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| Etymology | |
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See also: Etymology of Tunis
The word Tunisia is derived from Tunis; a city and capital of modern-day Tunisia. The present form of the name, with its Latinate suffix -ia, evolved from French Tunisie.[7] The French derivative Tunisie was adopted in some European languages with slight modifications, introducing a distinctive name to designate the country. Other languages remained untouched, such as the Russian Туни́с (Tunís) and Spanish Túnez. In this case, the same name is used for both country and city, as with the Arabic تونس, and only by context can one tell the difference.[7]
The name Tunis can be attributed to different origins. It can be associated with the Phoenician goddess Tanith (aka Tunit),[7][8] ancient city of Tynes[9][10] or to the Berber root ens which means "to lie down".[11]
[edit] Tags:Arabic,Us,Russian,Spanish,Tanith (aka Tunit),Berber,Phoenician,Tanit,Arab,French, | |
| History | |
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The Atlas mountains and the Sahara desert both played a prominent role in ancient times, first with the famous Punic city of Carthage, then as the Roman province of Africa, which was known as the "bread basket" of Rome. Later, Tunisia was occupied by Vandals during the 5th century AD, Byzantines in the 6th century, and Arabs in the 8th century. Under the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia was known as "Regency of Tunis". It passed under French protectorate in 1881. After obtaining independence in 1956 the country took the official name of the "Kingdom of Tunisia" at the end of the reign of Lamine Bey and the Husainid Dynasty. With the proclamation of the Tunisian Republic on July 25, 1957, the nationalist leader Habib Bourguiba became its first president.
The country was led by the authoritarian government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from 1987 to 2011 before he fled during the Tunisian revolution. Tunisia now finds itself as an export-oriented country in the process of liberalizing and privatizing an economy that, while averaging 5% GDP growth since the early 1990s, has suffered from corruption benefiting politically connected elites.[12]
Main article: History of Tunisia
[edit] Tags:Republic,Africa,Atlas Mountain,Punic,Carthage,Roman,Vandals,Byzantines,Arabs,Lamine Bey,Habib Bourguiba,Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,Rome, | |
| Antiquity | |
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Main article: Capsian culture
Farming methods reached the Nile Valley from the Fertile Crescent region about 5000 BC, and spread to the Maghreb by about 4000 BC. Agricultural communities in the humid coastal plains of central Tunisia then were ancestors of today's Berber tribes.
[edit] Tags:Capsian Culture,Nile Valley,Fertile Crescent, | |
| Numidians | |
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Main article: Numidia
It was believed in ancient times that Africa was originally populated by Gaetulians and Libyans, both nomadic peoples. The demigod Hercules died in Spain and his polyglot eastern army was left to settle the land, with some migrating to Africa. Persians went to the West and inter married with the Gaetulians and became the Numidians. The Medes settled and were known as Mauri latter Moors. Sallust's version of African history must be considered with reservations.
The Numidians and Moors belonged to the race from which the Berbers are descended. The translated meaning of Numidian is Nomad and indeed the people were semi-nomadic until the reign of Masinissa of the Massyli tribe.[13] [14] [15][16][17]
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| Phoenician colonies and Punic era | |
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Hannibal
At the beginning of recorded history, Tunisia was inhabited by Berber tribes. Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 10th century BC. The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century BC by Phoenician and Cypriot settlers. Legend says that Dido from Tyre, now in modern day Lebanon founded the city in 814 BC, as retold by the Greek writer Timaeus of Tauromenium. The settlers of Carthage brought their culture and religion from the Phoenicians.[18]
After a series of wars with Greek city-states of Sicily in the 5th century BC, Carthage rose to power and eventually became the dominant civilization in the Western Mediterranean. The people of Carthage worshipped a pantheon of Middle Eastern gods including Baal and Tanit. Tanit's symbol, a simple female figure with extended arms and long dress, is a popular icon found in ancient sites. The founders of Carthage also established a Tophet, which was altered in Roman times.
A Carthaginian invasion of Italy led by Hannibal during the Second Punic War, one of a series of wars with Rome, nearly crippled the rise of Roman power. From the conclusion of the Second Punic War in 202 BC, Carthage functioned as a client state of the Roman Republic for another 50 years.
