Armenians first settled in the region around Mount Ararat in the 6th century BC, driving out the Assyrians there who were part of the Assyrian Urartu kingdom that was in decline after it was invaded by the Persians in 612 BC.
From 585 BC, the Armenian Orontid Dynasty became the ruler of Armenia which lasted until 190 BC. During these 400 hundred years, the Armenians were subjected periodically to Persian pressure, which rose or ebbed depending on the fortune of Persia itself. In this period, Persia was first defeated by Alexander the Great in 333 BC, and later ruled and controlled by various Hellenistic kingdoms which were established in parts of central Asia and Asia Minor after his death. Therefore, at times Armenia was a province (satrapy) of the Persian Empire and at times it was an independent kingdom.
In 190 BC, a Hellenistic Armenian state was founded called Artaxiad dynasty. For the next 150 years, this Armenian state expanded and ruled over parts of Syria, Persia, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Lebanon and Palestine. However, in 66 BC, the Armenians were defeated by the Romans in a war, but were able to retain its sovereignty until 1 AD when it came until Roman control, and in 64 Ad became part of the Roman Empire adopting a western political and philosophical outlook.
For the next few hundred years, Armenia became a point of conflict again between the Romans and the Persians, with wars being fought to gain control over its territory. Finally, in 387 AD, the Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine Romans and the Persians, with western Armenia becoming a province of the Byzantines, and eastern Armenia going to the Persians.
Meanwhile, as Christianity spread in Asia Minor and the Byzantine Empire, it gained acceptance in Armenia, and in 301 AD, Armenia because the first country to establish Christianity as the state religion. Since then the Armenian chruch became a defender of Armenian nationalism, culture and identity even though in the next 1600 years, Armenia once again fell under Byzantine, Persian, Islamic, Mongol, Seljuk Turk, Ottoman Turk and Russian domination. From 1100 to 1350 AD, the Armenians moved south to form the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, which had close ties with the European Crusader states, until it was conquered by the Muslims.
Towards the end of WW I, Armenian nationalists fought an unsuccessful war against the Ottoman army between 1918 and 1920. Meanwhile, the state of Democratic Republic of Armenia was declared in 1918. The war with Turkey ended in the defeat of Armenia and invasion by the Soviet Union in 1920. In the treaty between Turkey and the Soviet Union, parts of Armenia’s territory (Mount Ararat and Ani) were given to Turkey.
In 1922, Armenia was annexed by the Soviet Union and became one of its republics until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
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