province of eastern Indonesia.
23. Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's
Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a
number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared mysteriously.
Popular culture has attributed these disappearances to the paranormal or activity
by extraterrestrial beings. Documented evidence indicates that a significant
percentage of the incidents were inaccurately reported or embellished by later
authors, and numerous official agencies have stated that the number and nature
of disappearances in the region is similar to that in any other area of ocean.
24. English Channel. The English Channel is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean
that separates Great Britain from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the
Atlantic. It is about 560 km (350 mi) long and varies in width from 240 km
(150 mi) at its widest, to only 34 km (21 mi) in the Strait of Dover. It is the
smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an
area of some 75,000 km2 (29,000 sq mi).
25. Gulf of Aden. The Gulf of Aden is located in the Arabian Sea between
Yemen, on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and Somalia in the Horn of
Africa. In the northwest, it connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el-Mandeb
strait, which is about 20 miles wide. The waterway is part of the important Suez
Canal shipping route between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea in the
Indian Ocean with 21,000 ships crossing the gulf annually. The gulf is known by
the nickname "Pirate Alley" due to the large amount of pirate activity in the area.
26. Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension
towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic
ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern
coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic
Ocean. The process of western intensification causes the Gulf Stream to be a
northward accelerating current off the east coast of North America. At about
40°0′N 30°0′W40°N 30°W, it splits in two, with the northern stream crossing to
northern Europe and the southern stream recirculating off West Africa. The Gulf
 34

Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to
Newfoundland, and the west coast of Europe. Although there has been recent
debate, there is consensus that the climate of Western Europe and Northern
Europe is warmer than it would otherwise be due to the North Atlantic drift, one of
the branches from the tail of the Gulf Stream. It is part of the North Atlantic Gyre.
Its presence has led to the development of strong cyclones of all types, both
within the atmosphere and within the ocean. The Gulf Stream is also a significant
potential source of renewable power generation.
27. Horn of Africa. The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts
hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of
the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent.
Referred to in medieval times as Bilad al Barbar ("Land of the Berbers"), the
Horn of Africa denotes the region containing the countries of Eritrea, Djibouti,
Ethiopia and Somalia. It covers approximately 2,000,000 km² (772,200 sq mi)
and is inhabited by about 100.2 million people (Ethiopia: 75 million, Somalia: 10
million, Eritrea: 4.5 million, and Djibouti: 0.7 million).
Facts About Pakistan
1. Rivers of Pakistan
a. Punjab
(1) Jhelum
(2) Chenab
(3) Ravi
(4) Sutlej
(5) Beas

b. Sindh
(1) Hub
(2) Mir Nadi
(3) Arl Nasi
(4) Malir Nadi
c. Khyber Pakhtunkhuwa
 35

(1) Indus
(2) Kabul
(3) Swat
(4) Chitral
(5) Zhob
(6) Panjkora
(7) Gormal
(8) Kurram
d. Balochistan
(1) Hangol
(2) Nari
(3) Bolan
(4) Dasht
(5) Mula
(6) Rakhshan
(7) Pishin Lora
2. Mountain Passes of Pakistan

Serial Name of Pass Height

a. Myztagh Pass 19,030 ft
b. Karakoram Pass 18,290 “
c. Khan Kun Pass 16,600 “
d. Zagar Pass 16,431”
e. Kilik Pass 15,837”
f. Kunjrab Pass 15,529”
Serial Name of Pass Height
g. Mintaka Pass 15,450 ft
h. Dorah Pass 14,992 ”
i. Babosar Pass 14,931 ”
j. Shandur Pass 12,500 ”
k. Lowari Pass 12,500 ”
 36

l. Burgohil Pass 12,480 ”

m. Khyber Pass 6,916 ”

3. Physiography
a. Pakistan is divided into six physiographical divisions.
b. The total area of Pakistan (Excluding Azad Jammu and Kashmir)
796,096 sq km.
c. Pakistan lies between the latitudes 24 N and 37 N.
d. In1963 year boundary agreement was signed between Pakistan-
China.
e. Area of Wakhan is under the control of Afghanistan.
f. The Border agreement between Pakistan and India on Runn of
Kuchh was singed in 1968.
g. Runn off Kuchh boundary line is known as 24th parallel line.
h. In year 1972 line of control came into existence.
i. In Simla agreement the cease-fire line’s name was changed as line
of control.
j. The total length of Pak-China border is 595 km.
k. The total length of Pak-Afghan border is 2250 km.
l. The total length of Pak-Iran border is 805 km.
m. The total length of Pak-India border is 2250 km.
n. Total area covered by FATA is 27,220 km.
o. According to international law Pakistan’s territorial sea limit is
12 NM.

4. MOUNTAINS / PLAINS AND DESERTS

a. The Kachhi Sibi plain is located in Lower Indus plain.
b. oldest mountains of the world are present in India and youngest
mountains of the world are present in Pakistan.
c. The range which separates China from Pakistan is Karakoram.
 37

d. The range which separates Pakistan from Afghanistan is Hindu

Kush.
e. The salt range is situated between rivers Soan and Jhehlum.
f. Nanga Parbat means Naked Mountain.
g. First Pakistani to climb the K-2 was Ashraf Aman.
h. Pamir Plateau is called Roof of the world.
i. Bolan Pass connects Sindh Plain with Quetta.
j. Babusar Pass connects Abbottabad with Gilgit.
k. Khojak Pass connects Qila Abdullah with Cheman.
l. The total length of Khyber Pass is 56 km.
m. Malakand Pass connects Peshawar with Chitral.
n. Muztagh Pass is the highest Pass of Pakistan.
o. Khyber Pakhtunkuwa province has no desert.
p. Balochistan province has the desert Kharan.
q. The ranking of Thar desert in the world is 9th.

