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In the 1400s, during the Golden Age of Exploration, Europeans began to sail south around the continent of Africa in an attempt to get the wealth of silks and spices found in India and China -
Beginning in the 1500s, European traders began to sell Africans guns and European made goods in exchange for slaves. Those slaves were then moshed across the Atlantic Ocean. To the Americans to work on sugar,rice,and cotton plantations. -
The Europeans began to build trading posts in Africa on the 1500s and by the early 1800s, they were colonizing or taking over another country for the resources it could provide. -
By 1900 Europe had taken over nearly all of Africa. The only country to remain uncolonized was Ethiopia thought Italy did invade the country in 1930 -
In the mid 1900s inspired by the events if World war 2 Africans began to seriously rebel against colonization. -
In 1910 South Africa was granted independence from Great Britain. Although white people were a minority in South Africa, they controlled the government and businesses. -
The Kikuyu people for Kenya began a political organization in the 1920s to fight for freedom from Great Britain -
In Ghana in the 1940s Kwame Nkrumah introduced the idea of Pan-Africanism. Which was a belief in the unity of all Black Africans worldwide. -
In 1948, white South Africans known as Afrikaners made apartheid law. Apartheid is a policy of legal separation based on race. -
After independence, the people in the south rebelled against northern rule leading to two civil wars from 1956 to 1972. -
Sudan gained its independence from Great Britain in 1956. -
Ghana would gain its independence in 1957. Pan-Africanism inspired Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya and Nnamdi Azizkiwe in Nigeria to agitate for freedom. -
In 1960 Nigeria became independent after a fierce struggle against the British -
Belgium and Congo became independent in 1960. The country was unable to create a stable, fair government. As a result, in 1965 Joseph Mobutu seized power. -
Independence came to Rwanda in 1962 after which violence broke out and the Hutu took control. -
It took years but Kenya became independent in 1963. Jomo Kenyatta would become the newly independent Kenya’s first leader. -
In 1964, Nelson Mandela was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for his actions. -
As a result, in 1965 Joseph Mobutu seized power. He renamed the country Zaire and ruled uninterrupted for 32 years. -
In 1976 the Igbo people tried to declare themselves independent. They named their new country Biafra. -
After independence, the people in the south rebelled against northern rule leading two civil wars from 1983 to 2005. -
In 1990, he (F.W. de Klerk) announced the end of apartheid and released Nelson Mandela from prison. -
In 1993, Mandela and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in ending apartheid. -
In 1994, South Africa held its first open elections in which Nelson Mandela was elected the new president. -
The country ( Rwanda) continued to experience violence until 1994 when Hutu began to engage in genocide against the Tutsi people -
In 2010, people in Tunisia began to agitate for a more democratic government. This movement became known as the Arab Spring. -
In 2011, Sudan recognized South Sudan’s independence. -
In 2011, President Ben Ali resigned and a democratic government was elected. -
Qaddafi was captured and killed in 2011, and a new government was elected. -
Mubarak was replaced by an Islamic fundamentalist government led by Mohammed Morse on 2012. -
Morsi’s term was short because in 2013, his government was overthrown by the military.