Questions tagged [africa]
Africa is the continent on which the human species probably originated. It fostered some of the earliest known civilizations, and contains a vast array of cultures to this day.
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What is the origin path of the people who entered North America through the Bering Straight, tracing it back to out of Africa? [closed]
Some background context in the images here.
Basically, from the Wikipedia-research I have done over the past little while, the Native Americans arrived from Siberia, where the are fossils from 40kya. ...
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What relationship did the former colonies of the German Empire come to have with East Germany after it was created?
West Germany apparently paid the pensions of the African troops Vorbeck had meant to give them, which made me wonder what East Germany ended up doing with the former colonies of the German Empire? ...
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Why did Mswati III become Crown Prince after his father's death?
I was reading the Wikipedia article for Mswati III:
Mswati was introduced as crown prince in September 1983 and was crowned king on 25 April 1986, aged 18 years and 6 days, thus making him one of the ...
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Were "African levies" paid during the Hut Tax War of 1898?
The Hut Tax War of 1898 was fought largely between the British, supported by freed African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean slaves, called the Creole trying to colonize Sierra Leone, and the ...
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Why didn't Russia colonize in the scramble for Africa?
Russia was a European empire (one of the biggest) when the scramble for Africa happened and they had enough resources to get a ton of Africa, so why didn't they colonize in Africa? It could have been ...
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Did Bamako exist as a major settlement of trade and culture during the Mali empire?
Someone insisted to me there's no good evidence Bamako was a major city during or before the Mali empire. The best source I could track down on its existence and prominence from that time was this, ...
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Why were the West African islands uninhabited?
I'm curious about the history of two West African Archipelagos, specifically the Cape Verde islands and São Tomé and Príncipe. These islands were both uninhabited prior to the arrival of Europeans ...
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Did ancient Axumites use papyrus for writing?
Why are there Ge'ez texts only on rock and not on parchment or papyrus before the 4th century CE?
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What languages could David Livingstone speak?
What languages could David Livingstone speak? I am certain that he spoke English and Setswana, but presumably neither of these would have been any use for the last seven years of his life. I have ...
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Are there any surviving historical written records about Black individuals in Sub-Saharan African languages?
In the modern world there are many famous Black people. However which names can we name prior to 1500?
There were ethnically Hellenic thinkers and politicians based in North Africa as well as native ...
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Where does this quote come from?
Emperor Menelik II's wikipedia page quotes him as saying "There was never a time when united that the Ethiopians lost to an enemy in history".
I am unable to find anywhere on the internet ...
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When names of these countries were first called
I'd like to know when the first time the name of India in English (Inde in French) was called. What is the name in Latin and if there is one?
Also, I'd like to know the first time the names of Myanmar ...
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What do we know about the !Kung "major gatherings" (up to 200 peoples)?
All the information I found seems to point to this little paragraph from Lee book{1}:
Occasionally the Ju/ ′hoansi had major gatherings, usually in winter,
when up to 200 people from eight or more ...
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!Kung: What is the rules of the !gu!na relationship? (To evaluate its importance in the !Kung cooperation system)?
It's clear that the Hxaro relationship between partners played a central role in cooperation, but what about the !gu!na relationship? what is the rules of the !Gu!na partnership? Does it follow the &...
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Can anyone help identify this statuette?
The statuette has been in my family for 3 generations now. It is presumed to be from Morocco and was brought to us before the second world war. It is damaged and it had an ivory rosary that was stolen ...
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Why did Laurent-Désiré Kabila start the Second Congo War? [closed]
During the Second Congo War, numerous Rwandan sources report that Laurent-Désiré Kabila commenced the Second Congo War. In contrast, other sources and Human rights activists stated Rwanda and Uganda ...
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What prevented Southern Rhodesia from acquiring Dominion status?
Southern Rhodesia established responsible government in 1923. The next step, in general, was for a colony to be granted Dominion status (e.g., Newfoundland). What prevented Southern Rhodesia from ...