Neighbouring Countries of Pakistan

1. India. India is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by

geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion
people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Mainland India is
bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the
Bay of Bengal on the east; and it is bordered by Pakistan to the west, Bhutan, the
People's Republic of China and Nepal to the north; and Bangladesh and Burma
to the east. In the Indian Ocean, mainland India and the Lakshadweep Islands
are in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while India's Andaman and
Nicobar Islands share maritime border with Thailand and the Indonesian island of
Sumatra in the Andaman Sea. India has a coastline of 7,517 kilometres (4,700
mi). Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade
routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its
commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's
 38

major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism—originated here,

while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first
millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by
the British East India Company from the early 18th century and colonised by the
United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation
in 1947 after a struggle for independence which was marked by a non-violent
resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi. India is a federal constitutional republic with
a parliamentary democracy consisting of 28 states and seven union territories. A
pluralistic, multilingual and multiethnic society where more than 300 languages
are spoken, India is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected
habitats. The Indian economy is the world's eleventh largest economy by nominal
GDP and the fourth largest by purchasing power parity. Since the introduction of
market-based economic reforms in 1991, India has become one of the fastest
growing major economies in the world, however, the country continues to face
several poverty, illiteracy, corruption and public health related challenges. India is
classified as a newly industrialised country and is one of the four BRIC nations. It
is the world's sixth de facto recognized nuclear weapons state and has the third-
largest standing armed force in the world, while its military expenditure ranks
tenth in the world. India is a regional power in South Asia. It is a founding
member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the World Trade
Organization, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the East
Asia Summit, the G20 and the G8+5; a member of the Commonwealth of
Nations; and an observer state in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

2. China. The People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as

China, is the most populous state in the world with over 1.3 billion people.
Located in East Asia, China is a single-party state governed by the Communist
Party of China (CPC). The PRC exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five
autonomous regions, four directly administered municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin,
Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two highly autonomous special administrative
regions (SARs) – Hong Kong and Macau. Its capital city is Beijing. At about
 39

9.6 million square kilometres (3.7 million square miles), the PRC is the world's
third- or fourth-largest country by total area (depending on the definition of what
is included in that total) and the second largest by land area. Its landscape is
diverse, with forest steppes and deserts (the Gobi and Taklamakan) in the dry
north near Mongolia and Russia's Siberia, and subtropical forests in the wet
south close to Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. The terrain in the west is rugged and
at high altitude with the Himalayas and the Tian Shan mountain ranges forming
China's natural borders with India and Central Asia. In contrast, mainland China's
eastern seaboard is low-lying and has a 14,500-kilometre (9,000 mi) long
coastline bounded on the southeast by the South China Sea and on the east by
the East China Sea beyond which lie Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. The ancient
Chinese civilization—one of the world's earliest—flourished in the fertile basin of
the Yellow River which flows through the North China Plain. For more than 6,000
years, China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies (also known
as dynasties). The first of these dynasties was the Xia (approx 2000BC) but it
was the later Qin Dynasty that first unified China in 221 BC. The last dynasty, the
Qing, ended in 1911 with the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) by the
Kuomintang (KMT), the Chinese Nationalist Party. The first half of the 20th
century saw China plunged into a period of disunity and civil wars that divided the
country into two main political camps – the Kuomintang and the communists.
Major hostilities ended in 1949, when the communists won the civil war and
established the People's Republic of China in mainland China. The KMT-led
Republic of China relocated their capital to Taipei on Taiwan; its jurisdiction is
now limited to Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu and several outlying islands. Since then,
the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been involved in political disputes with
the Republic of China over issues of sovereignty and the political status of
Taiwan. Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, China
has become the world's fastest growing major economy, the world's largest
exporter and second largest importer of goods. China is the world's second
largest economy by both nominal GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP) and a
permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is also a member of
 40

formal/informal multilateral organizations including the WTO, APEC, BRIC,

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and G-20. China is a recognized nuclear
weapons state and has the world's largest standing army with the second-largest
defense budget. China has been characterized as a potential superpower by a
number of academics, military analysts, and public policy and economics
analysts.

3. Afghanistan. Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is

a landlocked and mountainous country in south-central Asia. It is bordered by
Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. The territories now
comprising Afghanistan have been an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and
human migration. Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation from
as far back as 50,000 BCE. Urban civilization may have begun in the area as
early as 3000 to 2000 BC. The country sits at an important geostrategic location
which connects the Middle East with Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent,
which has been home to various people through the ages. The land has
witnessed military conquests since antiquity, including by Alexander the Great,
Genghis Khan, Chandragupta Maurya and many others. It has also served as a
source from which many local dynasties, for example Greco-Bactrians, Kushans,
Hephthalites, or Ghaznavids have established empires of their own. The political
history of modern Afghanistan begins in the 18th century with the rise of the
Pashtun tribes (known as Afghans in Persian language), when in 1709 the Hotaki
dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and Ahmad Shah Durrani established the
Durrani Empire in 1747. The capital of Afghanistan was shifted in 1776 from
Kandahar to Kabul and part of its territory was ceded to neighboring empires by
1893. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in the "Great
Game" between the British and Russian empires. On August 19, 1919, following
the third Anglo-Afghan war and the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi, the
nation regained control over its foreign policy from the British. In December 2001,
the United Nations Security Council authorized the creation of an International
 41

Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help maintain security and assist the Karzai
administration. The country is being rebuilt slowly with support from the
international community while dealing with the Taliban insurgency and
widespread political corruption.