[edit] Tags:Phoenicians,Cypriot,Dido,Greek,Timaeus Of Tauromenium,Mediterranean,Baal,Tophet,Hannibal,Second Punic War,Italy, | |
| Roman era | |
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Following the Battle of Carthage in 149 BC, Carthage was conquered by Rome. After the Roman conquest, the region became one of the main granaries of Rome and was fully Latinized and Christianized.
Roman amphitheater in El Djem
The Romans controlled nearly all of modern Tunisia from 149 BC until the area was conquered by the Vandals in the 5th century AD, only to be reconquered by Roman general Belisarius in the 6th century, during the rule of Emperor Justinian I.
During the Roman period the area of what is now Tunisia enjoyed a huge development. The economy, mainly during the Empire, boomed: the prosperity of the area depended on agriculture. Called the Granary of the Empire, the area of actual Tunisia and coastal Tripolitania, according to one estimate, produced one million tons of cereals each year, one-quarter of which was exported to the Empire. Additional crops included beans, figs, grapes, and other fruits.
By the 2nd century, olive oil rivalled cereals as an export item. In addition to the cultivations, and the capture and transporting of exotic wild animals from the western mountains, the principal production and exports included the textiles, marble, wine, timber, livestock, pottery such as African Red Slip, and wool.
There was even a huge production of mosaics and ceramics, exported mainly to Italy, in the central area of El Djem (where there was the second biggest amphitheater in the Roman Empire).
During the 5th and 6th Centuries (from 430 to 533 AD), the Germanic Vandals invaded and ruled over a kingdom in North Africa that included present-day Tripoli. They were defeated by a combined force of Romans and Berbers.
[edit] Tags:Battle Of Carthage,General,Belisarius,Tripolitania,African Red Slip, | |
| Middle Ages | |
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The Great Mosque of Al-Zaytuna
Minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, also known as the Mosque of Uqba. Founded in 670, it is the oldest mosque in Tunisia as well as the oldest in the Muslim West, city of Kairouan.
Around the second half of the 7th century and the beginning of the 8th century, the region was conquered by Arab Muslims, who founded the city of Kairouan, which became the first city of Islam in North Africa. In this period, the Great Mosque of Kairouan (also called the Mosque of Uqba) was erected in 670 AD. The Great Mosque of Kairouan is considered the oldest and most prestigious sanctuary in the western Islamic world[19] as well as a great masterpiece of Islamic art and architecture.[20] Tunisia flourished under Arab rule as extensive irrigation installations were constructed to supply towns with water and promote agriculture (especially olive production).[21][22] This prosperity permitted luxurious court life and was marked by the construction of new Palace cities such as al-Abassiya (809) and Raqadda (877).[21]
Successive Muslim dynasties ruled Tunisia (Ifriqiya at the time) with occasional instabilities caused mainly by Berber rebellions;[citation needed] of these reigns we can cite the Aghlabids (800–900) and Fatimids (909–972). After conquering Cairo, Fatimids abandoned North Africa to the local Zirids (Tunisia and parts of Eastern Algera, 972–1148) and Hammadid (Central and eastern Algeria, 1015–1152).[23] North Africa was submerged by their quarrels; political instability was connected to the decline of Tunisian trade and agriculture.[21][24][25] In addition, the invasion of Tunisia by Banu Hilal, a warlike Arab Bedouin tribe encouraged by the Fatimids of Egypt to seize North Africa, sent the region's urban and economic life into further decline.[23] The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun wrote that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.[24][26]
The coasts were held briefly by the Normans of Sicily in the 12th century, but following the Arab reconquest the last Christians in Tunisia disappeared either through forced conversion or emigration. In 1159–1160, Tunisia was conquered by the Almohad caliphs.[27] They were succeeded by the Berber Hafsids (c.1230–1574), under whom Tunisia prospered. During the reign of the Hafsid dynasty, fruitful commercial relationships were established with several Christian Mediterranean states.[28] In the late 16th century the coast became a pirate stronghold (see: Barbary States).
