History

Indonesia's history

It is generally believed that the earliest inhabitants of the Indonesian archipelago originated in India or Burma. In 1890, fossils of Java Man (homo erectus), some 500,000 years old, were found in east Java. Later migrants ('Malays') came from southern China and Indochina, and began populating the archipelago around 3000 BC. Powerful groups such as the Buddhist Srivijaya empire and the Hindu Mata (...)

Pre-colonial Indonesia

A number of Hindu and Buddhist states flourished and declined across Indonesia. By the time of the European Renaissance, the two largest islands in what is now Indonesia, Java and Sumatra had already seen over a millennium of civilization and two major empires. The political history of Indonesia during the fourteenth and fifteen centuries is not well known due to scarcity of evidence. Two major states dominated this period; Majapahit in East Java, the greatest of the pre-Islamic Indonesian states, and Malacca on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, arguably the greatest of the Muslim trading empires. (...)

Java War & Culture System

The Dutch colonial rule could hardly suppres the revolt – which is now known as the Java War - with the biggest effort. The years between 1825 and 1830 form a very bloody period in the history of Java and of the Dutch Indies, in which about 15,000 Dutch soldiers and 200,000 Javanese people got killed. The Java War can be seen as the end of the old social order on Java, and certainly as a failed effort to restore the traditional elite in it’s old powerfull position, to stimulate the Javanese culture and to supress the Dutch colonial rule on Java. (...)

1965 Events

By 1965 Indonesia had become a dangerous cockpit of social and political antagonisms. The PKI's rapid growth aroused the hostility of Islamic groups and the military. The ABRI-PKI balancing act, which supported Sukarno's Guided Democracy regime, was going awry. (...)

Suharto's fall

When Suharto was out of Indonesia for a meeting in Cairo, his country quickly fell into total disorder, which lead to his fall within a single week. He lost total power over his people and the army and he was forced out by the ordinary man. That lots of things went wrong was visible from the very first stat, but it took a little longer to realise what did really happen. (...)