History Tag Archive

South Sudan

Why South Sudan Has Five Vice Presidents

South Sudan is one of several countries in the world that have multiple Vice Presidents, and it is often for the same reasons. The briefest answer is: War. The short answer is that it is not just any 5 Vice Presidents, they are mainly representatives of different armies/militias involved in the South Sudan conflict. It …

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Ethiopia

Why Britain Opposed Ethiopia’s Entrance into the League of Nations

101 years ago this week, Ethiopia formally joined the League of Nations, the precursor to the modern-day United Nations. Ethiopia is famously the only country in Africa that was never colonised. It defeated Italy’s first excursions in 1896, and was occupied during World War II because regaining Italy’s standing as a colonial power was important …

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7 Most Devastating Epidemics in Kenya’s History

There was scarcely a house where there was not one sick, dying or dead.

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18 Rare Photos of Tom Mboya’s Wedding to Pamela Odede

In April 1962, Ebony Magazine published a lead feature on the January 1962 wedding of Tom Mboya and Pamela Odede.

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Here’s Why We Need to Rewrite Our History

A brisk reading of K. Ingham’s 1953 book ‘Europe and Africa’ shows little difference in how we tell the African story.

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The First Computers in East Africa –and what became of them

One of them ended up at the bottom of the ocean, because of a snake, a gun, and bureaucracy. Another ended up in China, somehow.

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The Beatification of Sister Irene Stefani

In late 1911, a 20-year old woman joined the Consolata Missionaries in Turin, Italy. She took her final vows two years later and boarded a ship for Mombasa, Kenya, in 1914.

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The Sack of Baltimore

Sometime in mid-1631, a pirate flotilla left Algiers, one of the main ports on the Barbary Coast. The main ship was a Dutch-built 300-ton man-of-war, armed with about 24 pieces of ordinance. It was crewed by 200 men. The smaller ship was half that size in both weight and crew. The flotilla was commanded by Captain …

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The Politics of the Miniskirt (and hippies) in Africa

This article was first published on Medium. Read the edited version on Mail and Guardian Africa.  The recent #MyDressMyChoice protests in Kenya have rekindled a debate that has plagued Africa since independence in the 1960s. Most African countries gained independence at about the same time two trends were catching on in the West.

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