Dossier №128

1,945 AD

The Second World War ends after Germany and Japan surrender to the Allies.

The fighting ended, but the political order it created shaped the next century.

Germany surrendered in May, while Japan announced its surrender in August and signed the formal instrument in September. The war left tens of millions dead and accelerated decolonization, the United Nations, and a new nuclear age.

1,453 AD

Ottoman forces capture Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire.

The ancient imperial capital entered a new Ottoman era.

Sultan Mehmed II’s army broke through the city’s defenses after a lengthy siege. The conquest made Constantinople an Ottoman capital and marked a major shift in the political balance of the eastern Mediterranean.

1,914 AD

The Panama Canal officially opens to ocean traffic.

Locks and an artificial lake cut a new route between two oceans.

The United States completed the canal after an earlier French effort failed amid engineering problems and disease. The crossing transformed shipping while resting on a controversial territorial and political relationship with Panama.

1,754 BC

A Babylonian ruler commissions a monumental collection of laws now associated with his name.

The stele presented royal justice as both public order and divine duty.

The Code of Hammurabi records judgments covering trade, property, family, labor, and injury. It was not the earliest law code, but its surviving inscription offers an unusually detailed view of Old Babylonian society.

2,334 BC

Sargon of Akkad begins building an empire across Mesopotamia.

A ruler from Akkad linked many city-states under one expanding power.

Sargon and his successors campaigned across Mesopotamia and beyond, creating what is often described as one of the earliest territorial empires. Akkadian language and royal ideology left a long legacy.