The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions in the world. The earliestNeolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to Pottery Neolithic), Nevalı Çori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacılar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin (Yumuktepe) are considered to be among the earliest human settlements in the world.[26The settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic and continued into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European, Semitic and Kartvelian languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages radiated.[27] The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the Central Anatolia, noted at least as early as ca. 2300. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed Hattians ca. 2000–1700 BC. The first major empire in the area was founded by the Hittites, from the eighteenth through the 13th century BC. The Assyrians colonized parts of southeastern Turkey as far back as 1950 BC until the year 612 BC, when the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Chaldean dynasty in Babylon.[28][29] Following the Hittite collapse, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BC.[30] The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria and Lycia. The Lydians and Lycians spoke languages that were fundamentally Indo-European, but both languages had acquired non-Indo-European elements prior to the Hittite andHellenistic periods.]
In 324, the Roman emperor Constantine I chose Byzantium to be the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it New Rome (laterConstantinople and Istanbul). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it became the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).[33]
Turks and the Ottoman Empire
Main articles: Turkic migration, Great Seljuq Empire, and Ottoman Empir The House of Seljuk was a branch of the Kınık Oğuz Turks who resided on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of theCaspian and Aral Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy[34][page needed] in the 10th century. In the 11th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homelands towards the eastern regions of Anatolia, which eventually became the new homeland of Oghuz Turkic tribes following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.[citation needed]
The victory of the Seljuks gave rise to the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate; which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire that covered parts of Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia and Southwest Asia.[35][page needed]
In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols, causing the Seljuk empire's power to slowly disintegrate. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I would, over the next 200 years, evolve into the Ottoman Empire, expanding throughout Anatolia, the Balkans and the Levant.[36][page needed] In 1453, the Ottomans completed their conquest of the Byzantine Empire by capturing its capital, Constantinople.
During nearly two centuries of decline, the Ottoman Empire gradually shrank in size, military power, and wealth. It entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. During the war, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were deported and exterminated in the Armenian Genocide.[38][39] The Turkish government denies that there was an Armenian genocide and claims that Armenians were onlyrelocated from the eastern war zone.[40] Large scale massacres were also committed against the empire's other minority groups such as the Greeks and Assyrians.[41][42][43] Following the Armistice of Mudros on October 30, 1918, the victorious Allied Powers sought to partition the Ottoman state through the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres.[36]
Republic era
Main articles: History of the Republic of Turkey and Atatürk's Reforms]
By September 18, 1922, the occupying armies were expelled, and the new Turkish state was established. On November 1, the newly founded parliament formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, in the new capital of Ankara.[20]
Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first President and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past.[20] With the Surname Law of 1934, the Turkish Parliament bestowed upon Mustafa Kemal the honorific surname "Atatürk" (Father of the Turks.)[19]
After participating with the United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean. Following a decade of Cypriot intercommunal violence and the Greek military coup of 15 July 1974, overthrowing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as dictator, Turkey invaded the island Republic of Cyprus on 20 July.[46] Nine years later the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which is only recognised by Turkey was established.[47]Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II but entered on the side of the Allies on February 23, 1945, as a ceremonial gesture and in 1945 became a charter member of the United Nations.[44] Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in large-scale U.S. military and economic support.[45][page needed]
The single-party period ended in 1945. It was followed by a tumultuous transition to multiparty democracy over the next few decades, which was interrupted by military coups d'état in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997.[48][page needed] In 1984, the PKK began an insurgency against the Turkish government; the conflict, which has claimed over 40,000 lives, continues today.[49] Since the liberalization of the Turkish economy during the 1980s, the country has enjoyed stronger economic growth and greater political stability.[50]
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