Timeline – Uzbekistan
The territory of modern Uzbekistan is the cradle of many civilizations. Because of its favorable location in the heart of Central Asia, heart of Silk Route and the area so lush and rich it became the region almost all shahs wanted to rule. The area has history of almost 3000 years. Archeological discoveries in the territories of Selengur, Kulbulak and Teshiktash sights prove that the first human settlements of the territory were founded hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Uzbekistan covers 172.178 square miles (447.400 km square) and slightly larger than California or almost twice as big as the UK. Sogdiana is the antiquity province situated between the Oxus and Jaxartes Rivers, what is known Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The extinct language – Sogdian – was spoken in the region. Their alphabet was the course of the later Uighur and Mongolian alphabet.
2300 BCE: A civilization later called the Bactria Margiana Archeology Complex existed about this time in what later became Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
355 BCE: Alexander the Great was about this time. He later married Central Asian princess Roxana, the daughter of Bactrian chief Oxyartes. Alexander also married the daughter of Darius whom he defeated in 333, and a Sogdian princess while staying firmly attached to his comrade, Hephaiston.
329 BCE: Alexander the Great toom Samarkand. Its ancient name was Marakanda.
1st century BCE: Central Asia, including present-day Uzbekistan, forms an important part of the overland trade routes known as the Great Silk Road linking China with the Middle East and Europe.
2nd – 6th centuries: Sassanian Empire came to exist and rule the area.
7th – 8th centuries: Arabs conquer the area and convert its inhabitants to Islam.
9th – 10th centuries: Samanid dynasty becomes dominant and develops Bukhara as important centre of Islamic culture. As it declines, Turkic hordes compete to fill the vacuum.
11th – 12th centuries: The area was conquered by Turkic rulers, resulting in Turkification. The Ghaznavid Empire, the Turkic Qarakhanids, the Seljuks, the Kara-Khitans and the Khorezmians controlled the area.
13th – 14th centuries: Central Asia conquered by Ghengiz Khan and becomes part of the Mongol Empire.
14th century: Tamerlane establishes the Timurids Empire with Samarkand as its capital.
16th century: Uzbeks had completed their conquest of Central Asia, including the territory of present-day Uzbekistan.
17th – 18th centuries: Uzbeks established two strong Khanates. The Khanate of Bukhara centered on the city of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva in the oasis of Khorezm. In the end of eighteenth century new Uzbek khanate was formed in Kokand, Ferghana Valley.
1965 – 1976: Russia covets and eventually occupies the region, in what is known as The Great Game geopolitical war between the Russians and the British Empire. After the annexation of the khanates of Khiva, Bukhar and Kokand Tashkent made the capital of Turkestan, incorporating whole Central Asia.
1917: Following Bolshevik Revolution, Turkestan Guberniya established Tashkent as capital. The Guberniya ousted khans of Kokand, Khiva and emir of the Bukhara by 1920.
1918 – 1922: New communist rulers close down mosques and persecute intelligentsia-class of the Jedidist and Muslim clergy as part of secularization and Russification.
1924: Uzbekistan Soviet Socialist Republic was created.
1991: The Republic of Uzbekistan got its dependence on September 1st.