African History
The Nubian Queen Who Fought Back Caesar's Army
From 25 to 21 B.C. Amanirenas, a queen or Kandake of the Kingdom of Kush, managed to do what many male leaders in her time could not: push back a Roman invasion. Under Queen Amanirenas’ command, some 30,000 soldiers of the ancient Kingdom of Kush (located in modern-day Sudan) ...read more
Female Warriors Who Led African Empires and Armies
Long before—and during— the European colonization of Africa, ancient kingdoms and empires thrived for centuries on the continent. Some were headed by women, including female warriors who led armies against invading European powers to defend their people from conquest and ...read more
How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Created the African Diaspora
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was the capture, forcible transport and sale of native Africans to Europeans for lifelong bondage in the Americas. Lasting from the 16th to 19th centuries, it is responsible, more than any other project or phenomenon in the history of the modern ...read more
How Nelson Mandela Used Rugby as a Symbol of South African Unity
On June 24, 1995 at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium, South Africa won the Rugby World Cup 15-12 over its arch rival New Zealand. The match stands as a hugely symbolic moment in South African history. It marked the nation’s first major sporting event since the end of its ...read more
The Harsh Reality of Life Under Apartheid in South Africa
From 1948 through the 1990s, a single word dominated life in South Africa. Apartheid—Afrikaans for “apartness”—kept the country’s majority Black population under the thumb of a small white minority. It would take decades of struggle to stop the policy, which affected every facet ...read more
How an African Prince Who Was Kidnapped Into Slavery Outsmarted His Captors
After a shackled journey across the Atlantic, Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori was desperate to make the man about to purchase him, Thomas Foster, understand his terrible mistake: he wasn’t supposed to be enslaved, the 26-year-old was the heir to one of Africa’s most influential ...read more
Will the British Museum Ever Return These Stolen Artifacts?
What happens when a large portion of your country’s archaeological treasures are “owned” by another country that stole them? That’s the position non-western nations around the world find themselves in, with most of their cultural heritage residing in European and U.S. museums—but ...read more
This 14th-Century African Emperor Remains the Richest Person in History
In the vast fictional universe of Marvel Comics, T’Challa, better known as Black Panther, is not only king of Wakanda, he’s also the richest superhero of them all. And although today’s fight for the title of wealthiest person alive involves a tug-of-war between billionaire CEOs, ...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
What Part of Africa Did Most Enslaved People Come From?
Though exact totals will never be known, the transatlantic slave trade is believed to have forcibly displaced some 12.5 million Africans between the 17th and 19th centuries; some 10.6 million survived the infamous Middle Passage across the Atlantic. Though descendants of these ...read more
Rwandan Genocide
During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of ...read more