Short answers, pulled from the story.
Human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago. A 2011 study found that the first modern humans to spread east across Asia left Africa about 75,000 years ago across the Bab-el-Mandeb connecting the Horn of Africa and Arabia.
The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family began at the town of Diriyah with the accession as emir of Muhammad bin Saud on the 22nd of February 1727. In 1744 he joined forces with the religious leader Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, founder of the Wahhabi movement.
In 1938, vast reserves of oil were discovered in the Al-Ahsa region along the coast of the Persian Gulf. Full-scale development of the oil fields began in 1941 under the US-controlled Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company).
In June 2018, the Saudi government issued a law allowing women to drive. However, an investigation by The Guardian newspaper in 2025 found that care homes continued to be effectively jails for women whose families wished to institutionalize them.
According to the 2024 V-Dem Democracy Indices, Saudi Arabia is the least democratic country in the Middle East and the most closed autocratic country in Asia. The Economist ranked the Saudi government 150th out of 167 in its 2022 Democracy Index.