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such as the Harappan. The Indus Valley Civilization ended abruptly about 1500 BC. During the 2nd millennium BC, Aryan-speaking peoples migrated into the region.
Buddhist writings of the 6th and 5th centuries BC mention the state of Gandhara in the Indus River valley. In 327 BC Alexander the Great entered Gandhara seeking to conquer the extremities of the Achaemenian Empire of Persia. Pakistan was subsequently part of the Mauryan empire during the 3rd century and part of the 2nd century BC and later, in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, part of the Kushan (Kusana) kingdom.
The Guptas ruled over northern India, including the Indus River valley, during a period in which Hindu culture crysta llized (320–540). The first Muslim conquests occurred in Balochistan during the 8th century, and Muslims were active in the region from that time. In the 13th century Muslim power was consolidated into a sultanate centred on Delhi that continued to rule most of the subcontinent until the early 16th century.
The Mughal dynasty controlled the subcontinent between 1526 and 1761. The British East India Company ousted other colonial powers and then subdued the Mughal state in 1757. For a century the East India Company controlled most of the subcontinent, but in 1858 the British government assumed responsibility for the region following the 1857 mutiny of the Indian recruits in the Bengal army. During the period of British colonial rule, what is now (Muslim) Pakistan was administratively part of (largely Hindu) India.
Early expressions of Indian nationalism crystallized in the Hindu-dominated Indian National Congress (1885) and in the All-India Muslim League (1906). In the decades following 1857 the Muslims sought to cooperate with the British, but, after World War I and the partition of the Ottoman Empire, they began to oppose British rule. The Muslim nationalist leader in this period was Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948).
By 1940 the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, endorsed the concept of the partition of British India into separate Hindu and Muslim nations (i.e., India and Pakistan). The new state of Pakistan (a geographically discontinuous nation composed of East Pakistan and West Pakistan, separated from each other by Indian territory) came into existence as a dominion within the Commonwealth in August 1947, with Jinnah as governor-general. The comparatively backward areas of Sindh, Balochistan, and the North-West Frontier came to Pakistan intact; the Punjab and Bengal were divided between Pakistan and India, while Kashmir remained disputed territory. Tension with India over Kashmir gradually increased, resulting in full-scale war in 1965.
In East Pakistan demands grew for Bengali autonomy, and civil war between East and West Pakistan erupted in 1971 . Aided by an invasion of the Indian army, East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh in 1972. West Pakistan retained the name Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto led Pakistan from 1971 until he was overthrown by General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq in a military coup in 1977. After Zia's death in 1988, Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, became prime minister after winning the parliamentary elections held that year. She was ousted, however, in 1990, and her party suffered defeat against a winning conservative coalition in that year.
