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Neoplatonism is a modern term  used to designate a tradition of philosophy that arose in the 3rd century AD and persisted until shortly after the closing of the Platonic Academy in Athens in AD 529 by Justinian I. Neoplatonists were heavily influenced by Plato, but also by the Platonic tradition that thrived during the six centuries which separated the first of the Neoplatonists from Plato.

In defining the term "Neoplatonism", it is difficult to reduce the school of thought to a concise set of ideas that all Neoplatonic philosophers shared in common. The work of Neoplatonic philosophy involved describing the derivation of the whole of reality from a single principle, "the One". While the Neoplatonists generally shared some basic assumptions about the nature of reality, there were also considerable differences in their views and approaches, and so it can be difficult to summarize the philosophical content of Neoplatonism briefly. Instead, the most concise definition of Neoplatonism casts it as an historical term.  It refers to the dynamic philosophical tradition that Neoplatonism was over the course of its history: to the work of Plotinus, who is traditionally identified as the founder of Neoplatonism,  and to the many thinkers after him, who developed, responded to and criticized his ideas. 

There are multiple ways to categorize the differences between the Neoplatonists according to their differing views, but one way   counts three distinct phases in Neoplatonism after Plotinus: the work of his student Porphyry, that of Iamblichus and his school in Calchis, and the period in the fifth and sixth centuries, when the Academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished. Thinkers of this final period include Syrianus, Olympiodorus the Younger, Proclus and Damascius. An important feature that distinguishes Neoplatonism after Porphyry from earlier periods is that later Neoplatonists embraced a certain kind of spiritual exercise, called theurgy, as a means of developing the soul through a process called henosis.

The similarities between Neoplatonism and the Vedanta philosophies of Hinduism  have led several authors to suggest an Indian influence in its founding, particularly on Ammonius Saccas, the teacher of Plotinus.   Neoplatonism has been very influential throughout history. In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonic ideas were integrated into the philosophical and theological works of many of the most important mediaeval Islamic, Christian, and Jewish thinkers. In Muslim lands, Neoplatonic texts were available in Arabic translations, and notable thinkers such as al-Farabi, Avicenna and Moses Maimonides  incorporated Neoplatonic elements into their own thinking. Although the revitalisation of Neoplatonism amongst Italian Renaissance thinkers such as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola is perhaps more famous, Latin translations of Late Ancient Neoplatonic texts were first available in the Christian West much earlier, in the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, had direct access to works by Proclus, Simplicius and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and he knew about other Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus and Porphyry, through secondhand sources.  The influence of Neoplatonism also extends into forms of culture beyond philosophy, and well into the modern era, for instance, in Renaissance Aesthetics, and in the work of modernist poets such as W. B. Yeats  and T.S. Eliot, among many more. 
 
Origins of the term Neoplatonism 

The term "Neoplatonism" has a double function as a historical category. On the one hand, it differentiates the philosophical doctrines of Plotinus and his successors from those of the historical Plato. On the other, the term makes an assumption about the novelty of Plotinus' interpretation of Plato. In the nearly six centuries from Plato's time to Plotinus', there had been an uninterrupted tradition of interpreting Plato which had begun with Aristotle and with the immediate successors of Plato's academy and continued on through a period of Platonism which is now referred to as Middle Platonism. The term "Neoplatonism" implies that Plotinus' interpretation of Plato was so distinct from those of his predecessors that it should be thought to introduce a new period in the history of Platonism. Some contemporary scholars, however, have taken issue with this assumption and have doubted that Neoplatonism constitutes a useful label. They claim that merely marginal differences separate Plotinus' teachings from those of his immediate predecessors.

Whether Neoplatonism is a meaningful or useful historical category is itself a central question concerning the history of the interpretation of Plato. For much of the history of Platonism, it was commonly accepted that the doctrines of the Neoplatonists were essentially the same as those of Plato. The Renaissance Platonist Marsilio Ficino, for instance, thought that the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato was an authentic and accurate representation of Plato's philosophy.  Although it is unclear precisely when scholars began to disassociate the philosophy of the historical Plato from the philosophy of his Neoplatonic interpreters, they had clearly begun to do so at least as early as the first decade of the nineteenth century. Contemporary scholars often identify the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher as an early thinker who took Plato's philosophy to be separate from that of his Neoplatonic interpreters. However, others have argued that the differentiation of Plato from Neoplatonism was the result of a protracted historical development that preceded Schleiermacher's scholarly work on Plato. 

Origins 

* See Also Plato's unwritten doctrines
The most important forerunners of Neoplatonism are the Middle Platonists, such as Plutarch, and the Neopythagoreans, especially Numenius of Apamea. Philo, a forerunner of Neoplatonism, translated Judaism into terms of Stoic, Platonic and Neopythagorean elements, and held that God is "supra rational" and can be reached only through "ecstasy", and Philo held that the oracles of God supply the material of moral and religious knowledge. The earliest Christian philosophers, such as Justin and Athenagoras, who attempted to connect Christianity with Platonism, and the Christian Gnostics of Alexandria, especially Valentinus and the followers of Basilides, also mirrored elements of Neoplatonism, albeit without its rigorous self-consistency.

Teachings

Neoplatonism is generally a metaphysical and epistemological philosophy. Neoplatonism is a form of idealistic monism combined with elements of polytheism.

Although the founder of Neoplatonism is supposed to have been Ammonius Saccas, the Enneads of his pupil Plotinus are the primary and classical document of Neoplatonism. As a form of mysticism, it contains theoretical and practical parts, the first dealing with the high origin of the human soul and showing how it has departed from its first estate, and the second showing the way by which the soul may again return to the Eternal and Supreme. The system can be divided between the invisible world and the phenomenal world, the former containing the transcendent One from which emanates an eternal, perfect, essence (nous), which, in turn, produces the world-soul.

The One 

One of the characteristic features of Plotinus' system, which was also taken up by subsequent Neoplatonists, is the doctrine of "the One" beyond being. For Plotinus, the first principle of reality is an utterly simple, ineffable, unknowable subsistence which is both the creative source and the teleological end of all existing things. Although, properly speaking, there is no name appropriate for the first principle, the most adequate names are "the One" or "the Good". The One is so simple that it cannot even be said to exist or to be a being. Rather, the creative principle of all things is beyond being, a notion which is derived from book VI of the Republic,  when, in the course of his famous analogy of the Sun, Plato says that the Good is beyond being (ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας) in power and dignity.  In Plotinus' model of reality, the One is the cause of the rest of reality, which takes the form of two subsequent "hypostases", Nous and Soul. Although Neoplatonists after Plotinus adhered to his cosmological scheme in its most general outline, later developments in the tradition also departed substantively from Plotinus' teachings in regards to significant philosophical issues, such as the nature of evil.

Demiurge or Nous 

The original Being initially emanates, or throws out, the nous, which is a perfect image of the One and the archetype of all existing things. It is simultaneously both being and thought, idea and ideal world. As image, the nous corresponds perfectly to the One, but as derivative, it is entirely different. What Plotinus understands by the nous is the highest sphere accessible to the human mind, while also being pure intellect itself.  Nous is the most critical component of idealism, Neoplatonism being a pure form of idealism.   The demiurge (the nous) is the energy, or ergon (does the work), which manifests or organises the material world into perceivability.

The world-soul 

The image and product of the motionless nous is the world-soul, which, according to Plotinus, is immaterial like the nous. Its relation to the nous is the same as that of the nous to the One. It stands between the nous and the phenomenal world, and it is permeated and illuminated by the former, but it is also in contact with the latter. The nous/spirit is indivisible; the world-soul may preserve its unity and remain in the nous, but, at the same time, it has the power of uniting with the corporeal world and thus being disintegrated. It therefore occupies an intermediate position. As a single world-soul, it belongs in essence and destination to the intelligible world; but it also embraces innumerable individual souls; and these can either allow themselves to be informed by the nous, or turn aside from the nous and choose the phenomenal world and lose themselves in the realm of the senses and the finite.

The phenomenal world 

The soul, as a moving essence, generates the corporeal or phenomenal world. This world ought to be so pervaded by the soul that its various parts should remain in perfect harmony. Plotinus is no dualist in the same sense as sects like the Gnostics; in contrast, he admires the beauty and splendour of the world. So long as idea governs matter, or the soul governs the body, the world is fair and good. It is an image - though a shadowy image - of the upper world, and the degrees of better and worse in it are essential to the harmony of the whole. But, in the actual phenomenal world, unity and harmony are replaced by strife or discord; the result is a conflict, a becoming and vanishing, an illusive existence. And the reason for this state of things is that bodies rest on a substratum of matter. Matter is the indeterminate: that with no qualities. If destitute of form and idea, it is evil; as capable of form, it is neutral. Evil here is understood as a parasite, having no-existence of its own (parahypostasis), an unavoidable outcome of the Universe, having an "other" necessity, as a harmonizing factor. 

Practice 

Here, then, we enter upon the practical philosophy. Along the same road by which it descended, the soul must retrace its steps back to the supreme Good. It must, first of all, return to itself. This is accomplished by the practice of virtue, which aims at likeness to God, and leads up to God. In the ethics of Plotinus, all the older schemes of virtue are taken over and arranged in a graduated series. The lowest stage is that of the civil virtues, then follow the purifying, and last of all the divine virtues. The civil virtues merely adorn the life, without elevating the soul. That is the office of the purifying virtues, by which the soul is freed from sensuality and led back to itself, and thence to the nous. By means of ascetic observances, the human becomes once more a spiritual and enduring being, free from all sin. But there is still a higher attainment; it is not enough to be sinless, one must become "God" (henosis). This is reached through contemplation of the primeval Being, the One — in other words, through an ecstatic approach to it. Thought cannot attain to this, for thought reaches only to the nous, and it itself is a kind of motion. It is only in a state of perfect passivity and repose that the soul can recognise and touch the primaeval Being. Hence, the soul must first pass through a spiritual curriculum. Beginning with the contemplation of corporeal things in their multiplicity and harmony, it then retires upon itself and withdraws into the depths of its own being, rising thence to the nous, the world of ideas. But, even there, it does not find the Highest, the One; it still hears a voice saying, "not we have made ourselves". The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it is able, as it were, to lose itself. Then it sees God, the foundation of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment, it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss; it is, as it were, swallowed up by divinity, bathed in the light of eternity. Porphyry says that on four occasions during the six years of their acquaintance, Plotinus attained to this ecstatic union with God.

Celestial hierarchy 

The religious philosophy of Plotinus for himself personally sufficed, without the aid of the popular religion or worship. Nevertheless, he sought for points of support in these. God is certainly in the truest sense nothing but the primaeval Being who is revealed in a variety of emanations and manifestations. Plotinus taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One, the All, from which emanated the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings. Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings such as gods, angels, demons, and other beings as mediators between the One and humanity. The Neoplatonist gods are omni-perfect beings and do not display the usual amoral behaviour associated with their representations in the myths.

;The One
God, The Good. Transcendent and ineffable.
;The Hypercosmic Gods
Those that make Essence, Life, and Soul
;The Demiurge
The Creator
;The Cosmic Gods
Those who make Being, Nature, and Matter—including the gods known to us from classical religion.

Salvation 

Neoplatonists believed human perfection and happiness were attainable in this world, without awaiting an afterlife. Perfection and happiness— seen as synonymous— could be achieved through philosophical contemplation.

They did not believe in an independent existence of evil. They compared it to darkness, which does not exist in itself but only as the absence of light. So, too, evil is simply the absence of good. Things are good insofar as they exist; they are evil only insofar as they are imperfect, lacking some good which they should have. It is also a cornerstone of Neoplatonism to teach that all people return to the Source. The Source, Absolute, or One is what all things spring from and, as a superconsciousness (nous), is where all things return. It can be said that all consciousness is wiped clean and is returned to a blank slate when returning to the Source. All things have force or potential (dynamis) as their essence. This dynamis begets energy (energeia).   

The Neoplatonists believed in the pre-existence, and immortality of the soul.   The human soul consists of a lower irrational soul and a higher rational soul (mind), both of which can be regarded as different powers of the one soul. It was widely held that the soul possesses a "vehicle",  accounting for the human soul's immortality and allowing for its return to the One after death.  After bodily death, the soul takes up a level in the afterlife corresponding with the level at which it lived during its earthly life.   The Neoplatonists believed in the principle of reincarnation. Although the most pure and holy souls would dwell in the highest regions, the impure soul would undergo a purification, before descending again,  to be reincarnated into a new body, perhaps into animal form.  Plotinus believed that a soul may be reincarnated into another human or even a different sort of animal. However, Porphyry maintained, instead, that human souls were only reincarnated into other humans.  A soul which has returned to the One achieves union with the cosmic universal soul  and does not descend again, at least, not in this world period.

Logos 

The term "Logos" was interpreted variously in neoplatonism. Plotinus refers to Thales  in interpreting Logos as the principle of meditation, the interrelationship between the Hypostases  (Soul, Spirit (nous) and the 'One'). St. John introduces a relation between 'Logos' and the Son, Christ,  whereas, St. Paul calls it 'Son', 'Image', and 'Form'.  Victorinus subsequently differentiated the Logos interior to God from the Logos related to the world by creation and salvation.

Augustine re-interpreted Aristotle and Plato in the light of early Christian thought.  In his Confessions, he describes the Logos as the divine eternal Word.  Following St. John, Augustine's Logos "took on flesh" in Christ, in whom the logos was present as in no other man.   He strongly influenced Early Medieval Christian Philosophy.  Perhaps the key subject in this was Logos.

After Plotinus' (around AD 205–270) and his student Porphyry (around AD 232–309) Aristotle's (non-biological) works entered the curriculum of Platonic thought. Porphyry's introduction (Isagoge) to Aristotle's Categoria was important as an introduction to logic, and the study of Aristotle became an introduction to the study of Plato in the late Platonism of Athens and Alexandria. The commentaries of this group seek to harmonise Plato, Aristotle, and, often, the Stoa.  Some works of Neoplatonism were attributed to Plato or Aristotle. De Mundo, for instance, is thought not to be the work of a 'pseudo-Aristotle' though this remains debatable. 

Philosophers 

Ammonius Saccas 

Ammonius Saccas (birth unknown, death ca. AD 265, Greek: Ἀμμώνιος Σακκᾶς) is a founder of Neoplatonism and the teacher of Plotinus. Little is known of Ammonius Saccas other than that both Christians (see Eusebius, Jerome, and Origen) and pagans (see Porphyry and Plotinus) claimed him a teacher and founder of the Neoplatonic system. Porphyry stated in On the One School of Plato and Aristotle, that Ammonius' view was that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were in harmony. Eusebius and Jerome claimed him as a Christian until his death, whereas Porphyry claimed he had renounced Christianity and embraced pagan philosophy.

Plotinus 

Plotinus (Greek: Πλωτῖνος) (c. 205 – c. 270) was a major Greco-EgyptianGeorge Sarton (1936). "The Unity and Diversity of the Mediterranean World", Osiris 2, pp. 406–463 [429–430]. philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the father of Neoplatonism. Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads. While he was himself influenced by the teachings of classical Greek, Persian and Indian philosophy and Egyptian theology,  his metaphysical writings later inspired numerous Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics over the centuries.
Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity, nor distinction; likewise, it is beyond all categories of being and non-being. The concept of "being" is derived by us from the objects of human experience and is an attribute of such objects, but the infinite, transcendent One is beyond all such objects and, therefore, is beyond the concepts which we can derive from them. The One "cannot be any existing thing" and cannot be merely the sum of all such things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence) but "is prior to all existents".

Porphyry 

Porphyry (Greek: Πορφύριος, c. A.D. 233– c. 309) was a Syrian Neoplatonist philosopher. He wrote widely on astrology, religion, philosophy, and musical theory. He produced a biography of his teacher, Plotinus. He is important in the history of mathematics because of his Life of Pythagoras and his commentary on Euclid's Elements, which Pappus used when he wrote his own commentary. Porphyry is also known as an opponent of Christianity and as a defender of Paganism; of his Adversus Christianos (Against the Christians) in 15 books, only fragments remain. He famously said, "The gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect."

Iamblichus 

Iamblichus, also known as Iamblichus Chalcidensis, (c. 245 – c. 325, Greek: Ἰάμβλιχος) was a Syrian Neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy and, perhaps, by western philosophical religions themselves. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.
In Iamblichus' system, the realm of divinities stretched from the original One down to material nature itself, where soul, in fact, descended into matter and became "embodied" as human beings. The world is thus peopled by a crowd of superhuman beings influencing natural events and possessing and communicating knowledge of the future, and who are all accessible to prayers and offerings.
Iamblichus had salvation as his final goal (see henosis). The embodied soul was to return to divinity by performing certain rites, or theurgy, literally, 'divine-working'.

Hypatia 

Hypatia (c. AD 360 – 415) was a Greek woman who served as head of the Platonist school in Alexandria, Egypt, where she taught philosophy, mathematics and astronomy prior to her murder by a mob of anti-pagan Christians.

Proclus 

Proclus Lycaeus (February 8, 412 – April 17, 485), surnamed "The Successor" or "diadochos" (Greek Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος Próklos ho Diádokhos), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major Greek philosophers (see Damascius). He set forth one of the most elaborate, complex, and fully developed Neoplatonic systems.
The particular characteristic of Proclus' system is his insertion of a level of individual ones, called henads between the One itself and the divine Intellect, which is the second principle. The henads are beyond being, like the One itself, but they stand at the head of chains of causation (seirai or taxeis) and in some manner give to these chains their particular character. They are also identified with the traditional Greek gods, so one henad might be Apollo and be the cause of all things apollonian, while another might be Helios and be the cause of all sunny things. The henads serve both to protect the One itself from any hint of multiplicity and to draw up the rest of the universe towards the One, by being a connecting, intermediate stage between absolute unity and determinate multiplicity.

Emperor Julian 

Julian (born c. 331 – died June 26, 363), was a Roman Emperor (361–363) of the Constantinian dynasty. He was the last pagan Roman Emperor. The legalization of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine had led to its widespread success within the Eastern Roman Empire and, to a lesser extent, the Western Roman Empire. Julian attempted to counteract Christianity by restoring and reforming pagan worship, using the Neoplatonism developed by Iamblichus to unify Hellenic worship in the empire.

Simplicius 

Simplicius of Cilicia (c. AD 530), a pupil of Damascius, is not known as an original thinker, but his remarks are thoughtful and intelligent, and his learning is prodigious. To the student of Greek philosophy, his commentaries are invaluable, as they contain many fragments of the older philosophers as well as of his immediate predecessors.

Michael Psellos 

Michael Psellos (1018–1078) a Byzantine monk, writer, philosopher, politician, and historian. He wrote many philosophical treatises such as De omnifaria doctrina. He wrote most of his philosophy during his time as a court politician at Constantinople in the 1030s and 1040s.

Gemistus Pletho 

Gemistus Pletho (c. 1355 – 1452, Greek: Πλήθων Γεμιστός) remained the preeminent scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy in the late Byzantine Empire. He introduced his understanding and insight
into the works of Neoplatonism during the failed attempt to reconcile the East-West schism at the council of Florence. At Florence, Pletho met Cosimo de' Medici and influenced the latter's decision to found a new Platonic Academy there. Cosimo subsequently appointed as head Marsilio Ficino, who proceeded to translate all Plato's works, the Enneads of Plotinus, and various other Neoplatonist works into Latin.

