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The Story of AfricaEpisodes

  1. The Nation State

    Could the new generation of African politicians live up to expectations they had raised?

  2. Apartheid

    How apartheid affected the lives of Africans and how was it overcome

  3. Independence

    How changing political forces in middle of the 20th Century made independence possible.

  4. Challenges to Colonialism

    The growing African resistance to racism and colonialism

  5. Life Under Colonialism

    What was life like for African people under European rule?

  6. Partition and Resistance

    How and why did Europe decide to impose a political partition on Africa?

  7. The Mfecane

    How an 18th Century Zulu king changed the political landscape of South Africa

  8. Africa on the Eve of Colonialism

    How might Africa have developed had its fate not been taken out of African hands?

  9. The Transatlantic Slave Trade

    The history, practise, and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade.

  10. The Roots of Slavery

    The history of Africans as both the enslaved and the enslavers

  11. The Hausa City States

    How the diverse people of Hausaland in northern Nigeria were unified

  12. Art in Africa

    How African art is a window into the past

  13. The Kongo and Great Zimbabwe

    The rise of two 14th Century empires...and the coming of the Portuguese

  14. The Swahili Coast

    The prosperity, peoples and trade routes of the east African coast.

  15. The Great Empires of Mali and Songhay

    The kings and warriors who dominated west Africa for 300 years

  16. The Ancient Kingdom of Ghana

    Exploring Ancient Ghana, the first of the magnificent empires of west Africa

  17. The Rise of Islam

    Islam is one of the two biggest religions in Africa. But how did it spread, and why?

  18. The Coming of Christianity

    The rise of Christianity in Egypt and powerful Christian states in Axum and Nubia

  19. African Traditional Religions

    Africa's sacred beliefs, how they evolved, and the influence that remains today.

  20. The Bantu Migration

    As the Bantu migrated, did they arrive as conquerors, colonisers or explorers?

  21. The Berbers of North Africa

    How the peoples of North Africa reacted to wave upon wave of colonisation

  22. Africa and the Nile Valley

    The great civilisations of Egypt and Kush and their links with other parts of Africa

  23. The Cradle of Humankind

    Exploring the scientific evidence that human life began in Africa