British rock band Bring Me The Horizon performs at the Reading Music Festival, England, Friday, August 27, 2022. (Photo by Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP Photo)

An Afghani man sells bread on a roadside in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 23 April 2024. A recent World Bank report reveals a 26% decrease in Afghanistan's gross output over the past year, primarily attributed to a 1.3 billion USD income reduction for farmers due to the ban on drug cultivation. Although tax revenue saw a modest increase of 13% in 2023, exports experienced a 15% decline specifically to Pakistan. Afghan officials highlighted efforts to spur domestic production, improve trade, stabilize the national currency, and initiate key economic projects. (Photo by Qudratullah Razwan/EPA/EFE)

A pair of black-necked stilts fight over their marshland territory in Orlando, Florida in the last decade of July 2024. (Photo by Jake Landing/Solent News)

Dinosaur expert Jason Hyde, 5, gets to know Bruno the T Rex on August 29, 2024. As the summer holidays draw to a close, parents and children enjoy Dinosaur-themed fun in Darlington town centre, UK, including a T-Rex walk and dino trail. (Photo by James Glossop/ The Times & Sunday Times)

Replicas of Joseph Stalin uniforms are offered to tourists who can rent them and wear them for a picture outside Stalin's bunker in Samara, Russia, on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. Stalin's secret WWII bunker has become the unlikely meeting point for thousands of cheerful fans who have arrived to the city during the World Cup days. (Photo by Luis Andres Henao/AP Photo)

A Pomeranian dog sits in a rolling pet carrier in Hong Kong, China on September 4, 2019. (Photo by Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters)

About a dozen dogs traded in their leashes for life vests Saturday for the chance to ride the waves at Jupiter beach as part of a canine surfing competition to raise money for an animal rescue group. Photo: Musso paddles in with Jengo. (Photo by Taylor Jones/The Palm Beach Post)

The Kingdom of Pagan (also commonly known as the Pagan Dynasty and the Pagan Empire) was the first kingdom to unify the regions that would later constitute modern-day Burma (Myanmar). Pagan's 250-year rule over the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery laid the foundation for the ascent of Burmese language and culture, the spread of Burman ethnicity in Upper Burma, and the growth of Theravada Buddhism in Burma and in mainland Southeast Asia.