Early Christian and Medieval Neoplatonism 

Certain central tenets of Neoplatonism served as a philosophical interim for the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo on his journey from dualistic Manichaeism to Christianity. As a Manichee, Augustine had held that evil has substantial being and that God is made of matter; when he became a Neoplatonist, he changed his views on these things. As a Neoplatonist, and later a Christian, Augustine believed that evil is a privation of good and that God is not material. When writing his treatise 'On True Religion' several years after his 387 baptism, Augustine's Christianity was still tempered by Neoplatonism.

Many other Christians were influenced by Neoplatonism, especially in their identifying the Neoplatonic One, or God, with Yahweh. The most influential of these would be Origen, the pupil of Ammonius Saccas and the fifth-century author known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, (whose works were translated by John Scotus in the 9th century for the West) and proved significant for both the Eastern Orthodox and Western branches of Christianity. Neoplatonism also had links with Gnosticism, which Plotinus rebuked in his ninth tractate of the second Enneads: "Against Those That Affirm The Creator of The Cosmos and The Cosmos Itself to Be Evil" (generally known as "Against The Gnostics").

Due to their belief being grounded in Platonic thought, the Neoplatonists rejected Gnosticism's vilification of Plato's demiurge, the creator of the material world or cosmos discussed in the Timaeus. Neoplatonism has been referred to as orthodox Platonic philosophy by scholars like Professor [http://www.unl.edu/classics/faculty/turner/triadaft.htm John D. Turner]; this reference may be due, in part, to Plotinus' attempt to refute certain interpretations of Platonic philosophy, through his Enneads. Plotinus believed the followers of Gnosticism had corrupted the original teachings of Plato and often argued against likes of Valentinus who, according to Plotinus, had given rise to doctrines of dogmatic theology with ideas such as that the Spirit of Christ was brought forth by a conscious god after the fall from Pleroma. According to Plotinus, The One is not a conscious god with intent nor a godhead nor a conditioned existing entity of any kind, rather a requisite principle of totality which is also the source of ultimate wisdom. 

Despite the influence this pagan philosophy had on Christianity, Justinian I would hurt later Neoplatonism by ordering the closure of the refounded School of Athens.  After the closure, Neoplatonic and or secular philosophical studies continued in publicly funded schools in Alexandria. In the early seventh century, the Neoplatonist Stephanus brought this Alexandrian tradition to Constantinople, where it would remain influential, albeit as a form of secular education.Encyclopædia Britannica, Higher Education in the Byzantine Empire, 2008, O.Ed. The university maintained an active philosophical tradition of Platonism and Aristotelianism, with the former being the longest unbroken Platonic school, running for close to two millennia until the 15th century In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonist ideas influenced Jewish thinkers, such as the Kabbalist Isaac the Blind, and the Jewish Neoplatonic philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol, who modified it in the light of their own monotheism. Neoplatonist ideas also influenced Islamic and Sufi thinkers such as al Farabi and Avicenna.
Neoplatonism ostensibly survived in the Eastern Christian Church as an independent tradition and was reintroduced to the West by Plethon, an avowed pagan and opponent of the Byzantine Church, inasmuch as the latter, under Western scholastic influence, relied heavily upon Aristotelian methodology. Plethon's Platonic revival, following the Council of Florence (1438–1439), largely accounts for the renewed interest in Platonic philosophy which accompanied the Renaissance.

Philosophy and theology

John Burnet (1892) noted 
The Neoplatonists were quite justified in regarding themselves as the spiritual heirs of Pythagoras; and, in their hands, philosophy ceased to exist as such, and became theology. And this tendency was at work all along; hardly a single Greek philosopher was wholly uninfluenced by it. Perhaps Aristotle might seem to be an exception; but it is probable that, if we still possessed a few such "exoteric" works as the Protreptikos in their entirety, we should find that the enthusiastic words in which he speaks of the "blessed life" in the Metaphysics and in the Ethics (Nicomachean Ethics) were less isolated outbursts of feeling than they appear now. In later days, Apollonios of Tyana showed in practice what this sort of thing must ultimately lead to. The theurgy and thaumaturgy of the late Greek schools were only the fruit of the seed sown by the generation which immediately preceded the Persian War.

Islamic Neoplatonism 

Various Arabic scholars and philosophers utilised the works of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and other Neoplatonist philosophers to evaluate, assess, and eventually adapt Neoplatonism to conform to the monotheistic constraints of Islam.  Arabic scholars, like earlier Neoplatonic thinkers, read and philosophised the works of Plato and developed similar questions and conclusions. The translation and interpretation of Islamic Neoplatonists had lasting effects on Western philosophers, affecting Descartes' view on the conception of being. Important figures that translated and shaped Islamic Neoplatonism were Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Ibn Arabi, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and al-Himsi.

There were three major reasons for the prominence of Neoplatonic influences in the Islamic world:  
#Availability of Neoplatonic texts: Arabic translations and paraphrases of Neoplatonic works were readily available to Moslem scholars greatly due to the availability of the Greek copies, in part, because the Muslims came to rule over some of the more important centres of Greek civilisation (Egypt and Syria).
#Spatial and temporal proximity: "Plotinus and other Neoplatonists lived only a few centuries before the rise of Islam, and many of them were Egyptian Greeks."
#Neoplatonism's mystical perspectives: Plotinus' system has similar content to Islamic mysticism, like Islamic Sufism. This eased the acceptance of Neoplatonic doctrines by Islamic philosophers. 

Islamic Neoplatonism differs from traditional Neoplatonism because of its incorporation of Islamic theology, most commonly through the change in definitions of the One and the First Principle. "What changes Neoplatonism is the transcendence of the First Principle. " Moslem philosophers changed the Neoplatonic characteristics of the One into those attributable to God as present in Islamic scripture, notably transferring the First Principle to God. By assigning the First Principle to God, they are altering the definition to fit the definition of God determined by scripture. Philosophers described God as free from Platonic forms and having divine omniscience and providence. The notion of the divine Intellect is altered under Islamic Neoplatonism and is once again attributed to God.  Plotinus doesn't believe in the idea of intelligent design of the universe by an omnipotent being. Islamic philosophers adapted divine Intellect to reinforce scripture, in that God is a transcendent being, omnipresent and inalterable to the effects of creation. The translations of the works which extrapolate the tenets of God in Neoplatonism present no major modification from their original Greek sources, showing the doctrinal shift towards monotheism. 

"The greatest cluster of Neoplatonic themes is found in religious mystical writings, which in fact transform purely orthodox doctrines such as creation into doctrines such as emanationism, which allow for a better framework for the expression of Neoplatonic themes and the emergence of the mystical themes of the ascent and mystical union. " Islamic philosophers used the framework of Islamic mysticism in their interpretation of Neoplatonic writings and concepts. Parviz Morewedge gives four suppositions about the nature of Islamic Mysticism: 
;The Unity of Being: "An inherent potential unity among all dimensions of world-experience."
;The Mediator Figure: "The mediation between finite man and the ultimate being."
;The Way of Salvation: "Knowledge is embedded in the path of self-realization." Passing trials advances one through stages until transcendence.
;The Language of Symbolic Allegory: "Mystical texts are often written in the allegorical language of tales." 

Renaissance Neoplatonism 

"Of all the students of Greek in Renaissance Italy, the best-known are the Neoplatonists who studied in and around Florence" (Hole). Neoplatonism was not just a revival of Plato's ideas, it is all based on Plotinus' created synthesis, which incorporated the works and teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and other Greek philosophers.
The Renaissance in Italy was the revival of classic antiquity, and this started at the fall of the Byzantine empire, who were considered the "librarians of the world", because of their great collection of classical manuscripts and the number of humanist scholars that resided in Constantinople (Hole).

Neoplatonism in the Renaissance combined the ideas of Christianity and a new awareness of the writings of Plato.

Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) was "chiefly responsible for packaging and presenting Plato to the Renaissance" (Hole). In 1462, Cosimo I de' Medici, patron of arts, who had an interest in humanism and Platonism, provided Ficino with all 36 of Plato's dialogues in Greek for him to translate. Between 1462 and 1469, Ficino translated these works into Latin, making them widely accessible, as only a minority of people could read Greek. And, between 1484 and 1492, he translated the works of Plotinus, making them available for the first time to the West.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) was another excelling Neoplatonist during the Italian Renaissance. He could not only speak and write in Latin and Greek, but he also had immense knowledge on the Hebrew and Arabic languages. The pope banned his works because they were viewed as heretical - unlike Ficino, who managed to stay on the right side of the church.

The efforts of Ficino and Pico to introduce Neoplatonic and Hermetic doctrines into the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church has recently been evaluated in terms of an attempted "Hermetic Reformation". 

Cambridge Platonists 

In the seventeenth century in England, Neoplatonism was fundamental to the school of the Cambridge Platonists, whose luminaries included Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, Benjamin Whichcote and John Smith, all graduates of Cambridge University. Coleridge claimed that they were not really Platonists, but "more truly Plotinists": "divine Plotinus", as More called him.

Later, Thomas Taylor (not a Cambridge Platonist) was the first to translate Plotinus' works into English.  

Modern Neoplatonism 

In the essay "Inner and Outer Realities: Jean Gebser in a Cultural/Historical Perspective", Integral philosopher Allan Combs claims that ten modern thinkers can be called Neo-Platonists: Goethe, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge, Emerson, Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung, Jean Gebser and the modern theorist Brian Goodwin. He sees these thinkers as participating in a tradition which can be distinguished from the empiricist and materialist Western philosophical traditions. 

In the philosophy of mathematics, in the early 20th century, the German philosopher, Gottlob Frege, renewed the interest in Plato's theory of mathematical objects (and other abstract objects, in general). Since then, a number of philosophers, such as Crispin Wright and Bob Hale have defended and developed this Neo-platonist account of mathematics.

Some cite American poet Ezra Pound as a Neo-platonist, albeit from a rather Confucian perspective due to his great admiration for Plotinus and his writings on philosophy and religion. Religiously, he described himself in public as a Hellenistic Pagan.

Other notable modern Neoplatonists include Thomas Taylor, "the English Platonist", who wrote extensively on Platonism and translated almost the entire Platonic and Plotinian corpora into English, and the Belgian writer Suzanne Lilar.

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick identified as a Neoplatonist and explores related mystical experiences and religious concepts in his theoretical work, compiled in The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. A miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.  Such an event may be attributed to a supernatural being (a deity), magic, a miracle worker, a saint or a religious leader.

Informally, the word "miracle" is often used to characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster, or simply a "wonderful" occurrence, regardless of likelihood, such as a birth. Other such miracles might be: survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'. Some coincidences may be seen as miracles. 

Theologians say that, with divine providence, God regularly works through created nature yet is free to work without, above, or against it as well. A true miracle would, by definition, be a non-natural phenomenon, leading many rational and scientific thinkers to dismiss them as physically impossible (that is, requiring violation of established laws of physics within their domain of validity) or impossible to confirm by their nature (because all possible physical mechanisms can never be ruled out). The former position is expressed for instance by Thomas Jefferson and the latter by the celebrated philosopher David Hume.

Explanations

Supernatural acts

A miracle is a phenomenon not explained by known laws of nature. Criteria for classifying an event as a miracle vary. Often a religious text, such as the Bible or Quran, states that a miracle occurred, and believers accept this as a fact.

Law of truly large numbers

British mathematician J. E. Littlewood suggested that individuals should statistically expect one-in-a-million events ("miracles") to happen to them at the rate of about one per month. By Littlewood's  definition, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.

Philosophical explanations

Aristotelian and Neo-Aristotelian

The Aristotelian view of God does not include direct intervention in the order of the natural world. Jewish neo-Aristotelian philosophers, who are still influential today, include Maimonides, Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon, and Gersonides. Directly or indirectly, their views are still prevalent in much of the religious Jewish community. 

Baruch Spinoza

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Spinoza claims  that miracles are merely lawlike events whose causes we are ignorant of. We should not treat them as having no cause or of having a cause immediately available. Rather the miracle is for combating the ignorance it entails, like a political project.

David Hume

According to the philosopher David Hume, a miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent".  The crux of his argument is this: "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavours to establish."

Friedrich Schlelermacher

According to the Christian theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher "every event, even the most natural and usual, becomes a miracle as soon as the religious view of it can be the dominant". 

Søren Kierkegaard

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, following Hume and Johann Georg Hamann, a Humean scholar, agrees with Hume's definition of a miracle as a transgression of a law of nature,  but Kierkegaard, writing as his pseudonym Johannes Climacus, regards any historical reports to be less than certain, including historical reports of miracles, as all historical knowledge is always doubtful and open to approximation. 

James Keller

James Keller states that "The claim that God has worked a miracle implies that God has singled out certain persons for some benefit which many others do not receive implies that God is unfair."  "If God intervenes to save your life in a car crash, then what was he doing in Auschwitz?" Thus an all-powerful, all-knowing and just God, as predicated in Christianity, would not perform miracles.

Religious views

Buddhism

The Haedong Kosung-jon of Korea (Biographies of High Monks) records that King Beopheung of Silla had desired to promulgate Buddhism as the state religion. However, officials in his court opposed him. In the fourteenth year of his reign, Beopheung's "Grand Secretary", Ichadon, devised a strategy to overcome court opposition. Ichadon schemed with the king, convincing him to make a proclamation granting Buddhism official state sanction using the royal seal. Ichadon told the king to deny having made such a proclamation when the opposing officials received it and demanded an explanation. Instead, Ichadon would confess and accept the punishment of execution, for what would quickly be seen as a forgery. Ichadon prophesied to the king that at his execution a wonderful miracle would convince the opposing court faction of Buddhism's power. Ichadon's scheme went as planned, and the opposing officials took the bait. When Ichadon was executed on the 15th day of the 9th month in 527, his prophecy was fulfilled; the earth shook, the sun was darkened, beautiful flowers rained from the sky, his severed head flew to the sacred Geumgang mountains, and milk instead of blood sprayed 100 feet in the air from his beheaded corpse. The omen was accepted by the opposing court officials as a manifestation of heaven's approval, and Buddhism was made the state religion in 527 CE. 

The Honchō Hokke Reigenki (c. 1040) of Japan contains a collection of Buddhist miracle stories. 

Miracles play an important role in the veneration of Buddhist relics in Southern Asia. Thus, Somawathie Stupa in Sri Lanka is an increasingly popular site of pilgrimage and tourist destination thanks to multiple reports about miraculous rays of light, apparitions and modern legends, which often have been fixed in photographs and movies.

Christianity

The gospels record three sorts of miracles performed by Jesus: exorcisms, cures, and nature wonders.Funk, Robert W. and the Jesus Seminar. The acts of Jesus: the search for the authentic deeds of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco. 1998. Introduction, p. 1–40 In the Gospel of John the miracles are referred to as "signs" and the emphasis is on God demonstrating his underlying normal activity in remarkable ways.  In the New Testament, the greatest miracle is the resurrection of Jesus, the event central to Christian faith.

Jesus explains in the New Testament that miracles are performed by faith in God. "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'move from here to there' and it will move." (Gospel of Matthew 17:20). After Jesus returned to heaven, the book of Acts records the disciples of Jesus praying to God to grant that miracles be done in his name, for the purpose of convincing onlookers that he is alive. (Acts 4:29–31).

Other passages mention false prophets who will be able to perform miracles to deceive "if possible, even the elect of Christ" (Matthew 24:24). 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says, "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved." Revelation 13:13,14 says, "And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." Revelation 16:14 says, "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Revelation 19:20 says, "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." These passages indicate that signs, wonders, and miracles are not necessarily committed by God. These miracles not committed by God are labeled as false(pseudo) miracles though which could mean that they are deceptive in nature and are not the same as the true miracles committed by God.

In early Christianity miracles were the most often attested motivations for conversions of pagans; pagan Romans took the existence of miracles for granted; Christian texts reporting them offered miracles as divine proof of the Christian God's unique claim to authority, relegating all other gods to the lower status of daimones:  "of all worships, the Christian best and most particularly advertised its miracles by driving out of spirits and laying on of hands".  The Gospel of John is structured around miraculous "signs": The success of the Apostles according to the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea lay in their miracles: "though laymen in their language", he asserted, "they drew courage from divine, miraculous powers".  The conversion of Constantine by a miraculous sign in heaven is a prominent fourth-century example.
 
Since the Age of Enlightenment, miracles have often needed to be rationalized: C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, William Lane Craig, and other 20th-century Christians have argued that miracles are reasonable and plausible. For example, Lewis said that a miracle is something that comes totally out of the blue. If for thousands of years a woman can become pregnant only by sexual intercourse with a man, then if she were to become pregnant without a man, it would be a miracle.   

There have been numerous claims of miracles by people of most Christian denominations, including but not limited to faith healings and casting out demons. Miracle reports are especially prevalent in Roman Catholicism and Pentecostal or Charismatic churches.

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church recognises miracles as being works of God, either directly, or through the prayers and intercessions of a specific saint or saints. There is usually a specific purpose connected to a miracle, e.g. the conversion of a person or persons to the Catholic faith or the construction of a church desired by God. The Church says that it tries to be very cautious to approve the validity of putative miracles. The Catholic Church says that it maintains particularly stringent requirements in validating the miracle's authenticity.  The process is overseen by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. 

The Catholic Church has recognised several events as miracles, some of them occurring in modern times. Before a person can be accepted as a saint, they must be confirmed as having performed two miracles posthumously. In the procedure of beatification of Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, the Vatican announced on 14 January 2011 that Pope Benedict XVI had confirmed that  the recovery of Sister Marie Simon-Pierre from Parkinson's disease was a miracle. 

Among the more notable miracles approved by the Church are several Eucharistic miracles wherein the sacramental bread and wine are transformed into Christ's flesh and blood, such as the Miracle of Lanciano and cures in Lourdes.

According to 17th century documents, a young Spanish man's leg was miraculously restored to him in 1640 after having been amputated two and a half years earlier. 

Another miracle approved by the Church is the Miracle of the Sun, which occurred near Fátima, Portugal on October 13, 1917. Anywhere between 70,000 and 100,000 people, who were gathered at a cove near Fátima, witnessed the sun dim, change colors, spin, dance about in the sky, and appear to plummet to earth, radiating great heat in the process. After the ten-minute event, the ground and the people's clothing, which had been drenched by a previous rainstorm, were both dry.

Velankanni (Mary) can be traced to the mid-16th century and is attributed to three miracles: the apparition of Mary and the Christ Child to a slumbering shepherd boy, the curing of a lame buttermilk vendor, and the rescue of Portuguese sailors from a violent sea storm. 

In addition to these, the Catholic Church attributes miraculous causes to many otherwise inexplicable phenomena on a case-by-case basis. Only after all other possible explanations have proven inadequate may the Church assume Divine intervention and declare the miracle worthy of veneration by the faithful. The Church does not, however, enjoin belief in any extra-Scriptural miracle as an article of faith or as necessary for salvation.

St. Thomas Aquinas, a prominent Doctor of the Church, divided miracles into three types in his Summa contra Gentiles:These works that are sometimes done by God outside the usual order assigned to things are wont to be called miracles: because we are astonished (admiramur) at a thing when we see an effect without knowing the cause. And since at times one and the same cause is known to some and unknown to others, it happens that of several who see an effect, some are astonished and some not: thus an astronomer is not astonished when he sees an eclipse of the sun, for he knows the cause; whereas one who is ignorant of this science must needs wonder, since he knows not the cause. Wherefore it is wonderful to the latter but not to the former. Accordingly a thing is wonderful simply, when its cause is hidden simply: and this is what we mean by a miracle: something, to wit, that is wonderful in itself and not only in respect of this person or that. Now God is the cause which is hidden to every man simply: for we have proved above that in this state of life no man can comprehend Him by his intellect. Therefore properly speaking miracles are works done by God outside the order usually observed in things.