4. Iran. Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Central

Eurasia and Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the
Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the
country was also known to the western world as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are
used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, Iran is the name used
officially in political contexts. The 18th largest country in the world in terms of
area at 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of over 74 million.
It is a country of particular geostrategic significance owing to its location in the
Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which
is an inland sea and condominium, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct
neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan,
on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and
on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and
the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a
regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security
and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas.
Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations. The first
Iranian dynasty formed during the Elamite kingdom in 2800 BC. The Iranian
Medes unified Iran into an empire in 625 BC. They were succeeded by the
Iranian Achaemenid Empire, the Hellenic Seleucid Empire and two subsequent
Iranian empires, the Parthians and the Sassanids, before the Muslim conquest in
651 AD. Iranian post-Islamic dynasties and empires expanded the Persian
language and culture throughout the Iranian plateau. Early Iranian dynasties
which re-asserted Iranian independence included the Tahirids, Saffarids,
Samanids and Buyids. The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy,
 42

medicine, astronomy, mathematics and art became major elements of Muslim

civilization and started with the Saffarids and Samanids. Iranian identity
continued despite foreign rule in the ensuing centuries and Persian culture was
adopted also by the Ghaznavids, Seljuq, Ilkhanid and Timurid rulers. A turning
point in Iran's was the emergence in 1501 of the Safavid dynasty—who promoted
Twelver Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the
most important turning points in the history of Islam. "Persia's Constitutional
Revolution" established the nation's first parliament in 1906, within a
constitutional monarchy. Iran officially became an Islamic republic on 1 April
1979, following the Iranian Revolution. Iran is a founding member of the UN,
NAM, OIC and OPEC. The political system of Iran, based on the 1979
constitution, comprises several intricately connected governing bodies. The
highest state authority is the Supreme Leader. Shia Islam is the official religion
and Persian is the official language
 43

PART – III (IMPORTANT PERSONALITIES)

Important Personalities

1. Alexander the Great. Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11
June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of Macedon
or Macedonia, a state in the north eastern region of Greece, and by the age of
thirty was the creator of one of the largest empires in ancient history, stretching
from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. He was undefeated in battle and is
considered one of the most successful commanders of all time. Born in Pella in
356 BC, Alexander was tutored by the famed philosopher Aristotle. In 336 BC he
succeeded his father Philip II of Macedon to the throne after he was
assassinated. Philip had brought most of the city-states of mainland Greece
under Macedonian hegemony, using both military and diplomatic means. Upon
Philip's death, Alexander inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army.
He succeeded in being awarded the generalship of Greece and, with his
authority firmly established, launched the military plans for expansion left by his
father. In 334 BC he invaded Persian-ruled Asia Minor and began a series of
campaigns lasting ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of
decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. Subsequently
he overthrew the Persian king Darius III and conquered the entirety of the
Persian Empire.The Macedonian Empire now stretched from the Adriatic sea to
the Indus river. Following his desire to reach the "ends of the world and the Great
Outer Sea", he invaded India in 326 BC, but was eventually forced to turn back
by the near-mutiny of his troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, without
realizing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion
of Arabia. In the years following Alexander's death a series of civil wars tore his
empire apart which resulted in the formation of a number of states ruled by the
Diadochi - Alexander's surviving generals. Although he is mostly remembered for
 44

his vast conquests, Alexander's lasting legacy was not his reign, but the cultural
diffusion his conquests engendered. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists
and culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic culture, aspects of which
were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire until the mid-15th
century. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles,
and features prominently in the history and myth of Greek and non-Greek
cultures. He became the measure against which generals, even to this day,
compare themselves and military academies throughout the world still teach his
tactical exploits.

2. Abū Rayhān Al-Bīrūnī. Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni

born 5 September 973 in Kath, Khwarezm, died 13 December 1048 in Ghazni,
known as Alberonius in Latin, was a Persian Muslim scholar and polymath of the
11th century. Biruni was a polymath with an interest in various practical and
scholarly fields that relate to what nowadays is described as physics,
anthropology, comparative sociology, astronomy, astrology, chemistry, history,
geography, mathematics, medicine, psychology, philosophy, and theology. He
was the first Muslim scholar to study India and the Brahminical tradition, and has
been described as the founder of Indology, and "the first anthropologist". He was
one of the first exponents of an experimental method of investigation, introducing
this method into mechanics and what is nowadays called mineralogy,
psychology, and astronomy. Biruni has for example been described as "one of
the very greatest scientists of the Islamic world, and, all considered, one of the
greatest of all times.", or as "one of the great scientific minds in all history."The
crater Al-Biruni on the Moon is named after him. Tashkent Technical University
(formerly Tashkent Polytechnic Institute) is also named after Abu Rayhan al-
Biruni and a university founded by Ahmad Shah Massoud in Kapisa is named
after him.

3. Amir Khusrow. Ab'ul Hasan Yamin ud-Din Khusrow (1253-1325 CE),

better known as Amir Khusrow was an Indian musician, scholar and poet. He
was an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent. A Sufi
 45

mystic and a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, Amīr Khusrow was
not only a notable poet but also a prolific and seminal musician. He wrote poetry
primarily in Persian, but also in Hindavi. He is regarded as the "father of qawwali"
(the devotional music of the Indian Sufis). He is also credited with enriching
Hindustani classical music by introducing Persian and Arabic elements in it, and
was the originator of the khayal and tarana styles of music. The invention of the
tabla is also traditionally attributed to Amīr Khusrow. Amir Khusrow used only 11
metrical schemes with 35 distinct divisions. He has written Ghazal, Masnavi,
Qata, Rubai, Do-Beti and Tarkibhand. A musician and a scholar, Amir Khusrow
was as prolific in tender lyrics as in highly involved prose and could easily
emulate all styles of Persian poetry which had developed in medieval Persia,
from Khāqānī's forceful qasidas to Nezāmī's khamsa. His contribution to the
development of the ghazal, hitherto little used in India, is particularly significant.

4. Ibn Battuta. Hajji Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, or simply Ibn
Battuta (February 25, 1304–1368 or 1369), was a Moroccan Berber Islamic
scholar and traveller who is known for the account of his travels and excursions
called the Rihla. His journeys lasted for a period of nearly thirty years and
covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic world and beyond, extending
from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the
West, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and
China in the East, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his
near-contemporary Marco Polo. With this extensive account of his journey, Ibn
Battuta is often considered one of the greatest travellers ever.

