Search Results: Mogadishu

Italian Fascist Marshal Rodolfo Graziani (1882-1955) visiting Mogadishu as viceroy of Italian East Africa (18 February 1937). Rodolfo Graziani was one of the main perpetrators of the brutalities of Italian colonialism, due to his role in...

The Swahili Coast on the shores of East Africa was a region where Africans and Arabs mixed to create a unique identity from the 8th century called Swahili Culture. Swahili is the name of their language and means 'people of the coast.' The...

Admiral Zheng He (aka Cheng Ho, c. 1371-1433 CE) was a Chinese Muslim eunuch explorer who was sent by the Ming dynasty emperor Yongle (r. 1403-1424 CE) on seven diplomatic missions to increase trade and secure tribute from foreign powers...

Kilwa, an island located off the coast of East Africa in modern-day southern Tanzania, was the most southern of the major Swahili Coast trading cities that dominated goods coming into and out of Africa from and to Arabia, Persia, and India...

Finding a maritime route to the East and gaining access to the lucrative spice trade stood at the root of the European Age of Exploration. However, when Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Indian Ocean in 1493, he...

The Somaliland Protectorate, more informally and better known as British Somaliland, was created in 1884 and ruled by Great Britain until independence was won in 1960, when the Somali Republic was formed. Strategically important at the mouth...

The Portuguese first took an interest in East Africa from the beginning of the 16th century as their empire spread eastwards across the Indian Ocean. Trade in the region was already well-established and carried out by Africans, Indians, and...

Around 1000 CE, European knowledge of the wider world was limited, uneven, yet slowly expanding, shaped less by direct exploration than by inherited classical learning, religious frameworks, and selective contact through trade and pilgrimage...

Statue in Mogadishu, Somalia of the Somali Islamic leader Sayyid Moḥammad ‘Abdallah Hassan (d. 1920) who led a long-running series of rebellions against colonial rule in the Horn of Africa, including against the British Somaliland.

In which John Green teaches you about Sub-Saharan Africa! So, what exactly was going on there? It turns out, it was a lot of trade, converting to Islam, visits from Ibn Battuta, trade, beautiful women, trade, some impressive architecture...