Of these miracles there are various degrees and orders. The highest degree in miracles comprises those works wherein something is done by God, that nature can never do: for instance, that two bodies occupy the same place, that the sun recede or stand still, that the sea be divided and make way to passers by. Among these there is a certain order: for the greater the work done by God, and the further it is removed from the capability of nature, the greater the miracle: thus it is a greater miracle that the sun recede, than that the waters be divided.

The second degree in miracles belongs to those whereby God does something that nature can do, but not in the same order: thus it is a work of nature that an animal live, see and walk: but that an animal live after being dead, see after being blind, walk after being lame, this nature cannot do, but God does these things sometimes by a miracle. Among these miracles also, there are degrees, according as the thing done is further removed from the faculty of nature.

The third degree of miracles is when God does what is wont to be done by the operation of nature, but without the operation of the natural principles: for instance when by the power of God a man is cured of a fever that nature is able to cure; or when it rains without the operation of the principles of nature. 

Hinduism

In Hinduism, miracles are focused on episodes of liberation of the spirit.  A key example is the revelation of Krishna to Arjuna, wherein Krishna persuades Arjuna to rejoin the battle against his cousins by briefly and miraculously giving Arjuna the power to see the true scope of the Universe, and its sustainment within Krishna, which requires divine vision. This is a typical situation in Hindu mythology wherein "wondrous acts are performed for the purpose of bringing spiritual liberation to those who witness or read about them."

Hindu sages have criticized both expectation and reliance on miracles as cheats, situations where people have sought to earn a benefit without doing the work necessary to merit it. Miracles continue to be occasionally reported in the practice of Hinduism, with an example of a miracle modernly reported in Hinduism being the Hindu milk miracle of September 1995, with additional occurrences in 2006 and 2010, wherein statues of certain Hindu deities were seen to drink milk offered to them.The scientific explanation for the incident, attested by Indian academics, was that the material was wicked from the offering bowls by capillary action.

Islam

"Miracle" in the Quran can be defined as a supernatural intervention in the life of human beings.  According to this definition, miracles are present "in a threefold sense: in sacred history, in connection with Muhammad himself and in relation to revelation". The Quran does not use the technical Arabic word for miracle (Muʿd̲j̲iza) literally meaning "that by means of which [the Prophet] confounds, overwhelms, his opponents". It rather uses the term 'Ayah' (literally meaning sign).  The term Ayah is used in the Qur'an in the above-mentioned threefold sense: it refers to the "verses" of the Qur'an (believed to be the divine speech in human language; presented by Muhammad as his chief Miracle); as well as to miracles of it and the signs (particularly those of creation).

To defend the possibility of miracles and God's omnipotence against the encroachment of the independent secondary causes, some medieval Muslim theologians such as Al-Ghazali rejected the idea of cause and effect in essence, but accepted it as something that facilitates humankind's investigation and comprehension of natural processes. They argued that the nature was composed of uniform atoms that were "re-created" at every instant by God. Thus if the soil was to fall, God would have to create and re-create the accident of heaviness for as long as the soil was to fall. For Muslim theologians, the laws of nature were only the customary sequence of apparent causes: customs of God. 

Sufi biographical literature records claims of miraculous accounts of men and women. The miraculous prowess of the Sufi holy men includes firasa (clairvoyance), the ability to disappear from sight, to become completely invisible and practice buruz (exteriorization). The holy men reportedly tame wild beasts and traverse long distances in a very short time span. They could also produce food and rain in seasons of drought, heal the sick and help barren women conceive.  

Judaism

Descriptions of miracles (Hebrew Ness, נס) appear in the Tanakh. Examples include prophets, such as Elijah who performed miracles like the raising of a widow's dead son (1 Kings 17:17–24) and Elisha whose miracles include multiplying the poor widow's jar of oil (2 Kings 4:1–7) and restoring to life the son of the woman of Shunem (2 Kings 4:18–37). The Torah describes many miracles related to Moses during his time as a prophet and the Exodus of the Israelites. Parting the Red Sea, and facilitating the Plagues of Egypt are among the most famous.

During the first century BCE, a variety of religious movements and splinter groups developed amongst the Jews in Judea. A number of individuals claimed to be miracle workers in the tradition of Moses, Elijah, and Elisha, the Jewish prophets. The Talmud provides some examples of such Jewish miracle workers, one of whom is Honi HaM'agel, who was famous for his ability to successfully pray for rain. 

Most Chasidic communities are rife with tales of miracles that follow a yechidut, a spiritual audience with a tzadik: barren women become pregnant, cancer tumors shrink, wayward children become pious.  Many Hasidim claim that miracles can take place in merit of partaking of the shirayim (the leftovers from the rebbe's meal), such as miraculous healing or blessings of wealth or piety.

Criticism

Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution, wrote “All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe”. 

Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, edited a version of the Bible in which he removed sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists.   Jefferson wrote, "The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, [footnote: e.g. The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, etc. —T.J.] invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestley has successfully devoted his labors and learning." 

John Adams, second President of the United States, wrote, "The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?" 

American Revolutionary War patriot and hero Ethan Allen wrote "In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue". 

Robert Ingersoll wrote, "Not 20 people were convinced by the reported miracles of Christ, and yet people of the nineteenth century were coolly asked to be convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are supposed to have seen them refused to credit." 

Elbert Hubbard, American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher, wrote "A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it." 

Biologist Richard Dawkins has criticised the belief in miracles as a subversion of Occam's Razor. Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the global historiographical approach to the timeframe after the post-classical era in European history (known as the Middle Ages).   Modern history can be further broken down into periods:
*The early modern period began approximately in the early 16th century; notable historical milestones included the European Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.  
*The late modern period began approximately in the mid-18th century; notable historical milestones included the Seven Years' War, French Revolution, the First Industrial Revolutions, and the Great Divergence. It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion; the next billion came just over a century  later, in 1927. 
Contemporary history is the span of historic events that are immediately relevant to the present time.

Study 

Some events, while not without precedent, show a new way of perceiving the world. The concept of modernity interprets the general meaning of these events and seeks explanations for major developments.

Source text 

The fundamental difficulty of studying modern history is the fact that a plethora of it has been documented up to the present day. It is imperative to consider the reliability of the information obtained from these records.

Terminology and usage 

Pre-modern 

In the pre-modern era, many people's sense of self and purpose was often expressed via a faith in some form of deity, be that in a single God or in many gods.  Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating a sense of distinct individuality,    though. Religious officials, who often held positions of power, were the spiritual intermediaries to the common person. It was only through these intermediaries that the general masses had access to the divine. Tradition was sacred to ancient cultures and was unchanging and the social order of ceremony and morals in a culture could be strictly enforced.    

Modern 

The term "modern" was coined in the 16th century to indicate present or recent times (ultimately derived from the Latin adverb modo, meaning "just now").  The European Renaissance (about 1420–1630), which marked the transition between the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern times, started in Italy and was spurred in part by the rediscovery of classical art and literature, as well as the new perspectives gained from the Age of Discovery and the invention of the telescope and microscope, expanding the borders of thought and knowledge.

In contrast to the pre-modern era, Western civilization made a gradual transition from pre-modernity to modernity when scientific methods were developed which led many to believe that the use of science would lead to all knowledge, thus throwing back the shroud of myth under which pre-modern peoples lived. New information about the world was discovered via empirical observation,  versus the historic use of reason and innate knowledge.

The term "Early Modern" was introduced in the English language in the 1930s.  to distinguish the time between what we call Middle Ages and time of the late Enlightenment (1800) (when the meaning of the term Modern Ages was developing its contemporary form). It is important to note that these terms stem from European history. In usage in other parts of the world, such as in Asia, and in Muslim countries, the terms are applied in a very different way, but often in the context with their contact with European culture in the Age of Discovery. 

Contemporary 

In the Contemporary era, there were various socio-technological trends. Regarding the 21st century and the late modern world, the Information Age and computers were forefront in use, not completely ubiquitous but often present in daily life. The development of Eastern powers was of note, with China and India becoming more powerful. In the Eurasian theater, the European Union and Russian Federation were two forces recently developed. A concern for Western world, if not the whole world, was the late modern form of terrorism and the warfare that has resulted from the contemporary terrorist acts.

Modern era 

Significant developments 

The modern period has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare, and technology. It has also been an age of discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, began a political, economic, and cultural colonization of the rest of the world.

By the late 19th and 20th centuries, modernist art, politics, science and culture has come to dominate not only Western Europe and North America, but almost every civilized area on the globe, including movements thought of as opposed to the west and globalization. The modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism,  capitalism,  urbanization and a belief in the possibilities of technological and political progress.  

The brutal wars and other problems of this era, many of which come from the effects of rapid change, and the connected loss of strength of traditional religious and ethical norms, have led to many reactions against modern development.   Optimism and belief in constant progress has been most recently criticized by postmodernism while the dominance of Western Europe and Anglo-America over other continents has been criticized by postcolonial theory.

One common conception of modernity is the condition of Western history since the mid-15th century, or roughly the European development of movable type  and the printing press.  In this context the "modern" society is said to develop over many periods, and to be influenced by important events that represent breaks in the continuity.   

Early 

The modern era includes the early period, called the early modern period, which lasted from c. 1500 to around c. 1800 (most often 1815). Particular facets of early modernity include:
* The Renaissance
* The Reformation and Counter Reformation.
* The Age of Discovery
* Rise of capitalism

Important events in the early modern period include:
* The invention of the printing press
* The English Civil War
* The American Revolution
* The French Revolution

This combination of epoch events totally changed thinking and thought in the early modern period, and so their dates serve as well as any to separate the old from the new modes.

As an Age of Revolutions dawned, beginning with those revolts in America and France, political changes were then pushed forward in other countries partly as a result of upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars and their impact on thought and thinking, from concepts from nationalism to organizing armies.   

The early period ended in a time of political and economic change as a result of mechanization in society, the American Revolution, the first French Revolution; other factors included the redrawing of the map of Europe by the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna  and the peace established by Second Treaty of Paris which ended the Napoleonic Wars. 

Late 

As a result of the Industrial Revolution and the earlier political revolutions, the worldviews of Modernism emerged. The industrialization of many nations was initiated with the industrialization of Britain. Particular facets of the late modernity period include:
* Increasing role of science and technology
* Mass literacy and proliferation of mass media
* Spread of social movements
* Institution of representative democracy
* Individualism
* Industrialization
* Urbanization
* Total fertility rates and ecological collapses occurring at geometric rates;

Other important events in the development of the Late modern period include:
* The Revolutions of 1848
* The Russian Revolution
* The First World War and the Second World War

Our most recent eraModern Timesbegins with the end of these revolutions in the 19th century,  and includes the World Wars era  (encompassing World War I and World War II) and the emergence of socialist countries that led to the Cold War. The contemporary era follows shortly afterward with the explosion of research and increase of knowledge known as the Information Age in the latter 20th and the early 21st century. Today's Postmodern era is seen in widespread digitality. 

Early 

Historians consider the early modern period to be approximately between 1500 and 1800. It follows the Late Middle Ages period and is marked by the first European colonies, the rise of strong centralized governments, and the beginnings of recognizable nation-states that are the direct antecedents of today's states.

In Africa and the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim expansion took place in North and East Africa. In West Africa, various native nations existed. The Indian Empires and civilizations of Southeast Asia were a vital link in the spice trade. On the Indian subcontinent, the Great Mughal Empire existed. The archipelagic empires, the Sultanate of Malacca and later the Sultanate of Johor, controlled the southern areas.

In Asia, various Chinese dynasties and Japanese shogunates controlled the Asian sphere. In Japan, the Edo period from 1600 to 1868 is also referred to as the early modern period. And in Korea, from the rising of Joseon Dynasty to the enthronement of King Gojong is referred to as the early modern period. In the Americas, Native Americans had built a large and varied civilization, including the Aztec Empire and alliance, the Inca civilization, the Mayan Empire and cities, and the Chibcha Confederation. In the west, the European kingdoms and movements were in a movement of reformation and expansion. Russia reached the Pacific coast in 1647 and consolidated its control over the Russian Far East in the 19th century.

Later religious trends of the period saw the end of the expansion of Muslims and the Muslim world. Christians and Christendom saw the end of the Crusades and end of religious unity under the Roman Catholic Church. It was during this time that the Inquisitions and Protestant reformations took place.

During the early modern period, an age of discovery and trade was undertaken by the Western European nations. Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France went on a colonial expansion and took possession of lands and set up colonies in Africa, southern Asia, and North and South America.  Turkey colonized Southeastern Europe, and parts of the West Asia and North Africa.  Russia took possession in Eastern Europe, Asia, and North America.

Asia 

China 

In China, urbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil. Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with the outside world, particularly Japan, increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the treasure voyages of Zheng He.

The Qing dynasty (1644–1911) was founded after the fall of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by the Manchus. The Manchus were formerly known as the Jurchens. When Beijing was captured by Li Zicheng's peasant rebels in 1644, the Chongzhen Emperor, the last Ming emperor, committed suicide. The Manchus then allied with former Ming general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty. The Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule of China proper. Schoppa, the editor of The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History argues, "A date around 1780 as the beginning of modern China is thus closer to what we know today as historical 'reality'. It also allows us to have a better baseline to understand the precipitous decline of the Chinese polity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." 

Japan 

In pre-modern  Japan following the Sengoku Period of "warring states", central government had been largely reestablished by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. After the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu who completed this process and received the title of shogun in 1603.

Society in the Japanese "Tokugawa period" (Edo society), unlike the shogunates before it, was based on the strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The daimyo, or lords, were at the top, followed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers, artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the country, particularly smaller regions, daimyo and samurai were more or less identical, since daimyo might be trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local lords. Otherwise, the largely inflexible nature of this social stratification system unleashed disruptive forces over time. Taxes on the peasantry were set at fixed amounts which did not account for inflation or other changes in monetary value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samurai landowners were worth less and less over time. This often led to numerous confrontations between noble but impoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants, ranging from simple local disturbances to much bigger rebellions. None, however, proved compelling enough to seriously challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign powers.

India 

On the Indian subcontinent, the Mughal Empire ruled most of India in the early 18th century.  The "classic period" ended with the death and defeat of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707 by the rising Hindu Maratha Empire,  although the dynasty continued for another 150 years. During this period, the Empire was marked by a highly centralized administration connecting the different regions. All the significant monuments of the Mughals, their most visible legacy, date to this period which was characterised by the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and architectural results. The Maratha Empire was located in the south west of present-day India and expanded greatly under the rule of the Peshwas, the prime ministers of the Maratha empire. In 1761, the Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat which halted imperial expansion and the empire was then divided into a confederacy of Maratha states.

British and Dutch colonization 

The development of New Imperialism saw the conquest of nearly all eastern hemisphere territories by colonial powers. The commercial colonization of India commenced in 1757, after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the British East India Company,  in 1765, when the Company was granted the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar,  or in 1772, when the Company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved in governance. 

The Maratha states, following the Anglo-Maratha wars, eventually lost to the British East India Company in 1818 with the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The rule lasted until 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and consequent of the Government of India Act 1858, the British government assumed the task of directly administering India in the new British Raj.  In 1819 Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a key trading post for Britain in their rivalry with the Dutch. However, their rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. From the 1850s onwards, the pace of colonization shifted to a significantly higher gear.

The Dutch East India Company (1800) and British East India Company (1858) were dissolved by their respective governments, who took over the direct administration of the colonies. Only Thailand was spared the experience of foreign rule, although, Thailand itself was also greatly affected by the power politics of the Western powers. Colonial rule had a profound effect on Southeast Asia. While the colonial powers profited much from the region's vast resources and large market, colonial rule did develop the region to a varying extent. 

Europe 

Many major events caused Europe to change around the start of the 16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall of Muslim Spain and the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation in 1517. In England the modern period is often dated to the start of the Tudor period with the victory of Henry VII over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.   Early modern European history is usually seen to span from the start of the 15th century, through the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.

Tsardom of Russia 

Russia experienced territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of Cossacks. Cossacks were warriors organized into military communities, resembling pirates and pioneers of the New World. In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks in rebellion against Poland-Lithuania during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, because of the social and religious oppression they suffered under Polish rule. In 1654 the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Tsar, Aleksey I. Aleksey's acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). Finally, Ukraine was split along the river Dnieper, leaving the western part (or Right-bank Ukraine) under Polish rule and eastern part (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Russian. Later, in 1670–71 the Don Cossacks led by Stenka Razin initiated a major uprising in the Volga region, but the Tsar's troops were successful in defeating the rebels. In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of the huge territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian river routes, and by the mid-17th century there were Russian settlements in the Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the Pacific coast. In 1648 the Bering Strait between Asia and North America was passed for the first time by Fedot Popov and Semyon Dezhnyov.

Reason and Enlightenment 

Traditionally, the European intellectual transformation of and after the Renaissance bridged the Middle Ages and the Modern era. The Age of Reason in the Western world is generally regarded as being the start of modern philosophy,  and a departure from the medieval approach, especially Scholasticism. Early 17th-century philosophy is often called the Age of Rationalism and is considered to succeed Renaissance philosophy and precede the Age of Enlightenment, but some consider it as the earliest part of the Enlightenment era in philosophy, extending that era to two centuries. The 18th century saw the beginning of secularization in Europe, rising to notability in the wake of the French Revolution.

The Age of Enlightenment is a time in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the 18th century in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. Enlightenment gained momentum more or less simultaneously in many parts of Europe and America. Developing during the Enlightenment era, Renaissance humanism as an intellectual movement spread across Europe. The basic training of the humanist was to speak well and write (typically, in the form of a letter). The term umanista comes from the latter part of the 15th century. The people were associated with the studia humanitatis, a novel curriculum that was competing with the quadrivium and scholastic logic. 

Renaissance humanism took a close study of the Latin and Greek classical texts, and was antagonistic to the values of scholasticism with its emphasis on the accumulated commentaries; and humanists were involved in the sciences, philosophies, arts and poetry of classical antiquity. They self-consciously imitated classical Latin and deprecated the use of medieval Latin. By analogy with the perceived decline of Latin, they applied the principle of ad fontes, or back to the sources, across broad areas of learning.

The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was a literary and artistic quarrel that heated up in the early 1690s and shook the Académie française. The opposing two sides were, the Ancients (Anciens) who constrain choice of subjects to those drawn from the literature of Antiquity and the Moderns (Modernes), who supported the merits of the authors of the century of Louis XIV. Fontenelle quickly followed with his Digression sur les anciens et les modernes (1688), in which he took the Modern side, pressing the argument that modern scholarship allowed modern man to surpass the ancients in knowledge.

Scientific Revolution 

The Scientific Revolution was a period when European ideas in classical physics, astronomy, biology, human anatomy, chemistry, and other classical sciences were rejected and led to doctrines supplanting those that had prevailed from Ancient Greece to the Middle Ages which would lead to a transition to modern science. This period saw a fundamental transformation in scientific ideas across physics, astronomy, and biology, in institutions supporting scientific investigation, and in the more widely held picture of the universe. Individuals started to question all manners of things and it was this questioning that led to the Scientific Revolution, which in turn formed the foundations of contemporary sciences and the establishment of several modern scientific fields.

