Chapter 01 · c. 4000 BCE – 539 BCE
Sumer, Akkad and Babylon — the First Cities
On the alluvial plains between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Sumerians built the world's first cities and invented writing, and the empires of Akkad, Babylon and Assyria rose in turn.
The Greeks called this land Mesopotamia, 'the land between the rivers', and on its fertile southern plains the Sumerians created what is widely regarded as the world's earliest civilisation. From the fourth millennium BCE cities such as Uruk and Ur grew into dense urban centres with monumental temples, irrigation, organised religion and the first complex bureaucracies. It was here, around 3200 BCE, that scribes first pressed wedge-shaped marks into clay to keep accounts — the writing system known as cuneiform, used across the Near East for more than three thousand years and the foundation of recorded history.
Around 2334 BCE Sargon of Akkad united the city-states of Mesopotamia under a single ruler, founding the Akkadian Empire — often described as the first multinational empire in history — with its capital at Akkad. Centuries later the city of Babylon rose to dominance under its sixth Amorite king, Hammurabi (reigned c. 1792–1750 BCE), who unified much of Mesopotamia and issued the famous Code of Hammurabi, a collection of 282 laws inscribed on a great diorite stela. To the north, the Assyrians built a militarised empire centred on Ashur and later Nineveh, which under kings such as Ashurbanipal became one of the ancient world's great powers.
These successive empires left a profound material legacy, much of it now scattered through the world's great museums. The Assyrian palace reliefs of Nineveh, Ashurbanipal's library of cuneiform tablets, and the treasures of the Royal Cemetery of Ur record the artistry and learning of Mesopotamia. The Neo-Babylonian Empire reached its zenith under Nebuchadnezzar II, whose Babylon — with its Ishtar Gate and the legendary Hanging Gardens, counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world — became the most celebrated city of its age before falling to the Persians in 539 BCE.
“Mesopotamia — the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, now Iraq — gave the world its first cities and its first writing.”
— The British Museum, on ancient Mesopotamia
Turning points
- c. 3200 BCECulture & Ideas
- c. 2334 BCEFormation
- c. 1755 BCEPolitics & Power
- 612 BCEWar & Rupture
Fall of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire
A coalition of Babylonians and Medes besieges and destroys Nineveh, capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire whose first capital, Ashur, is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, ending Assyrian power and clearing the way for the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
See the data - c. 575 BCECulture & Ideas
Figures of the era
Sargon of Akkadreigned c. 2334–2279 BCE
Founder of the Akkadian Empire
One of history's earliest empire-builders, who united the city-states of Mesopotamia under a central authority and founded the Akkadian dynasty, long remembered as the model of all later Mesopotamian rulers.
Chapter sources: Mesopotamia — collection gallery, How to write cuneiform, Sargon — king of Akkad, History of Mesopotamia, Hammurabi — king of Babylonia, Code of Hammurabi, The Code of Hammurabi, Nineveh — ancient city, Iraq, Who was Ashurbanipal?, Ashur (Qal'at Sherqat) — UNESCO World Heritage List, Babylon — UNESCO World Heritage List
Chapter 02 · 539 BCE – 750 CE
Persians, Greeks and the Coming of Islam
After Babylon fell to Cyrus, Mesopotamia passed through Persian, Hellenistic, Parthian and Sasanian rule, until the Arab Muslim armies of the seventh century brought it into the world of Islam.
In 539 BCE Cyrus the Great of Persia captured Babylon, and Mesopotamia became the wealthy core of the Achaemenid Empire. Two centuries later Alexander the Great swept through, and after his death the region fell to his Seleucid successors, who founded Greek cities and fused Hellenistic and Mesopotamian culture. From the mid-second century BCE the Parthians took control, ruling from Ctesiphon on the Tigris near modern Baghdad and making the region a frontier between the Iranian world and Rome. The fortified caravan city of Hatra, capital of a small Arab kingdom, flourished under Parthian influence and twice repelled Roman armies.
In 224 CE the Sasanian dynasty replaced the Parthians, and Mesopotamia — which they called the Sawad for its rich black soil — became the agricultural and administrative heartland of the Sasanian Empire, its winter capital remaining at Ctesiphon. For four centuries the Sasanians and the Romans, then the Byzantines, fought along this frontier. The region was home to a diverse population of Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews and others, and its great cities were among the most prosperous in the late antique world.
