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Historical Overview
The foundation of the Indonesian population was built by Mongolian peoples, who settled the country in several immigration waves B.C.
In the fifth century A.C. Buddhism had first influence on Indonesia, leading to Buddhist kingdoms and dynasties in the seventh and eighth centuries. Simultaneously big Hindu empires existed up to the end of the 13th century.
From the 15th century the Islam, brought to the region by Arabic traders, was gaining influence after the collapse of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, which were driven back to the islands of Bali and Lombok. In the eastern archipelago both Christian and Islamic missionaries were active during the 16th and 17th centuries.
After Bartolomeo Diaz found the sea-route to India in 1487, the Europeans discovered the multitude of small states in the region and took over the spice trade. The Dutch came out as the most powerful and ruled Indonesia as a colony beginning in 1602 until World War II.
First it was reigned under the control of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and from the beginning of the nineteenth century directly by the Dutch government after the VOC went bankrupt.
With The Netherlands under German occupation during World War II, Indonesia was occupied by Japan, which enabled Indonesians to arm themselves for the very first time and was welcomed by many future leaders of the Republic of Indonesia, who cooperated with the Japanese occupiers.
In March 1945 Japan built an Indonesian commitee (BPUPKI) to prepare independence, which succeeded on 17 August under the leadership of Sukarno shortly after Japan's defeat in World War II.
In succession the Dutch sent in their army in an effort to reestablish colonial rule. Indonesia fought and negotiated for its independence until the 27 December 1949, when it was finally given sovereignty under heavy international pressure.
Sukarno became the first president with Mohammad Hatta as vice president.
In 1950 a Provisional Constitution was introduced and Indonesia became the 60th member of the United Nations.
In 1955 the government held a general election. However, two years afterwards the country was still unstable and Sukarno declared the 1950 Provisional Constitution void and reintroduced the 1945 Constitution, providing the opportunity to balance the three political powers of the Indonesian Communist Party, the army and himself.
From 1959 to 1965 President Sukarno established an authoritarian regime moving closer to Asian communist states and trying hard to balance communists and the army. Economic decline and mounting conflicts made him lose control over the country's political situation.
On 30 September 1965 an abortive coup happened. Seven high-ranking army generals were killed followed by a pogrom of communists, costing the lives of an estimated 400,000 people. Suharto, an army general, took over leadership and in 1967 finally seized presidency. His administration is commonly called New Order era.
Suharto established economic rehabilitation and development as his primary goals and brought major foreign investment into the country. But economic growth was uneven and widespread corruption and faltering economy during the Asian financial and economic crisis in mid-1997 finally lead to the forced step down of the president in 1998 amid massive popular demonstrations.
In the following three years the country had three presidents, namely Bacharuddin Jusuf (BJ) Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri.
In 2004 finally the largest one-day election in the world was won by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as Indonesia's first directly elected president.
One of the last incidents in the country's history is an extremely sorry one: On 26 December 2004 a massive earthquake and a resulting tsunami devastated huge parts of Sumatra leaving thousands of people dead or still missing and more than a half million homeless.