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May 19, 2026

The Anatolian Tiger

So ingrained in the history of modern Turkey is May 19, 1919, that when Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey, was asked by an encyclopedia to provide his date of birth, he gave it as May 19, 1919. On that day he began the rebellion against the Ottoman sultan that culminated in the creation of the Turkish republic four years later. Sitting at the crossroads between the East and West, the country of more than 85 million has become pivotal for Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey, giving address at the first parliament building, Ankara, May 1935. The building was initially designed as the building for the Committee of Union and Progress but was repurposed to house the Grand National Assembly on April 23, 1920, and is now the Ankara Museum of the War of Independence. Behind Ataturk are the Six Arrows of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The arrows represent the fundamental pillars of Kemalism, Turkey's founding ideology. These are republicanism, populism, nationalism, laicism, statism, and reformism. flag, vexillology, banner, chp, Republican People's Party
Turkey’s Founding Father
© UtCon Collection/Alamy
European side of the Bogazici Bridge (Bosphorus Bridge) (Turkish: Bogazici Koprusu), that crosses the Bosphorus Strait connecting Europe to Asia. 2010 Suspension bridge build in 1972. Date: 2010 (Istanbul, Turkey, Bosporus Strait)
The Bridge Between Continents
© William J. Bowe
April 13, 2025, students take part in a protest against the arrest of Istanbul's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a key rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The protest took place from Karakoy district to the Galata Bridge with demands of the government's resignation and the release of detained students who participated in the ongoing protests. The nationwide protests continue since the first detention of Imamoglu on March 19, who was arrested four days later on March 23, marking the largest wave of unrests since the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013. politics, protest, gen z
Where Does Turkey Go from Here?
© Tolga Ildun/GocherImagery—Future Publishing/Getty Images

Read More

What Is Kemalism, the State Ideology of the Turkish Republic?
How Has Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Overturned Kemalism in the 21st Century?

Paleolithic recordkeeping

Earlier this year German researchers published a study arguing that a set of geometric symbols found on artifacts created about 40,000 years ago in the Swabian Alps represented an early recording system. They were not, however, a fully developed writing system. Writing systems, from kanji to the Cyrillic alphabet, encode not just ideas, but also the grammar of a particular language. Instead, this symbolic system likely represented concepts rather than language for the entirety of its approximately 10,000 years of use. Although these marks never became true writing, let’s look at some systems that did.

Independent writing systems

Full-fledged writing developed independently at least four times. These systems are:

The ABCs

Watch the video below to learn about the writing system you’re using right now.

What is the origin of the Latin alphabet? The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world, the standard script of the languages of most of Europe and areas settled by Europeans. Letter, letters, spelling, writing, alphabets, text, English, Spanish, French, Italian, language.
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