The French Revolutions 

Toward the middle and latter stages of the Age of Revolution, the French political and social revolutions and radical change saw the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy transform, changing to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. The first revolution led to government by the National Assembly, the second by the Legislative Assembly, and the third by the Directory.

The changes were accompanied by violent turmoil which included the trial and execution of the king, vast bloodshed and repression during the Reign of Terror, and warfare involving every other major European power. Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of the monarchy, and two additional revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, France would be governed at one point or another as a republic, constitutional monarchy, and two different empires.

National and Legislative Assembly 

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly, which existed from June 17 to July 9 of 1789, was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly.

The Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from October 1, 1791 to September 1792. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.

The Directory and Napoleonic Era 

The Executive Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate. The period of this regime (2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799), commonly known as the Directory (or Directoire) era, constitutes the second to last stage of the French Revolution. Napoleon, before seizing the title of Emperor, was elected as First Consul of the Consulate of France.

The campaigns of French Emperor and General Napoleon Bonaparte characterized the Napoleonic Era. Born on Corsica as the French invaded, and dying suspiciously on the tiny British Island of St. Helena, this brilliant commander, controlled a French Empire that, at its height, ruled a large portion of Europe directly from Paris, while many of his friends and family ruled countries such as Spain, Poland, several parts of Italy and many other Kingdoms Republics and dependencies. The Napoleonic Era changed the face of Europe forever, and old Empires and Kingdoms fell apart as a result of the mighty and "Glorious" surge of Republicanism.

Italian unification 

Italian unification was the political and social movement that annexed different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century. There is a lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and the end of this period, but many scholars agree that the process began with the end of Napoleonic rule and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and approximately ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, though the last città irredente did not join the Kingdom of Italy until after World War I.

End of the early modern period 

Toward the end of the early modern period, Europe was dominated by the evolving system of mercantile capitalism in its trade and the New Economy. European states and politics had the characteristic of Absolutism. The French power and English revolutions dominated the political scene. There eventually evolved an international balance of power that held at bay a great conflagration until years later.

The end date of the early modern period is usually associated with the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in about 1750. Another significant date is 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, which drastically transformed the state of European politics and ushered in the Prince Edward Era and modern Europe.

North America 

The French and Indian Wars were a series of conflicts in North America that represented the actions there that accompanied the European dynastic wars. In Quebec, the wars are generally referred to as the Intercolonial Wars. While some conflicts involved Spanish and Dutch forces, all pitted Great Britain, its colonies and American Indian allies on one side and France, its colonies and Indian allies on the other.

The expanding French and British colonies were contending for control of the western, or interior, territories. Whenever the European countries went to war, there were actions within and by these colonies although the dates of the conflict did not necessarily exactly coincide with those of the larger conflicts.

Beginning the Age of Revolution, the American Revolution and the ensuing political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century saw the Thirteen Colonies of North America overthrow the governance of the Parliament of Great Britain, and then reject the British monarchy itself to become the sovereign United States of America. In this period the colonies first rejected the authority of the Parliament to govern them without representation, and formed self-governing independent states. The Second Continental Congress then joined together against the British to defend that self-governance in the armed conflict from 1775 to 1783 known as the American Revolutionary War (also called American War of Independence).

The American Revolution begun with fighting at Lexington and Concord. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. In June 1776, Benjamin Franklin was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Although he was temporarily disabled by gout and unable to attend most meetings of the Committee, Franklin made several small changes to the draft sent to him by Thomas Jefferson.

The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence. While the states had already rejected the governance of Parliament, through the Declaration the new United States now rejected the legitimacy of the monarchy to demand allegiance. The war raged for seven years, with effective American victory, followed by formal British abandonment of any claim to the United States with the Treaty of Paris.

The Philadelphia Convention set up the current United States; the United States Constitution ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a limited central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

Decolonization of North and South Americas 

The decolonization of the Americas was the process by which the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. Decolonization began with a series of revolutions in the late 18th and early-to-mid-19th centuries. The Spanish American wars of independence were the numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America that took place during the early 19th century, from 1808 until 1829, directly related to the Napoleonic French invasion of Spain. The conflict started with short-lived governing juntas established in Chuquisaca and Quito opposing the composition of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville.

When the Central Junta fell to the French, numerous new Juntas appeared all across the Americas, eventually resulting in a chain of newly independent countries stretching from Argentina and Chile in the south, to Mexico in the north. After the death of the king Ferdinand VII, in 1833, only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule, until the Spanish–American War in 1898. Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese did not divide their colonial territory in America. The captaincies they created were subdued to a centralized administration in Salvador (later relocated to Rio de Janeiro) which reported directly to the Portuguese Crown until its independence in 1822, becoming the Empire of Brazil.

Late 

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  bar:Timeframe color:age
  from:1850 till:1945 shift:(-100,4) text: Modern Age
  from:1850 till:1945 shift:(0,-6) text: Late Modern Period
  from:1825 till:1850 text: Early Modern Period
  from:1945 till:2013 text: Contemporary Period

  bar:Themes color:age
  from:1825 till: 1860 text:Industrial Revolution
  from:1860 till: 1914 shift:(0,4) text:2nd Industrial Revolution
  from:1860 till: 1914 shift:(20, -10) text:Long Depression
  from:1914 till: 1918 shift:(0,4) text: World War I
  from:1918 till: 1939 shift:(0,-7) text:Interwar
  from:1939 till: 1945 shift:(0,4) text: World War II
  from:1945 till: 2013 shift:(10,5) text:Atomic Age
  from:1945 till: 2013 shift:(10,-5) text: (Information Age)

  bar:Germany color:age
  from:1990 till:2013 text: Germany
  from:1945 till:1990 text: Post-War Germany
  from:1933 till:1945 shift:(0,5) text: Nazi Germany
  from:1919 till:1933 shift:(0,-7) text: Weimar Republic
  from:1870 till:1919 text: German Empire
  from:1825 till:1870 text: German Confederation

  bar:Italy color:age
  from: 1825 till: 1865 text:Italian unification
  from: 1865 till: 1946 shift:(-30,0) text:Italian Monarchy
  from: 1918 till: 1946 text:Italian Empire
  from: 1946 till: 2013 text:Italian Republic

  bar:France color:age
  from:1940 till:1944  shift:(0,-6) text: Vichy France
  from:1944 till:1958 shift:(0,4) text: 4th Republic
  from:1958 till:2013  shift:(0,-5) text:  5th Republic
  from: 1825 till:1830  shift:(0,5) text:Bourbons
  from: 1830 till: 1848 shift:(0,-5)text:July Monarchy
  from: 1848 till:1852  shift:(0,5) text:2nd Republic
  from: 1852 till:1870  shift:(0,-5) text:2nd Empire
  from: 1870 till: 1940 shift:(-55,-5) text:3rd Republic
  from: 1870 till: 1914 shift:(-50,5) text:Belle Époque
  from: 1870 till: 1940 shift:(-55,-5) text:3rd Republic

  bar:British.Isle color:age
  from: 1825 till: 1922 shift:(-75,6) text:British Empire
  from: 1825 till: 1922 shift:(-75,-4) text: (Victorian era)
  from: 1825 till: 1922 shift:(35,-13) text:Great Britain and Ireland
  from: 1901 till: 1914 shift:(0,5) text:Edwardian era
  from: 1914 till: 1918 shift:(0,-10) text:WWI Defense
  from: 1918 till: 1939 shift:(0,10) text:UK Depression
  from:1939 till:1945 text:WWII Defense
  from: 1918 till: 2013 shift:(10,-13) text:Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  from: 1945 till: 2013 shift:(-50,3) text:Postwar Britain
  from: 1945 till: 2013 shift:(75,3) text:United Kingdom

  bar:Iberia color:age
  from: 1975 till: 2013 text:Spain
  from: 1825 till: 1873 shift:(0,-5) text:Nationalism
  from:1931  till:1939  shift:(0,5) text:2nd Republic
  from:1936  till:1939  shift:(0,-7) text:Civil War
  from:1874  till:1931  shift:(0,-7) text:Restoration
  from:1873  till:1874  shift:(0,-5) text:1st Republic
  from:1825  till:1873  shift:(-15,7) text:Spanish Kingdom
  from:1936  till:1975  shift:(0,-5) text:Francoist Spain

  bar:Brazil color:age
  from:1825 till:1889 text:Empire of Brazil
  from:1889 till:1930 text:1st Republic
  from:1930 till:1946 text:Vargas Era
  from:1946 till:1964 shift:(0,4) text:2nd Republic
  from:1964 till:1985 shift:(0,-10) text:Military dictatorship
  from:1985 till:2013 text:Brazil

  bar:M.East color:age
  from:1839 till: 1876 shift:(-20,5) text:Tanzimat Era
  from:1825 till: 1918 shift:(0,-5) text:Ottoman Empire's Dissolution
  from:1918 till: 1922 shift:(0,1) text:Partition
  from:1922 till: 1945 shift:(0,-10) text:French Mandate
  from:1922 till: 1945 shift:(0,10) text:Mandatory Palestine
  from:1945 till: 1990 text:Arab–Israeli conflict
  from:1990 till: 2013 shift:(0,-5)text:West Asia
  from:2010 till: 2013 shift:(-10,5) text:Arab Spring

  bar:India color:age
  from: 1825 till: 1858 text:Company rule
  from: 1858 till: 1947 text:British Raj
  from: 1947 till: 1947 shift:(0,6) text:Partition
  from: 1947 till: 1950 shift:(25,-5) text:Dominion of India
  from: 1947 till: 1956 shift:(25,-15) text:Dominion of Pakistan
  from: 1950 till: 2013 shift:(50,-5) text: Non-Aligned India
  from: 1956 till: 2013 shift:(50,-15) text:Islamic Pakistan

  bar:Africa color:age
  from: 1825 till: 1860 shift:(30,5) text:European exploration
  from: 1825 till: 1860 shift:(-5,-5) text:Atlantic slave trade
  from: 1860 till: 1950 shift:(-55,-5) text:Scramble for Africa
  from: 1860 till: 1950 shift:(0,5) text:Colonisation
  from: 1950 till: 1960 text:Decolonization
  from: 1960 till: 2013 text:Post-colonial Africa

  bar:China color:age
  from:1825 till:1912 text: Qing Dynasty
  from:1912 till:1949 shift:(0,5) text: Chinese Republic
  from:1912 till:1949 shift:(0,-5) text: (Nanjing period)
  from:1912 till:1949 shift:(75,-5) text: Civil War
  from:1949 till:2013 text: People's Republic

  bar:Japan color:age
  from:1825 till:1868 text: Edo
  from:1868 till:1912 text: Meiji
  from:1868 till:1945 shift:(0,8) text: Imperial Japan
  from:1928 till:1945 shift:(10,0) text: Shōwa
  from:1912 till:1928 shift:(-10,-4) text: Taishō
  from:1945 till:2013 shift:(-40,0) text: Postwar Japan
  from:1989 till:2013 text: Heisei

  bar:Korea color:age
  from:1825 till:1910 text: Joseon Dynasty
  from:1910 till:1945 text:   Korea under Japanese rule
  from:1945 till:2013  text: Division of Korea

  bar:Russian color:age
  from:1825 till:1917 shift:(-30,5) text:Russian Empire
  from:1825 till:1855 shift:(0,-5) text:Tsarist Russia
  from:1855 till:1892 shift:(0,-5) text:Reforms and reactionaries
  from:1892 till:1917 shift:(0,-5) text:Russian Imperialism
  from:1917 till:1991 shift:(0,5) text:Soviet Union
  from:1917 till:1927  shift:(0,5) text:Revolution
  from:1927 till:1953 shift:(0,-5) text:Stalin
  from:1953 till:1964 shift:(0,-5) text:Khrushchev 
  from:1964 till:1982 shift:(0,-5) text:Brezhnev 
  from:1982 till:1991 shift:(0,-5) text:Dissolution
  from:1991 till:2013 text:Federation

  bar:U.S. color:age
  from:1825 till:1860 text: Antebellum
  from:1860 till:1865 text: US Civil War
  from:1865 till:1900 text: Gilded Age
  from:1900 till:1918 shift:(0,3) text: Progressive Era
  from:1918 till:1945 text: World Wars
  from:1945 till:1964 text: Post-War
  from:1964 till:1980  shift:(0,7) text: Cold War America
  from:1980 till:1991 text: Republicanism
  from:1991 till:2013  shift:(0,5) text: America

::Dates are approximate range (based upon influence), consult particular article for details
::  Modern Age  Other

Industrial revolutions 

 The date of the Industrial Revolution is not exact. Eric Hobsbawm held that it 'broke out' in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,  while T.S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830 (in effect the reigns of George III, The Regency, and George IV).  The great changes of centuries before the 19th were more connected with ideas, religion or military conquest, and technological advance had only made small changes in the material wealth of ordinary people.

The first Industrial Revolution merged into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the development of steam-powered ships and railways, and later in the 19th century with the internal combustion engine and electric power generation. The Second Industrial Revolution was a phase of the Industrial Revolution; labeled as the separate Technical Revolution. From a technological and a social point of view there is no clean break between the two. Major innovations during the period occurred in the chemical, electrical, petroleum, and steel industries. Specific advancements included the introduction of oil fired steam turbine and internal combustion driven steel ships, the development of the airplane, the practical commercialization of the automobile, mass production of consumer goods, the perfection of canning, mechanical refrigeration and other food preservation techniques, and the invention of the telephone.

Industrialization 

Industrialization is the process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a pre-industrial society into an industrial one. It is a subdivision of a more general modernization process, where social change and economic development are closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large-scale energy and metallurgy production. It is the extensive organization of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Industrialization also introduces a form of philosophical change, where people obtain a different attitude towards their perception of nature.

Revolution in manufacture and power 

An economy based on manual labour was replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. It began with the mechanization of the textile industries and the development of iron-making techniques, and trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads, and then railways.

The introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity.  The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.

The modern petroleum industry started in 1846 with the discovery of the process of refining kerosene from coal by Nova Scotian Abraham Pineo Gesner. Ignacy Łukasiewicz improved Gesner's method to develop a means of refining kerosene from the more readily available "rock oil" ("petr-oleum") seeps in 1852 and the first rock oil mine was built in Bóbrka, near Krosno in Galicia in the following year. In 1854, Benjamin Silliman, a science professor at Yale University in New Haven, was the first to fractionate petroleum by distillation. These discoveries rapidly spread around the world.

Notable engineers 

Engineering achievements of the revolution ranged from electrification to developments in materials science. The advancements made a great contribution to the quality of life. In the first revolution, Lewis Paul was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame for spinning cotton in a cotton mill. Matthew Boulton and James Watt's improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.

In the latter part of the second revolution, Thomas Alva Edison developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world  and is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. In 1882, Edison switched on the world's first large-scale electrical supply network that provided 110 volts direct current to fifty-nine customers in lower Manhattan. Also toward the end of the second industrial revolution, Nikola Tesla made many contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Social effects and classes 

The Industrial Revolutions were major technological, socioeconomic, and cultural changes in late 18th and early 19th centuries that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting the majority of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous and is often compared to the Neolithic revolution, when mankind developed agriculture and gave up its nomadic lifestyle. 

It has been argued that GDP per capita was much more stable and progressed at a much slower rate until the industrial revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, and that it has since increased rapidly in capitalist countries. 

Mid-19th-century European revolts 

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout the European continent. Described as a revolutionary wave, the period of unrest began in France and then, further propelled by the French Revolution of 1848, soon spread to the rest of Europe.   Although most of the revolutions were quickly put down, there was a significant amount of violence in many areas, with tens of thousands of people tortured and killed. While the immediate political effects of the revolutions were reversed, the long-term reverberations of the events were far-reaching.

Industrial age reformism 

Industrial age reform movements began the gradual change of society rather than with episodes of rapid fundamental changes. The reformists' ideas were often grounded in liberalism, although they also possessed aspects of utopian, socialist or religious concepts. The Radical movement campaigned for electoral reform, a reform of the Poor Laws, free trade, educational reform, postal reform, prison reform, and public sanitation.

Following the Enlightenment's ideas, the reformers looked to the Scientific Revolution and industrial progress to solve the social problems which arose with the Industrial Revolution. Newton's natural philosophy combined a mathematics of axiomatic proof with the mechanics of physical observation, yielding a coherent system of verifiable predictions and replacing a previous reliance on revelation and inspired truth. Applied to public life, this approach yielded several successful campaigns for changes in social policy.

Imperial Russia 

Under Peter I (the Great), Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognized as a world power. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede West Karelia and Ingria (two regions lost by Russia in the Time of Troubles),  as well as Estland and Livland, securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade.  On the Baltic Sea Peter founded a new capital called Saint Petersburg, later known as Russia's Window to Europe. Peter the Great's reforms brought considerable Western European cultural influences to Russia. Catherine II (the Great), who ruled in 1762–96, extended Russian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of its territories into Russia during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. In the south, after successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, defeating the Crimean khanate.

European dominance and the 19th century 

Historians define the 19th century historical era as stretching from 1815 (the Congress of Vienna) to 1914 (the outbreak of the First World War); alternatively, Eric Hobsbawm defined the "Long Nineteenth Century" as spanning the years 1789 to 1914.

Imperialism and empires 

In the 1800s and early 1900s, once great and powerful Empires such as Spain, Ottoman Turkey, the Mughal Empire, and the Kingdom of Portugal began to break apart. Spain, which was at one time unrivaled in Europe, had been declining for a long time when it was crippled by Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion. Sensing the time was right, Spain's vast colonies in South America began a series of rebellions that ended with almost all of the Spanish territories gaining their independence.

The once mighty Ottoman Empire was wracked with a series of revolutions, resulting with the Ottoman's only holding a small region that surrounded the capital, Istanbul.

The Mughal empire, which was descended from the Mongol Khanate, was bested by the upcoming Maratha Confederacy. All was going well for the Marathas until the British took an interest in the riches of India and the British ended up ruling not just the boundaries of Modern India, but also Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh and some Southern Regions of Afghanistan.

The King of Portugal's vast territory of Brazil reformed into the independent Empire of Brazil.

With the defeat of Napoleonic France, Britain became undoubtedly the most powerful country in the world, and by the end of the First World War controlled a Quarter of the world's population and a third of its surface. However, the power of the British Empire did not end on land, since it had the greatest navy on the planet.

Electricity, steel, and petroleum enabled Germany to become a great international power that raced to create empires of its own.

The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that led to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure that was taking a firm hold at the beginning of the Meiji Era which coincided the opening of Japan by the arrival of the Black Ships of Commodore Matthew Perry and made Imperial Japan a great power.

Russia and Qing Dynasty China failed to keep pace with the other world powers which led to massive social unrest in both empires. The Qing Dynasty's military power weakened during the 19th century, and faced with international pressure, massive rebellions and defeats in wars, the dynasty declined after the mid-19th century.

European powers controlled parts of Oceania, with French New Caledonia from 1853 and French Polynesia from 1889; the Germans established colonies in New Guinea in 1884, and Samoa in 1900.

The United States expanded into the Pacific with Hawaii becoming a U.S. territory from 1898.

