Central Africa: Did you mean...?

A map of modern Central America.

The search for the source of the Nile River was one of the last great geographical mysteries of 19th-century European exploration. Men like Livingstone, Burton, Speke, and Stanley...

Gaiseric (r. 428-478 CE, also known as Genseric and Geiseric) was the greatest king of the Vandals who remained undefeated from the time he took the throne until his death. He was probably born in 389 CE near Lake Balaton (present-day...

The ancient and medieval Mediterranean might have been a bustling stage of ever-changing empires but, across the inhospitable barrier of the Sahara Desert, West Africans were equally busy building up and toppling down...

The Wolof (aka Jolof or Djolof) Empire was a state on the coast of West Africa, located between the Senegal and Gambia rivers, which thrived from the mid-14th to mid-16th century CE. The empire prospered on trade thanks to the two...

The Kingdom of Benin, located in the southern forests of West Africa (modern Nigeria) and formed by the Edo people, flourished from the 13th to 19th century CE. The capital, also called Benin, was the hub of a trade network exclusively...

These cuneifrom inscriptions describe some of the military campaigns of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III (reigned 744-727 BCE) and were probably first placed in a doorway of the Central Palace built by...

The Vandals were a Germanic tribe who are first mentioned in Roman history in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder (77 CE). The Roman historian Tacitus also mentions them in his Germania (c. 98 CE), though he also refers to them as...

Map showing central Europe in the 5th century CE.

Marine mosaic floor decorating the apodyterium (changing room) of the women's baths in Herculaneum. The Central Baths at Herculaneum were built around the beginning of the 1st century CE and were divided...