# The Chronicle of Yemen: From the incense kingdoms of Saba and the great Marib Dam to the long Zaidi imamate, the union of two states, and a war the UN calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. History of Yemen: From the incense kingdoms of Saba and the great Marib Dam to the long Zaidi imamate, the union of two states, and a war the UN calls… Canonical: https://terralore.co/country/YEM/chronicle Updated: 2026-06-15 Founding: Unification of the Republic of Yemen — 22 May 1990. On 22 May 1990 the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) merged to form the Republic of Yemen, with Sanaa as its capital and Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of the north, as head of state. The union joined two states with very different recent histories: a northern highland heartland that had been independent of the Ottomans since 1918 and a southern coast, centred on Aden, that had been under British control until 1967. The country's far deeper roots lie in the ancient South Arabian kingdoms and in the long Zaidi imamate of the highlands. Yemen occupies the fertile southwestern corner of Arabia, where the ancient incense kingdoms of Saba, Qataban and Hadramawt grew wealthy on the caravan trade in frankincense and myrrh and built the celebrated Great Dam of Marib. After Islam reached the region in the 7th century, a Zaidi imamate took root in the northern highlands and endured, in varying forms, for over a thousand years, while the Ottomans and, in the south, Britain at Aden contested control of its coasts. North Yemen emerged from Ottoman rule in 1918 and South Yemen won independence from Britain in 1967; the two states merged into the Republic of Yemen on 22 May 1990. Since 2014–15 the country has been gripped by war and a humanitarian catastrophe that United Nations agencies have ranked among the gravest in the world. This file carries the chronicle's sourced event record — every event with its year, summary and source keys (resolved under References below). The full reading narrative lives on the canonical page. ## Ancient South Arabia: The Incense Kingdoms — c. 1000 BCE – 6th century CE For more than a millennium the kingdoms of Saba, Qataban, Hadramawt and Himyar grew rich on the caravan trade in frankincense and myrrh, building the Great Dam of Marib at the heart of a wealthy, irrigated civilisation. - c. 8th century BCE: **The kingdom of Saba flourishes at Marib** — Saba, the biblical Sheba, emerged as the dominant South Arabian kingdom, with its capital at Marib controlling the lucrative caravan trade in frankincense and myrrh. [britannica-saba, britannica-marib] - early 1st millennium BCE: **Construction of the Great Dam of Marib** — The Sabaeans built the Great Dam of Marib to harness the seasonal floods of the Wadi Adhanah, irrigating a vast oasis and underpinning the kingdom's wealth for over a thousand years. [britannica-marib, britannica-saba] - c. 110 BCE: **Rise of the Himyarite kingdom** — The Himyarites rose in the southern highlands and gradually absorbed Saba, Qataban and Hadramawt, uniting much of South Arabia under a single dynasty. [britannica-yemen-history, openstax-aksum-himyar] - c. 525 CE: **Aksumite conquest and the viceroy Abraha** — An Ethiopian (Aksumite) invasion overthrew the Himyarite kingdom; the Christian viceroy Abraha later ruled from Yemen before the Sasanian Persians seized the region around 570. [britannica-abraha, britannica-yemen-history] Figures: - Queen of Sheba (by tradition, 10th century BCE) — Legendary queen of Saba. Ruler of the kingdom of Saba in southwestern Arabia who, in biblical and Quranic tradition, visited King Solomon with a great caravan of gifts; Islamic tradition names her Bilqis. She remains a powerful symbol of ancient Yemen's wealth and the incense trade. - Abraha (6th century CE) — Christian viceroy of Himyar. Ethiopian-backed Christian ruler of Yemen who undertook major building works, including repairs to the Marib Dam, and whose famed expedition against Mecca is recalled in the Quran's Surah al-Fil before Sasanian Persia displaced Aksumite power. ## Islam and the Long Zaidi Imamate — 7th century – 1918 Islam reached Yemen within the Prophet's lifetime, and from the late 9th century a Zaidi imamate took root in the northern highlands, enduring through Ayyubid, Rasulid and Ottoman overlords for more than a thousand years. - c. 628–630 CE: **Yemen embraces Islam** — Yemen adopted Islam in the 7th century, within the Prophet Muhammad's lifetime, and Sanaa became a major centre for the spread of the new faith in the 7th and 8th centuries. [britannica-yemen-history, unesco-sanaa] - 897 CE: **Founding of the Zaidi imamate** — The scholar Yahya ibn al-Husayn, invited from Medina to arbitrate tribal disputes around Saada, founded the Zaidi imamate, binding the northern highlands to Zaidi Shia Islam for over a thousand years. [britannica-yemen-history] - early 16th century: **Ottomans claim Yemen** — From around the 1520s the Ottoman Empire asserted control over Yemen's ports and lowlands, contesting the highlands with the Zaidi imams in a struggle that recurred for centuries. [britannica-yemen-history] - inscribed 1993: **Zabid recognised as a centre of Islamic learning** — The historic town of Zabid, capital of Yemen under the Rasulids and a celebrated centre of Islamic scholarship from the 13th to 15th