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This is an excellent question that people really need to know more about.When we solve a problem, after a while, we tend to forget what solved the problem and go back to what we used to do that caused the thing to go over the cliff in the first place.That was the 2008 mortgage and financial crisis, as it forgot the lessons of the Great Depression.History up to the Great DepressionIn the 1920’s, when the economy was booming and it seemed like the party would never stop, banks lent out a ton of money on credit, with the presumption that all that money would be paid back and that there was sufficient collateral to cover it.Except, there wasn’t.One of the biggest assets that people might own that a bank could recover is real property. As Will Rogers once noted: “Buy land. They ain’t makin’ any more of the stuff.” Real property was something that pretty much always appreciated in value.Prior to the early 1900’s, most people didn’t own their own homes. Most people rented. Many lived in tenements and apartments in cities, or lived as tenants on farms in rural areas. Land speculators often bought what was left of the government land grants as the frontier closed.But, in the 1920’s, that began to change as banks felt more confident in lending credit for new construction. There were significant speculation bubbles. People bought property and built homes on future credit that wasn’t based on anything but hope.And as the stock market ticked ever higher and higher, banks bet on it. With the deposit money of their customers.And then the Stock Market Crash of 1929 hit.Banks that were significantly overleveraged and undercapitalized were hit hard. Many just failed, and those who had their deposits at banks that became insolvent just lost everything. There was no deposit insurance. If your bank went under, you were screwed out of your entire savings.And if you lost your job, that meant you also lost any means of continuing to pay back that home loan.Additionally, there were suddenly vast quantities of new construction for sale… that nobody could afford any longer. That drove down property values everywhere.Suddenly, your property that was worth $10,000 last year might now only be worth $5,000. But you might still owe $8,000 - what we call “underwater.” If you default or declare bankruptcy, the bank loses. And you’re out on the street.And then, what could the bank do with the house? How could they sell it? Nobody was buying. So, the bank suddenly has a ton of illiquid assets.More foreclosures in a neighborhood continues to lower the property values further, and the destructive cycle just ends up repeating itself.The Hoover administration tried economic protectionism. At the administration’s pushing, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which imposed schedules of high tariffs on over twenty thousand types of imported goods, to protect American business, by golly.It backfired spectacularly and greatly exacerbated the worsening Depression.Weather conditions didn’t help. A severe drought ravaged the Midwest and Great Plains starting in 1930. Farmers had been using what in retrospect were poor farming practices, tearing down line fences and forest windbreaks and not planting cover crops for winters. The thin layer of good topsoil in the Great Plains turned to dust and became an ecological nightmare.Farms started going under as crops failed. The Smoot-Hawley tariffs only made things worse.Additionally, the money supply dried up. The banks that survived, like J.P. Morgan Chase, just turned off the credit spigot to stay afloat. They stopped lending. Why? Again: illiquid assets. The banks were holding on to all these properties and other assets that they couldn’t sell. And people didn’t trust the banks because so many had lost everything depositing their savings there. Because the banks couldn’t sell anything they had, and nobody would give them any cash, they didn’t have any money to give out.Part of the problem was the gold standard. Under the Federal Reserve Act, at least 40% of the money in circulation had to be backed by gold reserves held by the federal government. So, there was no modern tool of being able to print more money to help increase liquidity.On top of that, gold became more expensive. Mortgages often had clauses that allowed banks to demand repayment in gold because of the gold standard. By 1932, that resulted in a disparity in payment between the dollar and the value of gold that meant that if a debtor was forced to repay in gold, it could cost him as much as $1.69 for every dollar he owed. This led to more bankruptcies and foreclosures still.Because of the tariffs, the lack of money supply, the collapse of agriculture, and lack of consumer spending, rampant deflation initially set in. This made exported American goods increasingly more expensive for overseas importers, even where other nations had not instituted retaliatory tariffs of their own. Manufacturing began to collapse. The steel industry followed.And the Depression spiraled out of control.When Roosevelt took over from Hoover in 1932, the nation was becoming increasingly desperate.The New DealRoosevelt ran on a radical new idea that he called “The New Deal.” The premise was that the government would intervene in the economy and prop it up through deficit spending and government borrowing. The New Deal would create government programs to put people back to work and get people back to farming and building things, and that eventually, once people got back on their feet, the government could take those supports out.Various New Deal reforms were leveled at the financial sector to try to get the credit flowing again.One reform was put on the banks directly: the Glass-Steagall Act. One of the problems with the banking crisis was that banks could gamble with depositor’s money. The Glass-Steagall Act separated investment banks from commercial banks. Investment banks are gamblers. These deal with stock and bonds and venture capital and hedge funds and Wall Street. Commercial banks are the Savings and Loan where you put your nest egg. The Glass Steagall Act put a firewall between the two. The idea was that Wall Street could melt to the ground and Main Street wouldn’t go with it.Keep this in mind. It will be important later.Another was to protect depositors. Commercial banks would be required to pay into a new Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: the FDIC, which would make sure that depositors would get paid back if the bank collapsed. That encouraged people to trust banks again. People would deposit their money, and banks could use that money to start giving out loans again.A third was to help reduce the risk of default on certain types of loans through surety agreements. Sureties had been around forever: they’re a promise to pay a debt if the original debtor defaults.The Federal government aimed these programs at home loans in particular, to try to reduce the homelessness problem. And so, in 1938 with the National Housing Act, the government formed the Federal National Mortgage Association, or FNMA. FNMA, or “Fannie Mae,” would buy the mortgages from the banks, who would continue to “service” the mortgages. From the perspective of the consumer, it looked just like their ordinary transaction: get a loan from the bank, pay the bank. The bank kept some money for “service fees,” and the Feds took over the loan, and importantly: the risk of default. This created a secondary market for mortgages for the first time in history.But Fannie would only buy that mortgage if it met certain criteria, such as debt to income ratios, term of the loan, and more. If banks wanted to make other loans, that was fine, but Fannie wouldn’t buy them.And the program basically worked. Banks started lending again. Credit slowly started to thaw out. Banks started getting more liquidity in their balance sheets. People started being able to buy homes again.After World War II, the housing market took off again, fueled in part by the GI Bill and a push for suburbanization and the creation of easily duplicated, cheap ranch houses on a standardized template.But in the background still driving things along was always Fannie Mae and the prime 30 year fixed-rate mortgage, which had become as much a part of the standardized American experience as baseball. Housing prices rose steadily home ownership became a stable part of the American economy. Virtually every person in the country could see a viable path to owning their own home.By the 1960’s, FNMA owned more than 90% of the residential mortgages in the United States and individual home ownership had risen to the highest levels ever recorded. This led to the greatest expansion of the middle class in history.So, of course, like all wildly successful government programs, we had to fix it.PrivatizationIn 1954, FNMA was semi-privatized into a public-private hybrid where the government owned the preferred stock (with better voting rights within the corporation,) and the public held the common stock (which gave dividends, but inferior voting rights).And in 1968, Fannie Mae was privatized entirely, with a small slice of it (known as Ginnie Mae) carved off to maintain Federal Housing Authority loans, Veterans Administration loans, and Farmer’s Home Administration mortgage insurance. Because