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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Did Africans defeat Europeans in battle between 1850 and 1950?
The battle of Adwa was fought between Italians and Ethiopians in northern Ethiopia in 1896. The Italians were defeated and it was the greatest victory for Africans. Were there any other battles where ...
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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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Why did ZANU (instead of ZAPU) come to power after the Rhodesian Bush War?
Given recent events in Zimbabwe, I am curious about the country's origins, and have been reading various articles on Wikipedia, mainly on the Rhodesian Bush War. Why did PRC-supported ZANU win and ...
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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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Why would the Rhodesians trust Blacks in their Army?
I was reading about Rhodesia and found that there were Blacks serving in the Rhodesian Security Forces. The caption of this photograph asserts that they were the majority of the military!
I would ...
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Were the ancient Hebrews basically an African tribe? [duplicate]
Hebrew is one of the earliest Afroasiatic languages. It has been argued that the Hebrews were an offshoot of the Canaanites, even akin to them. It is nearly undisputable that the Canaanites were ...
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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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Journeys from Gujarat in India to Dare es Salaam in what was then, Tanganyika in 1925 and 1948
I am researching a journey for a novel where my character travels from Gujarat in India to Dare es Salaam in what was then, Tanganyika. The journey happens in 1925 and then again in 1948. Does anyone ...
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Why was Africa colonized last of the continents in the Age of Discovery?
One thing that I always wondered is during the time where European powers were dividing up the world amongst themselves (1500-1900 roughly), why was it that Africa seemed to lag behind in colonization,...
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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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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 was the impetus for some African nations to participate in the slave trade?
I know that some African nations participated in the slave trade by providing captured enemies as slaves to Europeans, but what are some of the reasons they did? Was it simply a new economic ...
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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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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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Why was sugar cultivation more profitable in the Caribbean/Brazil than West Africa?
The Atlantic slave trade involved the large-scale deportation of West African slaves to sugar plantations on the other side of the Atlantic.
Why was it more profitable to do that, rather than to ...
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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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!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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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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How much contact did Sub-Saharan Africa actually have with the rest of the world since the beginning of civilization?
The book 'Guns, germs and steel' introduced me to the fact that the Sahara desert actually isolated Sub-Saharan Africa from the developments elsewhere since the beginning of civilization until ...
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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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Impact of the spread of disease from non-Europeans to virgin populations in the Old World
It is well known that Europeans brought a host of different diseases to the Americas. This led to catastrophic declines in the indigenous populations.
I am looking for documentation of non-Europeans ...
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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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Why are many African nations poor?
Many African countries are currently in the bottom parts of socioeconomic rankings like GDP per capita, life expectancy, literacy, HDI, etc. Some of them possess a decent amount of natural resources ...
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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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How did the Belgians issue ID cards with ethnicity to women in Ruanda-Urundi?
I've read about how the Belgians issued ID cards to the inhabitants of their colony Ruanda-Urundi (later independent under the names of Rwanda and Burundi):
Indeed, the Belgian colonists classified a ...
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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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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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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 was the area now known as Liberia chosen as the location for repatriation of African slaves in the US?
The American Colonization Society thought that colonizing Africa for the purpose of returning US slaves to Africa was the solution to slavery problems. Why, and how, did they come to decide that the ...
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Why did Guinea vote so differently in the 1958 French constitutional referendum?
In the 1958 French constitutional referendum, 79.3% of Metropolitan France and 82.3% of the territories voted in favor of the constitution. Out of the latter, votes in favor ranged from 64.40% in ...
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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 ...
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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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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 does the Star of David feature on these African coins from 20th century?
Why does the Star of David feature on these African coins from 1936 and 1959?
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Is there a correlation between the colonial power and the stability/success of the post colonial state?
Looking at the history of Ghana relative to many post-colonial African states, it appears to be quite a successful and stable nation-state, both politically and economically, compared to many other ...
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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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What was the contemporary German public opinion on the Herero Genocide?
The genocide took place during 1904-1907, organized by General von Trotha. Wikipedia says:
Von Trotha's methods caused a public outcry which led the Imperial
Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow to ask ...
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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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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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Has Morocco ever claimed ownership of the Canary and Madeira islands?
Has Morocco ever claimed ownership of the Canary and Madeira islands? If no, then why not?
How about the island countries Cabo Verde and São Tomé and their African continental neighbours?
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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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