LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Afghan History: Afghanistan Unveiled
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Nineteenth century Afghan history was in large measure a struggle to retain independence in the face of expanding Russian and British empires (hence the incredibly bloody Anglo-Afghan wars, and Abdurrahman Khan's conquests to the north). The replacement of the Romanovs by the Bolsheviks did little to change this. Neither did the dissolution of the British Raj in 1947, since it coincided with the beginning of the Cold War. At this point Afghanistan really did find itself between the devil and sea. It badly needed development aid, which the Soviets were much more willing to give than the Americans, in large part because Afghanistan had a long-standing and often-acrimonious dispute over its southern border, first with British India and then with Pakistan, the regional American client-state. The result was much more Soviet influence than the leaders of the monarchial period, or indeed most Afghans who thought about the matter, really liked, an influence the Soviets naturally did what they could to increase.
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The Afghan Museum is a museum in Hamburg, Germany, storing Afghan history. It is a private museum and was opened in 1998. It was founded by Nek Mohamed, who was born in Afghanistan. The museum is located in a century old warehouse in "Speicher-stadt".
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...The modern history of Afghanistan is full of sacrifices against the British imperialism. Almost for one century Afghan people were busy fighting with the British occupants. The first Anglo-Afghan war began in 1839 when the British invaded this country in order to put Afghanistan under its colony. In 1876, the British occupied the Afghan district of Quetta at the eastern part. One of the black spot in the history of Afghanistan is the Durand Agreement signed by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan in 1893. Under this agreement the Durand line separated southern parts of Afghanistan from the today's Pakistan.
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Afghan women's rights have been highly contested throughout history - linked to modernity and progress on the one hand and preservation of tradition on the other. Researcher Huma Ahmed-Ghosh aptly states, "Afghanistan may be the only country in the world where during the last century kings and politicians have been made and undone by struggles relating to women's status." Much more complex than existing formulations of pre- and post-Taliban, Afghan women's history and women's rights have been and continue to be highly politicized and central to Afghan conflicts.
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For the first time in Afghan history, Afghans are about to set spending priorities for their localities, rather than accepting the crumbs that a king, warlord, or Kabul-appointed governor condescends to allow them. This process of writing Provincial Development Plans, which Lt. Col. Phillips described to the council members, has been going on throughout Afghanistan this July and August, and it promises to correct some of the more egregious failures of American aid here. At the least, it will put to rest the frequent charges--some warranted, some not--that we are giving the Afghans what we think they need rather than what they think they need, and listening to bureaucrats in Kabul rather than the people who will actually use the roads, bridges, dams, and irrigation channels being built.
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A good chronology of Afghan history can be found at Afghanistan Online http://www.afghan-web.com/history/. Divided into four parts, it covers a time span from the prehistoric era up to the present, although it does not include the events of the past two months. The site ... contains the texts of the five constitutions in place from 1923 to 1990, and also features more in-depth articles on such historical topics as "Medieval Jewish community of Afghanistan" and "The Role of Afghanistan in the fall of the USSR."
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Afghanistan Unveiled