Africa
President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologizes to African diplomat
In the conclusion to an extremely embarrassing situation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower offers his apologies to Ghanian Finance Minister, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah, who had been refused service at a restaurant in Dover, Delaware. It was one of the first of many such incidents in ...read more
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor found guilty of war crimes
On April 26, 2012, former Liberian president Charles Taylor is found guilty of abetting horrific war crimes, including rape and mutilation in Sierra Leone. His conviction was the first for war crimes by a former head of state in an international court since the Nuremberg trials ...read more
Huguenots
Huguenots were French Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who followed the teachings of theologian John Calvin. Persecuted by the French Catholic government during a violent period, Huguenots fled the country in the 17th century, creating Huguenot settlements all over ...read more
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal is a man-made waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea. It enables a more direct route for shipping between Europe and Asia, effectively allowing for passage from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean without having to ...read more
The Real History Behind the Black Panther
The film “Black Panther,” starring the late Chadwick Boseman, broke ticket-sale records in 2018. But the Black Panther character first appeared in comic book pages decades before the hit film. Marvel Comics' first Black superhero debuted in Marvel’s “Fantastic 4” comic in 1966, ...read more
The Rise and Fall of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s Longtime Dictator
Robert Mugabe, the recently deposed president of Zimbabwe, has long been known as the dictator who “ruined” his country. During his 37 years in power, Mugabe’s policies led to hyperinflation and crumbling infrastructure, while his desire to retain power resulted in illegitimate ...read more
Neanderthals
Neanderthals are an extinct species of hominids that were the closest relatives to modern human beings. They lived throughout Europe and parts of Asia from about 400,000 until about 40,000 years ago, and they were adept at hunting large, Ice Age animals. There’s some evidence ...read more
7 Influential African Empires
1. The Kingdom of Kush Though often overshadowed by its Egyptian neighbors to the north, the Kingdom of Kush stood as a regional power in Africa for over a thousand years. This ancient Nubian empire reached its peak in the second millennium B.C., when it ruled over a vast swath ...read more
When Stanley Met Livingstone
On March 21, 1871, Henry Morton Stanley set out from the African port of Bagamoyo on what he hoped would be a career-making adventure. The 30-year-old journalist had arrived on the “Dark Continent” at the behest of the New York Herald newspaper, yet he wasn’t chasing any ordinary ...read more
Who are the Mandinka?
The Mandinka (also known as the Mandingo and Malinke, among other names) are a West African people spread across parts of Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. With a global population of some 11 million, the Mandinka are the best-known ethnic group ...read more
Giant “Siberian Unicorn” and Humans May Have Roamed the World Together
Researchers from Russia’s Tomsk State University (TSU) recently analyzed the well-preserved fossilized skull of an Elasmotherium sibiricum, otherwise known as the “Siberian unicorn,” unearthed in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan. Though scientists previously believed the species ...read more
New DNA Techniques Help Scientists Find Origins of African Slaves
In 1985, geneticist Svante Pääbo announced he had sequenced DNA from an Egyptian mummy, making the first-ever such claim relating to genetic material of an ancient human. But after Pääbo realized his results were likely the result of contamination by modern DNA—possibly his ...read more
Evidence of Prehistoric Massacre Could Extend Warfare Timeline
In prehistoric times, the shoreline of Kenya’s Lake Turkana was a lush place with plentiful drinking water, ample fishing and a menagerie of giraffes, zebras and elephants. The marshlands bordered by forest made for an ideal camping ground for prehistoric hunter-gatherers—perhaps ...read more
Shaka Zulu assassinated
Shaka, founder of the Zulu Kingdom of southern Africa, is murdered by his two half-brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana, after Shaka’s mental illness threatened to destroy the Zulu tribe. When Shaka became chief of the Zulus in 1816, the tribe numbered fewer than 1,500 and was among ...read more
Formerly enslaved people depart on journey to Africa
The first organized immigration of freed enslaved people to Africa from the United States departs New York harbor on a journey to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The immigration was largely the work of the American Colonization Society, a U.S. organization founded in 1816 ...read more
Zulu king captured
King Cetshwayo, the last great ruler of Zululand, is captured by the British following his defeat in the British-Zulu War. He was subsequently sent into exile. Cetshwayo’s defiance of British rule in southern Africa led to Britain’s invasion of Zululand in 1879. In 1843, Britain ...read more
Playwright and activist hanged in Nigeria
Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian playwright and environmental activist, is hanged in Nigeria along with eight other activists from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop). Saro-Wiwa, an outspoken critic of Nigeria’s military regime, was charged by the government with ...read more
Jomo Kenyatta jailed for Mau Mau uprising in Kenya
Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenyan independence movement, is convicted by Kenya’s British rulers of leading the extremist Mau Mau in their violence against white settlers and the colonial government. An advocate of nonviolence and conservatism, he pleaded innocent in the highly ...read more
Idi Amin takes power in Uganda
One week after toppling the regime of Ugandan leader Milton Obote, Major General Idi Amin declares himself president of Uganda and chief of the armed forces. Amin, head of the Ugandan army and air force since 1966, seized power while Obote was out of the country. Ruling directly, ...read more
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin overthrown
On April 11, 1979, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin flees the Ugandan capital of Kampala as Tanzanian troops and forces of the Uganda National Liberation Front close in. Two days later, Kampala fell and a coalition government of former exiles took power. Amin, chief of the Ugandan army ...read more
French-Algerian truce
On March 18, 1962, France and the leaders of the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) sign a peace agreement to end the seven-year Algerian War, signaling the end of 130 years of colonial French rule in Algeria. In late October 1954, a faction of young Algerian Muslims established ...read more
Congress abolishes the African slave trade
The U.S. Congress passes an act to “prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States…from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.” The first shipload of African captives to the British colonies in North America arrived at ...read more
Idi Amin
In 1971, General Idi Amin overthrew the elected government of Milton Obote and declared himself president of Uganda, launching a ruthless eight-year regime in which an estimated 300,000 civilians were massacred. His expulsion of all Indian and Pakistani citizens in 1972—along ...read more
Journalist begins search for Dr. Livingstone
Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his famous search through Africa for the missing British explorer Dr. David Livingstone. In the late 19th century, Europeans and Americans were deeply fascinated by the continent of Africa. Few did more to increase Africa’s fame than ...read more