101 Key Moments That Changed History

Author: Gu Fan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: The unification of China by Qin Shi Huang, the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England, Cook Captain's discovery of Oceania, the birth of the computer turn the pages of history, and you will find that 101 important moments that have influenced the development of history are crossing the long river of human history and entering your sight. These immediate historical events record the historical route representing human civilization, harmoniously unifying yesterday's history with today's world. It tells us: Only those who understand the past can more accurately grasp the direction of the future.
Hammurabi unified the ancient Babylonian Kingdom in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, one of the cradles of the world's ancient civilizations, located in the Mesopotamian Plain. The two rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates, which are now equivalent to modern-day Iraq. This region has fertile land and abundant resources, and it has long been a place of competition among various ethnic groups due to its strategic location on the trade route between the East and West. The history of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley began in the Eshnunna-Larsa period and ended with the rise of the Babylonian dynasty, lasting from approximately 1894 to 1595 BC. During this period, the primitive slave economy had disintegrated, bronze tools were widely used, and they greatly facilitated production activities. Due to the lack of historical records, the early history of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley is not very clear, and there is no unified explanation. It is only known that the main countries in the region at this time were Assyria, Mari, Elam, and others. Meanwhile, the ancient Babylonian Kingdom was still in its early stages and relatively weak. However, due to its strategic location at the hub of the trade route in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, its political and economic power was continuously strengthened. By 1792 BC, when Hammurabi became the sixth king of ancient Babylon, it had already become a highly developed country.
Hammurabi was highly talented and had ambitious aspirations. He hoped to unify the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley. During his more than 40 years on the throne, he was diligent in politics and personally formulated a flexible and dynamic foreign policy of "alliance with distant states while attacking nearby ones." He successively conquered countries such as Eshnunna, Uruk, and Larsa, occupied southern Assyria, and finally established a centralized state stretching from the Persian Gulf to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
After unifying the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, Hammurabi held all power, including politics, military, foreign affairs, justice, and religion. To facilitate governance, he ordered his subordinates to collect and compile some existing legal provisions into a code, known as the famous Code of Hammurabi, which is also one of the earliest and most standardized legal codes in the world. Its essence lies in protecting the property relations of slavery and consolidating the ruling position of slaveholders.
The full text of the code is inscribed in cuneiform script on a black basalt stele that is 2.25 meters high, with 49 columns and over 2,500 lines, divided into three parts: an introduction, the main text, and a conclusion. The introduction expresses the king's piety toward the gods of the cities and the trust of the gods in his unification of the monarchy. The conclusion boasts of his achievements in unifying the country and establishing peace and justice for the people, while cursing those who attempt to destroy the stele.
After being supplemented with clay tablet copies, the legal provisions can be divided into 282 articles, which are essentially a compilation of cases collected by Hammurabi. The content covers litigation and justice, infringement of others' property, military service, legal issues related to agriculture; commerce, marriage, family, and inheritance; injuries, medical fees and responsibilities; rental and employment, slave trading, and penalties.
It was precisely due to this code that the ancient Babylonian Kingdom under Hammurabi's reign became the most rigorously ruled slave-state in the ancient Eastern slave-states. However, Hammurabi's rule was not stable. During the reign of his successor, Shamshi-Adad, revolts broke out in the southern Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, and internal anti-debt slavery struggles also occurred, leading to the decline of ancient Babylon. In 1595 BC, the ancient Babylonian Kingdom was destroyed by the Hittite ruler Mursili I. In 7 BC...