Pakistan

HISTORY

Pakistan was home to one of the world's first civilizations, the Indus people who lived on the banks of the Indus River around 4,500 years ago.

The political session of the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference was held at the Ahsan Manzil palace of the Dhaka Nawab Family on December 30, 1906. In this session a motion to form an All India Muslim League (AIML), the first Muslim political party in the history of India, was proceeded. AIML developed into the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan as a Muslim state on the Indian subcontinent.

The AIME Conference

Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet entitled Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever? on January 28, 1933 while a student at Cambridge University's Emmanuel College. It was from Ali's small backstreet house, 3 Humberstone Road, Cambridge that he called for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that the young student termed "Pakstan" (without the letter "i").

“Pak” means spiritually pure in Urdu and “Stan” means land. The name coined by Ali was accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.

The Muslim League slowly rose to mass popularity in the 1930s thanks to fears of under-representation and neglect of Muslims in politics. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, greatly espoused the two-nation theory and led the Muslim League to adopt the Lahore Resolution of 1940, popularly known as the Pakistan Resolution.

Jinnah addresses the Muslim League session at Patna, 1938

As the United Kingdom agreed upon partitioning of the Indian empire of British Raj, the modern state of Pakistan was established on August 14, 1947.

Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and traveled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home during the Partition of India.

The national flag of Pakistan was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, just four days before the country's independence, when it became the official flag of the Dominion of Pakistan.

Flag of Pakistan

The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was sworn in as first Governor-General of Pakistan in Karachi on August 15, 1947.

The complete version of "Qaumī Tarāna", the national anthem of Pakistan, was broadcast for the first time on Radio Pakistan in 1954.

The Government of Sindh, Pakistan, abolished the Jagirdari feudal system in the province on February 8, 1955. One million acres (4000 km2) of land was thus acquired is to be distributed among the landless peasants.

Queen Elizabeth II ended her role as monarch of Pakistan on March 23, 1956, when it became the first country in the world to declare itself an Islamic Republic. (March 23rd is celebrated as Republic Day in Pakistan)

Until 1971, Pakistan also included an area in the North-east India region. This is now called Bangladesh. The country lost that area after a war with the Indian Army and the joint militant group of Indo-Bangladeshi alliance of Mitro Bahini of West Bengal.

Pakistan launched its Nuclear weapons program on January 20, 1972, a few weeks after its defeat in Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

Banazir Bhutto was elected to be prime minister of Pakistan on November 16, 1988 in the country's first democratic elections in 11 years. She was the first woman to head a Muslim majority nation.

Benazir Bhutto, photographed at Chandini Restaurant, Newark, CA by iFaqeer

A friend of Theresa May at Oxford University, Bhutto was assassinated as she waved at crowds out of her election campaign bus at Liaquat National Bagh in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on December 27, 2007.

Two suicide bombers attacked a church in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 127 and injuring over 250 others on September 22, 2007. It was the deadliest attack on the Christian minority in the country's history.

FUN PAKISTAN FACTS

Pakistan has the fifth-largest population in the world, exceeded only by China, India, the United States of America and Indonesia.  Official figures put it just ahead of Brazil.

A baby is born in Pakistan every seven seconds.

Pakistan is the third largest English speaking country in the world by population – behind India and the US.

Despite Punjabi being the most widely spoken language in Pakistan (being spoken by over a third of its population), it has no official recognition on the national or provincial level in the country.

Karachi is the largest and most populous city in Pakistan and seventh largest metropolitan city in the world.

Karachi collects over a third of Pakistan's tax revenue and generates approximately 20% of Pakistan's GDP.

Approximately 90% of the multinational corporations operating in Pakistan are headquartered in Karachi.

Pakistan is the largest producer of salt in the world with some of the biggest salt mines.

The national animal of Pakistan is the markhor, also known as the screw horn goat.

Pakistan set a world record for the most saplings planted in a day in 2013, with a striking 750,000 mangrove tree saplings.

Tarbela Dam is an earth fill dam located on the Indus River in Pakistan. Completed in 1976, it is the largest earth-filled dam in the world and fifth-largest by structural volume.

Tarbela Dam

The national sport of Pakistan is field hockey.

Pakistan owes almost its entire Olympic success to one sport, hockey, earning eight of its ten Olympic medals in that sport.

Pakistan has not won a medal at the summer Olympics since 1992 when it won a hockey bronze.

The Pakistan equivalent of Bollywood is Lollywood, the movie industry in that country being based in Lahore.

The national drink of Pakistan is sugar cane juice.

Pakistan is the most heroin-addicted country, per capita, in the world—drug-related deaths outpace those caused by terrorism.

Source Daily Express