centuries, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. [unesco-zabid] Figures: - Yahya ibn al-Husayn al-Hadi ila al-Haqq (859–911) — First Zaidi imam of Yemen. Religious scholar invited from Medina to settle tribal disputes around Saada, who founded the Zaidi imamate in 897 and established a highland theocratic order that endured, in changing forms, until 1962. ## Ottomans, Britain and the Port of Aden — 1839 – 1918 Britain seized Aden in 1839 and made it a vital coaling station on the route to India, while the Ottomans returned to the north; the two empires divided Yemen between them until the Ottoman collapse in 1918. - 1839: **Britain captures Aden** — The British East India Company seized the port of Aden, establishing a coaling station on the route to India that grew into one of the world's busiest ports after the Suez Canal opened in 1869. [britannica-aden, iwm-aden] - late 19th century: **Ottoman return to the highlands** — The Ottomans reoccupied northern Yemen in the 19th century, meeting sustained resistance from the Zaidi tribes and imams of the mountainous interior. [britannica-yemen-history] - 1911: **Imam Yahya wins highland autonomy** — Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din, leader of Zaidi resistance, secured by treaty a degree of autonomy from the Ottomans over the Zaidi highlands, foreshadowing full independence. [britannica-yemen-history, ushistorian-yemen] - 1937: **Aden becomes a Crown Colony** — The port of Aden, previously governed as part of British India, was made a separate Crown Colony, with the surrounding territories organised as the Aden Protectorate. [britannica-aden] Figures: - Imam Yahya Hamid al-Din (1869–1948) — Imam and later King of Yemen. Zaidi imam who led resistance to Ottoman rule, won autonomy in 1911, and became sovereign of the independent north after the Ottoman withdrawal in 1918, founding the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen before his assassination in 1948. ## The Two Yemens: Revolution and Independence — 1918 – 1967 An independent northern kingdom emerged from the Ottoman collapse in 1918; a 1962 revolution turned it into a republic, while a guerrilla war drove Britain from Aden in 1967, leaving two rival Yemeni states. - 1918: **Independent kingdom of North Yemen** — With the Ottoman defeat in the First World War and withdrawal from Yemen, Imam Yahya established the independent Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen across the northern highlands. [britannica-yemen-history, ushistorian-yemen] - 26 September 1962: **Revolution founds the Yemen Arab Republic** — Army officers under Abdullah al-Sallal overthrew the imam and proclaimed the Yemen Arab Republic, igniting a civil war that drew in Egyptian and Saudi forces until 1970. [britannica-yemen-history, ushistorian-yemen] - 1963–1967: **The Aden Emergency** — Nationalist groups led by the National Liberation Front waged a guerrilla and urban insurgency against British rule in Aden and its protectorate, hastening Britain's decision to withdraw. [iwm-aden, britannica-aden] - 30 November 1967: **Independence of South Yemen** — After the British withdrawal, the People's Republic of Southern Yemen declared independence with Aden as its capital, later becoming the Marxist People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. [ushistorian-yemen, britannica-yemen-history] Figures: - Abdullah al-Sallal (1917–1994) — First president of the Yemen Arab Republic. Army officer who led the 1962 revolution overthrowing the imamate and became the first president of the Yemen Arab Republic, leaning on Egyptian support during the ensuing civil war. ## Unification and the Republic of Yemen — 1990 – 2011 On 22 May 1990 North and South Yemen merged into a single republic under Ali Abdullah Saleh; a brief civil war in 1994 cemented northern dominance, and the new state's heritage won international recognition. - 22 May 1990: **Unification of the Republic of Yemen** — North and South Yemen merged into the Republic of Yemen with Sanaa as capital and Ali Abdullah Saleh as president, ending more than two decades of partition. [ushistorian-yemen, britannica-yemen-history] - May–July 1994: **Civil war and the defeat of southern secession** — Southern leaders declared secession, but northern forces took Aden in July 1994 and crushed the breakaway attempt, consolidating Saleh's control over a unified Yemen. [britannica-yemen-history, britannica-yemeni-civil-war] - inscribed 1986: **Old City of Sanaa joins the World Heritage List** — UNESCO inscribed the Old City of Sanaa, inhabited for more than 2,500 years and renowned for its multi-storey rammed-earth tower-houses and early mosques. [unesco-sanaa] - inscribed 1982: **Shibam, the 'Manhattan of the desert', is listed** — The Old Walled City of Shibam, famed for its towering mud-brick high-rise houses in the Wadi Hadramawt, was inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. [unesco-shibam] Figures: - Ali Abdullah Saleh (1942–2017) — President of Yemen, 1990–2012. President of North Yemen from 1978 and of the unified Republic of Yemen from 1990, he dominated Yemeni politics for over three decades before being forced from power in 2012; he was killed by his former Houthi allies in 2017. ## Uprising, War and Humanitarian Crisis — 2011 – present A 2011 uprising forced Saleh from power; a Houthi advance and a Saudi-led intervention