Historic Accomplishments

Myths about Africa : The you-can’t-do-business in Africa myth

Africa is faced with many challenges. A non-exhaustive list includes: sorting out increased access to education and health; job creation; raising gross income per capita inclusively; gender equality; establishing national and local security; developing global partnerships; tackling child mortality; sorting out power supply and other infrastructure problems; and strengthening public institutions. The public and difficult […]

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Myths about African HISTORY

There are a few myths about African history and a few reasons why some European writers – not all – felt the need to malign brown-skinned people and claim Africans came from a continent without history. It probably gave them moral peace of mind to believe that they were not committing physical, mental and moral

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Ancient Egypt’s New Kingdom (key events from 1550 BCE to 1075 BCE)

Specialists in Egyptian History have divided the time period of Ancient Egypt, covering 4,500 BCE to 664 BCE, into eight periods: Badarian culture, Naqada (prewriting), Old kingdom, First Intermediate kingdom, Middle kingdom, Second Intermediate Period, New kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period. In this article we look at the key events of the New Kingdom.

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Africa’s Islands

forestsMany non-Africans think Africa is a country with most of the ‘continent’ covered in grasslands. The stereotypical image is white Africans live North of the Sahara, and black Africans live south of the Sahara. This image is mainly due to the content non-Africans consume and how non-Africans get their information: from the television, nature programmes,

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The “other” abolitionists

Children in the UK sometimes take away from classrooms an over-simplistic narrative about how slavery was abolished in the UK. While the actions of William Wilberforce in persuading the British Parliament to abolish the “slave trade” were honourable and noteworthy, an incomplete story is unfortunately provided to posterity. Slavery involved slave ownership whereas abolishing the

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Twelve Ways Africa Used Art

Africa’s indulgence in art predates history. Tens of thousands of years ago they were the first humans to create works of art (see Africa’s inventions: art and paints). Until the renaissance which coincided with European contact and more intensive trade with Africa, Africa’s artworks were traditionally and intentionally created to serve purposes, and not necessarily

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Cave art

Africa’s contributions to the development of the world are immense. Sadly, her achievements and inputs are downplayed or misrepresented, but it still does not change the fact that most of Africa’s inventions were the foundation upon which human development advanced. Many people are not aware that most inventions and skills which today have positively changed

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Africa’s art materials

African art predates written history. From tens of thousands of years before recorded history people in Africa have been creating various works of art utilizing different materials. This is not particularly surprising given that the modern homo sapiens originated from Africa. The oldest art in the world was a shell necklace found in the Cave

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Myths about Africa: the hunter gatherers were not smart (200 BCE – 1950 CE)

Myths about Africa: the hunter gatherers were not smart Travellers, anthropologists and historians from 1500 CE to 1800 CE that wrote about Africa sometimes recounted that some African people lived as hunter gatherers, when Europeans came across them. It must be remembered that not all Africans lived this way; based on the eye-witness accounts of

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Kingdom of Mauretania

The Kingdom of Mauretania came into existence around 225 BC, in the third century. Its inhabitants come from Berber ancestry, based on modern day ethnic taxonomies, and currently it belongs to the Western part of present day Algeria. Formation Mauretania was a kingdom of the Berber Mauri people, who would become renowned in history. It

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Myths About Africa: The World Can’t Work Out Reliable History Without Written Works

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.” Many educated people often perpetuate the idea that Africa had no history in the periods when certain kingdoms had no writing. And When evidence of writing is highlighted, they shift the boundaries by creating artificial distinctions between white and black Africans by using the group

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Tools of Discovering African History: Bio-archaeology

Over the years as humans continue to advance, making new discoveries in science, technological breakthroughs, and other new modern findings. Inevitably these achievements have had a profound effect on the ways and methods of man’s search to uncover his origins, Particularly in bioarchaeology; from the times of sociocultural anthropology methods to cranial suture ossification to

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Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

Africa’s mountains

Many non-Africans think Africa is a country with most of the continent covered in grasslands. The stereotypical image is white Africans live North of the Sahara and black Africans live south of the Sahara. This image is mainly due to the television content, on-demand video content and film content that non-Africans get their information from.

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Africa’s Religions

One cannot generalize about the nature of African religions as he would be prone to making the mistake of homogeneity among all African cultures. Africa, in truth, is vast both in cultural diversity and geographical variation. This has brought about different languages and customs that have different belief systems. With the different histories associated with

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Role of Ancient Africa in Defining Literary Critique and Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as the “wrongful appropriation” and “stealing and publication” of another author’s “language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions” and the representation of them as one’s own original work. It is one of the most frowned upon practices in writing and is often akin to a crime in the field of research. However, this was

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Food series: Sorghum, Developed by Africa and more healthy than wheat (9,500 BCE – 7,000 BCE)

Sorghum, also known as great millet or milo, is the 5th most important and cultivated cereal crop in the world after wheat, rice, maize and barley. The name “sorghum” is derived from Italian word “sorgo”, which is a modification from Latin “Syricum (granum)” which means “grain of Syria”. It has a variety of uses from

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Myths about Africa: Do conflicts and insecurity have nothing to do with rich countries?

Ever since the abolishment of slavery and the granting of independence to African nations, the continent has been stricken with what seems like never-ending conflicts. There are pockets of violence here and there between groups in Africa, and this has seriously stunted its growth, damaged perceptions of rule of law, unification, and development as there

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African History - The Definitive Guide

Africa’s Art in Foreign Museums

Ever wondered what ancient Africa was like? Their tools, objects of arts, weapons, man-made artefacts, musical instruments, fabrics, deities, etc. Although much of it has been lost to time, some part of ancient African history is preserved; to experience it then look no further than American and European museums. If you want to sneak a

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Africa’s Diversity

INTRODUCTION Africa, the second largest continent in the world and second most populous continent on earth, is blessed in manifold ways; in language, culture, art, monuments, vegetation, religious ideas, physical quality, natural resources, and many more areas. Though there have been many concepts and definitions regarding the idea of diversity, the indigenous ideas of Africans

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How does the African Union work?

Last updated: 2019/03/13 The African Union is an organization or alliance of African sovereign states that have acceded to the constitutive acts of the body. One can safely say it was formerly known as “Organisation of African Unity (OAU),” however the OAU was disbanded in 2001, and the African Union (AU) conceived in its place.

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Africans in Roman London (48AD – 410AD): what DNA tests of 22 Londoners found

There have often been wrong assumptions regarding ancient relationships between Africans and the rest of the world, particularly Europe. For example; people wrongly assume that it was Europeans that travelled to Africa, first, or that the age of discovery between the early 15th century and 17th century was the first point of contact between Africans

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John Edmonstone, African Taxidermist, Tutor to Charles Darwin; did their friendship convince Darwin of monogenism?

We all know Charles Darwin, his contribution to humanity will never be forgotten; his theory of human evolution is taught in schools the world over. But very often in the tale of his accomplishments, an important character is easily left out without whom perhaps Charles Darwin might not have become whom he was. His name

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African skin tones

Whenever someone says Africa, the first thought on the minds of most people is a mental image of dark-skinned people. Well here is a shocker, there are many different completely natural African skin tones ranging from very dark to very light, from the Dinka of South Sudan to the San of South Africa respectively. Different

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