Mombasa: Did you mean...?

Fort Jesus, Mombasa, Kenya. The fort was built in 1593 when Mombasa and other parts of the Swahili Coast were part of the Portuguese Empire.

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...

Throughout the 15th century, the Portuguese Crown yearned for a piece of the Far Eastern spice trade. For centuries this trade had been dominated by the Venetians who obtained pepper, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon...

The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies...

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...

A carved wooden doorway typical of Swahili Coast architecture (12th - 15th century CE). Mombasa old town, Kenya.

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.'...

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...

The Spanish flu (so-named because the Spanish press openly reported on the outbreak while other World War I belligerents suppressed the news) broke out in March 1918 at Camp Funston, an army camp in...

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...