North Africa: Did you mean...?

A February 1942 photograph of a column of US-made Grant tanks of the British 5th Royal Tank Regiment during the Western Desert Campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

A March 1942 photograph of a 'Quad' artillery tractor pulling a 25-pdr artillery gun, British Eighth Army, during the Western Desert Campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

A cover from a 1905 edition of Puck magazine showing a caricature of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941). The cartoon is suggesting the German monarch's interest in Morocco in North Africa, epitomised in the Moroccan Crises of 1905-6 and 1911...

A July 1940 photograph of British soldiers with an armoured car in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

The discovery of gold at Witwatersrand in Transvaal in 1886, coupled with that of diamonds at Kimberley in 1867, transformed the entire region of Southern Africa. The 'Rand' proved to be the largest gold deposit in the world, and it led to...

A Junkers Ju 88 bomber photographed in North Africa during the Second World War (1939-45). (German Federal Archives)

A 1941 photograph of maintenance being carried out on a Hawker Hurricane fighter in Libya during the North African campaign in the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

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...

Disregarding the extremely inhospitable spots even the most stubborn of us have enough common sense to avoid, humans have managed to cover an extraordinary amount of territory on this earth. Go back 200,000 years, however, and Homo sapiens...

Salt from the Sahara desert was one of the major trade goods of ancient West Africa where very little naturally occurring deposits of the mineral could be found. Transported via camel caravans and by boat along such rivers as the Niger and...