[edit] Tags:Algeria, | |
| Ottoman rule | |
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Main article: Ottoman Tunisia
Further information: Husainid Dynasty, Barbary Coast, and Barbary Wars
In the last years of the Hafsids, Spain seized many of the coastal cities, but these were recovered by the Ottoman Empire. Under its Turkish governors, the Beys, Tunisia attained virtual independence. The Hussein dynasty of Beys, established in 1705, lasted until 1957.[29] The Maghreb suffered from the deadly combination of plague and famine.[30] The great epidemics ravaged Tunisia in 1784–1785, 1796–1797 and 1818–1820.[31]
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| French era | |
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Main article: French protectorate of Tunisia
Bab Souika in Tunis c. 1899
In 1869, Tunisia declared itself bankrupt and an international financial commission took control over its economy. In 1881, using the pretext of a Tunisian incursion into Algeria, the French invaded with an army of about 36,000 and forced the Bey to agree to the terms of the 1881 Treaty of Bardo (Al Qasr as Sa'id).[32] With this treaty, Tunisia was officially made a French protectorate, over the objections of Italy. Under French colonization, European settlements in the country were actively encouraged; the number of French colonists grew from 34,000 in 1906 to 144,000 in 1945. In 1910 there were 105,000 Italians in Tunisia.[33]
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| World War II | |
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Main article: Tunisia Campaign
In 1942–1943, Tunisia was the scene of the third major operations by the Allied Forces (the British Empire and the United States) against the Axis Powers (Italy and Germany) during World War II. The main body of the British army, advancing from their victory in the Battle of el-Alamein under the command of British Field Marshal Montgomery, pushed into Tunisia from the south. The U.S. and other allies, following their invasions of Algeria and Morocco in Operation Torch, invaded from the west.
German and Italian POWs, following the fall of Tunis, 12 May 1943. Over 230,000 German and Italian troops were taken as prisoners of war.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, commander of the Axis forces in North Africa, had hoped to inflict a similar defeat on the Allies in Tunisia as German forces did in the Battle of France in 1940. Before the battle for el-Alamein, the Allied forces had been forced to retreat toward Egypt. As such, the battle for Tunisia was a major test for the Allies. They concluded that in order to defeat Axis Powers they would have to coordinate their actions and quickly recover from the inevitable setbacks the German-Italian forces would inflict.
On February 19, 1943, Rommel launched an attack on the American forces in the Kasserine Pass region of Western Tunisia, hoping to inflict the kind of demoralizing and alliance-shattering defeat the Germans had dealt to Poland, Britain and France. The initial results were a disaster for the United States; the area around the Kasserine Pass is the site of many U.S. war graves from that time.
However, the American forces were ultimately able to reverse their retreat. With a critical strategy in tank warfare, and having determined that encirclement was feasible, the British, Australian and New Zealand forces broke through the Mareth Line on March 20, 1943. The Allies subsequently linked up on April 8, and on May 12, the German-Italian Army in Tunisia surrendered. Thus, the United States, United Kingdom, Australian, Free French, and Polish forces (as well as others) were able to win a major battle as an Allied army.
The battle, though overshadowed by Stalingrad, represented a major Allied victory of World War II largely because it forged the Alliance that would one day liberate Western Europe.
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| Independence | |
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Main article: Tunisian independence
This section is outdated. Please update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. (March 2011)
The first Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba paying tribute to Tunisian national flag.
Tunisia achieved independence from France in 1956 led by Habib Bourguiba, who later became the first Tunisian President.[34] In November 1987, doctors declared Bourguiba unfit to rule and, in a bloodless coup d'état, Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali assumed the presidency.[34] He and his family subsequently were accused of corruption[35] and plundering the country's money and fled into exile in 2011.[35]
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| 2010–2011 Tunisian revolution | |
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Main article: Tunisian revolution
The Tunisian revolution[36][37] is an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began when Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year old Tunisian street vendor, set himself afire on 17 December 2010, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the humiliation that was inflicted on him by a municipal official. This act became the catalyst for mass demonstrations and riots throughout Tunisia in protest of social and political issues in the country. Anger and violence intensified following Bouazizi's death on 4 January 2011, ultimately leading longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power. Street demonstrations and other unrest have continued to the present day. International Tunisian organizations, like the Tunisian Community Center in the US, has supported the protesters' aims toward democracy as-well, in-addition to TCC's efforts to freeze Ben Ali's assets abroad.[38]
The demonstrations were precipitated by high unemployment, food inflation, corruption,[39] a lack of freedom of speech and other political freedoms[40] and poor living conditions. The protests constituted the most dramatic wave of social and political unrest in Tunisia in three decades[41][42] and have resulted in scores of deaths and injuries, most of which were the result of action by police and security forces against demonstrators.[43] Labour unions were said to be an integral part of the protests.[44] The protests inspired similar Tags: | |
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