Fannie Mae had a near monopoly on the secondary mortgage market, the government created the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation to compete with it: Freddie Mac.By 1981, Fannie and Freddie were doing well as private companies, and Fannie came up with a great idea that had been done in limited settings: pass-through mortgage derivatives. They would bundle up various mortgages and sell them as a type of bond to investors. Investors loved the idea. The housing market had been extremely stable for nearly fifty years and offered a modest, but highly reliable return. And so the commercial home loan mortgage backed security was born.Keep this in mind. It will be important later.The Savings and Loan CrisisBy the early 1980’s, the economy had been stable for 30 years (more or less,) and thanks to the Glass-Steagall Act, commercial banks were doing okay even with the “stagflation” of the 1970’s. Home prices continued to rise about on par with wage growth.But one type of commercial banks, the Savings and Loan banks, wanted to do better than okay. S&L’s were the kind of bank in It’s a Wonderful Life. S&L’s were specifically singled out in federal legislation, like credit unions, for a single purpose: to promote and facilitate home ownership, small businesses, car loans, that sort of stuff.A business-friendly Congress agreed. They passed two laws in 1980 (signed by Jimmy Carter) and 1982 (Signed by Ronald Reagan) that allowed banks to offer a variety of new savings and lending options, including the Adjustable Rate Mortgage, and dramatically reduced the oversight of these banks.Adjustable rate mortgages work by locking in a fixed rate for a short term, and then after that initial term, the mortgage rate would re-adjust every additional term after that. If the prime interest rates set by the Federal Reserve stayed high, lenders would get hammered.But S&L’s had a fix in mind for consumers: just keep refinancing your home every time the first term is up. Home prices would just always continue to rise, right? They could collect closing costs every couple of years, and consumers remained essentially chained to them in debt with a steady stream of revenue that would always be secured if something happened. It was perfect.Keep these types of mortgages in mind. It will be important later.By the mid-1980’s, the lack of oversight allowed S&L’s to start making riskier and riskier decisions, offering certificates of deposit with wild interest rates, as much as eight to ten percent. They were exempted from FDIC oversight, while still keeping deposits federally insured (what could go wrong there, right?)And then the Federal Reserve, in an effort to reduce inflation, raised short-term interest rates, which sent ripple effects through these S&L’s, who had been made very vulnerable to that particular issue through these bad decisions, lack of appropriate capitalization, and overpromising depositors.By 1992, almost a third of savings and loan banks nationwide had collapsed.This crisis led to the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), which put back some of the same oversights that had been taken off because people wanted to make more money, particularly better capitalization rules (which were tied to risk,) increased deposit insurance premiums and brought back some FDIC oversight, and reduced these banks’ portfolio caps in non-residential mortgages.Keep this in mind. It will be important later.The Repeal of Glass-SteagallRemember how back in the 30’s, in the midst of the Great Depression, we instituted that firewall between investment banks and commercial banks?Again, it worked so well, we had to fix it.Starting in the 1960’s, the federal regulators began to start to allow commercial banks to get back into the securities game again. The list was limited, and was supposed to stay in relatively safe stuff.This accelerated under Reagan’s policy of deregulation, and continued under Clinton in the 1990’s. By 1999, Bill Clinton declared that Glass-Steagall no longer served any meaningful purpose, and most people had declared it dead well before that. The law was officially repealed in 1999 with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.Immediately, investment and commercial banks start merging again. Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, all of these investment banks start buying out the commercial banks or merging.And there’s a culture difference between those.Remember: investment banks are gamblers. These are the Wall Street guys. They’re risk takers. They’re hedge fund managers. These are your Gordon Gekko type guys. Commercial banks are Main Street guys. They’re generally conservative, George Bailey types.And the investment banker culture won out over the course of the 2000’s. George Bailey starts snorting coke and putting on Ray Bans with a blazer and jeans.Sub-Prime, NINJA, and ARM LoansIn the early 1990’s, affordable housing started to become a greater and greater issue. George H.W. Bush signed legislation in late 1992 amending Fannie and Freddie’s charters to push them to make loans to people with lesser means than the traditional prime criteria. The Clinton Administration continued pushing Fannie and Freddie to accept more low and moderate income earners.That meant taking on riskier loans.The Clinton administration put rules in place in 2000 to curb predatory lending practices, and rules that disallowed those risky loans from counting towards their low-income targets.The Bush administration took those predatory lending rules off in 2004, and allowed those risky, “sub-prime” mortgages to count towards the low-income targets set by Housing and Urban Development.Remember those ARM mortgages?Heh, heh. This is getting long, and you probably glossed over that, didn’t you? I told you it was going to be important.Banks started making riskier and riskier loans, often those ARM loans. They could meet their HUD targets and make tons of money. And again: the gravy train was endless, right? The housing market had not lost value for over fifty years, even in the recessions of the 70’s and 80’s.So, they put more people in houses. Bigger houses. More expensive houses. The economy was doing good. New construction was hot. Contractors couldn’t build the McMansions fast enough.Banks started a race to the bottom with these sub-prime loans, getting all the way to NINJA loans: No Income, No Job, No Assets required. You’re a homeless person selling Etsy products out of your car? You’re already prequalified on a quarter-million subdivision home with a quarter-acre. Congratulations.As long as you could afford the payments, you were in.De-regulationIn the early 2000’s, the Bush administration wanted to keep the economy going. There was a low-level recession from March 2001 to November 2001 following the dot-com crash. The administration lifted a number of securities and financial sector oversight rules. One of those rules was about capitalization.Remember that? I told you that was going to be important.Capitalization requirements are how much reserve cash a bank needs to keep on hand to prevent collapse if something happens, against their liability sheets. Remember: that’s how banks got in trouble before the Great Depression and again right before the Savings and Loan Crisis. They took on too many liabilities and didn’t have enough capital to actually pay it all out.The Bush administration relaxed the rules on required capitalization and what assets could count as capital. Some of those assets turned out not to be very useful.Collateralized Debt Obligations and the Mortgage Backed SecurityRemember, back in 1981, when Fannie starts issuing those mortgage backed securities, re-selling them as bonds with a low, but reliable interest rate?That gets more complicated after 2004–2005 with the increased use of a financial tool called the collateralized debt obligation. Basically, a CDO is just a promise to pay investors in a sequence based on the cash flow from something the CDO invests in. The rate of return was tied to how risky the CDO was.In the 70’s and 80’s, CDOs were pretty safe, mundane things. They were basically like index funds; they invested in a lot of stuff and did okay. But by the mid-2000’s, CDOs were becoming riskier and riskier, while providing more and more reward. CDOs bought up mortgages like crazy, because they had increasingly higher interest rates as the subprime mortgages started taking off.But people were nervous about investing solely in these high-risk CDOs. And so, investment banks that bought up those mortgage-backed securities started to bundle together some high-risk mortgages with some regular, low-risk mortgages and promising that they were safer.And then some investment banks started to lie about how many of those high-risk mortgages were in them. Why? Again: the housing market was super-stable and always going up. Those loans only looked high-risk on paper, right? I mean, those debtors could always just keep refinancing every couple of years.So banks bought up those assets and added them to their capitalization sheets.You see it, right? You see the problem here? Not yet?Keep this in mind. It will be important in just a minute.The CollapseI remember being in college in the early 2000’s, and asking the loan officer at our local bank how some of the people I knew were