Disagreements between the US, Germany and UK over Samoa led to the Tripartite Convention of 1899.

British Victorian era 

The Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 to January 1901. This was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements at home, allowed a large, educated middle class to develop. Some scholars would extend the beginning of the period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political games that have come to be associated with the Victorians—back five years to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

In Britain's "imperial century",  victory over Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than Russia in central Asia. Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted the role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica, and a foreign policy of "splendid isolation". Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many nominally independent countries, such as China, Argentina and Siam, which has been generally characterized as "informal empire".  Of note during this time was the Anglo-Zulu War, which was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Empire.

British imperial strength was underpinned by the steamship and the telegraph, new technologies invented in the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to control and defend the Empire. By 1902, the British Empire was linked together by a network of telegraph cables, the so-called All Red Line. Growing until 1922, around 13000000 sqmi of territory and roughly 458 million people were added to the British Empire.   The British established colonies in Australia in 1788, New Zealand in 1840 and Fiji in 1872, with much of Oceania becoming part of the British Empire.

French governments and conflicts 

The Bourbon Restoration followed the ousting of Napoleon I of France in 1814. The Allies restored the Bourbon Dynasty to the French throne. The ensuing period is called the Restoration, following French usage, and is characterized by a sharp conservative reaction and the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as a power in French politics. The July Monarchy was a period of liberal constitutional monarchy in France under King Louis-Philippe starting with the July Revolution (or Three Glorious Days) of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848. The Second Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.

The Franco-Prussian War was a conflict between France and Prussia, while Prussia was backed up by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. The complete Prussian and German victory brought about the final unification of Germany under King Wilhelm I of Prussia. It also marked the downfall of Napoleon III and the end of the Second French Empire, which was replaced by the Third Republic. As part of the settlement, almost all of the territory of Alsace-Lorraine was taken by Prussia to become a part of Germany, which it would retain until the end of World War I.

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France between the end of the Second French Empire following the defeat of Louis-Napoléon in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and the Vichy Regime after the invasion of France by the German Third Reich in 1940. The Third Republic endured seventy years, making it the most long-lasting regime in France since the collapse of the Ancien Régime in the French Revolution of 1789.

Slavery and abolition 

Slavery was greatly reduced around the world in the 19th century. Following a successful slave revolt in Haiti, Britain forced the Barbary pirates to halt their practice of kidnapping and enslaving Europeans, banned slavery throughout its domain, and charged its navy with ending the global slave trade. Slavery was then abolished in Russia, America, and Brazil.

African colonization 

Following the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and propelled by economic exploitation, the Scramble for Africa was initiated formally at the Berlin West Africa Conference in 1884–1885. The Berlin Conference attempted to avoid war among the European powers by allowing the European rival countries to carve up the continent of Africa into national colonies. Africans were not consulted.

The major European powers laid claim to the areas of Africa where they could exhibit a sphere of influence over the area. These claims did not have to have any substantial land holdings or treaties to be legitimate. The European power that demonstrated its control over a territory accepted the mandate to rule that region as a national colony. The European nation that held the claim developed and benefited from their colony’s commercial interests without having to fear rival European competition. With the colonial claim came the underlying assumption that the European power that exerted control would use its mandate to offer protection and provide welfare for its colonial peoples, however, this principle remained more theory than practice. There were many documented instances of material and moral conditions deteriorating for native Africans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under European colonial rule, to the point where the colonial experience for them has been described as "hell on earth."

At the time of the Berlin Conference, Africa contained one-fifth of the world’s population living in one-quarter of the world’s land area. However, from Europe's perspective, they were dividing an unknown continent. European countries established a few coastal colonies in Africa by the mid-nineteenth century, which included Cape Colony (Great Britain), Angola (Portugal), and Algeria (France), but until the late nineteenth century Europe largely traded with free African states without feeling the need for territorial possession. Until the 1880s most of Africa remained unchartered, with western maps from the period generally showing blank spaces for the continent’s interior.

From the 1880s to 1914, the European powers expanded their control across the African continent, competing with each other for Africa’s land and resources. Great Britain controlled various colonial holdings in East Africa that spanned the length of the African continent from Egypt in the north to South Africa. The French gained major ground in West Africa, and the Portuguese held colonies in southern Africa. Germany, Italy, and Spain established a small number of colonies at various points throughout the continent, which included German East Africa (Tanganyika) and German Southwest Africa for Germany, Eritrea and Libya for Italy, and the Canary Islands and Rio de Oro in northwestern Africa for Spain. Finally, for King Leopold (ruled from 1865–1909), there was the large “piece of that great African cake” known as the Congo, which, unfortunately for the native Congolese, became his personal fiefdom to do with as he pleased in Central Africa. By 1914, almost the entire continent was under European control. Liberia, which was settled by freed American slaves in the 1820s, and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in eastern Africa were the last remaining independent African states. (John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe, Volume Two: From the French Revolution to the Present, Third Edition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), pp. 819–859).

Meiji Japan 

Around the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, the Meiji era was marked by the reign of the Meiji Emperor. During this time, Japan started its modernization and rose to world power status. This era name means "Enlightened Rule". In Japan, the Meiji Restoration started in the 1860s, marking the rapid modernization by the Japanese themselves along European lines. Much research has focused on the issues of discontinuity versus continuity with the previous Tokugawa Period.  In the 1960s younger Japanese scholars led by Irokawa Daikichi, reacted against the bureaucratic superstate, and began searching for the historic role of the common people . They avoided the elite, and focused not on political events but on social forces and attitudes. They rejected both Marxism and modernization theory as alien and confining. They stressed the importance of popular energies in the development of modern Japan. They enlarged history by using the methods of social history.  It was not until the beginning of the Meiji Era that the Japanese government began taking modernization seriously. Japan expanded its military production base by opening arsenals in various locations. The hyobusho (war office) was replaced with a War Department and a Naval Department. The samurai class suffered great disappointment the following years.

Laws were instituted that required every able-bodied male Japanese citizen, regardless of class, to serve a mandatory term of three years with the first reserves and two additional years with the second reserves. This action, the deathblow for the samurai warriors and their daimyo feudal lords, initially met resistance from both the peasant and warrior alike. The peasant class interpreted the term for military service, ketsu-eki (blood tax) literally, and attempted to avoid service by any means necessary. The Japanese government began modelling their ground forces after the French military. The French government contributed greatly to the training of Japanese officers. Many were employed at the military academy in Kyoto, and many more still were feverishly translating French field manuals for use in the Japanese ranks.

After the death of the Meiji Emperor, the Taishō Emperor took the throne, thus beginning the Taishō period. A key foreign observer of the remarkable and rapid changes in Japanese society in this period was Ernest Mason Satow.

Representative Western scholars include George Akita,  William Beasley, James B. Crowley, John W. Dower, Peter Duus, Carol Gluck, Norman Herbert, John W. Hall, Mikiso Hane, Akira Iriye, Marius Jansen, Edwin O. Reischauer, George B. Sansom, Bernard Silberman, Richard Storry, Karel van Wolfram, and Ezra Vogel.  

United States 

See also: 19th-century North American Natives

Antebellum expansion 

The Antebellum Age was a period of increasing division in the country based on the growth of slavery in the American South and in the western territories of Kansas and Nebraska that eventually lead to the Civil War in 1861. The Antebellum Period is often considered to have begun with the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, although it may have begun as early as 1812. This period is also significant because it marked the transition of American manufacturing to the industrial revolution.

"Manifest Destiny" was the territorial expansion of the United States from to 1848. Manifest Destiny incorporated the belief that the United States was destined, to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. During this time, the United States expanded to the Pacific Ocean—"from sea to shining sea"—largely defining the borders of the contiguous United States as they are today.

Civil War and Reconstruction 

The American Civil War came when seven (later eleven) Southern slave states declared their secession from the U.S. and formed the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy). Led by Jefferson Davis, they fought against the U.S. federal government (the Union) under President Abraham Lincoln, which was supported by all the free states and the five border slave states in the north.

Northern leaders agreed that victory would require more than the end of fighting. Secession and Confederate nationalism had to be totally repudiated and all forms of slavery or quasi-slavery had to be eliminated. Lincoln proved effective in mobilizing support for the war goals, raising large armies and supplying them, avoiding foreign interference, and making the end of slavery a war goal. The Confederacy had a larger area than it could defend, and it failed to keep its ports open and its rivers clear. The North kept up the pressure as the South could barely feed and clothe its soldiers. Its soldiers, especially those in the East under the command of General Robert E. Lee proved highly resourceful until they finally were overwhelmed by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman in 1864–65, The Reconstruction Era (1863–77) began with the Emancipation proclamation in 1863, and included freedom, full citizenship and the vote for the Southern blacks.  It was followed by a reaction that left the blacks in a second class status legally, politically, socially and economically until the 1960s.

The Gilded Age and legacy 

During the Gilded Age, there was substantial growth in population in the United States and extravagant displays of wealth and excess of America's upper-class during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era, in the late 19th century. The wealth polarization derived primarily from industrial and population expansion. The businessmen of the Second Industrial Revolution created industrial towns and cities in the Northeast with new factories, and contributed to the creation of an ethnically diverse industrial working class which produced the wealth owned by rising super-rich industrialists and financiers called the "robber barons". An example is the company of John D. Rockefeller, who was an important figure in shaping the new oil industry. Using highly effective tactics and aggressive practices, later widely criticized, Standard Oil absorbed or destroyed most of its competition.

The creation of a modern industrial economy took place. With the creation of a transportation and communication infrastructure, the corporation became the dominant form of business organization and a managerial revolution transformed business operations. In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act—the source of all American anti-monopoly laws. The law forbade every contract, scheme, deal, or conspiracy to restrain trade, though the phrase "restraint of trade" remained subjective. By the beginning of the 20th century, per capita income and industrial production in the United States exceeded that of any other country except Britain. Long hours and hazardous working conditions led many workers to attempt to form labor unions despite strong opposition from industrialists and the courts. But the courts did protect the marketplace, declaring the Standard Oil group to be an "unreasonable" monopoly under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1911. It ordered Standard to break up into 34 independent companies with different boards of directors. 

Science and philosophy 

Replacing the classical physics in use since the end of the scientific revolution, modern physics arose in the early 20th century with the advent of quantum physics,  substituting mathematical studies for experimental studies and examining equations to build a theoretical structure.  The old quantum theory was a collection of results which predate modern quantum mechanics, but were never complete or self-consistent. The collection of heuristic prescriptions for quantum mechanics were the first corrections to classical mechanics.   Outside the realm of quantum physics, the various aether theories in classical physics, which supposed a "fifth element" such as the Luminiferous aether,  were nullified by the Michelson-Morley experiment—an attempt to detect the motion of earth through the aether. In biology, Darwinism gained acceptance, promoting the concept of adaptation in the theory of natural selection. The fields of geology, astronomy and psychology also made strides and gained new insights. In medicine, there were advances in medical theory and treatments.

The assertions of Chinese philosophy  began to integrate concepts of Western philosophy, as steps toward modernization. By the time of the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, there were many calls, such as the May Fourth Movement, to completely abolish the old imperial institutions and practices of China. There were attempts to incorporate democracy, republicanism, and industrialism into Chinese philosophy, notably by Sun Yat-Sen (Sūn yì xiān, in one Mandarin form of the name) at the beginning of the 20th century. Mao Zedong (Máo zé dōng) added Marxist-Leninist thought. When the Communist Party of China took over power, previous schools of thought, excepting notably Legalism, were denounced as backward, and later even purged during the Cultural Revolution.

Starting one-hundred years before the 20th century, the enlightenment spiritual philosophy was challenged in various quarters around the 1900s.   "Herman Dooyeweerd". Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. By Routledge (COR), Luciano Floridi, Edward Craig. p113.
See also: D. H. Th. Vollenhoven.   Developed from earlier secular traditions,  modern Humanist ethical philosophies affirmed the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationality, without resorting to the supernatural or alleged divine authority from religious texts.   For liberal humanists such as Rousseau and Kant, the universal law of reason guided the way toward total emancipation from any kind of tyranny. These ideas were challenged, for example by the young Karl Marx, who criticized the project of political emancipation (embodied in the form of human rights), asserting it to be symptomatic of the very dehumanization it was supposed to oppose. For Friedrich Nietzsche, humanism was nothing more than a secular version of theism. In his Genealogy of Morals, he argues that human rights exist as a means for the weak to collectively constrain the strong. On this view, such rights do not facilitate emancipation of life, but rather deny it. In the 20th century, the notion that human beings are rationally autonomous was challenged by the concept that humans were driven by unconscious irrational desires.

Notable persons 

Sigmund Freud is renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life, as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.

Albert Einstein is known for his theories of special relativity and general relativity. He also made important contributions to statistical mechanics, especially his mathematical treatment of Brownian motion, his resolution of the paradox of specific heats, and his connection of fluctuations and dissipation. Despite his reservations about its interpretation, Einstein also made contributions to quantum mechanics and, indirectly, quantum field theory, primarily through his theoretical studies of the photon.

Social Darwinism 

At the end of the 19th century, Social Darwinism was promoted and included the various ideologies based on a concept that competition among all individuals, groups, nations, or ideas was a "natural" framework for social evolution in human societies. In this view, society's advancement is dependent on the "survival of the fittest", the term was in fact coined by Herbert Spencer and referred to in "The Gospel of Wealth" written by Andrew Carnegie.

Marxist society 

Karl Marx summarized his approach to history and politics in the opening line of the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto (1848). He wrote:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. 
The Manifesto went through a number of editions from 1872 to 1890; notable new prefaces were written by Marx and Engels for the 1872 German edition, the 1882 Russian edition, the 1883 German edition, and the 1888 English edition. In general, Marxism identified five (and one transitional) successive stages of development in Western Europe. 
# Primitive Communism: as seen in cooperative tribal societies.
# Slave Society: which develops when the tribe becomes a city-state. Aristocracy is born.
# Feudalism: aristocracy is the ruling class. Merchants develop into capitalists.
# Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the true working class.
# Dictatorship of the proletariat: workers gain class consciousness, overthrow the capitalists and take control over the state.
# Communism: a classless and stateless society.

European decline and the 20th century 

Major political developments saw the former British Empire lose most of its remaining political power over commonwealth countries.  The Trans-Siberian Railway, crossing Asia by train, was complete by 1916. Other events include the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, two world wars, and the Cold War.

Australian Constitution 

In 1901, the Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation. They kept the systems of government that they had developed as separate colonies but also would have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Eastern warlords 

The last days of the Qing Dynasty were marked by civil unrest and foreign invasions. Responding to these civil failures and discontent, the Qing Imperial Court did attempt to reform the government in various ways, such as the decision to draft a constitution in 1906, the establishment of provincial legislatures in 1909, and the preparation for a national parliament in 1910. However, many of these measures were opposed by the conservatives of the Qing Court, and many reformers were either imprisoned or executed outright. The failures of the Imperial Court to enact such reforming measures of political liberalization and modernization caused the reformists to steer toward the road of revolution.

In 1912, the Republic of China was established and Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated in Nanjing as the first Provisional President. But power in Beijing already had passed to Yuan Shikai, who had effective control of the Beiyang Army, the most powerful military force in China at the time. To prevent civil war and possible foreign intervention from undermining the infant republic, leaders agreed to Army's demand that China be united under a Beijing government. On March 10, in Beijing, Shikai was sworn in as the second Provisional President of the Republic of China.

After the early 20th century revolutions, shifting alliances of China's regional warlords waged war for control of the Beijing government. Despite the fact that various warlords gained control of the government in Beijing during the warlord era, this did not constitute a new era of control or governance, because other warlords did not acknowledge the transitory governments in this period and were a law unto themselves. These military-dominated governments were collectively known as the Beiyang government. The warlord era ended around 1927. 

World Wars era 

Start of the 20th century 

Four years into the 20th century saw the Russo-Japanese War with the Battle of Port Arthur establishing the Empire of Japan as a world power. The Russians were in constant pursuit of a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean, for their navy as well as for maritime trade. The Manchurian Campaign of the Russian Empire was fought against the Japanese over Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were Southern Manchuria, specifically the area around the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, and the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea. The resulting campaigns, in which the fledgling Japanese military consistently attained victory over the Russian forces arrayed against them, were unexpected by world observers. These victories, as time transpired, would dramatically transform the distribution of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage. The embarrassing string of defeats increased Russian popular dissatisfaction with the inefficient and corrupt Tsarist government.

The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political unrest through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected.  It included terrorism, worker strikes, peasant unrests, and military mutinies. It led to the establishment of the limited constitutional monarchy,  the establishment of State Duma of the Russian Empire, and the multi-party system.

In China, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown following the Xinhai Revolution. The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising on October 10, 1911 and ended with the abdication of Emperor Puyi on February 12, 1912. The primary parties to the conflict were the Imperial forces of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), and the revolutionary forces of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui).

Edwardian Britain 

The Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period spanning the reign of King Edward VII up to the end of the First World War, including the years surrounding the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In the early years of the period, the Second Boer War in South Africa split the country into anti- and pro-war factions. The imperial policies of the Conservatives eventually proved unpopular and in the general election of 1906 the Liberals won a huge landslide. The Liberal government was unable to proceed with all of its radical programme without the support of the House of Lords, which was largely Conservative. Conflict between the two Houses of Parliament over the People's Budget led to a reduction in the power of the peers in 1910. The general election in January that year returned a hung parliament with the balance of power held by Labour and Irish Nationalist members.

World War I 

The causes of World War I included many factors, including the conflicts and antagonisms of the four decades leading up to the war. The Triple Entente was the name given to the loose alignment between the United Kingdom, France, and Russia after the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907.  The alignment of the three powers, supplemented by various agreements with Japan, the United States, and Spain, constituted a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, the third having concluded an additional secret agreement with France effectively nullifying her Alliance commitments. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conflict. The immediate origins of the war lay in the decisions taken by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of 1914, the spark (or casus belli) for which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

However, the crisis did not exist in a void; it came after a long series of diplomatic clashes between the Great Powers over European and colonial issues in the decade prior to 1914 which had left tensions high. The diplomatic clashes can be traced to changes in the balance of power in Europe since 1870. An example is the Baghdad Railway which was planned to connect the Ottoman Empire cities of Konya and Baghdad with a line through modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The railway became a source of international disputes during the years immediately preceding World War I. Although it has been argued that they were resolved in 1914 before the war began, it has also been argued that the railroad was a cause of the First World War.  Fundamentally the war was sparked by tensions over territory in the Balkans. Austria-Hungary competed with Serbia and Russia for territory and influence in the region and they pulled the rest of the great powers into the conflict through their various alliances and treaties. The Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912–1913 in the course of which the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and Serbia) first captured Ottoman-held remaining part of Thessaly, Macedonia, Epirus, Albania and most of Thrace and then fell out over the division of the spoils, with incorporation of Romania this time.

The First World War began in 1914 and lasted to the final Armistice in 1918. The Allied Powers, led by the British Empire, France, Russia until March 1918, Japan and the United States after 1917, defeated the Central Powers, led by the German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The war caused the disintegration of four empires—the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian ones—as well as radical change in the European and West Asian maps. The Allied powers before 1917 are referred to as the Triple Entente, and the Central Powers are referred to as the Triple Alliance.

