Old City of Sana’a, the largest city in Yemen. Old City was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1986. *Photo from Wikipedia
May 22 is Unity Day, celebrates the unification of North and South Yemen into the Republic of Yemen in 1990.
Yemen was the home of the Sabaeans (biblical Sheba), a trading state that flourished for over a thousand years and also included parts of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 275 AD, the region came under the rule of the later Jewish-influenced Himyarite Kingdom.
Christianity arrived in the fourth century, whereas Judaism and local paganism were already established. Islam spread quickly in the seventh century and Yemenite troops were crucial in the expansion of the early Islamic conquests. Several dynasties emerged from the ninth to 16th centuries, the Rasulid dynasty being the strongest and most prosperous.
The country was divided between the Ottoman and British empires in the early twentieth century. The Zaydi Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established after World War I in North Yemen before the creation of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962. South Yemen remained a British protectorate known as the Aden Protectorate until 1967 when it became an independent state and later, a Marxist state.
The two Yemeni states united to form the modern republic of Yemen in 1990.
Yemen, officially known as the Republic of Yemen, is an Arab country in Western Asia, occupying South Arabia, the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula.
*Reference: Wikipedia
