History of terrorism

Abstract

We just passed half of 2016 and already major terror attacks have unfolded across the globe. Making sense of all this bloodshed is very hard when facing so much death and destruction. Some of the massacres that marked this year occurred in Orlando, Baghdad, Istanbul, Brussels, Nice, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. Thus 'terrorism' is a term that is very often heard of in the news because of incidents that involved tens if not hundreds of victims, or because governments decided to implement some form of counter-strategy that aims at mitigating this phenomenon. However, few ever notice that the history of terrorism stretches into the ancient world even though the general public perceives that is a very topical and contemporary issue. This short article will look at key instances in history where terrorism left an imprint and analyse the strategies, tactics and mind-sets that evolved through space and time.