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Did Japanese modernisation have an effect on Ethiopia?
On his wikipedia page, Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam, "the primary author of Ethiopia's July 1931 constitution" the article calls him a
politician and intellectual of the Japanizer school
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What prevented empires with territory in North Africa from expanding south of the Sahara? And vice versa [closed]
Almost all empires I've seen that existed north of Sahara, did not expand to the south. And the empires south of the Sahara did not expand to the north (except for post 15th century European ...
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Was there a religious revival in Uganda in the late 1980s and 1990s with pervasive impacts on society and the presidency?
I recently asked a related question on Skeptics.SE, but I haven't received answers (probably because history is not an area of expertise over there). But here I'm interested in the broader context: is ...
user46818
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What is the earliest supported example of an African traveling to Southeast/East Asia?
There are quite a few famous cases of Africans who traveled to Asia (voluntary or involuntarily) prior to 1700s such as Malik Ambar (India), Yasuke (Japan), and Ibn_Battuta (India, Sri Lanka, China, ...
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Why didn't the German population leave Dar es Salaam before the outbreak of WWII?
In the chapter 'The Beginning of the War' of his autobiography Going Solo, Roald Dahl recounts his role in stopping the German population of Dar es Salaam from fleeing to Portuguese East Africa (the ...
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Why has the Congo ended up French-speaking but not Flemish-speaking? [closed]
Why is there hardly any Flemish linguistic heritage in the former Belgian colonies, at least at the institutional level?
EDIT (Evidence of prior research): Neither the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...
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Did the slave trade from Africa to the Middle East decline during the 20th century?
From reading Wikipedia, it's not clear how much the slave trade to the middle east from Africa declined, or when. If it declined, did that coincide with
1) the turn of the century, when almost all of ...
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Was there a trade link between the medieval Hungarian Kingdom and the Mali Empire?
This is very much a cold question as I have found no writings on any link. However, I do know that there was West African and European trade links long before colonialism and quite a bit of Mali gold ...
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Was Mansa Musa's gold as serious an inflationary problem in Mamluk Egypt as is portrayed, and, if so, how did the Mamluks recover from it?
There are numerous sources claiming that Mansa Musa, King of Mali, was one of the richest people alive (#1, #2). Essentially, these claim that Musa was one of the richest people in the history of the ...
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Was the Kingdom of Nri truly pacifistic?
I have been reading about the Kingdom of Nri, a political entity that lasted from medieval times to 1911. It was apparently pacifistic and saw violence as an abomination on Earth. However, it is ...
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Why did Ethiopia not fight with Eritrea over coastal territory when giving them independence?
To me, it is kind of crazy to me that Ethiopia wouldn't just take a slither of Eritrea to connect them to the coast. They were bigger and could easily have done it when giving Eritreans their ...
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What was Africa's political system like before European imperialism? [closed]
During the Scramble of Africa (1881 - 1914), Europeans basically controlled the entire content. They also implemented their own form of government and culture in many of these places. However, what ...
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How have African countries kept the boundaries divided by colonists and countries unified for decades, despite the many ethnical groups and conflicts?
How have sub-Saharan African countries generally kept the boundaries divided by the previous colonists and kept countries unified for decades, despite the many ethnical groups and conflicts between ...
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What was the military background of the Irish company at the Siege of Jadotville?
During the Siege of Jadotville, the Irish "A" company under Quinlan's command and UN mandate seems to have fought pretty well.
It is especially mentioned in the linked article a good capacity in ...
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What do we know about the location of Islamic schools in pre-colonial Africa?
There is much research in history and social science on how Christian missionary schools changed the formation of human capital in Africa, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. However, I find very little ...
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What was Rhodesia like before independence? [closed]
I have heard a lot about Robert Mugabe in my time, and he mostly seemed like a good example of how not to run a country. Now that he's died, I'm seeing a lot of articles talking about his supposed "...