Much of the fighting in World War I took place along the Western Front, within a system of opposing manned trenches and fortifications (separated by a "No man's land") running from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. On the Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate from developing, although the scale of the conflict was just as large.  Hostilities also occurred on and under the sea and—for the first time—from the air. More than 9 million soldiers died on the various battlefields, and nearly that many more in the participating countries' home fronts on account of food shortages and genocide committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conflicts. Notably, more people died of the worldwide influenza outbreak at the end of the war and shortly after than died in the hostilities. The unsanitary conditions engendered by the war, severe overcrowding in barracks, wartime propaganda interfering with public health warnings, and migration of so many soldiers around the world helped the outbreak become a pandemic. 

Ultimately, World War I created a decisive break with the old world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, which was modified by the mid-19th century's nationalistic revolutions. The results of World War I would be important factors in the development of World War II approximately 20 years later. More immediate to the time, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire was a political event that redrew the political boundaries of West Asia. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples formerly ruled by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new nations.  The partitioning brought the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. The League of Nations granted France mandates over Syria and Lebanon and granted the United Kingdom mandates over Mesopotamia and Palestine (which was later divided into two regions: Palestine and Transjordan). Parts of the Ottoman Empire on the Arabian Peninsula became parts of what are today Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Revolutions and war 

The Russian Revolution is the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Following the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established. In October 1917, a red faction revolution occurred in which the Red Guard, armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) and began an immediate armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire.

Another action in 1917 that is of note was the armistice signed between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk.  As a condition for peace, the treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives. The Bolsheviks made peace with the German Empire and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. Vladimir Lenin's decision has been attributed to his sponsorship by the foreign office of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, offered by the latter in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I. This suspicion was bolstered by the German Foreign Ministry's sponsorship of Lenin's return to Petrograd.  The Western Allies expressed their dismay at the Bolsheviks, upset at:
# the withdrawal of Russia from the war effort,
# worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, and
# galvanized by the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good their threats to assume no responsibility for, and so default on, Imperial Russia's massive foreign loans. 

In addition, there was a concern, shared by many Central Powers as well, that the socialist revolutionary ideas would spread to the West. Hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". 

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed power, first in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and then in other places. In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian Imperial Army had been demobilized; the volunteer-based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka, the Bolshevik state security apparatus. There was an instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army.  Opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units was overcome by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance.  Former Tsarist officers were utilized as "military specialists" (voenspetsy),  taking their families hostage in order to ensure loyalty.  At the start of the war, three-fourths of the Red Army officer corps was composed of former Tsarist officers. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers. 

The principal fighting occurred between the Bolshevik Red Army and the forces of the White Army. Many foreign armies warred against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces, yet many volunteer foreigners fought in both sides of the Russian Civil War. Other nationalist and regional political groups also participated in the war, including the Ukrainian nationalist Green Army, the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army and Black Guards, and warlords such as Ungern von Sternberg. The most intense fighting took place from 1918 to 1920. Major military operations ended on 25 October 1922 when the Red Army occupied Vladivostok, previously held by the Provisional Priamur Government. The last enclave of the White Forces was the Ayano-Maysky District on the Pacific coast. The majority of the fighting ended in 1920 with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea, but a notable resistance in certain areas continued until 1923 (e.g., Kronstadt Uprising, Tambov Rebellion, Basmachi Revolt, and the final resistance of the White movement in the Far East).

In 1917, China declared war on Germany in the hope of recovering its lost province, then under Japanese control. The New Culture Movement occupied the period from 1917 to 1923. Chinese representatives refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, due to intense pressure from the student protesters and public opinion alike.

The May Fourth Movement helped to rekindle the then-fading cause of republican revolution. In 1917 Sun Yat-sen had become commander-in-chief of a rival military government in Guangzhou in collaboration with southern warlords. Sun's efforts to obtain aid from the Western democracies were ignored, however, and in 1920 he turned to the Soviet Union, which had recently achieved its own revolution. The Soviets sought to befriend the Chinese revolutionists by offering scathing attacks on Western imperialism. But for political expediency, the Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for both Sun and the newly established Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The policy of working with the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek had been recommended by the Dutch Communist Henk Sneevliet, chosen in 1923 to be the Comintern representative in China due to his revolutionary experience in the Dutch Indies, where he had a major role in founding the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) – and who felt that the Chinese party was too small and weak to undertake a major effort on its own (see Henk Sneevliet's work for the Comintern).

In early 1927, the Kuomintang-CCP rivalry led to a split in the revolutionary ranks. The CCP and the left wing of the Kuomintang had decided to move the seat of the Nationalist government from Guangzhou to Wuhan. But Chiang Kai-shek, whose Northern Expedition was proving successful, set his forces to destroying the Shanghai CCP apparatus and established an anti-Communist government at Nanjing in April 1927.

The 1920s and the Depression 

The interwar period was the period between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Second World War. This period was marked by turmoil in much of the world, as Europe struggled to recover from the devastation of the First World War.

In North America, especially the first half of this period, people experienced considerable prosperity in the Roaring Twenties. The social and societal upheaval known as the Roaring Twenties began in North America and spread to Europe in the aftermath of World War I. The Roaring Twenties, often called "The Jazz Age", saw an exposition of social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. 'Normalcy' returned to politics, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, Art Deco peaked. The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity, a break with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, movies and radio proliferated 'modernity' to a large part of the population. The 1920s saw the general favor of practicality, in architecture as well as in daily life. The 1920s was further distinguished by several inventions and discoveries, extensive industrial growth and the rise in consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle.

Europe spent these years rebuilding and coming to terms with the vast human cost of the conflict. The economy of the United States became increasingly intertwined with that of Europe. In Germany, the Weimar Republic gave way to episodes of political and economic turmoil, which culminated with the German hyperinflation of 1923 and the failed Beer Hall Putsch of that same year. When Germany could no longer afford war payments, Wall Street invested heavily in European debts to keep the European economy afloat as a large consumer market for American mass-produced goods. By the middle of the decade, economic development soared in Europe, and the Roaring Twenties broke out in Germany, Britain and France, the second half of the decade becoming known as the "Golden Twenties". In France and francophone Canada, they were also called the "années folles" ("Crazy Years"). 

Worldwide prosperity changed dramatically with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 served to punctuate the end of the previous era, as The Great Depression set in. The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries.[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/243118/Great-Depression "Great Depression"], Encyclopædia Britannica It was the largest and most important economic depression in the 20th century, and is used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's economy can fall. 

The depression had devastating effects in virtually every country, rich or poor. International trade plunged by half to two-thirds, as did personal income, tax revenue, prices and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by roughly 60 percent.    Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered the most.

The Great Depression ended at different times in different countries with the effect lasting into the next era.  America's Great Depression ended in 1941 with America's entry into World War II.  The majority of countries set up relief programs, and most underwent some sort of political upheaval, pushing them to the left or right. In some world states, the desperate citizens turned toward nationalist demagogues—the most infamous being Adolf Hitler—setting the stage for the next era of war. The convulsion brought on by the worldwide depression resulted in the rise of Nazism. In Asia, Japan became an ever more assertive power, especially with regards to China.

Nanjing period 

The "Nanjing Decade" of 1928–37 was one of consolidation and accomplishment under the leadership of the Nationalists, with a mixed but generally positive record in the economy, social progress, development of democracy, and cultural creativity. Some of the harsh aspects of foreign concessions and privileges in China were moderated through diplomacy.

The League and crises 

The interwar period was also marked by a radical change in the international order, away from the balance of power that had dominated pre–World War I Europe. One main institution that was meant to bring stability was the League of Nations, which was created after the First World War with the intention of maintaining world security and peace and encouraging economic growth between member countries. The League was undermined by the bellicosity of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and Mussolini's Italy, and by the non-participation of the United States, leading many to question its effectiveness and legitimacy.

A series of international crises strained the League to its limits, the earliest being the invasion of Manchuria by Japan and the Abyssinian crisis of 1935/36 in which Italy invaded Abyssinia, one of the only free African nations at that time. The League tried to enforce economic sanctions upon Italy, but to no avail. The incident highlighted French and British weakness, exemplified by their reluctance to alienate Italy and lose her as their ally. The limited actions taken by the Western powers pushed Mussolini's Italy towards alliance with Hitler's Germany anyway. The Abyssinian war showed Hitler how weak the League was and encouraged the remilitarization of the Rhineland in flagrant disregard of the Treaty of Versailles. This was the first in a series of provocative acts culminating in the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the beginning of the Second World War.

Few Chinese had any illusions about Japanese designs on China. Hungry for raw materials and pressed by a growing population, Japan initiated the seizure of Manchuria in September 1931 and established ex-Qing emperor Puyi as head of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the loss of Manchuria, and its vast potential for industrial development and war industries, was a blow to the Kuomintang economy. The League of Nations, established at the end of World War I, was unable to act in the face of the Japanese defiance. After 1940, conflicts between the Kuomintang and Communists became more frequent in the areas not under Japanese control. The Communists expanded their influence wherever opportunities presented themselves through mass organizations, administrative reforms, and the land- and tax-reform measures favoring the peasants—while the Kuomintang attempted to neutralize the spread of Communist influence.

Tripartite Pact 

The Second Sino-Japanese War had seen tensions rise between Imperial Japan and the United States; events such as the Panay incident and the Nanking Massacre turned American public opinion against Japan. With the occupation of French Indochina in the years of 1940–41, and with the continuing war in China, the United States placed embargoes on Japan of strategic materials such as scrap metal and oil, which were vitally needed for the war effort. The Japanese were faced with the option of either withdrawing from China and losing face or seizing and securing new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich, European-controlled colonies of South East Asia—specifically British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). In 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

World War II 

The Second World War was a global military conflict that took place in 1939–1945. It was the largest and deadliest war in history, culminating in the Holocaust and ending with the dropping of the atom bomb.

Even though Japan had been fighting in China since 1937, the conventional view is that the war began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the Drang nach Osten. Within two days the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany, even though the fighting was confined to Poland. Pursuant to a then-secret provision of its non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union joined with Germany on September 17, 1939, to conquer Poland and to divide Eastern Europe.

The Allies were initially made up of Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, as well as British Commonwealth countries which were controlled directly by the UK, such as the Indian Empire. All of these countries declared war on Germany in September 1939.

Following the lull in fighting, known as the "Phoney War", Germany invaded western Europe in May 1940. Six weeks later, France, in the mean time attacked by Italy as well, surrendered to Germany, which then tried unsuccessfully to conquer Britain. On September 27, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed a mutual defense agreement, the Tripartite Pact, and were known as the Axis Powers.

Nine months later, on June 22, 1941, Germany launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, which promptly joined the Allies. Germany was now engaged in fighting a war on two fronts. This proved to be a mistake by Germany – Germany had not successfully carried out the invasion of Britain and the war turned against the Axis.

On  December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, bringing it too into the war on the Allied side. China also joined the Allies, as eventually did most of the rest of the world. China was in turmoil at the time, and attacked Japanese armies through guerilla-type warfare. By the beginning of 1942, the major combatants were aligned as follows: the British Commonwealth, the United States, and the Soviet Union were fighting Germany and Italy; and the British Commonwealth, China, and the United States were fighting Japan. The United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and China were referred as a "trusteeship of the powerful" during the World War II  and were recognized as the Allied "Big Four" in Declaration by United Nations  These four countries were considered as the "Four Policemen" or "Four Sheriffs" of the Allies power and primary victors of World War II.  From then through August 1945, battles raged across all of Europe, in the North Atlantic Ocean, across North Africa, throughout Southeast Asia, throughout China, across the Pacific Ocean and in the air over Japan.

Italy surrendered in September 1943 and was split into a northern Germany-occupied puppet state and an Allies-friendly state in the South; Germany surrendered in May 1945. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered, marking the end of the war on September 2, 1945.

It is possible that around 62 million people died in the war; estimates vary greatly. About 60% of all casualties were civilians, who died as a result of disease, starvation, genocide (in particular, the Holocaust), and aerial bombing. The former Soviet Union and China suffered the most casualties. Estimates place deaths in the Soviet Union at around 23 million, while China suffered about 10 million. No country lost a greater portion of its population than Poland: approximately 5.6 million, or 16%, of its pre-war population of 34.8 million died.

The Holocaust (which roughly means "burnt whole") was the deliberate and systematic murder of millions of Jews and other "unwanted" during World War II by the Nazi regime in Germany. Several differing views exist regarding whether it was intended to occur from the war's beginning, or if the plans for it came about later. Regardless, persecution of Jews extended well before the war even started, such as in the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). The Nazis used propaganda to great effect to stir up anti-Semitic feelings within ordinary Germans.

After World War II, Europe was informally split into Western and Soviet spheres of influence. Western Europe later aligned as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact. There was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to the two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. These two rivals would later face off in the Cold War. In Asia, the defeat of Japan led to its democratization. China's civil war continued through and after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The former colonies of the European powers began their road to independence.

Post-1945 world 

The mid-20th century is distinguished from most of human history in that its most significant changes were directly or indirectly economic and technological in nature. Economic development was the force behind vast changes in everyday life, to a degree which was unprecedented in human history.

Over the course of the 20th century, the world's per-capita gross domestic product grew by a factor of five,  much more than all earlier centuries combined (including the 19th with its Industrial Revolution). Many economists make the case that this understates the magnitude of growth, as many of the goods and services consumed at the end of the 20th century, such as improved medicine (causing world life expectancy to increase by more than two decades) and communications technologies, were not available at any price at its beginning.  However, the gulf between the world's rich and poor grew wider,  and the majority of the global population remained in the poor side of the divide. 

Still, advancing technology and medicine has had a great impact even in the Global South. Large-scale industry and more centralized media made brutal dictatorships possible on an unprecedented scale in the middle of the century, leading to wars that were also unprecedented. However, the increased communications contributed to democratization. Technological developments included the development of airplanes and space exploration, nuclear technology, advancement in genetics, and the dawning of the Information Age.

American Peace 

Pax Americana is an appellation applied to the historical concept of relative liberal peace in the Western world, resulting from the preponderance of power enjoyed by the United States of America starting around the start of the 20th century. Although the term finds its primary utility in the latter half of the 20th century, it has been used in various places and eras. Its modern connotations concern the peace established after the end of World War II in 1945.

Cold War era 

The Cold War began in the mid-1940s and lasted into the early 1990s. Throughout this period, the conflict was expressed through military coalitions, espionage, weapons development, invasions, propaganda, and competitive technological development. The conflict included costly defense spending, a massive conventional and nuclear arms race, and numerous proxy wars; the two superpowers never fought one another directly.

The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc of countries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet Socialist Republics and maintaining others as satellite states that would later form the Warsaw Pact. The United States and various western European countries began a policy of "containment" of communism and forged myriad alliances to this end, including NATO. Several of these western countries also coordinated efforts regarding the rebuilding of western Europe, including western Germany, which the Soviets opposed. In other regions of the world, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union fostered communist revolutionary movements, which the United States and many of its allies opposed and, in some cases, attempted to "roll back". Many countries were prompted to align themselves with the nations that would later form either NATO or the Warsaw Pact, though other movements would also emerge.

The Cold War saw periods of both heightened tension and relative calm. International crises arose, such as the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989) and NATO exercises in November 1983. There were also periods of reduced tension as both sides sought détente. Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction using deliverable nuclear weapons. In the Cold War era, the Generation of Love and the rise of computers changed society in very different, complex ways, including higher social and local mobility.

The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and the early 1990s.  The United States under President Ronald Reagan increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the Soviet Union, which was already suffering from severe economic stagnation. In the second half of the 1980s, newly appointed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the perestroika and glasnost reforms. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power, though Russia retained much of the massive Soviet nuclear arsenal.

Latin America polarization 

In Latin America in the 1970s, leftists acquired a significant political influence which prompted the right-wing, ecclesiastical authorities and a large portion of the individual country's upper class to support coups d'état to avoid what they perceived as a communist threat. This was further fueled by Cuban and United States intervention which led to a political polarization. Most South American countries were in some periods ruled by military dictatorships that were supported by the United States of America. In the 1970s, the regimes of the Southern Cone collaborated in Operation Condor killing many leftist dissidents, including some urban guerrillas.  However, by the early 1990s all countries had restored their democracies.

Space Age 

The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events. The Space Age began with the development of several technologies that culminated with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. This was the world's first artificial satellite, orbiting the Earth in 98.1 minutes and weighing in at 83 kg. The launch of Sputnik 1 ushered a new era of political, scientific and technological achievements that became known as the Space Age. The Space Age was characterized by rapid development of new technology in a close race mostly between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Space Age brought the first human spaceflight during the Vostok programme and reached its peak with the Apollo program which captured the imagination of much of the world's population. The landing of Apollo 11 was an event watched by over 500 million people around the world and is widely recognized as one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Since then and with the end of the space race due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, public attention has largely moved to other areas.

Education and schools 

The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences. Although many of the subjects of modern history coincide with that of standard history, the subject is taught independently by various systems of education in the world.

British education 

Students can choose the subject at university. The material covered includes from the mid-18th century, to analysis of the present day. Virtually all colleges and sixth forms that do teach modern history do it alongside standard history; very few teach the subject exclusively.

Universities 

At the University of Oxford 'Modern History' has a somewhat different meaning. The contrast is not with the Middle Ages but with Antiquity. The earliest period that can be studied in the Final Honour School of Modern History begins in 285. Alexandria ( or;  Arabic:  ';  ';  ') is the second largest city and a major economic centre in Egypt, extending about 32 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country. Its low elevation on the Nile delta makes it highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Alexandria is Egypt's largest seaport, serving approximately 80% of Egypt's imports and exports.  It is an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez. Alexandria is also an important tourist destination.

Alexandria was founded around a small Ancient Egyptian town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great. It became an important center of the Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Hellenistic and Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost 1000 years until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (later absorbed into Cairo). Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world; now replaced by a modern one); and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Alexandria was the second most powerful city of the ancient world after Rome. Ongoing maritime archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria, which began in 1994, is revealing details of Alexandria both before the arrival of Alexander, when a city named Rhacotis existed there, and during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

From the late 18th century, Alexandria became a major center of the international shipping industry and one of the most important trading centers in the world, both because it profited from the easy overland connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the lucrative trade in Egyptian cotton. 

History

Ancient era

Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC as  (Alexandria). Alexander's chief architect for the project was Dinocrates. Alexandria was intended to supersede Naucratis as a Hellenistic center in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley.

Alexandria was the intellectual and cultural center of the ancient world for some time. The city and its museum attracted many of the greatest scholars, including Greeks, Jews and Syrians. The city was later plundered and lost its significance. 

Just east of Alexandria (where Abu Qir Bay is now), there was in ancient times marshland and several islands. As early as the 7th century BC, there existed important port cities of Canopus and Heracleion. The latter was recently rediscovered under water.

An Egyptian city, Rhakotis, already existed on the shore also, and later gave its name to Alexandria in the Egyptian language (Egyptian *Raˁ-Ḳāṭit, written rˁ-ḳṭy.t, 'That which is built up'). It continued to exist as the Egyptian quarter of the city. A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt and never returned to his city. After Alexander's departure, his viceroy, Cleomenes, continued the expansion. Following a struggle with the other successors of Alexander, his general Ptolemy succeeded in bringing Alexander's body to Alexandria, though it was eventually lost after being separated from its burial site there. 

Although Cleomenes was mainly in charge of overseeing Alexandria's continuous development, the Heptastadion and the mainland quarters seem to have been primarily Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the center of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a generation to be larger than Carthage. In a century, Alexandria had become the largest city in the world and, for some centuries more, was second only to Rome. It became Egypt's main Greek city, with Greek people from diverse backgrounds. 