making maybe $10–12 an hour could afford these massive homes and boats and jet skis and campers. My parents were teachers; they weren’t doing bad, but we couldn’t afford all that and I knew they were doing better than some of those people. The loan officer shook his head and said, “They can’t. They can afford the payments.”Some of those people didn’t have furniture in their homes. If they had a party, they rented furniture for a couple days. I’m serious. That was a thing. Many of them were in deep, crippling credit card debt, paying off the balances of one with another, and justifying it with the idea that it would be okay when the next raise kicked in.It was a classic speculation bubble.Then in late 2006–2007, that bubble burst.The housing market became oversupplied. People stopped buying the new construction and the existing homes as much. And home values started to drop.And suddenly, because home values plateaued and then dropped, so too did the little bit of equity that many of these purchasers, in debt up to their eyeballs, had in their homes. Without more equity, they couldn’t refinance. And because they could’t refinance, those ARM loans or other loans kicked in, and the interest rates on them skyrocketed.And suddenly, they couldn’t make the payments anymore.And then they went into default on their mortgages.Followed by foreclosure.And often bankruptcy.It turned into a vicious cycle. Once one or two neighbors end up losing their homes in foreclosure, it affects the property values of everyone else around those properties like a contagion. Healthier borrowers started to become impacted as property values declined and now they couldn’t refinance.In 2007, lenders foreclosed on 79% more homes than in 2006: 1.3 million foreclosures. In 2008, this skyrocketed another 81% still: 2.3 million. By August of 2008, nearly one in ten mortgages nationally were in default and foreclosure proceedings. By one year later, this had risen to over 14% nationally.The RecessionRemember, the financial sector had heavily invested in all of those housing market securities. They thought they were safe. They thought that the housing market would never go anywhere but up. They built their whole foundation on it.And they had relied on those securities to meet their capitalization requirements.Securities that suddenly turned out to be nearly worthless.Huge banks ran out of liquid cash almost immediately. This is what happened to Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and more. They were suddenly holding on to billions upon billions of dollars of assets that were either worthless, or completely frozen. They couldn’t sell the bits of stuff that was even worth anything.And because their assets weren’t liquid, they didn’t have money to lend anymore.And that lack of credit is what grinds the economy to a halt.That impacted every sector of business in the United States. Which impacted every sector of business in the world. And that meant that businesses started having to lay people off because they couldn’t get the money to keep paying them.And then because those people lost their jobs, they started to default on their mortgages. Which rippled through the CDO market again.This was why it was so critical for the Federal Reserve to buy those toxic assets and provide the banks with liquid cash in their place. They had to get the credit flowing again to re-start the gears of the economy. Without it, we almost certainly would have seen a full repeat of the Great Depression.And that brings us to today.That’s the abbreviated, oversimplified explanation. It’s more complicated than this, and there’s other factors that contributed, but that’s kind of the main story in basic terms. That’s roughly how 10 million homes went into foreclosure.And we still haven’t fully recovered. Over twice as many people rent as opposed to own. Less than one-third of people who have lost a home in foreclosure in the last decade will be able to repurchase another again. Roughly 2/3ds of those people who lost their homes have so damaged their credit that they will never qualify again. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions more, were so emotionally traumatized by the experience that they simply refuse to go through it again.And that number of renters to owners is substantially higher for my generation, the Millenials, who have never seen any substantial portion of the post-2008 recovery. We still haven’t made up the wages that would allow us to save enough to purchase, even setting aside the massive increase in student debt we carry.75% of my generation wants to own a home. Less than 35% do.And, in case reading this wasn’t chilling enough for you, the present administration has been lifting some of the exact rules and regulations that were put into place after the 2008 collapse that were lifted in 2004 that were put in place after the 1980’s collapse after those were lifted. Because it worked so well the first two times.Mostly Standard Addendum and Disclaimer: read this before you comment.I welcome rational, reasoned debate on the merits with reliable, credible sources.But coming on here and calling me names, pissing and moaning about how biased I am, et cetera and BNBR violation and so forth, will result in a swift one-way frogmarch out the airlock. Doing the same to others will result in the same treatment.Essentially, act like an adult and don’t be a dick about it.Look, this is pretty oversimplified. Ph.D. theses have been written about this. I’m trying to make it at least remotely accessible to those with the patience to read it. Don’t be pedantic about it, please?Getting cute with me about my commenting rules and how my answer doesn’t follow my rules and blah, blah, whine, blah is getting old. Stay on topic or you’ll get to watch the debate from the outside.Same with whining about these rules and something something free speech and censorship.If you want to argue and you’re not sure how to not be a dick about it, just post a picture of a cute baby animal instead, all right? Your displeasure and disagreement will be duly noted. Pinkie swear.If you have to consider whether or not you’re over the line, the answer is most likely yes. I’ll just delete your comment and probably block you, and frankly, I won’t lose a minute of sleep over it.Debate responsibly.

Thats a great question, with many, many answers. For the sake of brevity, I'm going to focus on a rather interesting case where the team started with great ideas, got some decent traction, and in the end ultimately succumbed to poor leadership (of all types), destroying their own startup. Case in point:ArsDigitaFounded sometime in 93', ArsDigita initially focused on web development, and later went on to create the successful ArsDigita Community System.The ArsDigita Community System, also known as ACS for short, was a popular toolkit that enabled clients such as AOL, HP, and Oracle to develop database-backed community websites and such.Remember, this is prior to the Internet bubble, and prior to true Web 2.0. These guys were considered the top of their very specific niche, providing a product that enabled top tier companies an easier way to create the sites their customers wanted.Obviously, the idea was spot-on, and the fit was great. Any time your that spot-on, the money tends to flow like a faucet. This case was no different.To quote Phillip Greenspun, one of the original founders and then-CEO:By 1999, customers were knocking like crazy.By 2000, a company that was initially started with a $10,000 investment was generating over $20 million in annual revenues, and amazingly enough during the Internet bubble, a steady profit.The company was doing so well, in fact, the founders decided to do some creative recruiting. If an employee brought in 5 friends to work for the company, they in turn got a Honda S2000. If an employee brought in 10 friends, said employee in turn got a Ferrari F355. (Originally it was given to employees paid-in-full, and later on quietly converted to company paid leases).They actually kept a trophy F355 parked outside their Cambridge office:Neat incentive, right? And of course, they didn't stop there. They ran all of the typical dot-com incentives, including the fully stocked kitchens, a Cape Cod coding beach house and access to a tuition free, one-year post-baccalaureate computer science program known as ArsDigita University.Unsurprisingly, with all of these perks, and the press that accompanied it, a lot of very high end talent came flocking. And they continued to grow. Fast. Really, really fast. And amazingly, they stayed profitable.Soon enough, the venture capitalists were knocking on their door. In March 2000, ArsDigita closed a VC round with Greylock and General Atlantic to the tune of $38 million.And thats when everything started to spiral out of control.As you can probably imagine, each side has differing opinions on who did what (or perhaps the lack of doing anything, for that matter), and accusations of misconduct and such continued to fly for years.The general story, however, appears to be this:Although the VC's (Greylock and General Atlantic) had only acquired roughly 30% of outstanding shares, they required a secondary agreement giving them 2 seats on the board (out of 7), and several fairly standard protections (veto power over major transactions, last-in / first-out financing, etc.).Per the agreement, the board was to be composed like such:1 Greylock person1 General Atlantic person3 senior officers from ArsDigita, including the CEO2 outsidersDoesn't sound too damaging right? In its own right, those covenants are not. But put the right circumstances together, and you don't get the expected result.Shortly after this agreement, ArsDigitia recruited an outsider (on the recommendation of a Greylock employee), Allen Shaheen, to take over as CEO. At the same time, they had not yet filled the 2 outsider seats on the board.To Phillips knowledge, he expected this:So the plan was that I'd keep responsibility for engineering, education, and evangelism; Allen would build the rest of the business.That setup lasted for a few weeks. A minor internal divide started. Then bigger problems started to emerge. The tech-bubble started to top out, and many of their customers suddenly began to go out of business.A lot of us, young and old, have seen this Nasdaq chart:No one but the parties involved truly know what caused an internal divide, but my guess is everyone started to panic. Some insiders claim that Phillip never truly gave up his reigns. Others have reported newly hired executives failed to put in the hours.Regardless, with their customer base going out of business, the Nasdaq tanking, and most importantly, employees not even knowing who's in charge, that internal divide erupted into an all out coup d'etat.Phillip soon realized what too many entrepreneurs find out after the fact...Within a few weeks of Allen's arrival, I found people telling me that I had no power at all, pointing out that Allen and the two VCs could vote as a bloc on the Board. We had not yet filled the two outsider positions so this point was tough to argue. 3 out of 5 = absolute power. Period.That simple mistake, the failure to fill those 2 outside seats before instating a new CEO, especially one who appears to be more loyal to an outside VC than the company he represents, can end up creating a disaster.And it did.Phillip found himself effectively out of power. In hopes of regaining some control, he attempted to get the two outsider seats filled. All efforts ended in complete failure. Due to the corporate documents, this 3 strong bloc had the ability to block the seats from being filled. Eventually Phillip and his fellow board partner just stopped trying.To quote Phillip, the company stumbled on for another 11 months under this new reality:For roughly one year Peter Bloom (General Atlantic), Chip Hazard (Greylock), and Allen Shaheen (CEO) exercised absolute power over ArsDigita Corporation. During this year theyspent $20 million to get back to the same revenue that I had when I was CEOdeclined Microsoft's offer (summer 2000) to be the first enterprise software company with a .NET product (a Microsoft employee came back from a follow-up meeting with Allen and said "He reminds me of a lot of CEOs of companies that we've worked with... that have gone bankrupt.")deprecated the old feature-complete product (ACS 3.4) before finishing the new product (ACS 4.x); note that this is a well-known way to kill a company among people with software products experience; Informix self-destructed because people couldn't figure out whether to run the old proven version 7 or the new fancy version 9 so they converted to Oracle instead)created a vastly higher cost structure; I had 80 people mostly on base salaries under $100,000 and was bringing in revenue at the rate of $20 million annually. The ArsDigita of Greylock, General Atlantic, and Allen had nearly 200 with lots of new executive positions at $200,000 or over, programmers at base salaries of $125,000, etc. Contributing to the high cost structure was the new culture of working 9-5 Monday through Friday. Allen, Greylock, and General Atlantic wouldn't be in the building on weekends and neither would the employees bother to come in.surrendered market leadership and thought leadershipDuring this period, the "board" had enough of Phillip and simply stopped meeting altogether. They moved the meetings to small, offsite "Investor meetings," and simply conducted business without him and the original founders.After a few months of this, the "board" (and I use this term loosely) finally made their move. They leaked press releases claiming that Phillip had resigned and moved on, restructured upper management again, and began forcing out long-term talent that was perceived as loyal to Phillip.On March 28, 2001, The General Atlantic board representative, Peter Bloom, sent an email to Phillip that said, in part:This is your decision to make, but it is a course of action open to you to avoid the public humiliation and significant professional impairment of being removed as Chairman from a board of directors. ...Shortly after, his keycard was turned off and all contact was severed.Hangon - this story isn't quite done yet.Although the venture capitalists believed they had successfully completed the Coup, and seized full control of the company, they may have cut too many corners in the process. They had control of the company, yes, but they underestimated how much damage they had done in the process. Even worse, they left an opening by not tying up the legal ends.That opening allowed Phillip to hit back. On April 6th, his lawyers filed new shareholder consent documents, effectively altering the corporate by-laws. They in turn demoted Allen from CEO to President, and elevated several loyal employees to Executive Vice President positions, in effect allowing them to finally serve on the board. Phillip was posed to finally regain control.Phillip states:The effect of this shareholder consent was to trim the venture capitalists back to what they'd bargained for, i.e., two board seats plus veto power over major transactions.And finally, after all of this, the suits come marching in!As you probably expected, the real fun had just begun. The VC's, after putting in a rather large amount of capital and a lot of time, wanted to maintain control. Phillip, in turn, wanted his company back.The case from the start was pretty much bunk, and all of the VC's corner cutting had come back to bite them. Bad. Several of their tactics stretched the realms of corporate charters (and in turn its corporate protection). To make matters worse (for the VC's anyway), they proceeded to figuratively jump into several 55 - gallon drums full of manure.Read for yourself (excerpted from Phillip's writings):A conversation with ArsDigita Corporation's corporate counsel, Jay Hachigian from Gunderson, shed some light on the matter. It seems that Allen dipped his hands into the company checking account and scooped out a quarter million dollars to pay the venture capitalists' attorneys in this matter. Jay cautioned the group that this was perhaps not the best idea but they apparently went ahead anyway. Thus we now have the spectacle of a group of shareholders trying to increase the level of accountability of a management team who has, in their view, been doing a bad job. That group of shareholders is being sued by the managers who want to avoid accountability. The lawsuit is being funded with the defendants' own money!At the end of the day, it settled out of court. ArsDigita agreed to pay Phillip $7.65 million in exchange for his 11 million shares of ArsDigita common stock. Phillip also agreed not to speak publicly about the company until 2003.ConclusionAfter the settlement, and Phillips final departure from ArsDigita, the company continued work on its a new, proprietary enterprise collaboration product, which never launched.In Feburary, 2002, RedHat bought the remaining company assets for an unnamed sum, and hired about a 1/4 of the remaining staff. The rest of the employees were summarily terminated.And although Phillip received his settlement, his fellow cofounders, including Jin Choi (I'm unsure if any other employee were given vested interests or not, buy-ins or what or not), received nothing. The VC's, it turns out, appear to have gotten pennies on the dollars for their $38 million dollar investment.To quote Jeff Miller (whose article is linked below):As for the VCs, I doubt they got back more than a fraction of their original investment. A Red Hat spokesperson described its purchase as "a simple asset sale. We bought the assets and hired some of the employees."In the end, you can build a great company off great ideas. But when leadership, the very people who should be the underlying soul of a company, create internal feuds that turn into full on Coup D'etats, you get this. And in the end, everyone loses. No one wins.In closing, Jeff Miller (whose article is linked below), says it best:In truth, the company began to die the day a headstrong entrepreneur took money from investors under terms that left no one clearly in charge.Additional Notes:This writing expresses a combination of my own personal opinion, original participants opinions and facts that could be gathered on the subject. Any viewpoints expressed are not designed to infringe or harm any of the parties involved, and are solely intended to provide the most accurate information available at the time it was written. Please feel to reach out if you can provide additional information or clarification on the above article at [email protected] expectation of several comments on whether ArsDigital could still be considered a true "Startup," I tend to side with Adam D'Augelli and the historical pattern of pre-bubble companies calling themselves startups until acquisition or IPO.Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/when-is-a-startup-no-longer-a-startup-2011-2#ixzz3LuU9nSYISpecial thanks to Phillip Greenspun, one of the original founders and longtime CEO of ArsDigital, who wrote a detailed account of his experience.You can read it here: ArsDigita: From Start-Up to Bust-Upand some more opinons here: Equity Notes: ArsDigita VC funds began a battle that everyone lost - Boston Business Journal

