Dear all the excited readers of RB, it 's pleasure to announce that this year, visitors like you have contributed, submitted and uploaded some 124 great articles on Indian as well as World history.

Founded at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944 by representatives of 44 governments, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), commonly known as the World Bank

During and after the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted a series of talks and signed several treaties dealing with arms control and nuclear disarmament.

Descended from both Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, the Mughal dynasty originated in Central Asia.

Surendranath Banerji (also Banerjea, Banerjee) was one of the creators of modern India and a staunch proponent of an autonomous Indian nation within the British Commonwealth.

Aligarh College, now Aligarh Muslim University, was the first institution of higher learning for Muslims in British India.

Nadir Shah (Nader Shah), often called the “Napoleon of Iran,” was the last of the Central Asian conquerors who made the region quake under the hoofbeats of his army.

The 1688 Glorious Revolution, sometimes known as the “Bloodless Revolution,” represented a culminating stage in Britain’s tumultuous 17th century history, a history characterized by the struggle between king and Parliament, and most notably, between Catholic and Protestant.

Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer who discovered the sea route to India from Europe through the Cape of Good Hope.

Harsha Vardhana was a king of northern India who reunited some of the small city-states that had become independent after the fall of the Gupta dynasty and who used his position to reinvigorate the practice of Buddhism throughout his territory.

The deposition of the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, in 476 c.e. by the Gothic chief Odovacar marks the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the subsequent transition from classic antiquity to the Middle Ages.

The civilization of ancient Egypt lasted about 30 centuries—from the 30th century b.c.e. to 30 b.c.e., when it became part of the Roman Empire.

This term has traditionally been applied to groups from the Indian subcontinent that speak Dravidian languages: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Brahui, and Tulu.

Darius I, or Darius the Great, consolidated the Persian Empire founded by Cyrus II. We know more about Darius than any other of the kings of the Persian Empire since we have two major literary sources on his life.

The reign of Constantine the Great marked the transition from the ancient Roman Empire to medieval Europe and a decisive step in the establishment of the Christian Church as the official religion for the Greek and Latin civilizations.

Gaius Julius Caesar expanded the Roman Empire into a power that included half of Europe. According to legend, he was a descendant of Aeneas, the Trojan prince who founded Rome, himself the son of the Greek goddess Aphrodite or the Roman Venus.

Augustus was a title given to Octavian when he became the first emperor of the Roman Empire and established the institutional framework that would serve Romans for 300 years.

Babylon was the most famous Mesopotamian city in antiquity, located along the Euphrates River, 55 miles southwest of modern Baghdad. Major excavations began in 1899 by the Germans and, in recent times, have been continued by Iraq’s Department of Antiquities.

The conquest and settlement of northern India by Indo-Europeans began c. 1500 b.c.e. The event marked the end of the Indus civilization and altered the civilization of the subcontinent.

Alexandrian literature was very rich due to its multicultural heritage, as Alexander the Great’s empire encompassed Europe, Asia, and Africa.Alexander’s conquests opened up trade and travel routes across his empire, and Alexandria developed as a center of commerce between the Middle East, Europe, and India.

Alexandria, also known by its Arabic name al-Iskandariyya, was named after Alexander the Great.

Small of stature but solid in fortitude, Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Albania.

The Tamil Tigers, officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, concentrate operations predominantly in Sri Lanka with the goal of achieving a separate state for the majority Tamil regions located in north and east Sri Lanka.

The island nation of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka gained independence from British rule on February 4, 1948.

Humankind’s exploration of space began in the 1950s, with the first satellite, the Russian Sputnik, launched by rocket on October 4, 1957.

In 1989 eastern European countries of the Warsaw Pact, which had been beholden to the Soviet Union since the end of World War II, had their communist governments replaced with noncommunist governments.

Following the end of World War II, the British administered Somalia until 1950, when it was divided, with southern Somalia put under Italian trusteeship and the Ogaden returned to Ethiopia, with the remainder of Somalia, held by the British, prepared for independence.

Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indian prime minister at the time of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, was born on October 2, 1901, at Mughalsarai, Uttar Pradesh.

Jawaharlal Nehru came from a distinguished Kashmiri Brahmin family. His father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), was a successful lawyer who joined the Indian National Congress (INC), becoming its president in 1920.

After the departure of the British in August 1947, India and Pakistan became successor states. The partition of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan left a legacy of mutual discord that is felt to the present day.

