One of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements of the world and with a name unchanged for at least four millennia, Adana was a market town at the Cilicia plain and one of the gateways from Europe to the Middle East. The city turned into a powerhouse of Cilicia with the Turkic takeover in 1359. It remained as the capital of the Ramadanid Emirate until 1608, and then the regional center for the Ottoman Empire, Turkey and shortly for the French Cilicia. The city boomed with the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, and emerged as a hub for international cotton trade. Traditionally a town populated by Armenians and Turks; influx of Assyrians, Greeks, Circassians, Jews and Alawites during this period made the city one of the most diverse cities of the Empire. Economic, social and cultural growth was halted by the Adana massacre, the Armenian Genocide, and the 1921 Cilicia evacuation, all of which devastated the city in the early 20th century. After the eviction of Christian community, most of the city's private properties, value-wise, were confiscated in 1923 and were granted to the Muslim Turks who recently had migrated into the city. After a standstill period, city's economy again boomed in the 1950s with the construction of the Seyhan Dam, and the growth continued until the 1980s.