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Period: 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE
Pre-colonial African state: Kingdom of Egypt
A unified kingdom was formed in 3150 BC by King Menes, leading to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia. Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and remained distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and customs. -
Period: 1000 BCE to 200
Pre-colonial African state: Nubia
Nubia was home to several empires, most prominently the kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt in eighth-century BC during the reign of Piye and ruled the country as its 25th Dynasty (to be replaced a century later by the native Egyptian 26th Dynasty). Today, the region of Nubia is split between Egypt and Sudan. -
Period: 500 to
Pre-colonial African state: Abasynia
The Christians retreated into what may be called Abyssinia, an easily defensible, socially cohesive unit that included mostly Christian, Semitic-speaking peoples in a territory comprising most of Eritrea, Tigray, and Gonder and parts of Gojam, Shewa, and Welo. -
Period: 700 to 1100
Pre-colonial African state: Ebb and flow of Ghana
The Ghana Empire, properly known as Wagadou (Ghana being the title of its ruler), was a West African empire located in the area of present-day southeastern Mauritania and western Mali. Complex societies based on trans-Saharan trade in salt and gold had existed in the region since ancient times, but the introduction of the camel to the western Sahara in the 3rd century CE, opened the way to great changes in the area that became the Ghana Empire. -
Period: 900 to
Pre-colonial African state: Songhay
The Songhai Empire (also transliterated as Songhay) was a state that dominated the western Sahel in the 15th and 16th century. At its peak, it was one of the largest states in African history. The state is known by its historiographical name, derived from its leading ethnic group and ruling elite, the Songhai. -
Period: 950 to
Pre-colonial African state: Swahili Kingdoms
The Swahili coast includes Sofala (Mozambique), Mombasa, Gede, Pate Island, Lamu, Malindi, and Kilwa.
The word "Swahili" means people of the coast in Arabic and is derived from the word "sahil" (coast). The Swahili people and their culture formed from a distinct mix of African and Arab origins. The Swahilis were traders and merchants and readily absorbed influences from other cultures. -
Period: 975 to 1550
Pre-colonial African state: Mali
Mali, trading empire that flourished in western Africa from the 13th to the 16th century. The Mali empire developed from the state of Kangaba, on the upper Niger River east of the Fouta Djallon, and is said to have been founded before 1000 CE. The Malinke inhabitants of Kangaba acted as middlemen in the gold trade during the later period of ancient Ghana. -
Period: 1400 to
Pre-colonial African states: Hausa
The Hausa Kingdom was a collection of states started by the Hausa people, situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad (modern day northern Nigeria). It lay between the Western Sudanic kingdoms of Ancient Ghana and Mali and the Eastern Sudanic kingdoms of Kanem-Bornu. Hausaland took shape as a political and cultural region during the first millennium CE as a result of the westward expansion of Hausa people. The Hausa were known for fishing, hunting, agriculture, salt-mining, and blacksmithing. -
1415
The Portuguese established a garrison on Africa’s Mediterranean coast at Ceuta.
They then went on to build a number of trading posts on both the west and east coasts of the continent. -
Period: 1450 to
Pre-colonial African state: Mutapa & Butua
The Kingdom of Mutapa was an African empire covering vast territories in what are now modern day Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa. The Kingdom of Butua was a pre-colonial African state located in what is now southwestern Zimbabwe. Butua was renowned as the source of gold for Arab and Portuguese traders. -
Period: 1500 to
Pre-colonial African state: Borno
The Bornu Empire was a state in what is now northeastern Nigeria, in time becoming even larger than Kanem, incorporating areas that are today parts of Chad, Niger, Sudan, and Cameroon. -
Period: 1550 to
Pre-colonial African state: Kongo
Kongo, former kingdom in west-central Africa, located south of the Congo River (present-day Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo). Originally, it was probably a loose federation of small polities, but, as the kingdom expanded, conquered territories were integrated as a royal patrimony. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Dafor
Darfur has been the home to several cultures and kingdoms, like the mythical Tora or the Daju and Tunjur kingdoms. The recorded history of Darfur begins in the seventeenth century, with the foundation of the Fur Sultanate by the Keira dynasty. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Timbuktu
Timbuktu started out as a seasonal settlement and became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, particularly after the visit by Mansa Musa around 1325, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory, and slaves. It became part of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Wadai
The Wadai Sultanate was an African sultanate located to the east of Lake Chad in present-day Chad and the Central African Republic. It emerged in the seventeenth century under the leadership of the first sultan, Abd al-Karim, who overthrew the ruling Tunjur people of the area. It occupied land previously held by the Sultanate of Darfur (in present-day Sudan) to the northeast of the Sultanate of Baguirmi. -
The Dutch established Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa.
