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Beginnings
Hominids first arrived in Indonesia about eight hundred thousand years ago. Excavations uncovered parts of the skull of Pithecanthropus erectus, since renamed Homo erectus erectus - or Java Man - in Sangiran near Solo....
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Early traders and kingdoms
One of the methods of rice growing brought by the early migrants was wet-field cultivation, which required substantial inter-village co-operation and so gave rise to the first kingdoms in the archipelago. Merchants from India brought ...
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The Majapahit Empire and the arrival of Islam
The Majapahit Empire, a Hindu kingdom based in East Java, enjoyed unrivalled success from 1292 to 1389, boasting at least partial control over a vast area covering Java, Bali, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Lombok and Timor. This was the first...
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The spice trade and the Dutch conquest of Indonesia
Portuguese ships began appearing in the region in the early sixteenth century and soon established a virtual monopoly over the archipelago's lucrative spice trade. They took control of the Moluccas (Maluku), which became known as the Spice...
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The arrival of the British
In 1795, the French, under Napoleon, invaded and occupied Holland, and Herman Willem Daendels was made governor-general of the East Indies. He ruled for just three years, but was unable to fend off attacks by the British who, under the...
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The return of the Dutch
The Dutch returned to Indonesia in 1816 and were soon embroiled in a couple of bloody disputes against opponents of their rule. But, having finally regained control over their old colonies, the rest of the nineteenth century and the beginning...
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The Independence movement
Though education amongst Indonesians was still the preserve of a rich minority, it was from this minority that the leaders of the Independence movement would emerge. The Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI), founded in 1927 by Achmed Sukarno, grew...
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The Revolution
However, under the terms of the surrender agreed with the Allies, the Japanese actually had no right to hand over Indonesia to the Indonesian people. Lord Louis Mountbatten arrived in mid-1945 with several thousand British troops to accept the...
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The Sukarno years
Sukarno introduced the concept of guided democracy , an attempt to create a wholly Indonesian political system based on the traditional, hierarchical organization of Indonesian villages. Decisions were to be made with the consent of everyone,...
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The Communist coup, 1965
In 1965, Sukarno's demise was accelerated by the still not completely explained events of September 30, 1965, when a number of leading generals were taken from their homes at gunpoint to Halim airport; their bodies were later discovered down a nearby...
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Suharto takes control, 1965-67
Though he lived until 1970, Sukarno's grip on power had almost completely slipped by the end of 1965, and for the remaining year of his presidency he ruled in name only, as General Suharto manoeuvred himself to the top of the political ladder....
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The New Order
Suharto dubbed his new regime the New Order . His first few years in power were seen as a brave new dawn, as the economy improved beyond all recognition and he managed to create a pluralistic society where religious intolerance had no place;...
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Suharto's downfall
Resentment against Suharto's regime grew throughout the 1990s, but he would probably have survived for a few more years if it hadn't been for the currency crisis that hit the region in the latter part of 1997, a crisis triggered by a run on...
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The future
Despite promises to introduce sweeping reforms, many believed Habibie was dragging his feet over a number of issues, and, in early November 1998, more rioting occurred. The cry for " Reformasi ", first heard in May, grew...
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