Category: Histories of countries and key towns and cities around the world

By Tim Lambert Early Estonia The Estonians are a Finno-Ugric people related to the Finns. A first-century Roman writer named Tacitus mentioned the Estonians. He called them the Aesti. Amber was exported from Estonia to other parts of Europe. However, for centuries the tribes of Estonia had little contact with Western civilization. They traded with… Continue reading A Brief History of Estonia

By Tim Lambert Early Ethiopia By 100 AD a kingdom called Axum arose in Ethiopia. Axum was highly civilised and it traded with Rome, Arabia, and India. Axum became Christian in the 4th century AD. In 642 the Arabs conquered Egypt. In 698-700, they took Tunis and Carthage and soon they controlled all of the… Continue reading A Brief History of Ethiopia

By Tim Lambert Ancient Finland The first humans arrived in Finland about 7,000 BC after the end of the last ice age. The earliest Finns were stone-age hunters and gatherers. Over thousands of years, successive waves of people entered Finland. After 2,500 BC people in Finland lived by farming. About 1,500 BC they learned to… Continue reading A Brief History of Finland

By Tim Lambert Prehistoric and Ancient France During the last ice age, humans called Cro-Magnons lived in France. They dwelt in caves and they hunted animals such as mammoths and reindeer. They must have been resourceful people to survive in such a harsh climate and they also created art. The Cro-Magnons are known for the… Continue reading A Brief History of France

By Tim Lambert Ancient Germany About 55 BC Julius Caesar conquered the Roman province of Gaul. He made the Rhine the frontier of the new province. It was a natural defensive barrier. Later the Romans also chose the Danube as a frontier. They also created a ditch and earth bank with a wooden palisade from… Continue reading A Brief History of Germany

By Tim Lambert Early Ghana The Portuguese reached what is now Ghana in 1471. They found it was a rich source of gold. So much so that the area was called the Gold Coast. The Portuguese built slaves on the Gold Coast and during the 16th century, they traded with the native peoples. However, in… Continue reading A Brief History of Ghana

By Tim Lambert Ancient Greece From about 7,000 BC stone age farmers lived in Greece. Then about 3,000 BC bronze was introduced. About 2,500 BC a sophisticated society grew up on the island of Crete. It is known as the Minoan civilization. By about 1,950 BC the inhabitants had invented a form of writing using… Continue reading A Brief History of Greece

By Tim Lambert The Inuit in Greenland The first inhabitants of Greenland were the Inuit. They lived in Greenland for long periods but there were also times when Greenland was uninhabited. The first people to live in Greenland were the Saqqaq people from about 2,500 BC to 900 BC. Greenland was then uninhabited until about… Continue reading A Brief History of Greenland

By Tim Lambert Colonial Haiti Haiti forms part of the island of Hispaniola. Before the Europeans arrived a people called the Arawaks lived there. However, on 6 December 1492, Christopher Columbus landed at Mole Saint-Nicolas on the northwest and called the island Espanola, which was later anglicized as Hispaniola. Columbus built a fort on the… Continue reading A Brief History of Haiti

By Tim Lambert Early Honduras For thousands of years, indigenous peoples lived in Honduras. The greatest of them was the Mayans. However, the first European to reach Honduras was Christopher Columbus on 30 July 1502. Columbus later sailed as far south as Panama. The area became known as Honduras from the Spanish word for depths.… Continue reading A Brief History of Honduras