The balance was shattered in the 630s, when Arab Muslim armies surged out of Arabia. At the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, fought around 636–637 CE near al-Hira in central Iraq, the forces of the Rashidun Caliphate routed the Sasanian army; the capture of Ctesiphon soon followed, and organised Persian resistance in Mesopotamia collapsed. The conquest opened a new chapter: over the following generations the population gradually converted to Islam, and the lands of ancient Mesopotamia became a central province of the expanding Islamic empire.
Turning points
- 539 BCEWar & Rupture
Cyrus the Great captures Babylon
The Persian king Cyrus the Great takes Babylon, ending the Neo-Babylonian Empire and bringing Mesopotamia into the Achaemenid Persian realm as one of its richest provinces.
See the data - 1st–2nd century CECulture & Ideas
Hatra, capital of an Arab kingdom
Under Parthian influence the fortified city of Hatra flourishes as the capital of a small Arab kingdom, twice withstanding Roman sieges before falling in the 3rd century; its ruins are now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- 224 CEPolitics & Power
Mesopotamia under the Sasanians
The Sasanian dynasty replaces the Parthians and rules Mesopotamia from Ctesiphon, making the fertile 'Sawad' the agricultural and administrative core of the Sasanian Empire for four centuries.
- c. 636–637 CEWar & Rupture
Battle of al-Qadisiyyah and the Arab conquest
Arab Muslim armies of the Rashidun Caliphate defeat the Sasanians at al-Qadisiyyah near al-Hira and take Ctesiphon, ending Persian rule in Mesopotamia and beginning the region's Islamisation.
See the data
Chapter sources: History of Mesopotamia, Iraq — History, Hatra — UNESCO World Heritage List, Battle of al-Qādisiyyah
Chapter 03 · 750 – 1258 CE
Abbasid Baghdad and the Islamic Golden Age
From 762 Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, a city of learning at the heart of the Islamic Golden Age — until the Mongols sacked it in 1258.
In 750 CE the Abbasid dynasty overthrew the Umayyads and shifted the centre of the Islamic world eastward to Mesopotamia. In 762 the second Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a new capital on the Tigris — officially Madinat al-Salam, the 'City of Peace', but universally known as Baghdad. Laid out as a great circular 'Round City', it grew within decades into one of the largest and richest cities on earth, the hub of a trading and intellectual network that stretched from Spain to Central Asia.
Under caliphs such as Harun al-Rashid (786–809) and his son al-Ma'mun, Baghdad became the brilliant centre of the Islamic Golden Age. Scholars gathered in the city's libraries and academies — the tradition associated with the Bayt al-Hikmah, or 'House of Wisdom' — to translate and extend the learning of Greece, Persia and India. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy and poetry flourished, and the splendour of Harun's court was later immortalised in the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. From 836 the caliphs briefly moved their capital upriver to Samarra, whose vast palaces and the spiral Malwiya minaret of its Great Mosque survive as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Abbasid power eventually fragmented as provincial dynasties and Turkic military commanders asserted control, and from the eleventh century the Seljuks dominated the caliphs. The end came suddenly in 1258, when the Mongol armies of Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, besieged Baghdad. The city fell on 10 February 1258; the last Abbasid caliph, al-Musta'sim, was executed, and the libraries, mosques and population suffered catastrophic destruction. The sack of Baghdad shattered the institutional heart of the Islamic world and is remembered as one of the most devastating events in the region's history.
“In 762 al-Mansur founded a new capital on the site of the old village of Baghdad, officially known as Madinat al-Salam, the 'City of Peace'.”
— Encyclopædia Britannica, on the Abbasid Caliphate
Turning points
- 762 CEFormation
- 9th century CECulture & Ideas
- 836 CECulture & Ideas
Samarra becomes the Abbasid capital
The caliphs move their capital upriver to Samarra, building immense palaces and the Great Mosque with its spiral Malwiya minaret, today a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- 1258 CEWar & Rupture
The Mongol sack of Baghdad
The Mongol forces of Hulagu Khan besiege and storm Baghdad, executing the last Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim and destroying the city; the sack ends the Abbasid Caliphate and devastates the region.
See the data
Figures of the era
Al-Mansurreigned 754–775 CE
Abbasid caliph, founder of Baghdad
The second Abbasid caliph, generally regarded as the true founder of the dynasty's power, who in 762 built Baghdad as the round 'City of Peace' on the Tigris and set the capital at the heart of the Islamic world.
