Roman Africa: Did you mean...?

Mutapa (aka Matapa, Mwenemutapa, and Monomotapa) was a southern African kingdom located in the north of modern Zimbabwe along the Zambezi River which flourished between the mid-15th and mid-17th century CE. Although sometimes described as...

The Portuguese colonization of the Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) Islands began from 1462. Initially envisaged as a base to give mariners direct access to West African trade, the Central Atlantic islands soon became a major hub of the Atlantic slave...

A map indicating the major ancient and medieval states in sub-Saharan Africa. Areas and dates relate to a state at its peak. In addition, shaded areas are approximate indicators only. For the majority of the states, their precise borders...

Sabratha was an ancient port city on the coast of North Africa (in modern-day Libya). The site was originally inhabited by the indigenous Berber Zwagha tribe in the 8th century BCE (according to the 11th-century CE historian al-Bakari) who...

The Neolithic Revolution began between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago at several widely dispersed locations across the world, when our ancestors first began planting and raising crops. Agricultural communities sprang up almost simultaneously...

Operation Compass (9 Dec 1940 to 7 Feb 1941) was an Allied offensive in North Africa, which pushed Italian forces out of Egypt and then Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya). The Allied Western Desert Force, led by Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor...

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an eyewitness account of ancient travel to Africa and India via the Red Sea written by an unknown Greek-speaking Egyptian author in the 1st century CE. In this detailed account, the conditions of the...

Sundiata Keita (aka Sunjaata or Sundjata, r. 1230-1255 CE) was the founder of the Mali Empire (1240-1645 CE) in West Africa. A prince of the Malinke tribe, Sundiata would not only overthrow the rule of the kingdom of Sosso (c. 1180-1235 CE...

The Desert Rats was the nickname of the 7th Armoured Division of the British Eighth Army, which first fought in North Africa during the Second World War (1939-45). Fighting in the Western Desert Campaigns and the North Africa Campaign, the...

Hunter-gatherer societies are – true to their astoundingly descriptive name – cultures in which human beings obtain their food by hunting, fishing, scavenging, and gathering wild plants and other edibles. Although there are still groups of...