Sophia, ruling as Regent Michael Romanov, the first czar elected by representatives of the people, took power in 1613 AD. Czar Michael made peace with Lithuania and Sweden, and managed [...]
Elena Glinskaya, ruler of Russia 1533-38 (before Ivan the Terrible) Ivan the Great When Ivan the Great, the first Czar of Russia, died in 1505 AD, he left Russia just [...]
The Manchu leader Nurhaci (1600s AD) Where did the Manchu come from? The Manchu people were descended from the Jurchens. They spoke a language probably closely related to Turkic and [...]
A melon stall in Central Asia After Tamerlane died in 1405, his Altaic people kept on ruling Central Asia, but not as one big empire. There were lots of little [...]
Modern Afghanistan: the Dar-ul-Aman Palace outside Kabul (1920s) World War I From 1880 until the end of World War I, the British controlled Afghanistan along with British India. Afghanistan mostly [...]
Dost Mohammed Khan In 1834 AD Dost Mohammed Kahn pushed aside Ahmed Shah Durrani's grandson to become the ruler of Afghanistan. He found himself caught ruling a small, poor country [...]
Ahmad Shah Durrani's burial mausoleum (Kandahar, Pakistan) Afghanistan after the Mongol Empire After the Mongol Empire collapsed, Afghanistan's land was mostly split between the Mughal Empire of India and the Safavid [...]
Russian rye bread Beef and yogurt In 1500 AD, most people in Central Asia were still cattle herders, and they ate beef, yogurt, and milk from their cows just they [...]
Grasslands of Central Asia - the steppe In 1500 AD, most of Central Asia was grassland. Nomads rode horses and tended big herds of cattle there. Only in the western part of [...]
Turkmenistan painting in a Chinese-Islamic style The collapse of the Mongol Empire in the end of the Middle Ages meant that artists scattered to the courts of many smaller states [...]