Alexandria was not only a center of Hellenism, but was also home to the largest urban Jewish community in the world. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Tanakh, was produced there. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Hellenistic center of learning (Library of Alexandria), but were careful to maintain the distinction of its population's three largest ethnicities: Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian.

In AD 115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the Kitos War, which gave Hadrian and his architect, Decriannus, an opportunity to rebuild it. In 215, the emperor Caracalla visited the city and, because of some insulting satires that the inhabitants had directed at him, abruptly commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a tsunami (365 Crete earthquake),  an event annually commemorated years later as a "day of horror." 

During Muhammad's era

The Islamic prophet, Muhammad's first interaction with the people of Egypt was during the Expedition of Zaid ibn Haritha (Hisma). He sent Hatib bin Abi Baltaeh with a letter to the king of Egypt and Alexandria called Muqawqis [Akbar Shāh Ḵẖān Najībābādī, [https://books.google.com/books?ei
L8VHVM-lPNT77Aaiw4CICw&idPi5tAAAAMAAJ&dq
kalbi History of Islam, Volume 1], p. 194. Quote: "Again, the Holy Prophet «P sent Dihyah bin Khalifa Kalbi to the Byzantine king Heraclius, Hatib bin Abi Baltaeh to the king of Egypt and Alexandria; Allabn Al-Hazermi to Munzer bin Sawa the king of Bahrain; Amer bin Aas to the king of Oman. Salit bin Amri to Hozah bin Ali— the king of Yamama; Shiya bin Wahab to Haris bin Ghasanni to the king of Damascus" In the letter Muhammad said: "I invite you to accept Islam, Allah the sublime, shall reward you doubly. But if you refuse to do so, you will bear the burden of the transgression of all the Copts". During this expedition one of Muhammad's envoys Dihyah bin Khalifa Kalbi was attacked, Muhammad sent Zayd ibn Haritha to help him. Dihya approached the Banu Dubayb (a tribe which converted to Islam and had good relations with Muslims) for help. When the news reached Muhammad, he immediately dispatched Zayd ibn Haritha with 500 men to battle. The Muslim army fought with Banu Judham, killed several of them (inflicting heavy casualties), including their chief, Al-Hunayd ibn Arid and his son, and captured 1000 camels, 5000 of their cattle and a 100 women and boys. The new chief of the Banu Judham who had embraced Islam appealed to Muhammad to release his fellow tribesmen, and Muhammad released them. ([http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/SM_tsn/ch5s2.html online]) ([https://archive.org/details/muhammadatmedina029655mbp free online])

Islamic era

In 619, Alexandria fell to the Sassanid Persians. Although the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius recovered it in 629, in 641 the Arabs under the general 'Amr ibn al-'As captured it during the Muslim conquest of Egypt, after a siege that lasted 14 months.

After the Battle of Ridaniya in 1517, the city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and remained under Ottoman rule until 1798. Alexandria lost much of its former importance to the Egyptian port city of Rosetta during the 9th to 18th centuries, and only regained its former prominence with the construction of the Mahmoudiyah Canal in 1807.

Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798. French troops stormed the city on 2 July 1798, and it remained in their hands until the arrival of a British expedition in 1801. The British won a considerable victory over the French at the Battle of Alexandria on 21 March 1801, following which they besieged the city, which fell to them on 2 September 1801. Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman governor of Egypt, began rebuilding and redevelopment around 1810, and by 1850, Alexandria had returned to something akin to its former glory.  Egypt turned to Europe in their effort to modernize the country. Greeks, followed by other Europeans and others, began moving to the city. In the early 20th century, the city became a home for novelists and poets.

In July 1882, the city came under bombardment from British naval forces and was occupied.

In July 1954, the city was a target of an Israeli bombing campaign that later became known as the Lavon Affair. On 26 October 1954, Alexandria's Mansheya Square was the site of a failed assassination attempt on Gamal Abdel Nasser. 

Europeans began leaving Alexandria following the 1956 Suez Crisis that led to an outburst of Arab nationalism. The nationalization of property by Nasser, which reached its highest point in 1961, drove out nearly all the rest.

Timeline

The most important battles and sieges of Alexandria include:
*Siege of Alexandria (47 BC), Julius Caesar's civil war
*Battle of Alexandria (30 BC), final war of the Roman Republic
*Siege of Alexandria (619), Byzantine-Persian Wars
*Siege of Alexandria (641), Rashidun conquest of Byzantine Egypt
*Alexandrian Crusade (1365), a crusade led by Peter de Lusignan of Cyprus which resulted in the defeat of the Mamluks and the sack of the city.
*Battle of Alexandria (1801), French Revolutionary Wars
*Siege of Alexandria (1801), French Revolutionary Wars
*Alexandria expedition (1807), French Revolutionary Wars

Geography

Alexandria is located in the country of Egypt, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean.

Climate

Alexandria has a borderline hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification: BWh),  approaching a hot semi-arid climate (BSh). As the rest of Egypt's northern coast, the prevailing north wind, blowing across the Mediterranean, gives the city a less severe climate from the desert hinterland.  Rafah and Alexandria  are the wettest places in Egypt, the other wettest places are Rosetta, Baltim, Kafr el-Dawwar and Mersa Matruh. The city's climate is influenced by the Mediterranean Sea, moderating its temperatures, causing variable rainy winters and moderately hot summers that, at times, can be very humid; January and February are the coolest months, with daily maximum temperatures typically ranging from 12 to and minimum temperatures that could reach 5 °C. Alexandria experiences violent storms, rain and sometimes sleet and hail during the cooler months; these events, combined with a poor drainage system, have been responsible for occasional flooding in the city.  July and August are the hottest and driest months of the year, with an average daily maximum temperature of 30 °C.
The average annual rainfall is around 200 mm but has been as high as 417 mm 

Port Said, Kosseir, Baltim, Damietta and Alexandria have the least temperature variation in Egypt.

The highest recorded temperature was 45 °C on May 30, 1961 and the coldest recorded temperature was 0 °C on January 31, 1994. 

Layout of the ancient city

Greek Alexandria was divided into three regions:
;Brucheum
the Royal or Greek quarter, forming the most magnificent portion of the city. In Roman times Brucheum was enlarged by the addition of an official quarter, making four regions in all. The city was laid out as a grid of parallel streets, each of which had an attendant subterranean canal;
;The Jewish quarter
forming the northeast portion of the city;
;Rhakotis
The old city of Rhakotis that had been absorbed into Alexandria was occupied chiefly by Egyptians. (from Coptic Rakotə "Alexandria").

Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each about  wide, intersected in the center of the city, close to the point where the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander (his Mausoleum) rose. This point is very near the present mosque of Nebi Daniel; and the line of the great East–West "Canopic" street, only slightly diverged from that of the modern Boulevard de Rosette (now Sharia Fouad). Traces of its pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate, but remnants of streets and canals were exposed in 1899 by German excavators outside the east fortifications, which lie well within the area of the ancient city.

Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a mole nearly a mile long (1260 metres) and called the Heptastadion ("seven stadia"—a stadium was a Greek unit of length measuring approximately 180 m). The end of this abutted on the land at the head of the present Grand Square, where the "Moon Gate" rose. All that now lies between that point and the modern "Ras al-Tin" quarter is built on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this mole. The Ras al-Tin quarter represents all that is left of the island of Pharos, the site of the actual lighthouse having been weathered away by the sea. On the east of the mole was the Great Harbor, now an open bay; on the west lay the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin Kibotos, now vastly enlarged to form the modern harbor.

In Strabo's time, (latter half of the 1st century BC) the principal buildings were as follows, enumerated as they were to be seen from a ship entering the Great Harbor.

#The Royal Palaces, filling the northeast angle of the town and occupying the promontory of Lochias, which shut in the Great Harbor on the east. Lochias (the modern Pharillon) has almost entirely disappeared into the sea, together with the palaces, the "Private Port," and the island of Antirrhodus. There has been a land subsidence here, as throughout the northeast coast of Africa.
#The Great Theater, on the modern Hospital Hill near the Ramleh station. This was used by Julius Caesar as a fortress, where he withstood a siege from the city mob after he took Egypt after the battle of Pharsalus
#The Poseidon, or Temple of the Sea God, close to the theater
#The Timonium built by Marc Antony
#The Emporium (Exchange)
#The Apostases (Magazines)
#The Navalia (Docks), lying west of the Timonium, along the seafront as far as the mole
#Behind the Emporium rose the Great Caesareum, by which stood the two great obelisks, which become known as “Cleopatra's Needles,” and were transported to New York City and London. This temple became, in time, the Patriarchal Church, though some ancient remains of the temple have been discovered. The actual Caesareum, the parts not eroded by the waves, lies under the houses lining the new seawall.
#The Gymnasium and the Palaestra are both inland, near the Boulevard de Rosette in the eastern half of the town; sites unknown.
#The Temple of Saturn; site unknown.
#The Mausolea of Alexander (Soma) and the Ptolemies in one ring-fence, near the point of intersection of the two main streets.
#The Musaeum with its famous Library and theater in the same region; site unknown.
#The Serapeum, the most famous of all Alexandrian temples. Strabo tells us that this stood in the west of the city; and recent discoveries go far as to place it near “Pompey's Pillar,” which was an independent monument erected to commemorate Diocletian's siege of the city.

The names of a few other public buildings on the mainland are known, but there is little information as to their actual position. None, however, are as famous as the building that stood on the eastern point of Pharos island. There, The Great Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, reputed to be 138 m high, was situated. The first Ptolemy began the project, and the second Ptolemy (Ptolemy II Philadelphus) completed it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It took 12 years to complete and served as a prototype for all later lighthouses in the world. The light was produced by a furnace at the top and the tower was built mostly with solid blocks of limestone. The Pharos lighthouse was destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century, making it the second longest surviving ancient wonder, after the Great Pyramid of Giza. A temple of Hephaestus also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole.

In the 1st century, the population of Alexandria contained over 180,000 adult male citizens (from a papyrus dated 32 AD), in addition to a large number of freedmen, women, children and slaves. Estimates of the total population range from 216,000  to 500,000  to over 1,000,000, making it one of the largest cities ever built before the Industrial Revolution and the largest pre-industrial city that was not an imperial capital.

Ancient remains

Due to the constant presence of war in Alexandria in ancient times, very little of the ancient city has survived into the present day. Much of the royal and civic quarters sank beneath the harbour due to earthquake subsidence in AD 365, and the rest has been built over in modern times.

"Pompey's Pillar", a Roman triumphal column, is one of the best-known ancient monuments still standing in Alexandria today. It is located on Alexandria's ancient acropolis—a modest hill located adjacent to the city's Arab cemetery—and was originally part of a temple colonnade. Including its pedestal, it is 30 m (99 ft) high; the shaft is of polished red granite,   in diameter at the base, tapering to  at the top. The shaft is  high, and made out of a single piece of granite. Its volume is 132 sp=us and weight approximately 396 tons.   Pompey's Pillar may have been erected using the same methods that were used to erect the ancient obelisks. The Romans had cranes but they were not strong enough to lift something this heavy. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehrner conducted several obelisk erecting experiments including a successful attempt to erect a 25-ton obelisk in 1999. This followed two experiments to erect smaller obelisks and two failed attempts to erect a 25-ton obelisk.   The structure was plundered and demolished in the 4th century when a bishop decreed that Paganism must be eradicated. "Pompey's Pillar" is a misnomer, as it has nothing to do with Pompey, having been erected in 293 for Diocletian, possibly in memory of the rebellion of Domitius Domitianus. Beneath the acropolis itself are the subterranean remains of the Serapeum, where the mysteries of the god Serapis were enacted, and whose carved wall niches are believed to have provided overflow storage space for the ancient Library. In more recent years, many ancient artifacts have been discovered from the surrounding sea, mostly pieces of old pottery.

Alexandria's catacombs, known as Kom al-Shoqafa, are a short distance southwest of the pillar, consist of a multi-level labyrinth, reached via a large spiral staircase, and featuring dozens of chambers adorned with sculpted pillars, statues, and other syncretic Romano-Egyptian religious symbols, burial niches, and sarcophagi, as well as a large Roman-style banquet room, where memorial meals were conducted by relatives of the deceased. The catacombs were long forgotten by the citizens until they were discovered by accident in 1900.[http://www.lonelyplanet.com/egypt/mediterranean-coast/alexandria/sights/historic/catacombs-kom-ash-suqqafa Catacombs of Kom ash-Suqqafa – Lonely Planet]

The most extensive ancient excavation currently being conducted in Alexandria is known as Kom al-Dikka. It has revealed the ancient city's well-preserved theater, and the remains of its Roman-era baths.

Antiquities

Persistent efforts have been made to explore the antiquities of Alexandria. Encouragement and help have been given by the local Archaeological Society, and by many individuals, notably Greeks proud of a city which is one of the glories of their national history. Excavations were performed in the city by Greeks seeking the tomb of Alexander the Great without success.
The past and present directors of the museum have been enabled from time to time to carry out systematic excavations whenever opportunity is offered; D. G. Hogarth made tentative researches on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in 1895; and a German expedition worked for two years (1898–1899). But two difficulties face the would-be excavator in Alexandria: lack of space for excavation and the underwater location of some areas of interest.

Since the great and growing modern city stands immediately over the ancient one, it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in which to dig, except at enormous cost. Cleopatra VII's royal quarters were inundated by earthquakes and tidal waves, leading to gradual subsidence in the 4th century AD.  This underwater section, containing many of the most interesting sections of the Hellenistic city, including the palace quarter, was explored in 1992 and is still being extensively investigated by the French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team.  It raised a noted head of Caesarion. These are being opened up to tourists, to some controversy.  The spaces that are most open are the low grounds to northeast and southwest, where it is practically impossible to get below the Roman strata.

The most important results were those achieved by Dr. G. Botti, late director of the museum, in the neighborhood of “Pompey's Pillar”, where there is a good deal of open ground. Here, substructures of a large building or group of buildings have been exposed, which are perhaps part of the Serapeum. Nearby, immense catacombs and columbaria have been opened which may have been appendages of the temple. These contain one very remarkable vault with curious painted reliefs, now artificially lit and open to visitors.

The objects found in these researches are in the museum, the most notable being a great basalt bull, probably once an object of cult in the Serapeum. Other catacombs and tombs have been opened in Kom al-Shoqqafa (Roman) and Ras al-Tiin (painted).

The German excavation team found remains of a Ptolemaic colonnade and streets in the north-east of the city, but little else. Hogarth explored part of an immense brick structure under the mound of Kom al-Dikka, which may have been part of the Paneum, the Mausolea, or a Roman fortress.

The making of the new foreshore led to the dredging up of remains of the Patriarchal Church; and the foundations of modern buildings are seldom laid without some objects of antiquity being discovered. The wealth underground is doubtlessly immense; but despite all efforts, there is not much for antiquarians to see in Alexandria outside the museum and the neighborhood of “Pompey's Pillar”.

Temple of Taposiris Magna

The temple was built in the Ptolemy era and dedicated to Osiris, which finished the construction of Alexandria. It is located in Abusir, the western suburb of Alexandria in Borg el Arab city. Only the outer wall and the pylons remain from the temple. There is evidence to prove that sacred animals were worshiped there. Archaeologists found an animal necropolis near the temple. Remains of a Christian church show that the temple was used as a church in later centuries. Also found in the same area are remains of public baths built by the emperor Justinian, a seawall, quays and a bridge. Near the beach side of the area, there are the remains of a tower built by Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The tower was an exact scale replica of the destroyed Alexandrine Pharos Lighthouse. 

Modern city

Districts

Modern Alexandria is divided into six districts:
*al-Montaza District: population 1,190,287
*Shark (Eastern Alexandria) District: population 985,786
*Wassat (Central Alexandria) District: population 520,450
*al-Amriya District: population 845,845
*Agamy (Western Alexandria) District: population 386,374
*al-Gomrok District: population 145,558

There are also two cities under the jurisdiction of the Alexandria governorate forming metropolitan Alexandria:
*Borg Al-Arab city: population 113,209
*New Borg El Arab city: population 150,000

Neighborhoods

AbuQir, Maamoura, Montaza, Mandara (Bahary – Qibly), Asafra (Bahary – Qibly), Miami, Sidi Bishr (Bahary – Qibly), Saray, Victoria, Seyouf, Laurent, Tharwat, San Stefano, Gianaclis, Schutz, Zezenia, Glim, Bacchus, Saba Pasha, Fleming, Dahria, Bolkly, Stanley, Rushdy, Mustafa Kamel, Kafr Abdu, Smouha, Nozha, Sidi Gaber, Cleopatra, Sporting, Ibrahimiyya, Camp Caesar, Al Shatby, Hadara (Bahary – Qibly – New), Azarita (Originally Lazarette), Muharram Bek, El Raml Downtown, Koum Al Dikka, Eastern Harbor, Anfoushi, Manshiyya, Attarin, Karmous (a.k.a. Karmouz), Ras El Tin, El Labban, Mina El Basal, Western Harbor, Qabbary, Wardian, El Max, Dekheila, Agami (Al Bitaash (Originally "Beau Tache") – Al Hanuviel (Originally "Hameaux Ville"), Amreya, King Mariout, Burg al-Arab

Squares

*(Ahmed) Orabi Square (Mansheya Square), in Downtown
*Saad Zaghlul Square, in Downtown
*Tahrir Square (formerly Muhammad Ali Square, originally Place des Consuls), in Downtown
*Ahmed Zewail Square, near Wabour al-Mayah
*El- Souof Square, in El-souof, Gamel Abu herad st.

Palaces

*Montaza Palace, in Montaza
*Ras al-Tiin Palace, in Ras al-Tiin
*Presidential Palace, in Maamoura
*Palais d’Antoniadis, in Smoha

File:Montaza Palace.jpg|Montaza palace
File:Ras+El+Tin+Palace+Alexandria.jpg|Ras el tin Palace
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis04.JPG|Antoniadis Palace

Citadels 

Situated in East Alexandria, Qaitbay citadel is one of the few remaining citadels in city from 15th century

Recreational

*Montaza Royal Gardens
*Antoniades Park
*Shallalat Gardens
*Alexandria Zoo
*Green Plaza
*Fantazy Land(closed)
*Maamoura Beach, Alexandria
*Marina Resort

File:Alxandria_west_port.JPG|ُEast Port
File:Marina lake haddara.jpg|Marina
File:Shalalat gardens.JPG|Shallalat Gardens
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis07.JPG|Ferdinand Magellan
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis08.JPG|Nelson
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis09.JPG|Vasco da Gama
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis10.JPG|Christopher Columbus
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis02.JPG|English Garden
File:GD-EG-Alex-Antoniadis05.JPG|French Garden
File:Musee national - alexandrie facade vue large.JPG|Façade of Alexandria Museum 
File:Misr Train Station , Alexandria.jpg|Misr Railway Station
File:San Stefano Grand Plaza 2.jpg|San Stefano Grand Plaza
File:Alexandria-Sawary.jpg|Pompey's Pillar
File:Stanley Bridge.jpg|Stanley Bridge
File:Alexandria - Montaza Palace - front view.JPG|Montaza Palace
File:Flickr_-_dlisbona_-_Helnan_Palestine_hotel,_Montazah,_Alexandria.jpg|Helnan Palestine hotel
File:Pict0179.jpg|Alexandria Opera House
File:Alexandria 2133187.jpg|Alexandria street late afternoon

Religion

Islam

The most famous mosque in Alexandria is El-Mursi Abul Abbas Mosque in Bahary. Other notable mosques in the city include Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in Somouha, Bilal mosque, al-Gamaa al-Bahari in Mandara, Hatem mosque in Somouha, Hoda el-Islam mosque in Sidi Bishr, al-Mowasah mosque in Hadara, Sharq al-Madina mosque in Miami, al-Shohadaa mosque in Mostafa Kamel, Al Qa'ed Ibrahim Mosque, Yehia mosque in Zizinia, Sidi Gaber mosque in Sidi Gaber, and Sultan mosque.

