African History: Did you mean...?

Sub-Saharan Africa was explored by Roman expeditions between 19 BCE - 90 CE, most likely in an effort to locate the sources of valuable trade goods and establish routes to bring them to the seaports on the coast of North Africa, thereby minimizing...

A documentary based on the journal of the 5th century BCE Carthaginian explorer Hanno.

The history of tobacco use in the Americas goes back over 1,000 years when natives of the region chewed or smoked the leaves of the plant now known as Nicotiana rustica (primarily in the north) and Nicotiana tabacum (mostly in the south...

The Mediterranean Sea was the economic focal point of the Roman Empire. Rome's armies first established an empire across these waters beginning back in the times of the Roman Republic. In 200 CE, the Mediterranean was still the channel that...

Our CEO Jan van der Crabben writes about the organization's history for its 10th anniversary in 2019 (when it was still called Ancient History Encyclopedia). Ancient History Encyclopedia just turned ten! On 25 August 2009, we officially...

James Armistead Lafayette (l. c. 1748-1832) was an African American Patriot who served the Continental Army as a spy during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). During the Siege of Yorktown, he infiltrated the British camp to bring...

Elephants were thought of as fierce and frightful monsters in antiquity, very real though rarely seen until the Hellenistic period. They were deployed on the battlefield to strike terror into the enemy, however, since fear was considered...

Although Thanksgiving celebrations dated back to the first European settlements in America, it was not until the 1860s that Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November to be a national holiday.

No city on earth has preserved its past quite like Rome. Visitors stand on bridges that were crossed by Julius Caesar and Cicero, walk around temples visited by Roman emperors, and step into churches that have hardly changed since popes celebrated...

The Wolof (aka Jolof or Djolof) Empire was a state on the coast of West Africa, located between the Senegal and Gambia rivers, which thrived from the mid-14th to mid-16th century CE. The empire prospered on trade thanks to the two rivers...