5. Khalil Gibran. Khalil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also
known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Born
in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Mount
Lebanon mutasarrifate), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the
United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly
known in the English-speaking world for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of
philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational
 46

fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely
popular in the 1960s counterculture. Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all
time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.

6. Muhammad Ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī. Abū Abdallāh Muhammad ibn

Musa al-Khwarizmi was a Persian mathematician, astronomer and geographer, a
scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. In the twelfth century, Latin
translations of his work on the Indian numerals, introduced the decimal positional
number system to the Western world. His Compendious Book on Calculation by
Completion and Balancing presented the first systematic solution of linear and
quadratic equations in Arabic. In Renaissance Europe he was considered the
original inventor of algebra, although we now know that his work is based on
older Indian or Greek sources. He revised Ptolemy's Geography and wrote on
astronomy and astrology. His contributions had a great impact on language.
"Algebra" is derived from al-jabr, one of the two operations he used to solve
quadratic equations. Algorism and algorithm stem from Algoritmi, the Latin form
of his name. His name is the origin of (Spanish) guarismo and of (Portuguese)
algarismo, both meaning digit.

7. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish army

officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and founder of the Republic of Turkey, as
well as the first Turkish President. Atatürk was a military officer during World War
I. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WWI, he led the Turkish national
movement in the Turkish War of Independence. Having established a provisional
government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies. His military
campaigns gained Turkey independence. Atatürk then embarked upon a
program of political, economic, and cultural reforms, seeking to transform the
former Ottoman Empire into a modern and secular nation-state. The principles of
Atatürk's reforms, upon which modern Turkey was established, are referred to as
Kemalism.
 47

8. Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-
born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers
Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from
1933 to 1945, and served as head of state as Führer und Reichskanzler from
1934 to 1945. A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the precursor of
the Nazi Party (DAP) in 1919, and became leader of NSDAP in 1921. He
attempted a failed coup d'etat known as the Beer Hall Putsch, which occurred at
the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich on November 8–9, 1923. Hitler was
imprisoned for one year due to the failed coup, and wrote his memoir, "My
Struggle", while imprisoned. After his release on December 20, 1924, he gained
support by promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism, anti-capitalism, and anti-
communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed
chancellor on January 30, 1933, and transformed the Weimar Republic into the
Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic
ideology of Nazism. Hitler ultimately wanted to establish a New Order of absolute
Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. To achieve this, he pursued a
foreign policy with the declared goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for
the Aryan people; directing the resources of the state towards this goal. This
included the rearmament of Germany, which culminated in 1939 when the
Wehrmacht invaded Poland. In response, the United Kingdom and France
declared war against Germany, leading to the outbreak of World War II in
Europe. Within three years, German forces and their European allies had
occupied most of Europe, and most of Northern Africa, and the Japanese forces
had occupied parts of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean. However,
with the reversal of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, the Allies gained the
upper hand from 1942 onwards. By 1944, Allied armies had invaded German-
held Europe from all sides. Nazi forces engaged in numerous violent acts during
the war, including the systematic murder of as many as 17 million civilians,
including an estimated six million Jews targeted in the Holocaust and between
500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma, added to the Poles, Soviet civilians, Soviet
prisoners of war, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses,
 48

and other political and religious opponents. In the final days of the war, during the
Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress Eva Braun and, to
avoid capture by Soviet forces, the two committed suicide less than two days
later on 30 April 1945. While Hitler is most remembered for his central role in
World War II and the Holocaust, his government left behind other legacies as
well, including the Volkswagen, the Autobahn, jet aircraft and rocket technology.

9. Archimedes. Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician,

physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are
known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity.
Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and
an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing
innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his
name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed
machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on
fire using an array of mirrors. Archimedes is generally considered to be the
greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. He also
defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of surfaces of
revolution and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers.
Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman
soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the
tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere inscribed within a
cylinder. Archimedes had proven that the sphere has two thirds of the volume
and surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the latter), and regarded
this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements. Unlike his inventions, the
mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity.
Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first
comprehensive compilation was not made until 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus,
while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth
century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few
copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were
 49

an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance, while the
discovery in 1906 of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the
Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained
mathematical results.

10. Aristotle. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student
of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects,
including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics,
politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and
Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures
in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a
comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality and
aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics. Aristotle's views on the
physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence
extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by
Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were
confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest
known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into
modern formal logic. In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on
philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the
Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the
scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. His ethics, though always influential,
gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of
Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today.
Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described
his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings
are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived.

11. George Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2
November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School
of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism,
in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main
 50

talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings
deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make
their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion,
government, health care, and class privilege. He was most angered by what he
perceived as the exploitation of the working class, and most of his writings
censure that abuse. An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures and
speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the
furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and
women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of
productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. In 1898, Shaw married
Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in
Ayot St. Lawrence in a house now called Shaw's Corner. Shaw died there, aged
94, from chronic problems exacerbated by injuries he incurred by falling. He is
the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925)
and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film
Pygmalion (adaption of his play of the same name), respectively. Shaw wanted
to refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honours,
but accepted it at his wife's behest: she considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did
reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of
Swedish books to English.

12. William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died

23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the
greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He
is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving
works, including some collaboration, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two
long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated
into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any
other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At
the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children:
Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a
 51

successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing

company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He
appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years
later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been
considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance,
sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written
by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and
1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to
the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then
wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and
Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last
phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with
other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality
and accuracy during his lifetime. In 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues
published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included
all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a
respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its
present heights until the 19th century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed
Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians worshipped Shakespeare with a
reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the 20th century, his
work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in
scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are
constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political
contexts throughout the world.

