Modern Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation in 1971 after breaking away and achieving independence from Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The country's borders corresponded with the major portion of the ancient and historic region of Bengal in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, where civilization dates back over four millennia, to the Chalcolithic. The history of the region is closely intertwined with the history of Bengal and the broader history of the Indian subcontinent.
The area's early history featured a succession of Indian empires, internal problems, between Hinduism and Buddhism for dominance. Islam became dominant gradually since the early 15th century when Sunni missionaries such as Shah Jalal arrived. Later, Muslim rulers initiated the preaching of Islam by building mosques. From the 15th century onward, the region was controlled by the Bengal Sultanate led by king Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah. Afterwards, the region came under the country of the Mughal Empire, as its wealthiest province. Bengal Subah (a division of Mughal Empire) generated 50% of the empire's GDPand 12% of the world's GDP,[1][2][3] larger than the entirety of western Europe, with the capital city Dhaka having a population exceeding a million people.
Following the decline of the Mughal Empire in the early 1700s, Bengal became a semi-independent state under the Nawabs of Bengal which is led by king Murshid Alam before it was conquered by the British East India Company at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, directly contributing to the Industrial Revolution in Britain and to deindustrialization in Bengal.[4][5][6][7] The Bengali city of Calcuttaserved as the capital city of British India up until the early 20th century.
The borders of modern Bangladesh were established with the separation of Bengal and India in August 1947, when the region became East Pakistan as a part of the newly formed State of Pakistan following the Boundary of the Partition of India.[8] However, it was separated from West Pakistan by 1,600 km (994 mi) of Indian territory. The Bangladesh Liberation War (Bengali: মুক্তিযুদ্ধ Muktijuddho), also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh, was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in what was then East Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. It resulted in the independence of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. After independence, the new state endured famine, natural disasters, and widespread poverty, as well as political turmoil and military coups. The restoration of democracy in 1991 has been followed by relative calm and rapid economic progress. Bangladesh is today a major manufacturer in the global textile industry.
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