African Timeline

  • 1400

    1400s

    Europeans begin to set up colonies
  • 1400

    1400s

    Africans start to trade with newly arrived Europeans
  • 1500

    1500s

    African traders begin to sell slaves to Europeans for guns and other goods
  • 1500

    1500s

    Europeans begin building trading posts
  • 1600s

    Southern and Eastern Africa become the first colonized part of Africa
  • 1800s

    Slave trade is mostly outlawed
  • 1800s

    Europe begins actively colonizing Africa
  • 1900s

    Africans regains power
  • 1900

    Africa is almost fully divided up among Europe countries
  • 1910

    South Africa gains their independence
  • 1920s

    Kikuyu people organize a political stand against Britain
  • 1930s

    Ethiopia is invaded by Italy
  • 1940s

    African independence movements gain momentum
  • 1948

    South Africa adopts Apartheid
  • 1950s and 1960s

    Most of Africa becomes independent.
  • 1956

    Southerners in Sudan rebel against northern rule
  • 1957

    Ghana gains independent
  • 1960

    Nigeria becomes independent
  • 1960

    Belgium grants the Belgium Congo independence
  • 1962

    Nelson Mandela is jailed
  • 1963

    Kenya gains independance
  • 1965

    Joseph Mobutu takes power over the Belgium Congo and changes the name to Zaire
  • 1967

    The Igbo attempt to leave Nigeria
  • 1989

    F.W. de Klerk is elected South Africa's president
  • 1990

    South Africa's president releases Nelson Mandela and ends Apartheid
  • 1994

    F.W. de Klerk's term ends
  • 1994

    Nelson Mandela is elected president
  • 1994

    Hutu military and militia killed between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people in a few months
  • 2005

    Civil wars in Sudan end.
  • 2010

    Arab Sprin movements begin
  • 2011

    South Sudan becomes independent.
  • 2011

    Tunisia's dictator resigns and a more substantial government is put in place
  • 2013

    Morsi is imprisoned and his political party is banned