India became an independent nation on August 15, 1947, with the end of British colonial rule. With a population of 1,095,351,995 (July 2006 estimate), India is the second most populous nation after China.

Rajiv Ratna Gandhi was the seventh prime minister of India, following in the footsteps of both his grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) and his mother, Indira Gandhi (1917–84).

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (November 19, 1917–October 31, 1984) was the third (1966–77) and sixth (1980–84) prime minister of India and the first woman to hold that office. Her legacy is very complex.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a nationalist party of India. It grew out of a Hindu nationalist organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Organization), which was founded in 1925 by K. B. Hedgewar as a reaction to Muslim fundamentalism.

Bangladesh—officially known as the People’s Republic of Bangladesh—is a country of 55,598 square miles in South Asia.

Atomic weapons and the arms race were inseparable from the inception of the former: Developments in physics in the 1930s led physicists to believe that nuclear fission could be used as a weapon, and when World War II began, scientists stopped publishing on the topic of fission in order to avoid sharing information with the enemy.

The AIDS epidemic has been considered one of the most important health emergencies in the contemporary world due to the destabilizing social, economic, and political consequences of its global spread and the unsuccessful attempts to develop vaccination against it.

The eventful years between September 1, 1939, and September 2, 1945, form a landmark in world history. From the march of the German war machine into Poland to the Japanese surrender, the world witnessed the most destructive war in human history, fought on land, in the air, and on the sea worldwide.

In the spring of 1914 President Woodrow Wilson sent his chief adviser, Colonel E. M. House, on a fact-finding mission to Europe. Greatly disturbed by the obvious escalating tension generated by international rivalries House reported: “The situation is extraordinary. . . . It only needs a spark to set the whole thing off.”

Motilal Nehru was one of the prominent leaders of the Indian National Congress (INC) and father of India’s first premier, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964). Descended from a Kashmir Brahmin family, Motilal was born on May 6, 1861, to Gangadhar and Jeorani in Agra.

Sarojini Naidu was born on February 13, 1879, to Aghornath Chattopadhyaya and Varada Sundari in the city of Hyderabad, India.

Il Duce, “the leader,” was born in Predappio, in northern Italy, on July 29, 1883. His father was a socialist blacksmith and his mother a school teacher.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was an Indian politician who helped found the country of Pakistan, which he governed as its first governor-general from 1947.

The Indian National Congress (INC) was a leader of the Indian freedom movement against British colonial rule. One of the success stories of the nationalist struggle in Asia, the congress was established in 1885.

During the late 19th century British-educated Indians began to demand a role in their government, which later developed into the independence movement.

World War I was important for India’s nationalist movement. Indians of all persuasions overwhelmingly supported Great Britain and the Allied cause during the war. Nearly 800,000 Indian soldiers plus 500,000 noncombatants served in Europe and the Middle East.

The first Government of India Act (1858, after the Sepoy Rising of 1857) abolished the British East India Company and put India under British government administration.

Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany, proponent of Nazism, and perpetrator of the Holocaust, was born on April 20, 1889, in the Austrian town of Braunau near the German border.

By the summer of 1945, World War II in the Pacific was virtually over. Since December 1941, the United States had pushed Japanese forces back until only the homeland itself remained in Japanese control.

The Indian leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who dominated the Indian political scene for three decades, became an internationally acclaimed person for his nonviolent path of struggle to achieve Indian independence from British colonial rule.

Subhas Chandra Bose abandoned an intended career in the Indian civil service to support Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress (INC) in the cause of Indian independence from Great Britain.

With new styles and the availability of new construction material, there was a dramatic change in architecture during the first half of the 20th century.

The Amritsar massacre (April 13, 1919) helped many moderate Indian nationalists become fiercely anti-British.

Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar was the most important leader of the oppressed untouchable minority in the history of India. He acquired the honorific name Babasaheb. Fighting for his people, he angered Mohandas K. Gandhi, the revered leader of the Indian nationalist movement, as well as many Hindu traditionalists.

The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was established on December 30, 1906, at the time of British colonial rule to protect the interests of Muslims. Later it became the main vehicle through which the demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims was put forth.

Since its 1886 installation in New York Harbor, where it was then the tallest structure, this 305-foot, 225-ton copper-clad statue of a stern-aced woman whose torch “Enlightens the World,” has become one of the world’s best-known symbols, as well as one of its more contentious.