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Why didn't Britain or any other European power colonize Abyssinia/Ethiopia before 1936?
It is well mentioned while reading books on Africa or, the colonization or “scramble” for Africa, that two countries, Liberia and Ethiopia/Abyssinia, had retained their sovereignty as independent ...
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What was the flower of Empress Taytu?
Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia. Its name means "New Flower" in Amharic (አዲስ አበባ), and the tale of how it got its name is told thus:
The location of Addis Ababa was chosen by the ...
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Demonym for someone from the kingdom of D'mt
D'mt is a little-studied kingdom which lasted from the 10th to 5th centuries BC, in Eritrea and Ethiopia. For further information, you can look here and just about nowhere else.
The civilization is ...
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Approximately how much travel time was saved by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869?
Understanding that there were a few variables involved, approximately how much travel time was saved by no longer having to travel around Africa after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869?
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Do we know anything in detail about the effect of the black death on Sub-Saharan Africa?
When I was in school 20-odd years ago, historians were still unsure about whether or not the black death traveled through Sub-Saharan Africa to any large degree, in large part because the vector (...
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Was there trade among African empires?
I've been searching, without success so far on mainstream history media (mainly references given by teachers, references on Wikipedia and stuff like this) and have not found any evidences (or proofs ...
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What are the earliest written accounts of Sub-Saharan Africa from the outside?
I've been researching African ethnography recently, and this path has led me to looking for early accounts of Sub-Saharan Africa. That they come from non-residents likely goes without saying, but I ...
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Are there records of US slaves who practiced Islam following their import from Africa?
Islam has historically been prevalent in many regions of Africa, such as in the Songhai Empire, which was based around Sharia law. It seems plausible to me that some Africans were practitioners of ...
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When was the first confirmed circumnavigation of Africa?
There has been debate over the years about whether the Phoenicians and Egyptians circumnavigated Africa. An expedition beginning in 2008 set out to prove just that, with a Phoenician-inspired ship. ...
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When did "Africa" become the name of the whole continent?
I learned from wiki that Africa was the name of a Roman province during Roman times, and that the continent was divided into Libya, Egypt and Ethiopia.
So when did Africa become the name of the ...
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How many vehicles were involved in Operation Gothic Serpent (Mogadishu, October 3-4, 1993)?
I wanted to know how many vehicles (include their model and which country used it), aircraft and infantry were deployed in Operation Gothic Serpent in Mogadishu in October 1993.
Specific numbers of:
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In general, what was the level of technology like in central Africa, just before the scramble for Africa?
I'm asking this question out of curiosity. In general, what was the level of technology like in central Africa, just before the scramble for Africa?
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How historically accurate was the Queen's trip to Ghana portrayed in Episode 8 of The Crown?
OK let me be more specific. In episode 8 of The Crown (Netflix), it is implied that Queen Elizabeth II went to Ghana (because she heard a sly comment from JFK's wife) to prevent the country from going ...
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How powerful was the Malian empire?
I heard someone talking about Timbuktu, Mansa Musa (they claim that he is the richest man in history).
They also claimed that Mali was the richest state in the 14th century world and that the Malian ...
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How did the ancestors of proto-Malagasy in South Borneo reach Madagascar?
The Malagasy, the original inhabitants of Madagascar, are of both African and Asian ancestry. Both linguistic and genetic evidence point to an Indonesian
origin of the Asian ancestors, specifically ...
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What is the backstory behind the White Sun of Angola?
I was reading some history of Angola and came across this symbol, for which the filename was "White Sun of Angola".
I was unable to find anything that explains its origin with some simple google ...
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Travel route from UK to Boma (Congo territory) in the 1880s
I’m researching for a possible story on the Congo in the 1880s. I’m having a hard time establishing the route and time spent going from a port in England to Boma in the former unclaimed Congo ...
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