Harun al-Rashidreigned 786–809 CE
Abbasid caliph
The fifth Abbasid caliph, who ruled at the height of the empire and made Baghdad a celebrated centre of art, science and learning. His court's splendour was later mythologised in the Thousand and One Nights.
Chapter sources: al-Manṣūr — Abbasid caliph, Iraq — The Abbasid Caliphate, Hārūn al-Rashīd — Abbasid caliph, Bayt al-Ḥikmah — House of Wisdom, Samarra Archaeological City — UNESCO World Heritage List, Iraq — The later Abbasids (1152–1258), Iraq — History
Chapter 04 · 1258 – 1958 CE
Ottoman Rule, the British Mandate and the Kingdom
After the Mongols came centuries of Ottoman rule, then a British mandate after the First World War, the crowning of Faisal I, and independence as the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932.
In the centuries after the Mongol sack, Mesopotamia was contested between rival powers — Mongol successor states, the Timurids, and the Turkmen confederations — before the Ottoman Empire established lasting control in the sixteenth century. Baghdad, taken definitively by the Ottomans in 1638, became the seat of a provincial governor, and the region was administered as the three vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Under the Ottomans the land between the rivers was a frontier province, periodically fought over with Safavid Persia, its irrigation and prosperity much reduced from its medieval height.
The First World War transformed the region. British forces advanced from the Persian Gulf, capturing Baghdad in 1917, and after the war the League of Nations assigned Britain a mandate over the new territory of Iraq, assembled from the three former Ottoman provinces. A major nationwide revolt against British rule in 1920 made direct administration costly, and in 1921 Britain installed Faisal I — a Hashemite prince and leader of the wartime Arab Revolt — as king of a new Iraqi state bound to Britain by treaty. A monarchy and parliament were established under British supervision.
Through the 1920s Iraqi leaders pressed for genuine self-rule, and an Anglo-Iraqi treaty in 1930 set the terms for ending the mandate. On 3 October 1932 Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations as an independent kingdom — the first of the League's mandates anywhere to gain independence. The Hashemite monarchy that followed saw the development of the oil industry and modern institutions, but also recurring instability, military coups and tension between the palace, nationalists and a restive population, culminating in the violent overthrow of the monarchy in 1958.
Turning points
- 1638 CEPolitics & Power
Ottoman conquest of Baghdad
The Ottoman Empire takes definitive control of Baghdad from Safavid Persia, ruling Mesopotamia for nearly three centuries as the provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.
- 1920Colonisation
British mandate and the Iraqi revolt
After capturing Baghdad in 1917, Britain is granted a League of Nations mandate over Iraq; a widespread anti-British revolt in 1920 pushes Britain toward installing an Arab monarchy.
See the data - 23 August 1921Politics & Power
- 3 October 1932Independence
Independence and entry into the League of Nations
The British mandate ends and the Kingdom of Iraq is admitted to the League of Nations as an independent state — the first League mandate anywhere to achieve independence.
See the data
Figures of the era
Faisal I1885–1933
First king of modern Iraq
A Hashemite prince and leader of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans, installed by Britain as king of Iraq in 1921. He presided over the country's path to independence in 1932 and the building of its early institutions.
Chapter sources: Iraq — History, Iraq — British occupation and the mandatory regime, Faisal I — king of Iraq, Iraq — Independence (1932–39), A Guide to the History of Recognition: Iraq
Chapter 05 · 1958 – 2003 CE
The Republic, Saddam Hussein and the Wars
A republican coup in 1958 ended the monarchy; Ba'athist rule and the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein brought modernisation but also repression and three catastrophic wars.
On 14 July 1958 army officers led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew the Hashemite monarchy in a swift coup; King Faisal II was killed and the Republic of Iraq was proclaimed. A decade of coups and counter-coups followed, until the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party seized power for good in 1968. Within the Ba'athist regime a security chief named Saddam Hussein steadily accumulated authority, and in July 1979 he formally assumed the presidency, establishing a pervasive and brutal dictatorship built on the party, the army and an extensive security apparatus.
In September 1980 Saddam launched an invasion of revolutionary Iran, beginning the Iran–Iraq War. The conflict ground on for eight years across a fortified front, marked by trench warfare, missile attacks on cities and the use of chemical weapons; estimates of the total dead on both sides commonly run from several hundred thousand to over a million, and a United Nations-mediated ceasefire finally took effect in 1988. Barely two years later, in August 1990, Iraq invaded and annexed neighbouring Kuwait, prompting a United States-led coalition of many nations to expel Iraqi forces in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, after which Iraq faced years of crippling international sanctions.