Alexandria is the base of the Salafi movement's in Egypt. Al-Nour Party, which is based in the city and overwhelmingly won most of the Salafi votes in the 2011–12 parliamentary election, supports the president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Christianity

After Rome and Constantinople, Alexandria was considered the third-most important seat of Christianity in the world. The Pope of Alexandria was second only to the bishop of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire until 430. The Church of Alexandria had jurisdiction over most of the continent of Africa. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, the Church of Alexandria was split between the Miaphysites and the Melkites. The Miaphysites went on to constitute what is known today as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Melkites went on to constitute what is known today as the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. In the 19th century, Catholic and Protestant missionaries converted some of the adherents of the Orthodox churches to their respective faiths.

Today, the Patriarchal seat of the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church is Saint Mark Cathedral in Ramleh. The most important Coptic Orthodox churches in Alexandria include Pope Cyril I Church in Cleopatra, Saint Georges Church in Sporting, Saint Mark & Pope Peter I Church in Sidi Bishr, Saint Mary Church in Assafra, Saint Mary Church in Gianaclis, Saint Mina Church in Fleming, Saint Mina Church in Mandara and Saint Takla Haymanot's Church in Ibrahimeya.

The most important Eastern Orthodox churches in Alexandria are Agioi Anárgyroi Church, Church of the Annunciation, Saint Anthony Church, Archangels Gabriel & Michael Church, Taxiarchon Church, Saint Catherine Church, Cathedral of the Dormition in Mansheya, Church of the Dormition, Prophet Elijah Church, Saint George Church, Church of the Immaculate Conception in Ibrahemeya, Saint Joseph Church in Fleming, Saint Joseph of Arimathea Church, Saint Mark & Saint Nektarios Chapel in Ramleh, Saint Nicholas Church, Saint Paraskevi Church, Saint Sava Cathedral in Ramleh, Saint Theodore Chapel and the Russian church of Saint Alexander Nevsky in Alexandria, which serves the Russian speaking community in the city.

The Apostolic Vicariate of Alexandria in Egypt-Heliopolis-Port Said has jurisdiction over all Latin Church Catholics in Egypt. Member churches include Saint Catherine Church in Mansheya and Church of the Jesuits in Cleopatra. The city is also the nominal see of the Melkite Greek Catholic titular Patriarchate of Alexandria (generally vested in its leading Patriarch of Antioch) and the actual cathedral see of its Patriarchal territory of Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan, which uses the Byzantine Rite, and the nominal see of the Armenian Catholic diocese of Iskandkeriya (for all Egypt and Sudan, whose actual cathedral is in Cairo), a suffragan of the Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia, using the Armenian Rite.

The Saint Mark Church in Shatby, founded as part of Collège Saint Marc, is multi-denominational and holds liturgies according to Latin Catholic, Coptic Catholic and Coptic Orthodox rites.

In antiquity, Alexandria was a major center of the cosmopolitan religious movement called Gnosticism (today mainly remembered as a Christian heresy).

Judaism

Alexandria's once-flourishing Jewish community declined rapidly following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, after which negative reactions towards Zionism among Egyptians led to Jewish residents in the city, and elsewhere in Egypt, being perceived as Zionist collaborators. Most Jewish residents of Egypt fled to the newly established Israel, France, Brazil and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s. The community once numbered 50,000 but is now estimated at below 50.  The most important synagogue in Alexandria is the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue.

Education

Colleges and universities

Alexandria has a number of higher education institutions. Alexandria University is a public university that follows the Egyptian system of higher education. Many of its faculties are internationally renowned, most notably its Faculty of Medicine & Faculty of Engineering. In addition, the Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport is a semi-private educational institution that offers courses for high school, undergraduate level, and postgraduate students. It is considered the most reputable university in Egypt after the AUC American University in Cairo because of its worldwide recognition from (board of engineers at UK & ABET in US). Université Senghor is a private French university that focuses on the teaching of humanities, politics and international relations, which mainly targets students from the African continent. Other institutions of higher education in Alexandria include Alexandria Institute of Technology (AIT) and Pharos University in Alexandria.

Schools

Alexandria has a long history of foreign educational institutions. The first foreign schools date to the early 19th century, when French missionaries began establishing French charitable schools to educate the Egyptians. Today, the most important French schools in Alexandria run by Catholic missionaries include Collège de la Mère de Dieu, Collège Notre Dame de Sion, Collège Saint Marc, Ecoles des Soeurs Franciscaines (four different schools), École Gérard, École Saint Gabriel, École Saint-Vincent de Paul, École saint joseph, École Sainte Catherine, and Institution Sainte Jeanne-Antide. As a reaction to the establishment of French religious institutions, a secular (laic) mission established Lycée el-Horreya, which initially followed a French system of education, but is currently a public school run by the Egyptian government. The only school in Alexandria that completely follows the French educational system is Lycée Français d'Alexandrie (École Champollion). It is usually frequented by the children of French expatriates and diplomats in Alexandria. The Italian school is the Istituto "Don Bosco".

English schools in Alexandria are becoming the most popular schools. The most important English language schools in the city include: Riada Language School (RLS) Also known as "Leadership Schools of Languages",Alexandria Language School(ALS), Future Language School(FLS), Future International Schools :(Future IGCSE, Future American School and future new German school), Alexandria American School, British School of Alexandria, Egyptian American School, Pioneers Language School, Princesses Girls' School, Sidi Gaber Language Schools, Riada American school, Taymour English School (TES), Sacred Heart Girls' School (SHS), Schutz American School, Victoria College, El Manar Language School for Girls, previously called (Scottish School for Girls), Kaumeya Language School (KLS), El Nasr Boys' School (EBS) Previously called (British Boys" School), and El Nasr Girls' College (EGC). Most of these schools were nationalized during the era of Nasser, and are currently Egyptian public schools run by the Egyptian Ministry of Education.

There are only two German schools in Alexandria which are Deutsche Schule der Borromärinnen (DSB of Saint Charles Borromé) and Future Deutsche Schule.

The Montessori educational system was first introduced in Alexandria in 2009 at Alexandria Montessori.

N.B: The most notable public schools in Alexandria include, AlAbasseia High School and Gamal Abdel Nasser High School.

Transport

Airports

Alexandria is served by Alexandria International Airport and Borg al Arab Airport which is located about  away from city center.

From late 2011, Alexandria International was to be closed to commercial operations for two years as it underwent expansion, with all airlines operating out of Borg al Arab Airport from then onwards, where a brand new terminal was completed in February 2010.

Highways

*The International coastal road. (Alexandria – Port Said)
*The Desert road. (Alexandria – Cairo /220 km 6–8 lanes, mostly lit)
*The Agricultural road. (Alexandria – Cairo)
*The Circular road. the turnpike
*Ta'ameer Road "Mehwar El-Ta'ameer" – (Alexandria – North Coast)

Rail

Alexandria's intracity commuter rail system extends from Misr Station (Alexandria's primary intercity railway station) to Abu Qir, parallel to the tram line. The commuter line's locomotives operate on diesel, as opposed to the overhead-electric tram.

Alexandria plays host to two intercity railway stations: the aforementioned Misr Station (in the older Manshia district in the western part of the city) and Sidi Gaber railway station (in the district of Sidi Gaber in the center of the eastern expansion in which most Alexandrines reside), both of which also serve the commuter rail line. Intercity passenger service is operated by Egyptian National Railways.

Tram

An extensive tramway network was built in 1860 and is the oldest in Africa. The tram network begins at Alraml district in the west and ends in the Victoria district in the east. Most of the vehicles are blue in color. Some smaller vehicles colored in yellow have further routes beyond the two main endpoints. The trams are given one of four numbers: 1, 2, 5, and 6. All the four start at Alraml, but only two (1 and 2) reach Victoria. On the length of the track there are two converging and diverging points. The first starts at Bolkly (Isis) and ends at San Stefano. The other begins at Sporting the Major and ends at Mostafa Kamel. Route 5 starts at San Stefano and takes the inner route to Bolkly. Route 6 starts at Sidi Gaber El Sheikh in the outer route between Sporting and Mostatfa Kamel. Route 1 takes the inner route between San Stefano and Bolkly and the outer route between Sporting and Mostafa Kamel. Route 2 takes the route opposite to Route 1 in both these areas. The tram fares are 25 piastres (0.25 pounds) during most of the day, and 50 piastres (0.50 pounds) after 9pm. Some trams (that date back the 30s) charge a pound. The Tram is considered the cheapest method of public transport.

Buses

Public buses are operated by Alexandria Governorate's Agency for Public Passenger Transport.

Blue public buses run the length of the Courniche. Fare (any distance) is 2 L.E. (Egyptian pound).

Taxis and minibuses

Taxis in Alexandria sport a yellow-and-black livery and are widely available. While Egyptian law requires all cabs to carry meters, these generally do not work and fares must be negotiated with the driver on either departure or arrival.

The minibus share taxi system, or mashrū` operates along well-known traffic arteries. The routes can be identified by both their endpoints and the route between them:
*Corniche routes:
**Mandara-Bahari
**Mandara-Manshia
**Assafra-Bahari
**Assafra-Manshia
**Al-Sa'aa-Manshia
*Abu Qir routes
**Mandara-El Mahata (i.e. Misr Station)
**Abu Qir-El Mahata
**Victoria-El Mahata
**Mandara-Victoria
*Interior routes
**Cabo-Bahari
**Manshia-El Awayid
**Manshia-Al Mouqif Al Gadid (the New Bus Station)
**Hadara-El Mahata

The route is generally written in Arabic on the side of the vehicle, although some drivers change their route without changing the paint. Some drivers also drive only a segment of a route rather than the whole path; such drivers generally stop at a point known as a major hub of the transportation system (for example, Victoria) to allow riders to transfer to another car or to another mode of transport.

Fare is generally L.E. 2.00 to travel the whole route. Shorter trips may have a lower fare, depending on the driver and the length of the trip.

Port

Alexandria hosts Four harbors; namely the Western Harbor, which is the main harbor of the country that handles about 60% of the country’s exports and imports, El Dekhiela Harbor west of the Western Harbor, the Eastern Harbor which is a yachting harbor, and Abu Qir Harbor at the northern east of the governorate. It is commercial harbor for general cargo and phosphates.

Culture

Aquarium

*Alexandria Aquarium

Libraries

The Royal Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt. It was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the library complex, the temple of the Muses—the Museion, Greek Μουσείον (from which the Modern English word museum is derived).

It has been reasonably established that the library, or parts of the collection, were destroyed by fire on a number of occasions (library fires were common and replacement of handwritten manuscripts was very difficult, expensive, and time-consuming). To this day the details of the destruction (or destructions) remain a lively source of controversy.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2003, near the site of the old Library.

Literature

Two writers loom large over the modern literature of Alexandria: the Alexandria-born Greek poet C.P. Cavafy and the Indian-born Briton Lawrence Durrell, author of The Alexandria Quartet. Cavafy incorporated Greek history, mythology, and his homosexuality into his poetry. Durrell used the cosmopolitan city as a landscape to explore human desires. Of Arabic novels set in Alexandria, Naguib Mahfouz's Miramar is the best known. In the 2000s, writers such as Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Ki Longfellow, and Keith Miller have used Alexandria as a setting for speculative fiction.

*History
**Alexandria: A History and a Guide (1922; numerous reprints) by E.M. Forster.
**Alexandria: City of Memory (Yale University Press, 2004) by Michael Haag.
**Vintage Alexandria: Photographs of the City 1860–1960 (The American University in Cairo Press, 2008) by Michael Haag.
*Memoirs
**Out of Egypt (1994; fictionalized description of family history in Alexandria) by André Aciman.
**Farewell to Alexandria (tr. 2004) Harry E. Tzalas.
**Growing Up Jewish in Alexandria: The Story of a Sephardic Family's Exodus from Egypt" (2014) by Lucienne Carasso.
*Novels
**Unreal City (1952) by Robert Liddell.
**Academic Year (1955, set in the late 1940s) by D.J. Enright.
**The Alexandria Quartet (1957–60, set in the 1930s) by Lawrence Durrell.
**The Alexandria Rhapsody (2011) by George Leonardos
**The Bat (part of the Drifting Cities trilogy) (1965, set in 1943–44) by Stratis Tsirkas.
**Miramar (1967) by Naguib Mahfouz.
**The Danger Tree (1977, set in 1942, partly in Alexandria) by Olivia Manning.
**The Beacon at Alexandria (1986, set in the 4th century) by Gillian Bradshaw.
**No digas que fue un sueño (Don't Say It Was A Dream) (1986, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony) by Terenci Moix.
**City of Saffron (tr. 1989, set in the 1930s) by Edwar Al-Kharrat.
**Girls of Alexandria (tr. 1993, set in the 1930s and '40s) by Edwar Al-Kharrat.
**The Alexandria Semaphore (1994) by Robert Solé.
**The House over the Catacombs (1993) and the Song of the Soul (1997) by George Leonardos.
**No One Sleeps in Alexandria (1996, set during World War II) by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid.
**Pashazade (2001) alternate history by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.
**The Alexander Cipher (2007) by Will Adams.
**The Alexandria Link (2007) by Steve Berry.
**Flow Down Like Silver, Hypatia of Alexandria (2009) by Ki Longfellow.
**The Book on Fire (2009, urban fantasy) by Keith Miller.
**Alexandria (2009, historical crime, set in AD77) by Lindsey Davis.
**La lente découverte de l'étrangeté (novel), 2002, by [http://www.victorteboul.com/Article.aspx?ID7&L
fr Victor Teboul].
**Stealing Fire (2010, set in late Alexandrian / early Ptolomaic period) by Jo Graham
**Hand of Isis (2009, set in late Ptolomaic period) by Jo Graham

Museums

*The Alexandria National Museum was inaugurated 31 December 2003. It is located in a restored Italian style palace in Tariq Al-Horreya Street (former Rue Fouad), near the center of the city. It contains about 1,800 artifacts that narrate the story of Alexandria and Egypt. Most of these pieces came from other Egyptian museums. The museum is housed in the old Al-Saad Bassili Pasha Palace, who was one of the wealthiest wood merchants in Alexandria. Construction on the site was first undertaken in 1926.
*The Cavafy Museum
*The Graeco-Roman Museum
*The Museum of Fine Arts
*The Royal Jewelry Museum

Music

*Songs in Arabic:
**"Ahsan Nas" by Dalida
**"Ayouh" by Natasha
**"Been shateen we maya" by Mohamed Kandil
**"Leil Eskendereya" by Moustafa Amar
**"Shat Eskendereya" by Fairouz
**"Ya Eskendereya" by Mohamed Mounir (lyrics by Ahmed Fouad Negm)
**"Ya Wad Ya Eskandarany by Moustafa Amar
*Songs in English:
**"Alexandria" by Kamelot
**"Alexandra Leaving" by Leonard Cohen, based on a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
* Songs in French:
**"Alexandrie" by Georges Moustaki
**"Alexandrie, Alexandra" by Claude François
*Songs in Greek:
**"Alexandria" by Yannis Kotsiras
**"Alexandria" by Alkistis Protopsalti
*Songs in other languages:
**"Ya Mustafa" reproduced Dario Moreno, Bob Azzam and many others – lyrics in Arabic, French and Italian

Related words

* ' () (noun) (in Literary Arabic): Refers to the city of "Alexandria", used in formal texts and speech. Its Egyptian Arabic equivalent is ' (), though they have the same spelling when written in Arabic text, apart from the definitive article al-.
* "Alex" (noun): Natives of metropolitan areas who have a certain knowledge of English and/or French refer to Alexandria as "Alex", especially informally.
* ' (,): The adjectival form in Egyptian Arabic, meaning "from Alexandria" or "native Alexandrian" (masc.). The feminine form and the plural form are ' (,). Its equivalent in Literary Arabic is ' () (masc.), or ' () (masc.), ' () (fem.), plural  /  ( ‎/ ) or  /  ( ‎/ ), feminine plural is ' ().

Sports

The main sport that interests Alexandrians is football, as is the case in the rest of Egypt and Africa. Alexandria Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Alexandria, Egypt. It is currently used mostly for football matches, and was used for the 2006 African Cup of Nations. The stadium is the oldest stadium in Egypt and Africa, being built in 1929. The stadium holds 20,000 people. Alexandria was one of three cities that participated in hosting the African Cup of Nations in January 2006, which Egypt won. Sea sports such as surfing, jet-skiing and water polo are practiced on a lower scale. The Skateboarding culture in Egypt started in this city.

Alexandria has four stadiums:
*Alexandria Stadium
*Borg El Arab Stadium
*El-Krom Stadium
*Harras El-Hedoud Stadium

Other less popular sports like tennis and squash are usually played in private social and sports clubs, like:
*Acacia Country Club
*Alexandria Sporting Club – in "Sporting"
*Alexandria Country club
*El-Ittihad El-Iskandary Club
*El-Olympi Club
*Haras El Hodood Club
*Koroum Club
*Lagoon Resort Courts
*Smouha SC – in "Smouha"

Theaters

*Alexandria Opera House, where classical music, Arabic music, ballet, and opera are performed.

Tourism

Alexandria is a main summer resort and tourist attraction, due to its public and private beaches and ancient history and Museums, especially the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, based on reviving the ancient Library of Alexandria.

One of the main tourism attractions that start every year from the city is Cross Egypt Challenge. Started in 2011, Cross Egypt Challenge is an international cross-country motorcycle and scooter rally conducted throughout the most difficult tracks and roads of Egypt. Alexandria is known as the yearly starting point of Cross Egypt Challenge and a huge celebration is conducted the night before the rally starts after all the international participants arrive to the city.

International relations

Twin towns — Sister cities

Alexandria is twinned with:
EGY Arab Republic of Egypt A .R . EGYPT The Arab Republic of Egypt Eygpt Etymology of Egypt مصر Kemmet Gift of the Nile Arab Republic Of Egypt Names of Egypt Miṣr A .R . Egypt Eytp National identity of Egyptians Jumhuriyat Misr al'Arabiyah Eypt Egyptian Republic Ejipt Name of Egypt Egipto Kimet جمهوريّة مصرالعربيّة Egypte Egypt (name) Egypt جمهورية مصرالعربية A.R. Egypt Republic of Eygpt Égypte Second Egyptian Republic Egipt ISO 3166-1:EG Egypt info
names of egypt jumhuriyat misr al arabiyah eytp iso 3166 1 eg egypt r egypt eygpt kimet name of egypt جمهورية مصرالعربية arab republic of egypt egypt name gift of nile kemmet miṣr egipto جمهوريّة مصرالعربيّة egy egypt info egyptian republic egypte eypt ejipt national identity of egyptians égypte etymology of egypt egipt مصر second egyptian republic republic of eygpt
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