Apartheid ends
1,994 CE
Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa after twenty-seven years in prison.
Read more — Nelson MandelaImage source (unverified) auto-matchedArchive › Sub-Saharan Africa
Nubia, the Sahel empires, and the kingdoms of the south.
Open Sub-Saharan Africa in the interactive timeline →1,994 CE
Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa after twenty-seven years in prison.
Read more — Nelson MandelaImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,884 CE – 1,960 CE
Africa is partitioned in Berlin without a single African present, and decolonised within eighty years.
Read more — Scramble for Africa1,464 CE – 1,591 CE
The largest state in West African history, ended by a Moroccan army with firearms.
Read more — Songhai EmpireImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,312 CE – 1,337 CE
His pilgrimage to Mecca distributed so much gold that it disrupted Mediterranean economies for years.
Read more — Mansa MusaImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,235 CE – 1,670 CE
Home to Timbuktu and its libraries.
Read more — Mali EmpireImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,100 CE – 1,450 CE
A city of mortarless stone walls, centre of a gold-trading state reaching the Indian Ocean.
Read more — Great ZimbabweImage source (unverified) auto-matched700 CE – 1,240 CE
A West African power built on control of the gold and salt trade across the Sahara.
Read more — Ghana EmpireImage source (unverified) auto-matched330 CE
Aksum converts, founding a Christian tradition that has continued unbroken ever since.
Read more — Christianity in EthiopiaImage source (unverified) auto-matched100 CE – 940 CE
A trading power on the Red Sea that minted its own coins and adopted Christianity early.
Read more — Kingdom of AksumImage source (unverified) auto-matched300 BCE – 350 CE
Over two hundred steep-sided pyramids built in Sudan — more than in all of Egypt.
Read more — MeroëImage source (unverified) auto-matched750 BCE – 656 BCE
Nubian kings rule Egypt as the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty — the so-called Black Pharaohs.
Read more — Hindu KushImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,000 BCE – 300 CE
Terracotta sculpture and independently developed iron smelting in what is now Nigeria.
Read more — SmeltingImage source (unverified) auto-matched1,000 BCE – 500 CE
Over centuries, Bantu-speaking farmers spread across central and southern Africa.
Read more — Bantu expansionImage source (unverified) auto-matched2,500 BCE – 1,500 BCE
Africa's earliest urban civilisation south of Egypt, a rival power on the Nile.
Read more — KermaImage source (unverified) auto-matched7,500 BCE – 3,600 BCE
Stone circles in the Nubian desert, aligned to the stars, older than Stonehenge.
Read more — Nabta PlayaImage source (unverified) auto-matched