History connected by place and time
Use the regional map, historical timeline and research filters to move between kingdoms, people, objects, places and events.
North Africa
Mediterranean worlds, Saharan exchange and Nile civilisations.
View connected stories →West Africa
Sahelian empires, forest kingdoms and Atlantic societies.
View connected stories →Central Africa
Congo Basin states, trade networks and cultural continuities.
View connected stories →East Africa
Nile, Horn and Swahili histories connected across the Indian Ocean.
View connected stories →Southern Africa
Stone cities, cattle states, migrations and resistance.
View connected stories →African Islands
Island societies linking Africa to global oceanic histories.
View connected stories →An African history timeline
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Filter the Crowned Continent collection by region, period, country or topic.
Ahmed Sékou Touré
Ahmed Sékou Touré was a trade-union organiser who led Guinea to immediate independence from France in 1958 and became a prominent, increasingly authoritarian Pan-African…
Agostinho Neto
Agostinho Neto was a physician, poet and anti-colonial leader who became the first president of independent Angola.
Seretse Khama
Seretse Khama overcame colonial exile to become Botswana’s first president and helped build one of post-independence Africa’s most durable constitutional states.
Samora Machel
Samora Machel was a FRELIMO commander and the first president of independent Mozambique, remembered for liberation, social transformation and leadership during a devastating regional…
Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth Kaunda led Zambia to independence, served as its first president and made the country a crucial base for liberation movements across Southern Africa.
Hastings Banda
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was a physician and nationalist who led Malawi to independence, then ruled it for three decades through an authoritarian one-party system.
Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Mondlane was an anthropologist, diplomat and founding president of FRELIMO who helped unite Mozambique’s independence movement.
Félix Houphouët-Boigny
Félix Houphouët-Boigny moved from African agricultural organising and French parliamentary politics to become the first president of Côte d’Ivoire.
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor was a poet, theorist of Négritude and Senegal’s first president, joining cultural affirmation to the difficult practice of building a postcolonial…
Mkwawa
Chief Mkwawa built a strong Hehe polity and led one of the most sustained military resistances to German conquest in East Africa.
Koitalel Arap Samoei
Koitalel Arap Samoei was the Nandi Orkoiyot who coordinated a decade of resistance to British intrusion and railway construction in western Kenya.
Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta moved from cultural advocacy and anti-colonial politics to become independent Kenya’s first prime minister and president.