More from African History Extra
Journal of African cities: chapter 16.
When the German adventurer Gerhard Rohlfs visited the city of Ibadan in 1867, he described it as “one of the greatest cities of the interior of Africa” with “endlessly long and wide streets made up of trading stalls.” However, unlike many of the West African cities he had encountered which were centuries old, Ibadan was only about as old as the 36-year-old explorer, yet it quickly surpassed its peers to be counted among the largest cities on the continent by the end of the century.
The East African coast is home to the longest contiguous chain of urban settlements on the continent.
The Wangara chronicle, one of West Africa's oldest surviving historical texts composed around 1650, contains an interesting account explaining the migration of a group of scholars from medieval Malī against the wishes of its ruler:
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Another of my essays in French.
What you’re watching above isn’t your ordinary film. No, this film — A Boy and His Atom – holds the Guinness World Record for being the World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film. It’s literally a movie made with atoms, created by IBM nanophysicists who have “used a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules, all in the pursuit […]
On the Spot: Annabel Teh Gallop JamesHoare Mon, 03/17/2025 - 08:24