Beginnings

• Baghdad became a city in 762, when caliph al-Mansur selected the village of the same name as the administrative center of his caliphate. In the next few hundred years, the city was ruined and rebuilt by several conquering groups, such as Buyids and Seljuqs.
  
  

Hulegu Rule

• The Sunni Caliphate of Baghdad ended in 1258, when the Mongol chief Hulegu conquered the city, killing hundreds of thousands of its people. The Mongol rule ended in 1339 and for the next 500 years the city was ruled either by the Persians or the Ottomans. During that time, Baghdad became an important cultural and educational center.
  
  

British Rule and Independence

• After a period of modernization sparked by increased trade, thanks to the arrival of steamship travel on the river Tigris, in 1917 British troops captured Baghdad from the Ottomans. Three years later the city became the capital of the new state of Iraq, ruled by Great Britain under a League of Nations mandate until Iraq got its independence in 1932.
  
  

Modern Baghdad

• Despite political turmoil during and thanks to the oil boom, Baghdad continued to develop and expand. A city that in 1932 had little more than 350,000 inhabitants is now home to nearly 6 million, according to a Demographia 2010 estimate.