1900 - Buganda, East Africa, is ruled by the Kabaka, or King, with British advice
1900-01 - Rising in Asante, West Africa; British annexes Asante
1902 - Treaty of Verceniging ends second Boer War in South Africa; defeated Boers remain bitter and determined to regain power
1903 - Sokoto caliphate in Hausaland taken over by Britain
1904 - French create Federation of French West Africa
1905 - Kaiser William II of Germany visits Tangier and provokes crisis with France
1905 - Maji-Maji rebellion begins in Tanzania (German East Africa)
1906 - Tripartite pact (Britain, France, Italy) seeks to preserve integrity of Ethiopia
1907 - Government of Mozambique organized
1908 - Belgium takes over Congo Free State
1909 - Franco-German agreement reached on Morocco
1909 - Liberia calls on United States for financial assistance
1910 - Union of South Africa
1912 - New loans to Liberia coupled with US control over customs revenue
1912 - French make Morocco a protectorate at Treaty of Fez
1913 - South African Government introduces laws to reserve 87 per cent of land for whites
1914 - Britain and France occupy German colonies in West Africa
1916 - Boer leader Jan Smuts leads an anti-German drive from Kenya into Tanzania (German East Africa)
1916 - British and Belgian troops take Yaounde, the capital of the German Cameroons
1917 - Ras Tafari (later Haile Selassie) becomes Regent of Ethiopia
1917 - German forces in German East Africa withstand British and Portuguese at Mahiwa; Germans withdraw into Mozambique
1919 - ANC demonstrates against pass laws in Transvaal
1920s - More British and Indians settle Kenya
1921-26 - Abd-el-Krim leads Berbers and Arabs against Europeans in North Africa
1922 - Egypt becomes independent from Britain under King Fuad
1923 - Ethiopia admitted to League of Nations
1930 - White women given the vote in South Africa
1930 - Ras Tafari crowned Emperor of Ethiopia, and takes name Haile Selassie
1931 - First trans-African railway completed, from Angola to Mozambique
1934-36 - British colonial government of Ghana suppresses radical African critics
1936 - Representation of Natives Act denies black South Africans any chance of political equality
1935-36 - Italians under Mussolini invade and annex Ethiopia
1936 - South Africa declares war on Germany at start of World War II
1941 - German army under Rommel stacks British in North Africa
1941 - Ethiopia liberated from Italians by Ethiopians and British, and recognized as independent
1942 - British defeat German army at Battle of El Alamein in Egypt
1943 - Germans and Italians driven from North Africa
1948 - Afrikaner National Party wins power in South Africa
1951 - Libya gains independence
1952-59 - Mau-Mau guerrilla war against British in Kenya
1954-62 - War for independence in Algeria; freedom won in 1962
1954-70 - Colonel Nasser rules Egypt; revolutionary changes
1956 - Suez crisis; Britain and France attempt to regain control of Suez Canal from Egypt, but fail
1956 - Morocco, Tunisia and Sudan gain their independence
1957 - Ghana is first country in sub-Saharan Africa to become independent
1958-60 - Independence for Zaire, Nigeria, Somalia and 12 of France’s 13 sub-Saharan colonies
1960s - Civil war in South Sudan
1960-65 - Civil war in Zaire, formerly Belgian Congo
1961-67 - Independence for Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Botswana, Gambia and Swaziland
1963 - Organization of African Unity founded
1965 - White regime in Zimbabwe declares independence
1967 - Biafran War, Nigeria
Back to Walter Nash World Gallery