Ranjit (also spelled Runjit) Singh founded a Sikh state in the Punjab (an area in northwestern India, now divided between India and Pakistan) and ruled from 1801 to 1839.

The Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj were two important institutions that developed in 19th-century India against existing social practices. The impact of the West resulted in a social and cultural renaissance in India. To regenerate society, it was felt that modern sciences and ideas of reason were essential.

The first Anglo-Sikh War was the result of British imperial expansion to annex the Punjab and remove the Sikh threat to British hegemony on the Indian subcontinent.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy exemplified the new English educated class of Indians who emerged in the late 18th century. He came from a distinguished Brahman family in Bengal—the headquarters of the British East India Company.

The Indian Mutiny was the most traumatic single event to mark the British experience in India, from the first appearance of the British East India Company in the early 17th century to the end of Britain’s Indian empire in 1947.

The Government of India Act of 1858 was an act of the British parliament that ended the existence and long tenure of the British East India Company in India and transferred its power and assets directly to the British Crown.

The office of the governor-general of India was established in 1773 when Warren Hastings was made the first governor-general of the presidency of Fort William, Calcutta, taking up the position in the following year.

The British East India Company was founded in 1600, during the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, for trade in the East Indies, which had been opened to European trade by the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama.

There are very few buildings in the world more famous than the Taj Mahal, a queen’s mausoleum in Agra, India. The sense of romance that the Taj Mahal invokes was developed as a result of British fascination with this structure during the late 18th century and has continued into the 21st century.

Sri Guru Nanak Dev, founder of Sikhism, was born in 1469 in Sheikhupura district of present-day Pakistan to a Hindu family of Kshatriya caste.

Shivaji was born on February 19, 1627, in the hill fort of Shivaneri. He is best remembered for his valor and relentless struggle against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618–1707).

Mughal emperor Jahangir’s death and the following succession struggle ended in the triumph of his son, Prince Khurram, who took the title Shah Jahan, which means “emperor of the world.”

Rajputs (literally, “children of kings”) are members of a Hindu aristocratic caste (kshatriya, or warrior) settled mainly in northwestern India, who may have Central Asian origins.

There were three battles fought at Panipat, located 70 miles northwest of Delhi, the strategically important city in northern India and capital of many dynasties.

This port city on the west coast of India was the center of Portuguese influence in India from 1510 until 1961, and at its height, in the early 17th century, was one of the great cities in the region. Goa as a port dates to the third century b.c.e.

Delhi, now the capital of India, has been the political center of Indian civilization for over a thousand years. The settlement known as Indraprastha, which was mentioned in the Indian epic the Mahabharata, was located at modern-day Purana Qila, near Delhi.

Babur was descended from Tamerlane on his father’s side and Genghis Khan on his mother’s. Son of a petty ruler of Ferghana in Central Asia, he conquered Afghanistan, then northern India, founding the long-lived mughal (Mogul, or Moghul, the different versions of the spelling all derive from Mongol) dynasty in India.

Aurangzeb was the sixth Mughal (Moghul) emperor (r. 1658–1707). He ruled for 49 years as Emperor Alamgir (conqueror of the universe); he was the last great ruler of the Mughal dynasty, but left the empire economically exhausted and widely disaffected.

The Vijayanagara Empire flourished in southern India from 1336 to 1565. It was a Hindu kingdom that left as its legacy a number of small, independent states that survived until colonial times. The city of Vijayanagara (or Vijayanagar), which means “City of Victory,” is located in modern day Karnataka.

Tamil is a Dravidian language group that originated in southern India and is not linked to the northern Aryan language group. Tamil speakers are found in Tamilnadu, the region surrounded by Kerela, Karnataka, and Pradesh and parts of present-day Sri Lanka.

Shiva (Siva), along with Vishnu and Brahma, is one of the Trimurti deities of Hinduism. He is worshipped throughout the Hindu world. His beautiful consort Parvati usually accompanies him. Her avatars are Uma, Durga, or Kali. Shiva’s sons are Skanda (six-faced) and the elephant-headed Ganesha.

Rajputs were members of the approximately 12 million landowners of northern India who claimed to be descended from the Kshatriya warrior caste. The name derives from the Sanskrit term Raja-putra, or “son of the king.”