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Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Omani Sultanate
The Omani Empire was a thalassocractic nation-state, vying with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence or control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to modern-day Iran and Pakistan, and as far south as Cape Delgado. After the death of Said bin Sultan in 1856 the empire was divided into two sultanates, an African section (Sultanate of Zanzibar) and an Asian section (Sultanate of Muscat and Oman) -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Oyo & Dahomey
The Kingdom of Dahomey was located within the area of the present-day country of Benin, that existed from about 1600 until 1904, when the last king, was defeated by the French, and the country was annexed into the French colonial empire.
The Oyo Empire was a Yoruba empire of what is today Benin and Western Nigeria. It rose through the outstanding organizational and administrative skills of the Yoruba people, wealth gained from trade and its powerful cavalry. -
Period: to
Numerous trading posts found along Africa’s coastline
With Europeans busy buying gold, ivory and slaves, amongst other products. Christian missionaries were also establishing themselves on the continent by this time. All this was achieved without direct colonisation. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Ashanti
The Ashanti Empire was an Akan empire and kingdom from 1701 to 1957, in what is now modern-day Ghana. It expanded from Ashanti to include the Brong-Ahafo Region, Central Region, Eastern Region and Western Region of present-day Ghana as well as some parts of Ivory Coast and Togo. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Sokoto
The Sokoto Caliphate was a sovereign Sunni Muslim caliphate in West Africa that was founded during the jihad of the Fulani War in 1804. It was dissolved when the British conquered the area.
Developed in the context of multiple independent Hausa Kingdoms, at its height, the caliphate linked over 30 different emirates and over 10 million people in the most powerful state in the region and one of the most significant empires in Africa in the nineteenth century. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Buganda
Buganda, powerful kingdom of East Africa during the 19th century, located along the northern shore of Lake Victoria in present-day south-central Uganda. Buganda’s insistence on maintaining a separate political identity contributed to Uganda’s destabilization after that country reached independence in 1962. -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Fulani
Fulani empire, Muslim theocracy of the Western Sudan that flourished in the 19th century. The Fulani, a people of obscure origins, expanded eastward from Futa Toro in Lower Senegal in the 14th century. By the 16th century they had established themselves at Macina (upstream from the Niger Bend) and were proceeding eastward into Hausaland. Some settled in the 19th century at Adamawa (in the northern Cameroons). -
Period: to
Pre-colonial African state: Zulu
The Zulu Kingdom was a monarchy in Southern Africa that extended along the coast of the Indian Ocean from the Tugela River in the south to Pongola River in the north.
The kingdom grew to dominate much of what is today KwaZulu-Natal and Southern Africa. In 1879, the British Empire invaded, beginning the Anglo-Zulu War. After an initial Zulu victory at the Battle of Isandlwana in January, the British Army regrouped and defeated the Zulus in July during the Battle of Ulundi. -
Period: to
Colonial Era
In popular parlance, discussions of colonialism in Africa usually focus on the European conquests of the New Imperialism and the Scramble for Africa (1884-1914) era, followed by gradual decolonisation. The principal powers involved in the modern colonisation of Africa are Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and Italy. In nearly all African countries today -
Period: to
Berlin Conference
The Berlin Conference regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period. Its outcome, the General Act of the Berlin Conference, can be seen as the formalisation of the Scramble for Africa. The conference contributed to ushering in a period of heightened colonial activity by European powers, which eliminated or overrode most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance. -
Period: to
The forces of nationalism were challenging nearly all the colonial states
These movements were led by those who had prospered most under colonial rule. Nationalist politics flourished among the educated urban elite. -
Uganda National Congress, its Central Committee consisted in 1952 of five shopkeepers, four journalists, three full-time politicians, two clerks, two lawyers, two schoolteachers, and a student studying abroad.
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Period: to
Somalia unsuccessfully went to war with Ethiopia
The Ogaden War, or the Ethio-Somali war was a Somali military offensive between July 1977 and March 1978 over the Ethiopian sector of Ogaden, which began with the Somali invasion of Ethiopia. The Soviet Union disapproved of the invasion and ceased its support of Somalia, instead starting to support Ethiopia. -
Period: to
Civil society took its ‘revenge’ by disengaging from these authoritarian and exploitative states