plunged Yemen into a war that the UN has described as among the world's worst humanitarian crises, with hundreds of thousands of deaths estimated. - 2011: **Arab Spring uprising and Saleh's removal** — Mass protests against corruption and Saleh's three decades in power, part of the regional Arab Spring, led to a Gulf-brokered transition under which Saleh ceded power and Hadi became president in 2012. [britannica-arab-spring, britannica-yemeni-civil-war] - September 2014: **Houthi forces seize Sanaa** — The Houthi movement, allied with former president Saleh, captured the capital Sanaa and went on to force President Hadi from the country, collapsing the post-2011 transition. [britannica-yemeni-civil-war] - March 2015: **Saudi-led coalition intervenes** — A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE began military intervention to restore the recognised government, opening a prolonged war marked by air strikes, ground combat and blockade. [britannica-yemeni-civil-war] - November 2021: **UN estimates 377,000 war-related deaths** — A United Nations Development Programme report projected that the war would have caused roughly 377,000 deaths by the end of 2021, most from indirect causes such as hunger and disease. [un-undp-yemen, unnews-undp-yemen] - April 2022: **UN-mediated nationwide truce** — A two-month UN-brokered truce took effect on 2 April 2022, easing fighting, allowing fuel ships into Hodeidah and flights from Sanaa; it was extended and, though it later lapsed, largely held. [un-osesgy-truce] Figures: - Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi (born 1945) — President of Yemen, 2012–2022. Saleh's vice-president who became president in the 2012 transition; forced from Sanaa by the Houthi advance in 2014–15, he led the internationally recognised government from exile and later Aden until handing authority to a presidential council in 2022. Machine-readable claims — every event above as an addressable claim ID (TL:YEM:event::) with its sources and a ready citation string: https://terralore.co/country/YEM/chronicle.claims.json ## References - [britannica-yemen-history] Yemen: History (ancient kingdoms, Islam, the imamate, unification and war) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Yemen/History - [britannica-saba] Saba (ancient kingdom, Arabia) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Saba-ancient-kingdom-Arabia - [britannica-marib] Marib: Yemen, Dam, and History — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Marib - [britannica-sheba] Queen of Sheba: Legend, History, Name and Meaning — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/biography/Queen-of-Sheba - [britannica-abraha] Abraha (Himyarite kingdom, Christian ruler of Yemen) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abraha - [britannica-aden] Aden: Yemen, Map, Population and Facts — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Aden - [britannica-yemeni-civil-war] Yemeni Civil War (Houthi conflict and Saudi-led intervention) — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/event/Yemeni-Civil-War - [britannica-arab-spring] Yemen: Arab Spring uprising — Encyclopaedia Britannica · https://www.britannica.com/place/Yemen/Arab-Spring-uprising - [unesco-sanaa] Old City of Sana'a — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/385/ - [unesco-shibam] Old Walled City of Shibam — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/192/ - [unesco-zabid] Historic Town of Zabid — UNESCO World Heritage Centre · https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/611/ - [ushistorian-yemen] A Guide to the United States' History of Recognition, Diplomatic, and Consular Relations, by Country, since 1776: Yemen — U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian · https://history.state.gov/countries/yemen - [iwm-aden] A Short History of the Aden Emergency — Imperial War Museums · https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/cold-war/aden-emergency - [un-undp-yemen] Assessing the Impact of War in Yemen: Pathways for Recovery — United Nations Development Programme · https://www.undp.org/publications/assessing-impact-war-yemen-pathways-recovery - [unnews-undp-yemen] Yemen: Recovery possible if war stops now, says UNDP report — United Nations News · https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1106362 - [un-osesgy-truce] Truce Agreement – April 2022 — Office of the UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen (OSESGY) · https://osesgy.unmissions.org/en/truce-agreement-april-2022 - [ebsco-sheba] Queen of Sheba (Research Starter) — EBSCO Research Starters · https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/queen-sheba - [openstax-aksum-himyar] The Kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar (World History, Volume 1) — OpenStax, Rice University · https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-1/pages/10-3-the-kingdoms-of-aksum-and-himyar - [wikipedia-mutawakkilite] Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen — Wikipedia · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutawakkilite_Kingdom_of_Yemen Citation template: Terralore, "The Chronicle of Yemen: From the incense kingdoms of Saba and the great Marib Dam to the long Zaidi imamate, the union of two states, and a war the UN calls one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.", terralore.co/country/YEM/chronicle, retrieved .