History of the United Arab Emirates
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The United Arab Emirates (the UAE or the Emirates) is a country in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula located on the southeastern coast of the Persian Gulf and the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Oman.
The UAE has a history of human habitation, transmigration and trade spanning over 125,000 years. The area was previously home to the Magan people known to the Sumerians, who traded with the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley, Afghanistan and Bactria as well as the Levant.
Through the three defined Iron Ages and the subsequent Hellenistic period, the area remained an important coastal trading entrepôt, becoming Islamised in the 7th century and the Islamic era saw it emerge once again as an important centre for trade, centred particularly around the ports of Julfar, Dibba and Khor Fakkan. These, linked to the vast Eastern Arab trading network that centred around the Kingdom of Hormuz, formed an important link in the Arab monopoly of trade between the East and Europe.
The Portuguese, under Afonso de Albuquerque, invaded the area and disrupted the Arab trade networks, triggering a decline in trade and a rise in regional conflict. Conflicts between the maritime communities of the Trucial Coast and the British led to the sacking of Ras Al Khaimah by British forces, which resulted in the first of a number of British treaties with the coastal rulers in 1820, leading to the adoption of the name, the Trucial States, and a their becoming a British protectorate.
A British decision, taken in early 1968, to withdraw from its involvement in the Trucial States, led to the decision to found a Federation between two of the most influential Trucial Rulers, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai, an idea they shook hands on in February 1968, in a tent in the desert between their two emirates.
Today, the UAE consists of seven emirates and was founded with independence on 2 December 1971. Six of the seven emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah) declared their union on 2 December 1971. The seventh, Ras Al Khaimah, joined the federation on 10 February 1972.