Note: This is a work of love. Errors and omissions are regretted. Please feel free to suggest edits and changes. I will be adding more details and completing this answer over a week’s time. Thank you for your patience.The Chronological Modern History of the Indian Subcontinent.From 1901 to 1985. I will try and add more in future.This answer primarily tells the story of 3 nations. Between the text, there is a subtext about the reasons of why we are, the way we all are.This is the story of the Indian Subcontinent. The Indian Subcontinent - home to almost every 3rd human being - regular people, who share geography, history, passions, music, food, jokes, tragedies and perhaps the future as well.Once you’re done, you’d perhaps agree that our history is simply a series of KLPDs - one after the other. We’ve often got heroes we never deserved and leaders who make us all agree, that we deserve better.So, without further ado, as they say in Afghanistan:- Noshe Jaan!(Substandard Translation: Enjoy buddy!)1901 AD:A New Era, A New EmperorIndia is under the British Rule. King Edward VII takes over as the Emperor from Queen Victoria in the first month of the year[1][1][1][1] - he would assume the title of the Emperor of India, two years later, and die thanks to his habit of chain smoking, in 1910.We still have a large statue of his in Cubbon Park, Bengaluru[2][2][2][2].His coronation forces the babus of the Calcutta Mint out of their inertia to struck thousands of new coins, bearing his face - preparing for his eventual inaugural Delhi Durbar in 1903.A Case of Two LawyersWorld War I is 14 years away. Mohammed Ali Jinnah is a 25 year old hot shot lawyer in Bombay, who’s got appointed as the Presidency Magistrate of Bombay last year. Most of his colleagues agree that he is the best in the business.His 7 years senior, Mohandas K. Gandhi has tried his luck in the Bombay and Kathiawad Courts but failed - He currently is a 32-years-old, slightly popular young Indian NRI lawyer, settled in South Africa, married for the last 18 years.Mohandas has earned a bigger name for himself as a social worker though, being a member of the Indian Ambulance Corps during the famous Boer War, for which he even wins the Queen’s South Africa campaign medal[3][3][3][3].The Grand old Man of India.The most powerful and popular politician of India at this point - 71 year old ‘Grand old man of India’ - Dadabhai Naoroji. The father of the “Drain Theory” - Mahatma Gandhi called him the father of the Nation[4][4][4][4].He was the first Asian to become a British member of Parliament, while in London, he had hired a young and promising Mohammad Ali Jinnah as his personal secretary[5][5][5][5] .1902 AD:The Birth of UPThis is a special year for many who belong to the state of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. This is the year, when the province of United Province of Agra and Oudh is established on the orders of the then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon[6][6][6][6].This long name was shortened to simply United Province in the year 1935, most Indians shortened it further and still call it - ‘YouPee’.Swami Vivekananda’s DeathThis is also the year, when Swami Vivekananda, the founder of the Ramkrishna mission, and perhaps the first Pan-Indian youth icon of the modern Indian history, died at the young age of 39.He was best known for his badass speech in Chicago and many co-credit him as one of the reasons, smoking isn’t considered such a bad thing in Bengal.1903 AD:Another Delhi Durbar and the father of Khushwant Singh.This is the year when King Edward VII is formally declared, the Emperor of India. 2 full weeks of festivities are organised in Delhi, paid for by the People of India. Lord and Lady Curzon arrive to the party on an elephant.King Edward was a little busy, so he sent his brother instead - Prince Arthur, 1st Duke of Connaught - yah you guessed it right, the hottest piece of commercial real estate in Delhi is named after him as the Connaught Place - blame this on Sardar Bahadur Sir Sobha Singh - Who built CP from the money he earned as one of the chief civil contractors of Lutyens Delhi and the modern day Rashtrapati Bhavan - He was also the father of the famous magazine editor - Khushwant Singh.Birth of a HeroThis is also the year when my personal hero Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay is born. Why is she special - well, ask the people of Faridabad, or the people associated with National School of Drama or the Sangeet Natak Akademi :)1905 AD:Divide and Rule Vol. 1This is the year when the Partition of Bengal takes place on Religious grounds. After the revolt of 1856, this was one of the first major moves made by the British under their Divide and Rule Policy in India .Although this decision is taken back 6 years later owing to large scale protests, the damage done by this decision to the social fabric of India was immense and one of the prime stimulus for the eventual partition in the year 1947.This was followed by the institution of the Separate Electorate system for the Hindus and the Muslims in 1909 which polarised the Indian Society further.1906 ADThe Muslim League.Shortly after the partition of Bengal, this is the year when the All India Muslim League is founded in Dhaka, by the likes of Nawab Viqar ul Malik, Nawab Samiullah of Dhaka, and a few others who claimed inspiration from Sir Syed Ahmed Khan Bahadur, a former judge in the East India Company and a well known muslim social reformer, who went on to establish the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh - known today as the Aligarh Muslim University.The Clerics and Scholars of the Deoband Seminary condemned Sir Syed for his reformist ideas and excommunicated him from the religion of Islam .Note: All India Muslim League was disbanded on 15th August 1947.1909 ADDivide and Rule Vol. 2This is the year of the famous Morley Minto Reforms in India, also known as the Indian Councils Act 1909.This is basically an act of the British Parliament, which provides for greater participation of the Indians in the governance of India.Why are they so infamous? - Well after the partition of Bengal, experts see this as the second move by the British in their game of Divide and Rule. Under these reforms, the British provided for 25% reservation in the legislative seats for the Muslims of India - seats were only Muslims were allowed to stand for elections and only Muslims could vote.Needless to say that the Muslim population of India was much below 25% and such a move helped sow seeds of distrust within the Hindus and the Muslims of India - tearing them further apart.1913 AD:The Ghadar PartyThis is the year when the Indian freedom struggle went truly international when NRIs in USA and Canada came together to form the Ghadar Party[7][7][7][7] .Initially, the party comprised primarily of the Punjabi Sikh community in North America. Sooner, members from other Indian communities joined in as well.Sohan Singh Bhakna, a former laborer in a timber mill, became the founder president of the Gadar Party. Some of the founder members included Kartar Singh Sarabha, V. G. Pingle, and Maulavi Barkatullah.These men went on to hatch a plan to initiate a mutiny in the British Indian Army in the year 1915 - which came to be known as the Ghadar Mutiny. More about this later.The First NobelApart from the birth of the Gadar Party, many historians note this as the year when Allama Iqbal stopped writing poems for India and changed his priorities - the reason, his contemporary, Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in literature[8][8][8][8] .1914 AD:The Start of the WarThis year marks the official start of the First World War. Many in India join the British War efforts wholeheartedly, believing that their support to the British will result in the Indian Home Rule.This is also the year of the so called - Hindu German Conspiracy, which in part is the reason for the awesome Aurobindo Ashram today in Puducherry.1915 AD:3 Important things happened this year.Mahatma Gandhi finally returned back to India from South Africa.The First Provisional government of India is established in Kabul lead by Raja Mahendra Pratap as the President and Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah as the Prime Minister.An international plan is initiated to start a Pan India Mutiny among the ranks of the British Indian Army, fighting along side the British in the First World War. The plan is hatched between the members of the Ghadar Party in North America and the Berlin Committee. This plan was eventually foiled by the British.1917 AD:The First Taste of BloodAfter receiving a hero’s welcome in Bombay, instead of joining a political movement, Mahatma