According to Localcollegeexplorer, Armenia is a physical and historical region of Southwest Asia. In Armenia the Hurrian kingdom of Urartu was established in the 1st millennium ; subjected to Achaemenid dominion (6th-4th century) and conquered by Alexander the Great (331), the region was then ruled by local dynasties and divided into two satrapies that the Romans called Armenia minor and Armenia maior. Unified by Tigranes (1st century BC) and involved in the Second Mithridatic War, it had to recognize the supremacy of Rome (66 AD) until it was divided between Byzantium and Persia (387). Armenia major returned under the sovereignty of the empire with Justinian and after the Arab occupation (7th century AD) it became a border province of the Muslim empire. A beginning of independence took place under the Bagratid dynasty, which lasted two centuries; then the external pressure of the Seljuk and Byzantines caused the collapse of the Armenian national state, annexed in 1045 by Byzantium. In 1064 all the Great Armenia fell into the hands of the Turks. An independent Armenian state reformed shortly afterwards in Cilicia, that is, in Little Armenia, and lasted three centuries, serving as a bulwark of the Byzantine Empire against Muslims and Crusaders. Its apogee was reached with Leo II (1199-1219), who organized the kingdom subjected to vassalage towards the Holy See and the Germanic empire. In the 14th century. Little Armenia began to decline, torn by internal religious struggles. The passage to the Lusignano dynasty of Cyprus (1342) provoked new conflicts which led to the settlement in Cilicia of the Syrian-Egyptian Mamluks (1382). From that moment until the 20th century, all traces of an independent Armenian state disappeared. Armenia , after the Seljuk conquest in the 11th century, underwent the dominion of the Mongols of Genghiz Khan (1206) and Tamerlane (1387), until in 1473 the Osmanli Turks arrived there with Mohammed II. 1st century 17th and 18th centuries spent in continuous wars between the sultans of Constantinople and the Shah of Persia and to. it remained divided between those two Muslim states. Armenia Persian, from the middle of the 18th century, began to pass into the hands of the Russians, following the fate of the Russian Empire until the Revolution and then becoming part of the USSR. The part of. remained in the Ottoman Empire, the hopes of achieving independence and civil liberties were disappointed, it passed to revolutionary action, with the creation (1887-90) of revolutionary committees on the model of the Russian nihilists; Sultan ‛Abd ul-Hamid responded with a ferocious repression. In the Aug.-Sept. 1894 there was the first massacre of Armenians, which was followed by the massacre of 1895-96. In the 20th century. the situation worsened when the Young Turks began to advocate the ideal of the supremacy of the Turkish race in the territories of the Ottoman Empire. Thus there was the massacre of Adana (1909) and, during the First World War, the mass extermination of the Armenian people was carried out. At the end of the war,nationalist leader Atatürk, who initiated the political-cultural assimilation of ethnic minorities. To this day, the Armenians are demanding the restitution of Turkish lands and that it be recognized that they were victims of a genocide; but, despite some openings by politicians, in Turkey publicly mentioning genocide is still a crime punishable by imprisonment.

Republic of Armenia. The part of the to. under the Persian dominion and then passed to Russia in 1917 it constituted with Georgia and Azerbaijan the Federal Republic of Transcaucasia, which was dissolved in 1918 to give rise to three independent republics. Proclaimed a Soviet Republic in 1920, in 1922 it was united with Georgia and Azerbaijan forming the Soviet Socialist Federative Republic of Transcaucasia, divided in 1930 into the three Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, recognized constituent members of the USSR. In 1991 the Armenia declared independence and L. Ter Petrosian was elected president. The nationalist mobilization he promoted resulted in military support for the militias of Nagornyy Karabah, an enclave Armenian in Azerbaijani territory, and in the war against Azerbaijan, until the conquest of the enclave and part of the Azerbaijani territory (1992-93). The military effort aggravated the country’s economic situation, already severely tested by the dissolution of the USSR and the influx of ethnic Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan. In 1995, the ban on opposition forces to participate in political elections allowed the Pan-Armenian National Movement to remain at the helm of the government. But in 1998 Ter Petrosian was forced to resign and R. Kocharian was elected, pleasing to the most uncompromising nationalists. In 1999 the unitary Bloc and the leader won the elections republican V. Sargisian was appointed prime minister, but a few months later he was killed in an attack. In 2001 the Armenia became a full member of the Council of Europe. In 2003 Kocharian was reconfirmed and in 2008 Prime Minister S. Sargsyan, dauphin of the outgoing president, was elected his successor.