13. Ashoka. Ashoka (304–232 BC), popularly known as Ashoka the Great,
was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian
subcontinent from 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka
reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests. His
empire stretched from present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan in the west, to the
present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of Assam in the east, and as far
 52

south as northern Kerala and Andhra. He conquered the kingdom named

Kalinga, which no one in his dynasty had conquered starting from Chandragupta
Maurya. His reign was headquartered in Magadha (present-day Bihar, India). He
embraced Buddhism from the prevalent Vedic tradition after witnessing the mass
deaths of the war of Kalinga, which he himself had waged out of a desire for
conquest. He was later dedicated to the propagation of Buddhism across Asia
and established monuments marking several significant sites in the life of
Gautama Buddha. Ashoka was a devotee of ahimsa (nonviolence), love, truth,
tolerance and vegetarianism. Ashoka is remembered in history as a philanthropic
administrator. In the history of India Ashoka is referred to as Samraat
Chakravartin Ashoka- the Emperor of Emperors Ashoka. His name "aśoka"
means "painless, without sorrow" in Sanskrit (the privativum and śoka "pain,
distress"). In his edicts, he is referred to as Devānāmpriya (Pali Devānaṃpiya or
"The Beloved Of The Gods"), and Priyadarśin (Pali Piyadasī or "He who regards
everyone with affection"). Along with the Edicts of Ashoka, his legend is related in
the later 2nd century Aśokāvadāna ("Narrative of Asoka") and Divyāvadāna
("Divine narrative"), and in the Sri Lankan text Mahavamsa ("Great Chronicle").
Ashoka played a critical role in helping make Buddhism a world religion. As the
peace-loving ruler of one of the worlds largest, richest and most powerful multi-
ethnic states, he is considered an exemplar ruler, who tried to put into practice a
secular state ethic of non-violence. The emblem of the modern Republic of India
is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Ashoka.

14. Gautama Buddha. Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from

ancient India who founded Buddhism. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded
as the Supreme Buddha of our age, "Buddha" meaning "awakened one" or "the
enlightened one." The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-
century historians dated his lifetime as 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent
opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some,
between 411 and 400 BCE. Various collections of teachings attributed to him
were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400
 53

years later. He is also regarded as a god or prophet in other world religions,

including Hinduism, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the Bahá'í faith.

15. Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus ( 31 October 1451 – 20

May 1506) was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator from the Republic of
Genoa, in northwestern Italy, whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to
general European awareness of the American continents in the Western
Hemisphere. With his four voyages of exploration and several attempts at
establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Isabella I of
Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed
general European colonization of the "New World". Although Columbus was not
the first explorer to reach the Americas from Europe (being preceded by the
Norse led by Leif Ericson), the voyages of Columbus molded the future of
European colonization and encouraged European exploration of foreign lands for
centuries to come. The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the
peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his
European successors. The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of
the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in his native 15th century Genoese
language was Christoffa Corombo and the Italian language version of the name
is Cristoforo Colombo. Columbus's initial 1492 voyage came at a critical time of
emerging modern western imperialism and economic competition between
developing kingdoms seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and
colonies. In this sociopolitical climate, Columbus's far-fetched scheme won the
attention of Isabella I of Castile. Severely underestimating the circumference of
the Earth, he estimated that a westward route from Iberia to the Indies would be
shorter than the overland trade route through Arabia. If true, this would allow
Spain entry into the lucrative spice trade — heretofore commanded by the Arabs
and Italians. Following his plotted course, he instead landed within the Bahamas
Archipelago at a locale he named San Salvador. Mistaking the lands he
encountered for Asia, he referred to the inhabitants as "indios" (Spanish for
"Indians"). The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is
 54

usually observed as Columbus Day on 12 October in Spain and throughout the

Americas, except Canada. In the United States it is observed annually on the
second Monday in October.

16. Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist leader of religious officials of
the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a
combination of the Mongolian word "Dalai" meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan
word "Blama" (with a silent b) meaning "chief" or "high priest." "Lama" is a
general term referring to Tibetan Buddhist teachers. In religious terms, the Dalai
Lama is believed by his devotees to be the rebirth of a long line of tulkus who are
considered to be manifestations of the bodhisattva of compassion,
Avalokiteśvara. Traditionally, the Dalai Lama is thought of as the latest
reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in
order to enlighten others. The Dalai Lama is often thought to be the director of
the Gelug School, but this position belongs officially to the Ganden Tripa, which
is a temporary position appointed by the Dalai Lama who, in practice, exerts
much influence. For certain periods of time between the 17th century and 1959,
the Dalai Lamas sometimes directed the Tibetan Government, which
administered portions of Tibet from Lhasa. The 14th Dalai Lama remains the
head of state for the Central Tibetan Administration ("Tibetan government in
exile"). He has indicated that the institution of the Dalai Lama may be abolished
in the future, and also that the next Dalai Lama may be found outside Tibet and
may be female.

17. Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was the founder, Khan (ruler) and Khagan
(emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in
history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes
of northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being proclaimed
"Genghis Khan", he started the Mongol invasions that would ultimately result in
the conquest of most of Eurasia. These included raids or invasions of the Kara-
Khitan Khanate, Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties.
These campaigns were often accompanied by wholesale massacres of the
 55

civilian populations – especially in Khwarezmia. By the end of his life, the Mongol
Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China. Before Genghis
Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and split his empire into
khanates among his sons and grandsons. He died in 1227 after defeating the
Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia at an
unknown location. His descendants went on to stretch the Mongol Empire across
most of Eurasia by conquering and/or creating vassal states out of all of modern-
day China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and substantial
portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Many of these
invasions resulted in the large-scale slaughter of local populations, which have
given Genghis Khan and his empire a fearsome reputation in local histories. It
has been estimated that his campaigns killed as many as 40 million people
based on census data of the times. Beyond his great military accomplishments,
Genghis Khan also advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways. He decreed the
adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire's writing system. He also
promoted religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, and created a unified empire
from the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia. Present-day Mongolians regard him
highly as the founding father of Mongolia.

18. Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung

(26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), was a Chinese revolutionary, political
theorist and communist leader. He led the People's Republic of China (PRC)
from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution
to Marxism-Leninism, military strategies, and his brand of Communist policies are
now collectively known as Maoism. Mao remains a controversial figure to this
day, with a contentious legacy that is subject to fierce debate. He is officially held
in high regard in China as a great revolutionary, political strategist, military
mastermind, and savior of the nation. Many Chinese also believe that through his
policies, he laid the economic, technological and cultural foundations of modern
China, transforming the country from an agrarian society into a major world
power. Additionally, Mao is viewed as a poet, philosopher, and visionary, owing
 56

the latter primarily to the cult of personality fostered during his time in power.
Mao's portrait continues to be featured prominently on Tiananmen and on all
Renminbi bills. Conversely, Political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great
Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are blamed for millions of deaths,
causing severe famine and damage to the culture, society and economy of
China. Mao's rule from 1949 to 1976 is widely believed to have caused the
deaths of 40 to 70 million people. Since Deng Xiaoping assumed power in 1978,
many Maoist policies have been abandoned in favour of economic reforms. Mao
is regarded as one of the most influential figures in modern world history, and
named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th
century.

19. Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a Christian merchant from the Venetian
Republic who wrote Il Milione, which introduced Europeans to Central Asia and
China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo,
travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to
meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to
Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was
imprisoned, and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299,
became a wealthy merchant, married and had 3 children. He died in 1324, and
was buried in San Lorenzo. Il Milione was translated, embellished, copied by
hand and adapted; there is no authoritative version. It documents his father's
journey to meet the Kublai Khan, who asked them to become ambassadors, and
communicate with the pope. This led to Marco's quest, through Acre, into China
and to the Mongol court. Marco wrote of his extensive travels throughout Asia on
behalf of the Khan, and their eventual return after 15,000 miles (24,140 km) and
24 years of adventures. Their pioneering journey inspired Columbus and others.
Marco Polo's other legacies include Venice Marco Polo Airport, the Marco Polo
sheep, and several books and films. He also had an influence on European
cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map.
 57

20. Napoleon I. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a
military and political leader of France and Emperor of the French as Napoleon I,
whose actions shaped European politics in the early 19th century. Napoleon was
born in Corsica, France to parents of minor noble Italian ancestry and trained as
an artillery officer in mainland France. Bonaparte rose to prominence under the
French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and
Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, he staged a coup d'état and
installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed
him emperor. In the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire under
Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving
every major European power. After a streak of victories, France secured a
dominant position in continental Europe, and Napoleon maintained the French
sphere of influence through the formation of extensive alliances and the
appointment of friends and family members to rule other European countries as
French client states. The French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning
point in Napoleon's fortunes. His Grande Armée was badly damaged in the
campaign and never fully recovered. In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his
forces at Leipzig; the following year the Coalition invaded France, forced
Napoleon to abdicate and exiled him to the island of Elba. Less than a year later,
he escaped Elba and returned to power, but was defeated at the Battle of
Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon spent the last six years of his life in
confinement by the British on the island of Saint Helena. An autopsy concluded
he died of stomach cancer, though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists have
since conjectured he was poisoned with arsenic. Napoleon's campaigns are
studied at military academies throughout much of the world. While considered a
tyrant by his opponents, he is also remembered for the establishment of the
Napoleonic code, which laid the administrative and judicial foundations for much
of Western Europe.

21. Pablo Picasso. Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno
María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known
 58

as Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter,
draughtsman, and sculptor who lived most of his adult life in France. He is best
known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles
embodied in his work. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les
Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), his portrayal of the German
bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Picasso demonstrated
uncanny artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his
childhood and adolescence; during the first decade of the 20th century his style
changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His
revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and
immense fortune throughout his life, making him one of the best-known figures in
20th century art.

22. Plato. Plato (428/427 BC – 348/347 BC), was a Classical Greek

philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the
Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay
the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Plato was originally a
student of Socrates, and was as much influenced by his thinking as by his
apparently unjust execution. Plato's sophistication as a writer is evident in his
Socratic dialogues; thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters have been ascribed to
him. Plato's writings have been published in several fashions; this has led to
several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts.
Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including
philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, and mathematics.

23. Socrates. Socrates (469 BC–399 BC) was a Classical Greek Athenian
philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an
enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers,
especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his
contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the
most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity. Through his
 59

portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his

contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends
his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic Method, or elenchus.
The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a
type of pedagogy in which a series of questions are asked not only to draw
individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at
hand. It is Plato's Socrates that also made important and lasting contributions to
the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach
remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy that
followed. As one recent commentator has put it, Plato, the idealist, offers "an idol,
a master figure, for philosophy. A Saint, a prophet of the 'Sun-God', a teacher
condemned for his teachings as a heretic."Yet, the 'real' Socrates, like many of
the other Ancient philosophers, remains, at best, enigmatic and, at worst,
unknown.

24. Vasco Da Gama. Vasco da Gama (1460 or 1469 – 24 December 1524)

was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery
and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. For a
short time in 1524 he was Governor of Portuguese India under the title of
Viceroy.

