North Africa: Did you mean...?

The Fashoda Incident of 1898 occurred in Sudan and caused a diplomatic crisis between the British and French empires. A small French force claimed authority over the town of Fashoda (modern Kodok) and the Upper Nile Valley. A much larger...

The Battle of Kasserine Pass in Tunisia (18-22 February 1943) was won by Axis German and Italian forces led by field marshal Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) against a combined Allied army of British, French, and US troops. The last fling of the...

The search for the source of the Nile River was one of the last great geographical mysteries of 19th-century European exploration. Men like Livingstone, Burton, Speke, and Stanley launched multiple expeditions to reach the rumoured Great...

The First Battle of El Alamein (1-27 July 1942) was a series of encounters during the Second World War (1939-1945) in Egypt between Allied and Axis forces. The battle, focussed around the El Alamein defensive line, ended without a decisive...

The ancient and medieval Mediterranean might have been a bustling stage of ever-changing empires but, across the inhospitable barrier of the Sahara Desert, West Africans were equally busy building up and toppling down their own kingdoms and...

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 like Brazil...

The Kingdom of Benin, located in the southern forests of West Africa (modern Nigeria) and formed by the Edo people, flourished from the 13th to 19th century CE. The capital, also called Benin, was the hub of a trade network exclusively controlled...

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...

Africa became a central arena in the global struggle of the Second World War (1939–1945), where imperial rivalry, strategic geography, and colonial governance converged. Campaigns in North Africa (1940–1943) pitted Axis forces, initially...

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) was one of Britain's top commnaders in the Second World War (1939-45). He famously defeated Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) at the Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa in November 1942. Known for...