Through the 1990s Saddam's Iraq remained internationally isolated, its population impoverished by sanctions and its government accused of repression against Kurds in the north and Shiʿi Arabs in the south. Western concern over weapons of mass destruction — never subsequently found in the quantities alleged — provided the rationale for renewed confrontation. The era of the republic and of Ba'athist single-party rule came to an end in 2003, when a United States-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government after more than three decades of his and the party's dominance.
“He launched wars against Iran and Kuwait, both of which he lost, and instituted a brutal dictatorship.”
— Encyclopædia Britannica, on Saddam Hussein
Turning points
- 14 July 1958Politics & Power
- July 1979Politics & Power
- 1980–1988War & Rupture
The Iran–Iraq War
Iraq invades Iran in September 1980, beginning an eight-year war of attrition that kills an estimated several hundred thousand to over a million people on both sides before a UN-mediated ceasefire takes effect in 1988.
See the data - 1990–1991War & Rupture
Invasion of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf War
Iraq invades and annexes Kuwait in August 1990; a United States-led coalition of many nations expels Iraqi forces in early 1991, after which Iraq is placed under severe international sanctions.
See the data
Figures of the era
Abd al-Karim Qasim1914–1963
Leader of the 1958 revolution, prime minister of Iraq
The army officer who overthrew the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 and led the new republic as prime minister until he himself was deposed and executed in a 1963 coup.
Chapter sources: ʿAbd al-Karīm Qāsim, Iraq — The Republic of Iraq, Saddam Hussein — president of Iraq, Iraq — Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran–Iraq War, Persian Gulf War
Chapter 06 · 2003 – present
Iraq Since 2003 — Invasion, Insurgency and Recovery
The 2003 invasion toppled Saddam Hussein but unleashed insurgency and sectarian war; Iraq endured the rise and defeat of ISIS and now works to rebuild a fractured but enduring state.
In March 2003 a United States-led coalition invaded Iraq and within weeks overthrew Saddam Hussein's government; Saddam was captured in December 2003, tried, and executed in December 2006. The occupation that followed proved far harder than the invasion. The dissolution of the army and the sweeping de-Ba'thification of the state left many embittered and unemployed, and a Sunni-led insurgency erupted within months. A new constitution was adopted in 2005, establishing a federal, parliamentary republic that shared power among Shiʿi Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds, but the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra ignited ferocious sectarian violence between Shiʿi and Sunni militias.
Out of this turmoil grew the jihadist movement that in 2014 proclaimed itself the Islamic State (ISIS). Sweeping across northern and western Iraq, it captured Mosul in June 2014 and declared a 'caliphate', subjecting the population to extreme violence and destroying antiquities and heritage sites. With support from a US-led international coalition, Iraqi security forces, Kurdish fighters and allied militias fought a long and costly campaign to reclaim the country. Mosul was retaken in July 2017 after months of devastating urban combat, and Iraq declared military victory over ISIS in December 2017, though the city and many others lay in ruins.
Since the defeat of ISIS, Iraq has worked to rebuild its cities, economy and institutions while navigating deep challenges: unresolved tensions among its ethnic and sectarian communities, the autonomy of the Kurdistan Region, the influence of neighbouring powers, corruption, and the volatility of an oil-dependent economy. Mass popular protests in 2019 demanded reform and an end to sectarian quota politics. As of 2026 Iraq remains a federal parliamentary republic — a state heir to five thousand years of Mesopotamian history still consolidating stability after decades of war.
Turning points
- March–April 2003War & Rupture
US-led invasion topples Saddam Hussein
A United States-led coalition invades Iraq and overthrows Saddam Hussein's government within weeks; Saddam is captured in December 2003 and later executed in 2006.
See the data - 2005Politics & Power
- June 2014War & Rupture
ISIS seizes Mosul and proclaims a caliphate
The jihadist group ISIS sweeps across northern Iraq, captures Mosul, and declares a 'caliphate', imposing extreme violence and destroying heritage sites including parts of Hatra, Ashur and Nimrud.
See the data - 2017War & Rupture
Liberation of Mosul and defeat of ISIS
Backed by a US-led coalition, Iraqi forces retake Mosul in July 2017 after months of urban warfare, and Iraq declares victory over ISIS in December 2017, ending its territorial control.
See the data
Chapter sources: Iraq War, Iraq — Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iraq — The Republic of Iraq, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)