Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans," was born in 1412 in Domrémy, Bar, France. A national heroine of France, at age 18 she led the French army to victory over the English at Orléans. Captured a year later, Joan was burned at the stake as a heretic by the English and their French collaborators.According to historians, Joan of Arc was 19 when she was burnt at the stake in Rouen by the English on 30 May, 1431. She died of smoke inhalation.
For centuries, Afghanistan has been an unstable place, especially over the last century. In the early 1900s, Afghanistan was established as an independent country, no longer under the yoke of foreign powers.Starting in the 1970s, there were a series of coup d'états, where power changed from one group to another. In 1978, a civil war began within Afghanistan's borders between pro- and anti-communist forces. The Soviet Union sent in military forces to support the communists, and a bloody conflict began. During this fight, the United States provided money and military assistance to those fighting the Soviets. Some of these were known as the Mujahideen, composed of Islamists who were staunchly opposed to the Soviet invasion. Over one million Afghans died during this conflict, but the Soviets were repulsed.After fighting the Soviets, Afghanistan saw various warlords and extremist groups vie for control of the country over the coming years. By the mid-1990s, a fundamentalist group called the Taliban took control of the country. The Taliban ruled according to Islamic Sharia law and instituted extremely harsh restrictions on the country.The Taliban created an environment in Afghanistan that bred terrorists. Osama Bin Laden, a veteran of the fight against the Soviets, became a leading figure in the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, one of the largest and most sophisticated Islamic terror groups in the world. It was from within Afghanistan that Bin Laden and his followers plotted to strike against the United States.On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists launched attacks against the United States. Terrorists flew two planes full of innocents into buildings in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth plane was brought down by brave passengers in Southern Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 Americans were killed in these terrorist attacks.
<span>relating to or denoting a people speaking an Indo-European language who invaded northern India in the 2nd millennium BC, displacing the Dravidian and other aboriginal</span>
The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society.