Aleppo, known in Arabic as Halab, is the second-largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate. Halab was founded in 5000 BC and became an important city much earlier than Damascus, and it was an Amorite city until 1525 BC, when it was conquered by the Mitanni Hurrians. In the 14th century BC, the Hittites conquered Halab and ruled it until the Bronze Age collapse of the 13th century BC. Aleppo came to be ruled by the Arameans in around 1000 BC, and it was later ruled by the Assyrian Empire from 911 to 605 BC, the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 605 to 546 BC, the Persian Achaemenid Empire from 546 to 332 BC, and the Greeks from 333 BC. From 301 to 286 BC, Alexander the Great's general Seleucus established a Hellenic settlement in the city, calling it Beroea after the Macedonian city of the same name. Beroea enjoyed a measure of local autonomy, and it was led by a local civic assembly (the boule) of free Greeks. In 88 BC, Tigranes the Great of Armenia occupied Beroea, but it was handed over to the Roman general Pompey in 64 BC following the Third Mithridatic War. The Romans did not try to impose their administrative organization on the Greek elite or the Aramaic-speaking populace, and it grew to be the second largest city in Syria after Antioch. Beroea became a Christian bishopric during the 2nd century AD, and it was pillaged and burned by the Sassanids in 540 AD. In 637, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah's Rashidun Arab army conquered the city, and it became an independent emirate in 944 AD under Sayf al-Dawla. In 962, the Byzantines sacked the city, and the emirate was vassalized by Byzantium until 1017, when Aleppo fell to the Fatimid Caliphate. In 1124-1125, the Crusaders failed to take the city, but it was ravaged by an 1138 earthquake which killed 230,000 people. In 1128, Aleppo became the capital of the Turkic Zengids, and it came under Ayyubid control in 1183. On 24 January 1260, Hulegu Khan's Mongols captured the city and massacred its Muslim population and most of its Jews, while the Christians - perceived as allies by the Mongols - were spared. A Mongol garrison was then installed in the city, but it was recovered by the Muslims within a month of the Battle of Ain Jalut later that year. In 1271 and 1280, the Mongols briefly retook the city before retreating both times; on the later occasion, the Mongols pillaged the markets, burned the mosques, and forced most of Aleppo's inhabitants to flee to Damascus. In 1400, Timur captured the city and massacred its inhabitants, building a pyramid of 20,000 skulls outside the city. In 1516, Aleppo became a part of the Ottoman Empire, and it had 50,000 inhabitants. Aleppo became a major trade center, and the Republic of Venice established a consulate there in 1548, followed by France in 1562, England in 1583, and the United Provinces in 1613. The 18th century saw the silk industry shift to Safavid Persia, causing European merchants to abandon the city, which fell into economic decline; it was also plagued by Bedouin raiding, and half of its population died in a 1798 plague. By the late 19th century, Damascus had surpassed Aleppo in importance. By 1901, Aleppo had 110,000 residents, and it became part of Syria following the end of World War I. It was isolated with the Turkish annexation of Iskenderun in 1939, and it became a major rival of Damascus post-independence. While Aleppo was pro-Iraqi and the founding location of the People's Party of Syria, Damascus was pro-Egyptian and the founding location of the National Party of Syria. Aleppo's middle-class was staunchly Nasserist, resisting the rise of Damascene Ba'athism in the country. In July 2012, during the Syrian Civil War, the fighting spread to Aleppo, and the Battle of Aleppo saw the city fall from being Syria's largest city to being its second-largest after Damascus; it was not until 2016 that the Syrian Arab Army recaptured the city from the Syrian Opposition, allowing for 500,000 refugees to return to the wartorn, bombed-out city (31,000 Aleppans had died in the conflict by then). By 2018, Aleppo had a population of 1,850,000 people. Around 80% were Sunni Muslims (10% of the population being Sunni Kurds) and 12% were Christians (30% of whom were Armenians), while Aleppo's Jewish community - having largely emigrated following Israeli independence in 1948 - fully evacuated the city by October 2016.
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