Gandhi decides to take a tour of India. During one of his speeches, he meets a young leader from a small village in Bihar, who manages to convince him to visit Champaran.This is the year when Mahatma Gandhi takes on the British might for the first time on Indian Soil - in favor of the Indigo Cultivators of Champaran.Birth of Indira GandhiThis is also the year when Priyadarshini Indira Gandhi is born on 19th of November in Anand Bhawan, Allahabad.1919 AD:The First World War officially ends this year. Many Indian Soldiers return back to their towns and villages with stories from around the world. This is a new awakening - a new dawn.Jallianwala Bagh and Sardar Udham SinghOn the festival of Baisakhi, 13th April 1919, Colonel Reginald Dyer orders firing on a crowd of unarmed pilgrims in an enclosed Park leading to the death of at least 379 men, women and children.This is the point in Indian History, where the Britishers lose their moral right and supremacy to rule over India. The public mood changes to a complete consensus against them - the reverse counting of their days in India starts.Among the survivors is a 20 year old boy - Sardar Udham Singh, who goes on to take a revenge for this massacre, a full 21 years later in Caxton Hall London, when he shoots to kill Michael O'Dwyer, the British Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab at the time of the massacre, who had approved Dyer's action and was believed to have been the main planner.1920 AD:Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is born.This is the year when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is born on17 March 1920, in Tungipara Village of Gopalganj district in modern day Bangladesh.His father Sheikh Lutfur Rahman is a court clerk and he is the third child in a family of four daughters and two sons.The Khilafat MovementThis is also the year when Mohammad Ali Jauhar and his younger brother Shaukat Ali, together known as the Ali brothers, with the political support of Mahatma Gandhi launch the Khilafat Movement in India - a nation wide agitation to pressure the British to reinstate the Ottoman Caliph to his throne in modern day Turkey.Gandhi’s idea here was to use the Khilafat movement to gather steam for his Swaraj agitation/ Non Cooperation Movement. He also hoped that this protest joint venture will help strengthen the Hindu-Muslim unity in India.The Mappilas of Kerala prove him wrong the very next year.Gulistan-e-Jauhar, a famous locality in Karachi, and the Mohammed Ali Park in Kolkata are named after the elder of the Ali Brothers. He reportedly threatened the British during the round table conference, stating that he would not return to India alive till India is set free - he died in London in 1931 and was buried in Jerusalem.The younger of the Ali Brothers, Shoukat Ali, died in Delhi in 1938 and was buried near the Jama Masjid.1921 AD:The Moplah RevoltThis is the year of the Malabar Rebellion.It started as a part of the Khilafat movement, demanding the reinstatement of the Ottoman Caliphate - turned into an armed rebellion against the British - mutated further to become an open season full fledged large scale massacre of the local non muslim population.This lead to over 100,000 locals being forced to leave their homes. 10,000 rioters were killed and around 50,000 were arrested (many were sent to the Penal Colony in the Andamans).Most leaders of this Massacre were sentenced to death.This was unprecedented in many levels. Dr. B R Ambedkar responded to this as follows:The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of " congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion". Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Muslim unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Muslim unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Moplas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Moplas as the "brave God-fearing Moplas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious.1922 AD:Chauri ChauraThe Non Cooperation movement lead by Mahatma Gandhi is in full swing. A few protestors in a place called Chauri Chaura clash with the police and end up burning down a police station killing at least 22 policemen.The British catch this opening in the so far Non-Violent struggle lead by Mahatma Gandhi like Jonty Rhodes and claim a moral upperhand. Gandhi ji decides to call off the Non Cooperation movement as a result of this incident.The incumbent Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, was a 5 time Member of Parliament from this area.1925 AD:Indira is celebrating the first death anniversary of her young brother. This is also the year when perhaps the most popular train robbery of the Indian history takes place.Kakori Train RobberyThe robbery is planned by RamPrasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan who were members of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. They needed funds to buy weapons - they decide to rob a train carrying British moolah.All people involved in the robbery were either killed or arrested and tried. 4 Indians tried in the courts were eventually given the death sentence.The Birth of RSSThis year on 27th September 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was founded by K. B. Hedgewar.1928 AD:Simon Go backThe Year when the 7 member committee of British lawmakers, under the chairmanship of Sir John Allsebrook Simon, arrive in India - they become popular as the Simon Commission.The idea is to report on the progress of the Constitutional Reforms in India.Indians are outraged over the fact that a committee set up to decide the future of India does not have even a single Indian representative. Indian National Congress decides to boycott the commission. They are joined in this boycott by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who is now representing the Muslim League.Lala Lajpat Rai’s deathDuring an ensuing protest against the commission - On 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai - a senior leader of the Indian Freedom Struggle is critically injured - he dies a fortnight later.This is the point in history that instigates Sardar Bhagat Singh.Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is bornThis is also the year when Lakhi bai who had become Khursheed Begum after getting married to Sir Nawaz Bhutto, the super rich landlord and the Prime Minister of Junagarh, gives birth to a baby boy in Larkana Sindh. The parents decide to name him after the famous sword of the prophet - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.1929 AD:Lata and KishoreThis is special because this is the year when Mother Teresa Arrives in Kolkata for the first time. This is also the year when perhaps the greatest male and female playback singers of the world, Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar are born. Kishore Da is 25 days older to Lata Didi.For those who had turned deafOn April 8, 1929, two young men entered the Delhi Central Legislative Assembly building. Went on to sit in the visitor’s gallery. And while the assembly proceedings were on - threw a smoke bomb towards the well of the house and courted arrest while shouting slogans and distributing pamphlets. Those two young men were Batukeshwar Dutt and Bhagat Singh[9][9][9][9].Complete IndependenceBy the end of the year, the Indian National Congress in its annual convention, which this time is held in Lahore - announced the demand for Purna Swaraj of Complete Independence.This was a major shift from the earlier demands of Home Rule and Self Rule by the Indian National Congress. Many experts point to the Jallianwala Massacre for this shift in the policy and the public mood.This in a way was diverging from the Nehru Report[10][10][10][10] as well, which was compiled under the leadership of Motilal Nehru - which had demanded for a Self Rule for the Indians, within the dominion status of the the British.1930 AD:Ahh the year when India celebrated her first Independence day. please don’t be alarmed, the Indian National Congress declared 26th january 1930 as an Independence day - the day of Poorna Swaraj or Complete Independence.It is the importance of this anniversary, that the founding fathers of modern India decided to remark this day as our Republic day.The Dandi MarchIt was a piece of strategic brilliance for Gandhi to choose Salt as a symbol of the Civil Disobedience Movement. While the draconian salt taxes affected every Indian household, the British did not take the threat seriously and allowed the initial proceedings to go on - helping transform it into a nationwide movement.Gandhi in his usual gangsta style, informs the Governor General of India, that he’s going to start a new Civil Disobedience Movement in India.True to his words, on 12th March, he starts walking from his Ashram in Sabarmati towards the sea. Over time, a huge hoard of people join him.On the 5th of April, he breaks a British law which prohibits Indians from making their own salt. He is duly arrested and sent to jail - but is starts a wave of acts of Civil Disobedience across the country - the most notable of which takes place in Vedaranyam, lead by Rajaji and Sardar Vedarathinam Pillai.First Indian Woman ArrestedRemember Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay I spoke about earlier, during the nationwide wave of the Civil Disobedience