Nalanda was the most renowned center of Buddhist learning in India in the fourth–12th centuries. A Buddhist monastic center and major university were located at Nalanda, which is in Baragaon, Bihar state, in east central India, about 90 miles southeast of the state capital of Patna.

The victory of Muhammad of Ghur over the Rajput king, Prithviraj Chauhan III (r. 1178–92), was a turning point in the history of South Asia. Islam began to pervade the northern portion of the Indian subcontinent, in present-day India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

Muhammad was born in Mecca to the Hashim branch of the major Qureish tribe. He was raised in a poor household by his grandfather and as a young man married Khadija, a wealthy widow who was also a successful businesswoman. Working with Khadija, Muhammad earned a reputation for honesty.

Islam emerged out of the Arabian Peninsula (modern-day Saudi Arabia) in the seventh century. Prior to this, Arabian tribal peoples had practiced a wide variety of pagan beliefs, living in a time Muslims called jahiliyya or ignorance.

The most famous Hindu epic literature arose in India during the Vedic period (c. 1000–c. 500 b.c.e), which helped define the essentials of Indian belief and culture.

Genghis or Chinggis Khan means “universal ruler.” He was born Temuchin, the son of a minor Mongol chief, and overcame early obstacles to conquer the greatest empire of the world to date, which he bequeathed to his sons.

Brahma is one of the three major gods of the Hindu religion, together with Shiva and Vishnu. Worship of Brahma began in the Vedic Age of Indian history and its importance was gradually outweighed by the worship of Shiva and Vishnu over time.

The word bhakti is derived from a Sanskrit word for “sharing.” It was used to describe a new type of path to moksha (“liberation from the cycle of reincarnations”).

The Vedas are the oldest sacred writings of all of the world’s major religions. Most scholars believe that the Vedas were transmitted orally for hundreds if not thousands of years before they were committed to writing.

The Mahavira (Great Hero) Vardhamana was one of the 24 Tirthanakras (Conquerors, or Ford-makers) who were founders of the Indian religious philosophy of Jainism.

Vajrayana Buddhism, or Tantrism, is a form of Buddhist thought that has flourished in northern India and particularly Tibet. The term vajra is a Sanskrit word that can mean either “diamond” or “thunderbolt.” Vajrayana Buddhism provides enlightenment in a single lifetime, rather than as a result of numerous incarnations as posited by other forms of Buddhism.

The ancient city of Troy is the basis of Homer’s Iliad and site of the Trojan War. Troy lies in present-day western Turkey, at Canakale on the ancient Scamander River.

Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism (often called northern Buddhism) are forms of Buddhism, a spiritual religion and philosophy created by Gautama Buddha (b. c. 566 b.c.e.) and followed by more than 700 million people worldwide.

Socrates is one of the three greatest philosophers of Greek classical thought and, together with Aristotle and Plato, helped to provide the foundations of Western thought.

The Six Schools are part of the Sutra Period in the development of Hinduism. Beginning in the 200s c.e. several schools wrote systematic treatises. Their speculations developed into the basic philosophical systems that were classics in modern times.

Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest form of the language and was used to explain the Vedas (knowledge) that framed the first known forms of Indian religious expression. Vedic literature includes the Samhitas, which are four collections of texts: the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, the Atharva-Veda, and the Rig-Veda.

The Ramayana (Romance of Rama) is the shorter of two great epic poems from ancient India. It was originally written in Sanskrit in the tradition of the Vedas as an account of the lives of the gods. The poem tells a story of court intrigue, romance, and the struggle for good over evil.

The pyramids on the Giza Plateau of Egypt were erected as royal tombs in the 26th century b.c.e. The Great Pyramid, largest of three major structures, housed the remains of the pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), while the other two were built for Khufu’s son Khafra and grandson Menkaure.

Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are two ancient cities located on the banks of the Indus and its tributary the Ravi River in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent.

Chandragupta Maurya founded the Mauryan Empire in 326 b.c.e. in northern India. His son Bindusara and grandson Ashoka (Asoka) continued his conquest that unified the entire subcontinent, with the exception of the southern tip, and part of Afghanistan into India’s first great empire.

The Mahabharata is an enormous epic poem that now plays a central role in the Hindu religion. It tells the story of the great Bharata family and its war of succession.

When news came to Sparta that the Persians were advancing for the second time in 10 years into the Greek heartland, only King Leonidas and his hand-picked band of 300 were dispatched to stop them.