25. Winston Churchill. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

(30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician and statesman
known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War
(WWII). He is widely regarded as one of the great wartime leaders. He served as
prime minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator,
Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an
artist. To date, he is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel
Prize in Literature, and he was the first person created an honorary citizen of the
United States.
 60

PART – IV (IMPORTANT ORGANIZATIONS)

Important Organizations

1. Arab League. The Arab League, officially called the League of Arab
States, is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa,
and Southwest Asia. It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members:
Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (renamed Jordan after 1946), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
and Syria. Yemen joined as a member on 5 May 1945. The Arab League
currently has 22 members and four observers. The main goal of the league is to
"draw closer the relations between member States and co-ordinate collaboration
between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider
in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries." Through
institutions such as the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific
Organization (ALESCO) and the Economic and Social Council of the Arab
League's Council of Arab Economic Unity (CAEU), the Arab League facilitates
political, economic, cultural, scientific and social programs designed to promote
the interests of the Arab world. It has served as a forum for the member states to
coordinate their policy positions, to deliberate on matters of common concern, to
settle some Arab disputes, and to limit conflicts such as the 1958 Lebanon crisis.
The League has served as a platform for the drafting and conclusion of many
landmark documents promoting economic integration. One example is the Joint
Arab Economic Action Charter which sets out the principles for economic
activities in the region. Each member state has one vote in the League Council,
while decisions are binding only for those states that have voted for them. The
aims of the league in 1945 were to strengthen and coordinate the political,
cultural, economic, and social programs of its members, and to mediate disputes
among them or between them and third parties. Furthermore, the signing of an
agreement on Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation on 13 April 1950
 61

committed the signatories to coordination of military defense measures. The Arab

League has played an important role in shaping school curricula, advancing the
role of women in the Arab societies, promoting child welfare, encouraging youth
and sports programs, preserving Arab cultural heritage, and fostering cultural
exchanges between the member states. Literacy campaigns have been
launched, intellectual works reproduced, and modern technical terminology is
translated for the use within member states. The league encourages measures
against crime and drug abuse, and deals with labour issues—particularly among
the emigrant Arab workforce.

2. Central Treaty Organization. The Central Treaty Organization (also

referred to as CENTO, original name was Middle East Treaty Organization or
METO, also known as the Baghdad Pact) was adopted in 1955 by Iran, Iraq,
Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. It was dissolved in 1979. U.S.
pressure and promises of military and economic aid were key in the negotiations
leading to the agreement, although the United States could not initially participate
"for purely technical reasons of budgeting procedures." In 1958, the United
States joined the military committee of the alliance. It is generally viewed as one
of the least successful of the Cold War alliances. The organization's
headquarters were initially located in Baghdad (Iraq) 1955–1958 and Ankara
(Turkey) 1958–1979. Cyprus was also an important location for CENTO due to
its positioning within the Middle East and the British Sovereign Base Areas
situated on the island.

3. Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. The Southeast Asia Treaty

Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense
which was signed on September 8, 1954 in Manila. The formal institution of
SEATO was established at a meeting of treaty partners in Bangkok in February
1955. It was primarily created to block further communist gains in Southeast
Asia. The organization's headquarters were located in Bangkok, Thailand.
SEATO was dissolved on June 30, 1977.
 62

4. Commonwealth of Independent States. The Commonwealth of

Independent States (CIS) is a regional organization whose participating countries
are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union. The
CIS is comparable to a very loose association of states and in no way
comparable to a federation, confederation or supra-national organisation such as
the old European Community. It is more comparable to the Commonwealth of
Nations. Although the CIS has few supranational powers, it is more than a purely
symbolic organization, possessing coordinating powers in the realm of trade,
finance, lawmaking, and security. It has also promoted cooperation on
democratization and cross-border crime prevention. As a regional organization,
CIS participates in UN peacekeeping forces. Some of the members of the CIS
have established the Eurasian Economic Community with the aim of creating a
full-fledged common market.

5. European Union. The European Union (EU) is an economic and political

union of 27 member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces
its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the
European Economic Community (EEC) formed by six countries in the 1950s. In
the intervening years the EU has grown, in size, by the accession of new
member states and, in power, by the addition of policy areas to its remit. The
Maastricht Treaty established the European Union under its current name in
1993. The last amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of
Lisbon, came into force in 2009. The EU operates through a hybrid system of
supranational independent institutions and intergovernmentally made decisions
negotiated by the member states. Important institutions of the EU include the
European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European
Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Central
Bank. The European Parliament is elected every five years by EU citizens. The
EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which
apply in all member states including the abolition of passport controls within the
Schengen area. It ensures the free movement of people, goods, services, and
 63

capital, enacts legislation in justice and home affairs, and maintains common
policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development. A monetary
union, the eurozone, was established in 1999 and is currently composed of
seventeen member states. Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy the
EU has developed a limited role in external relations and defence. Permanent
diplomatic missions have been established around the world and the EU is
represented at the United Nations, the WTO, the G8 and the G-20. With a
combined population of 500 million inhabitants, the EU generated an estimated
21% (US$ 14.8 trillion) share of the global economy (GDP PPP) in 2009. As a
trading bloc the EU accounts for 20% of global imports and exports.

6. International Organization for Standardization. The International

Organization for Standardization, widely known as ISO, is an international-
standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national
standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization
promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial standards. It has its
headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. While ISO defines itself as a non-
governmental organization, its ability to set standards that often become law,
either through treaties or national standards, makes it more powerful than most
non-governmental organizations. In practice, ISO acts as a consortium with
strong links to governments.

7. International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international
humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and
staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure
respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering,
without any discrimination based on nationality, race, sex, religious beliefs, class
or political opinions. The often-heard term International Red Cross is actually a
misnomer, as no official organization as such exists bearing that name. In reality,
the movement consists of several distinct organizations that are legally
 64

independent from each other, but are united within the Movement through
common basic principles, objectives, symbols, statutes and governing organs.

8. International Security Assistance Force. The International Security

Assistance Force (ISAF) is a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan
established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 by
Resolution 1386 as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement. It is engaged in the War
in Afghanistan (2001–present). ISAF was initially charged with securing Kabul
and surrounding areas from the Taliban, al Qaeda and factional warlords, so as
to allow for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration headed
by Hamid Karzai. In October 2003, the UN Security Council authorized the
expansion of the ISAF mission throughout Afghanistan, and ISAF subsequently
expanded the mission in four main stages over the whole of the country. Since
2006, ISAF has been involved in more intensive combat operations in southern
Afghanistan, a tendency which continued in 2007 and 2008. Attacks on ISAF in
other parts of Afghanistan are also mounting. Troop contributors include Belgium,
Bulgaria, Denmark, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy,
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and
most members of the European Union and NATO also including Australia, New
Zealand, Azerbaijan and Singapore. The intensity of the combat faced by
contributing nations varies greatly, with the United States, United Kingdom and
Canada sustaining substantial casualties in intensive combat operations.

9. NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO is an

intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was
signed on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and
the organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member
states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association.
However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated
military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme
commanders. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated
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the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the
Germans down". Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the
European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over
the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—
doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent
and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure from 1966. After
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization became drawn into the
Balkans while building better links with former potential enemies to the east,
which culminated with several former Warsaw Pact states joining the alliance in
1999 and 2004. On 1 April 2009, membership was enlarged to 28 with the
entrance of Albania and Croatia. Since the 11 September attacks, NATO has
attempted to refocus itself to new challenges and has deployed troops to
Afghanistan as well as trainers to Iraq. The Berlin Plus agreement is a
comprehensive package of agreements made between NATO and the European
Union on 16 December 2002. With this agreement the EU was given the
possibility to use NATO assets in case it wanted to act independently in an
international crisis, on the condition that NATO itself did not want to act—the so-
called "right of first refusal". Only if NATO refused to act would the EU have the
option to act. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes
over 70% of the world's defence spending. The United States alone accounts for
43% of the total military spending of the world and the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, and Italy account for a further 15%.

10. OPEC. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is

a cartel of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador,
Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965,
and hosts regular meetings among the oil ministers of its Member Countries.
Indonesia withdrew in 2008 after it became a net importer of oil, but stated it
would likely return if it became a net exporter in the world again. According to its
statutes, one of the principal goals is the determination of the best means for
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safeguarding the cartel's interests, individually and collectively. It also pursues

ways and means of ensuring the stabilization of prices in international oil markets
with a view to eliminating harmful and unnecessary fluctuations; giving due
regard at all times to the interests of the producing nations and to the necessity
of securing a steady income to the producing countries; an efficient and regular
supply of petroleum to consuming nations, and a fair return on their capital to
those investing in the petroleum industry. OPEC's influence on the market has
been widely criticized, since it became effective in determining production and
prices. Arab members of OPEC alarmed the developed world when they used
the “oil weapon” during the Yom Kippur War by implementing oil embargoes and
initiating the 1973 oil crisis. Although largely political explanations for the timing
and extent of the OPEC price increases are also valid, from OPEC’s point of
view, these changes were triggered largely by previous unilateral changes in the
world financial system and the ensuing period of high inflation in both the
developed and developing world. This explanation encompasses OPEC actions
both before and after the outbreak of hostilities in October 1973, and concludes
that “OPEC countries were only 'staying even' by dramatically raising the dollar
price of oil.” OPEC's ability to control the price of oil has diminished somewhat
since then, due to the subsequent discovery and development of large oil
reserves in Alaska, the North Sea, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, the opening up of
Russia, and market modernization. As of November 2010, OPEC members
collectively hold 79% of world crude oil reserves and 44% of the world’s crude oil
production, affording them considerable control over the global market. The next
largest group of producers, members of the OECD and the Post-Soviet states
produced only 23.8% and 14.8%, respectively, of the world's total oil production.
As early as 2003, concerns that OPEC members had little excess pumping
capacity sparked speculation that their influence on crude oil prices would begin
to slip.

11. Organisation of the Islamic Conference. The Organisation of the

Islamic Conference (OIC) is an international organisation with a permanent
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delegation to the United Nations, with 57 member states. The Organisation

attempts to be the collective voice of the Muslim world (Ummah) and attempts to
safeguard the interests and ensure the progress and well-being of Muslims. The
official languages of the organisation are Arabic, English and French.

12. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The Shanghai Cooperation

Organisation or SCO, is an intergovernmental mutual-security organisation which
was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Except for Uzbekistan, the other
countries had been members of the Shanghai Five, founded in 1996; after the
inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organisation.

13. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an organization of South Asian
nations, founded in 1985 and dedicated to economic, technological, social, and
cultural development emphasizing collective self-reliance. Its seven founding
members are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri
Lanka. Afghanistan joined the organization in 2007. Meetings of heads of state
are usually scheduled annually; meetings of foreign secretaries, twice annually.
Headquarter in Kathmandu, Nepal.

14. Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Treaty (1955–91) is the informal name for the
Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, commonly known as
the Warsaw Pact, creating the Warsaw Treaty Organization. The treaty was a
mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern
Europe. It was established at the USSR’s initiative and realized on 14 May 1955,
in Warsaw, Poland. In the Communist Bloc, the treaty was the military analogue
of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the Communist
(East) European economic community. The Warsaw Treaty was the Soviet Bloc’s
military response to West Germany’s May 1955 integration to NATO Pact, per
the Paris Pacts of 1954.
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15. International Monetary Fund. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is

the intergovernmental organization that oversees the global financial system by
following the macroeconomic policies of its member countries, in particular those
with an impact on exchange rate and the balance of payments. It is an
organization formed with a stated objective of stabilizing international exchange
rates and facilitating development through the enforcement of liberalising
economic policies on other countries as a condition for loans, restructuring or aid.
It also offers loans with varying levels of conditionality, mainly to poorer
countries. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C., United States. The IMF's
relatively high influence in world affairs and development has drawn heavy
criticism from some sources.

16. World Bank. The World Bank is an international financial institution that
provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes. The World Bank
has a goal of reducing poverty. By law, all of its decisions must be guided by a
commitment to promote foreign investment, international trade and facilitate
capital investment. The World Bank differs from the World Bank Group, in that
the World Bank comprises only two institutions: the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development
Association (IDA), whereas the latter incorporates these two in addition to three
more: International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee
Agency (MIGA), and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
(ICSID).