Region

Middle East

Florence Nightingale at Scutari: The Lady with the Lamp

Nightingale became a national heroine and used her fame and statistics to drive army health reform and to found modern professional nursing.

1854-1856 · 8 min read

A sea-level canal opened in 1869, cutting thousands of kilometres from voyages between Europe and Asia but leaving Egypt deeply in debt.

1859–1869 · 8 min read

British victory; Urabi was exiled and Britain occupied Egypt, keeping troops there until 1956.

1882 · 6 min read

Iran gained a written constitution and an elected Majlis, but Russian and British intervention closed parliament in 1911.

1905-1911 · 6 min read

Ottoman victory; about 13,000 British and Indian troops surrendered, and thousands died in captivity.

1915-1916 · 4 min read

An estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians died, and the Armenian presence in most of Anatolia was destroyed.

1915-1916 · 6 min read

Britain and France secretly agreed spheres of control in the Arab Middle East; the plan was later revised but shaped the post-war mandates.

1916 · 6 min read

Arab forces helped drive the Ottomans from Arabia and Syria, but Arab hopes of a single independent state were not fulfilled.

1916-1918 · 6 min read

Ottoman forces withdrew and Jerusalem surrendered to the British, ending four centuries of Ottoman rule over the city.

1917 · 5 min read

British Empire victory; Beersheba and most of its wells were captured, turning the flank of the Ottoman Gaza-Beersheba line.

31 October 1917 · 4 min read

Britain publicly backed a Jewish national home in Palestine; the pledge was later written into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

2 November 1917 · 6 min read

Decisive British Empire victory; the Ottoman Seventh and Eighth Armies were destroyed and Damascus fell on 1 October.

September 1918 · 5 min read