movement - Kamaladevi was arrested for trying to sell salt to the traders at the Indian Stock Exchange.She thus becomes the first Indian woman jailed by the British [11][11][11][11] .Round Table ConferenceMeanwhile, the first so called Round Table Conference is convened from 12 November 1930 to 19 January 1931, in London. It is supposed to be a series of discussions and debates among the prominent representatives of the British and the Indian society to help define, among other things, the future of India.The Indian National Congress does not participate in this conference as most of its senior leadership is in Jail.The British soon realise that the conference will be as meaningless as the Simon Commission, if the representatives of the Congress Party and Gandhi in particular do not become a party to it.Thus, all ordinances and charges against the Congress Part were removed and all political prisoners arrested during the Civil Disobedience Movement were freed - paving way for Gandhi to take part in the second Round Table Conference, which took place in London next year[12][12][12][12] .Chittagong Armoury RaidWhile the back room dealing were taking place in the corridors of power, in Bengal, one teacher was planning to take over the British Power in his own way.Master Da Surya Sen along with his colleagues, planned and executed a daring raid on the armoury of the police in Chittagong. This development electrified the local population against the British.Almost all members involved in this daring raid were either captured or killed as shown in the picture below.Massacre of PakhtoonsDuring a Satyagraha march in Peshawar organised by the Khudai Khidmatgars, under the leadership of Ghaffar Khan, the British Troops opened fire at the unarmed and peaceful protesters in the famous Kissa Kahani Bazaar area of Peshawar in modern day Pakistan.At least 200 people were killed and many were Pashtuns were injured. Despite every possible provocation, not a single Pashtun turned violent and took to a weapon - choosing to face the British bullets instead.When one British Indian Army Soldier Chandra Singh Garhwali and troops of the renowned Royal Garhwal Rifles, refused to fire at the crowds. The entire platoon was arrested and many received heavy penalties, including life imprisonment.1931 AD:This is the year when New Delhi was formally inaugurated as the grand Capital of India (announcements were made in 1911).A few heros lostThis is the year when Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev are hanged in a hurry by the British in Lahore, hoping to quell the spreading fire of disgust against the British, thanks to the widely reported public trial.This is also the year when Chandrashekhar Azad[13][13][13][13] gets into a gun fight with the British in the then named Alfred Park in Allahabad. Surrounded and wounded, with the last bullet in his Colt Pistol, Azad holding true to his pledge to never be captured alive, shoots himself dead and becomes immortal.1932 AD:When India Beat United States 24–1The Field Hockey Team representing India wins a Gold in the Los Angeles Olympics. The Captain of the team - Major Dhyan Chand. In the semi-finals, India beat host United States 24–1 to reach the finals where they defeat Japan 11–1. Those were the days :)This is also the year when the 3rd Civil Disobedience movement starts in India under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi is soon arrested by the British and put in the Yerwada Jail in Pune.The Poona PactThis is the moment in Indian history when two great Indian heroes cross swords. This was a compromise which still divides opinions and experts.British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald had decided to give separate electorates to the so called depressed classes of India just like the separate electorates awarded to the Muslims of India.Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar was in favor of this move. He saw in this an opportunity for the Dalits (members of the so called lower castes) to exert political autonomy and thus, parity. Mahatma Gandhi who was lodged in the Yerwada Jail in Poona (now Pune) was against this, as he saw in this, another cunning move of the British to further divide the Hindus of India.Mahatma Gandhi went on a hunger strike against this - finally, the well wishers and friends of Babasaheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar succeeded in convincing him to have a dialogue with Gandhi. After a long and tenuous discussion between them, a compromise was agreed - according to which, the members of the so called depressed classes got a quota in seat allocation within the number of seats allotted to the Hindus instead of separate electorates.This compromise is known in history, as the Poona Pact.1934 AD:Eye injury nearly makes Sheikh Mujeeb Blind1935 AD:The government of India Act is Passed1936 AD:Indira’s mother dies.1937 AD:Provincial Elections take place in India.1938 AD:Indira Gandhi takes the primary membership of the Indian National Congress.1939 AD:Subhash Chandra Bose Starts the All India Forward Block1940 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Joined the All India Muslim Student's Federation - starting his Political lifeLahore Resolution is passed.1942 AD:Indira Married with Feroze Gandhi - was jailed for the first time spent 8 months in jail.Sheikh Mujeeb (Officially) marries cousin Begum FazilatunnesaCripps Mission1943 AD:Indira is imprisoned for 8 months from September 1942 to May 1943 for 243 days.Sheikh Joined the Bengal Muslim League - worked towards the creation of Pakistan - a homeland for the Indian Muslims.Zulfikar Gets married to Shireen Amir BegumProvincial Government of Free India is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.1944 AD:Rajiv Gandhi's born.Subhash Chandra Bose calls Gandhi the Father of the Nation.1946 AD:Sanjay Gandhi's born.Sheikh Mujeeb Became secretary general of the Islamia College Student's Union - he was known to be very close to the Muslim League leader - Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy3rd July - Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy assumed the post of the Prime Minister of Bengal.Royal Navy Mutiny - Bombay is taken over for a few days by the Mutineers ||||| Direct Action Day and Calcutta Killings take place..1947 AD:India and Pakistan gain independence on 15th AugustJawaharlal Nehru is elected by the Indian National Congress as the first prime minister of independent India.Zulfikar Enrols himself in University of Southern California - studies political science.1948 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb cofounds East Pakistan Muslim Chhatro (Students) LeagueFirst war with Pakistan over Kashmir starts - Mahatma Gandhi dies - Princely States integrate to IndiaMahatma Gandhi DiesGovernor-General of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah declares in a civic reception that "Urdu, and only Urdu" will remain as the state languageJinnah Dies of TBI will be completing the following sections in the coming days.Thank you for your patience.1949 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Expelled from Dhaka University ||||| Awami league is formed by those who come out of the Muslim League in protest of Urdu being imposed as the national language over the whole of Pakistan without consultations - they are lead by Shaheed Suhrawardy - Sheikh Mujeeb is elected as the Joint Secretary of the East Bengal unit of Awami League.Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Transfers his college to University of California, Berkeley - graduates from this college.Liaqat Ali Khan - the no. 2 of Jinnah and the drafter of modern day Preamble of Pakistan's constitution is assassinated. ||||||||||||||||||| - On 26 January 1949 the government of Pakistan announced that Urdu would be the only official state language of Pakistan - despite the fact that the Bengalis were in Majority in Pakistan - this lead to riots - which lead to death of students - which even today is commemorated around the world as the UNESCO Mother Tongue Day.Formation of the Awami Muslim League1950 AD:Zulfikar Goes to London to study Law at Christ Church.India Becomes a Republic.1951 AD:Gets married for the second time - the wife's name is Begum Nusrat IspahaniFirst General Election - Congress Party wins the mandate under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru.1952 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Hunger strikes from jail during Bhasha AndolonBengali Language Movement reaches its peak as the police open fire on protesting students.1953 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Becomes the General Secretary of the Awami league Party.Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Attains his LLB degreeBenazir Bhutto is born on 21st June in Karachi.The Awami Muslim League becomes the Awami League.1954 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Jailed for 7 months after Jukta Front win election ||||| Elected to East Bengal Legislative assembly ticket - Serving briefly as the minister for agriculture during A. K. Fazlul Huq's government.The United Front wins most of the seats in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly. |||| Governor General Ghulam Muhammad deposes United Front government and establishes Governor-rule.1955 AD:Indira Became a member of the Congress Working CommitteeSheikh Mujeeb Elected to the second constituent assembly pf Pakistan - served between 1955 and 1958.Asif Ali Zardari is born in Karachi, Sindh on 26th JulyNationalisation of the Indian Insurance Sector - formation of LICThe United Front government is reinstated, Awami League does not participate. ||||| East Bengal renamed East Pakistan1956 AD:Indira Became Chairperson of the All India Youth CongressHuseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy was appointed as the Prime Minister of Pakistan on 12th September.Dr B R Ambedkar converts to buddhism along with 600,000 folloers on 14th October.First Constitution of Pakistan is ratified - Pakistan now is an Islamic Republic |||||||| One unit is promulgated in pakistan - the Western Provinces are administratively united under West Pakistan and East Bengal becomes East Pakistan.On 29th Feb - Bengali becomes one of the state languages of Pakistan.1957 AD:Zulfikar is handpicked by the military dictator - Becomes the youngest member of a delegation representing Pakistan in the United Nations.1958 AD:Indira Became a member of the Central Parliamentary board of the Congress PartyMujib was arrested for organizing resistance and imprisoned till 1961Zulfikar Appointed as a cabinet minister in the Ministry of Water and Power in 1958 by Field Marshal Ayub KhanPresident Iskandar Mirza carries out the first official Coup of Pakistan - suspending the constitution. - Shortly, Mirza himself is deposed by General Ayub Khan - starting a new tradition of Pakistani military.Constitution abrogated and martial law declared in Pakistan.1959 AD:Indira Elected Congress president in Bangalore.Sheikh Mujeeb is in Jail1960 AD:Feroze Gandhi died.Sheikh Mujeeb is in JailGiven the charge of the Ministry of Commerce, Communications and Industry1961 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb is still in Jail1962 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Starts the Swadhin Bengal Biplobi Parishad.India China War takes place - India earns a humiliating defeat - Daman Diu and Goa are taken over from the Portuguese.Second constitution of Pakistan is implemented - promulgating a presidential form of government with Ayub as the President.1963 AD:Mujib becomes the head of Awami League after the death of the founder - Suhrawardy. - He renames the party from Awami Muslim League to Awami League.Zulfikar Appointed Foreign Minister of Pakistan - keeps this portfolio until his death.Suhrawardy dies.Inauguration of the Shaheed Minar language martyr memorial.1964 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Supports the Candidature of Fatima Jinnah in the Presidential Elections against Ayub Khan - Ms Jinnah wins a majority in East Pakistani provinces but looses the race due to apparent and reported rigging of the elections in West Pakistan. ||||||||| Arrested 2 weeks before the election - charged with sedition and put behind bars for 1 year.Jawaharlal Nehru dies after 17 years as prime minister. His only child, Indira Gandhi, joins cabinet.1965 AD:India and Pakistan fight another war - the peace agreement is mediated by former USSR in Tashkent.Zulfikar is Critical of the Tashkent agreement - critical of Ayub Khan - despite the fact that many claim him to be the architect of Operation Gibraltar which failed and lead to loss of Lahore and Sialkot to India.6th to 23 september - Second war with Pakistan takes place - East Pakistan is left almost unguarded - leading to the seeds of local discontent which leads to seperation in 1971.Fatima Jinnah decides to fight the presidential elections against dictator Ayub Khan - the dictator calls the mother of the nation an Indian Agent and wins the election.Discontent of the Bengali population of East Pakistan grows - especially after the 1965 war where East Bengal is left undefended and the Pakistan Army concentrates its force to defend the areas of West Pakistan - Despite forming a majority of the population, the Bengalis were poorly represented in Pakistan's civil services, police and military1966 AD:Indira Gandhi Became Prime Minister - Congress Oldtimers considered her to be Easily managable - Gungi Gudiya |||||Mujib proclaimed a 6-point plan titled Our Charter of Survival at a national conference of opposition political parties at Lahore - in which he demanded self-government and considerable political, economic and defence autonomy for East Pakistan in a Pakistani federation with a weak central government.The 6 Point movement of East Pakistan started - leading to voilence and counter violence in Dhaka and many other cities and towns of East Pakistan.1967 AD:Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founds the Pakistan People’s party.1968 AD:Green Revolution started in India.The Agartala Conspiracy Case was filed - implicating Sheikh Mujeeb and others for conspiring with India against Pakistan.1969 AD:Indira Split the Indian National Congress |||| Gave the popular slogan - Wo Kehte hain Indira hatao - Main Kehti hoon gareebi hatao.Tofail Ahmed gives honorary title of "Bangabandhu" ||||| 5 December 1969 - Declares that East Pakistan hence forth will be known as BangladeshAyub Khan resigns when he hears his own children say go Ayub go while playing in the garden - realising how unpopular he's become - he gives way for Yahya Khan.Agartala Conspiracy Case charges were dropped on Shekh Mujib and he received a Hero's welcome in Dhaka on his arrival after the acquittal ||||| The 1969 Uprising of East Pakistan took place during this time.1970 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Gives the 7th March speech, which changed the destiny and the will of the people of East Pakistan ||||| ArrestedRefused to accept an Awami League government and demanded that Sheikh Mujib form a coalition with the PPPFirst and relatively free and fair elections are held in Pakistan for the first time - Awami League of East Pakistan wins a Majority - is not allowed to form the government - leader Shikh Mujeeb is arrested under the Agartala Conspiracy Case.The 7th March speech of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ||||| Bhola Cyclone of 1970 arroves in November - the government of Pakistan mismanages the relif work fanning the Anti-Pakistan sentiments among the locals of East Pakistan. |||| The Pakistani general elections take place shortly - where Awami League of Sheikh Mujeeb wins by a landslide.1971 AD:Sheikh Mujeeb Addresses over a million Bengali crowd with historic "Ebarer Sangram" speech in Ramna Racecourse, Dhaka ||||| Arrested at the start of Muktijuddho and jailed in West Pakistan for nine-and-half monthsZulfikar Ali Bhutto The defeat resulted in the stepping down of President Yahya Khan and Bhutto became the President and the first civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator of Pakistan on December 20, 1971. - President of PakistanThird war with Pakistan - Pakistan is broken into two and Bangladesh is born on 16th December - India signs a 20 year treaty of friendship with Soviet Union.Yahya Khan declared martial law, banned the Awami League and ordered the army to arrest Mujib and other Bengali leaders and activists ||||| The army launched Operation Searchlight to curb the political and civil unrest, fighting the nationalist militias that were believed to have received training in India. Speaking on radio even as the army began its crackdown, Mujib asked his fellows to create resistance against Pakistani Army of occupation by a telegraph at midnight on 26 March 1971 ||||||||||||||| Pakistan preemptively strikes Airbases in India officially starting the 1971 war on 3rd December 1971 - The War ends on 16th December 1971 following the surrender of over 90,000 Pakistani troops in Dhaka - following which Bangladesh becomes independent.7 March 1971 that Mujib called for independence and asked the people to launch a major campaign of civil disobedience and organized armed resistance at a mass gathering of people held at the Race Course Ground in Dhaka ||||| Bangladesh gains independence on 16th December 1971. ||||| Sheikh Mujeeb is arrested and secretively taken to West Pakistan. |||||| Soon most of the senior Awami League leaders go under ground - Many leave the country - a new government in Exile if formed in Kolkata under the leadership of Tajuddin Ahmad. ||||| Major Ziaur Rahman broadcasts the declaration of independence on behalf of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman over the radio.Thank you for reading. Cheers and peace.Footnotes[1] Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra - Wikipedia[1] Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra - Wikipedia[1] Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra - Wikipedia[1] Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra - Wikipedia[2] Statue of Edward VII, Bangalore - Wikipedia[2] Statue of Edward VII, Bangalore - Wikipedia[2] Statue of Edward VII, Bangalore - Wikipedia[2] Statue of Edward VII, Bangalore - Wikipedia[3] Mahatma Gandhi's role in 1899 Anglo Boer War.... Very Few people know this.[3] Mahatma Gandhi's role in 1899 Anglo Boer War.... Very Few people know this.[3] Mahatma Gandhi's role in 1899 Anglo Boer War.... Very Few people know this.[3] Mahatma Gandhi's role in 1899 Anglo Boer War.... 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