Ivan Economus, age 14, of Helena, Mont., for his question:
WHAT COUNTRY HAD THE FIRST ARMY?
An army is an organized group of soldiers trained to fight on land. An army may be used to resist enemy attacks against its own territory or invade enemy territory. The first army goes back to prehistoric times. Groups of tribesmen, using ambush and sudden attacks, formed raiding parties that attacked other tribes in search of food.
Prehistoric men soon invented weapons to replace sticks and stones. Wooden clubs, flint tipped spears and bows and arrows came up early, as did slings to hurl heavy stones.
As civilization grew in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Asia and in the Nile Valley of Africa, ancient armies started to develop, too. A standing army of spearmen and bowmen was organized by the Babylonians as early as 3200 B.C.
By about 2500 B.C., the Sumerians, who lived south of Babylonia, were the first to use chariots in war. Small wild asses, and later horses, drew these chariots into battle.
Ancient Greeks introduced the phalanx in about 550 B.C., which was probably the first important tactical or combat formation in history. Spearmen stood eight rows deep in a solid rectangle, serving as a defensive formation.
In the 300s B.C. Alexander the Great of Macedonia organized the first known military supply system and became a world conqueror.
The Roman armies conquered Carthage in 146 B.C. and built a great empire. They were also excellent military engineers. Julius Caesar's armies built roads, bridges and forts.
The Chinese invented gunpowder in the A.D. 500s although it was several hundred years before it became known in Europe. Gunpowder did not become an important weapon of war for the Chinese because they did not use it in artillery, except possibly in rockets.
After the western Roman Empire collapsed by A.D. 476, Europe had no large standing armies for several hundred years.
During the Middle Ages, landowners organized their own personal armies from among the men who worked on their land. These part time soldiers fought for limited periods of time in home defense during times of war.
During the 1300s, the Ottoman Turks became the first people since the Romans to build an army of full time professional troops.
Today a standing or regular army is usually made up of full time professional soldiers organized and trained in peacetime. It is different from a militia, or reserve army, which includes many ordinary citizens organized and trained during peacetime in their spare time.
Militiamen, or army reservists, serve full time only during periods of emergency or war.