Curated playlist
Former monarchies of Africa
- Fatimid CaliphateThe Fatimid Caliphate began as a secret movement, not a kingdom. Hidden missionaries spread its doctrine.
- Congo Free StateThe Congo Free State was owned by a king who never visited it. Leopold II ruled it from Brussels from 1885 to 1908.
- Achaemenid EmpireIn October 539 BC, Cyrus the Great captured Babylon. His Achaemenid Empire had already toppled Media and Lydia.
- Ancient EgyptIn ancient Egypt, a dead person's heart was weighed against a feather. If it failed, Ammit the Devourer ate it.
- MadagascarMadagascar appears on a map drawn by Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154 under the name Gesira Malai, Arabic for Malay island. That is a strange label for a place off the southeastern coast of Africa. Today the Republic of Madagascar is the world's…
- RhodesiaRhodesia was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa, and it lasted only fourteen years, from 1965 to 1979. It ran its own parliament, fought a long war and kept selling to the world. Yet almost no government would formally accept it as…
- Ethiopian EmpireThe Ethiopian Empire lasted more than seven hundred years, until a 1974 military coup ousted Haile Selassie.
- ZanzibarZanzibar holds the record for the shortest war in history. On the morning of the 27th of August 1896, the Royal Navy destroyed the Beit al Hukum Palace on this Tanzanian island chain off the coast of East Africa. A cease-fire was declared…
- Western Roman EmpireThe Western Roman Empire ended in 476 with barely anyone noticing. A Germanic leader deposed a teen emperor.
- Union of South AfricaOn the 31st of May 1910, four British colonies dissolved themselves into one country. It was the Union of South Africa.