Africa: Biography

From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
Eighteenth Dynasty king of Egypt who came to the throne aged nine and reigned from 1334 bc to 1325 bc. The outstandingly preserved treasures of his tomb were discovered in 1922.

From Encyclopedia of African History
King of the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty, Akhenaten reigned from approximately 1360 to 1343bce. Akhenaten is notable for having briefly replaced the entire Egyptian pantheon with a single deity, the Aten, the physical manifestation of the sun.

From The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
Probably born in Mitanni, an empire based in what is now northern Iraq, Nefertiti became the chief wife of the intellectual Egyptian ruler Amenhotep IV (reigned about 1379–1362 BC).

Ramses II, also known as “Ramses the Great,” was one of the most famous pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty of Egypt (1570–1070 bce). He established numerous building projects, conducted aggressive war campaigns, and created international ties that are still discussed today.).

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
D. 229 or 228 B.C., Carthaginian general. Father of Hannibal.

Queen of Egypt, one of the great romantic heroines of all time.

From Philip's Encyclopedia 2008
Carthaginian general in the second of the Punic Wars, son of Hamilcar Barca. One of the greatest generals of ancient times, in 218 BC he invaded N Italy after crossing the Alps with 40,000 troops and a force of elephants.

185?–254?, Christian philosopher and scholar.

(Claudius Ptolemaeus), fl. 2d cent. A.D., celebrated Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer.

The greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church, born in Tagaste, Numidia (modern Algeria).

From An African Biographical Dictionary
King of the Mali empire during a united and prosperous period, is known primarily (and perhaps unfairly) for his lavish and ostentatious pilgrimage to Mecca.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Osei Tutu, asantehene (king) of Asante from 1680, established the traditions of the Asante nation and founded the Asante Union.

From Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations
Spiritual leader of the great nineteenth-century jihad by the Fulbe of West Africa, and first sultan of Sokoto.

From Encyclopedia of African History
One of the outstanding figures of medieval Muslim culture, ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibn Muhammad Ibn Khaldun was an incisive witness to the political fragmentation and warfare that followed the late-thirteenth-century collapse of the Almohad Empire in North Africa.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Chief Shaka forged a new nation out of an assortment of Nguni clans and made this Zulu people one of the greatest powers of Africa in his time.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
St. Lalibela was an Ethiopian monarch and church builder. The penultimate king of the Zagwe dynasty, he was the most renowned, especially for the 11 rock-hewn churches built in his capital.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
1769?–1849, pasha of Egypt after 1805. Credited for his many domestic reforms, which hastened the foundations for an independent Egypt.

From Encyclopedia of African History
Africanus completed his magnum opus on African geography, according to his own words, on March 10, 1526.

Shortly after landing at Aboukir (Abu Qir), he won a brilliant victory over the Mamluks in the battle of the Pyramids (July, 1798). His successes, however, were made useless when the French fleet was utterly destroyed (Aug. 1–2) by Nelson in Aboukir Bay.

In his autobiography and his later Miscellaneous Verses, Equiano idealized his African past, taking pride in his race yet condemning those Africans who trafficked in slavery.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard was a British imperialist and colonial administrator who drafted the most comprehensive theory of colonialism, which became the basis of much British colonial management.

English reformer. He was instrumental in abolishing slavery in the British Empire.

From Encyclopedia of African History
King of Belgium (r. 1835: 1865-1909); closely associated with the “Scramble” for Africa, the formation of the Congo State, and Belgian colonial expansion.

1813–73, Scottish missionary and explorer in Africa, the first European to cross the African continent.

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
British-U.S. explorer of central Africa.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Founder of the Transvaal Republic; one of the leaders of the Great Trek, during which much of the Afrikaner population moved away from British dominance to establish their own independent states.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Barnett Isaacs Barnato—financier, speculator and diamond merchant—was prominent among the White entrepreneurs who became wealthy in South Africa before the Boer War.

A trip in 1875 through the rich territories of Transvaal and Bechuanaland apparently helped to inspire Rhodes with the dream of British rule over all southern Africa; later he spoke of British dominion "from the Cape to Cairo."

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Friend and confidant of Cecil Rhodes; a leading figure in early South African politics; best remembered as the commander of a disastrous military attack against the Transvaal Republic, for which he was tried and imprisoned.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
President of the Transvaal (1883–1902), born in Colesberg, Cape Colony, SC South Africa.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
One of the most notorious contemporary dictators in modern African history.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Tunisian politician, president 1987–2011. He became prime minister in October 1987 and a month later deposed the president for life Habib Bourguiba in a bloodless coup.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Steve Biko was the inspiration and intellectual leader of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and became its martyr.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Dr. Joseph Kwame Kyeretwi Boakye Danquah, a major nationalist figure and a leader of opposition during the presidency of Kwame Nkrumah, was also a scholar and intellectual.

Zambian politician, president 1964-91. Imprisoned 1958-60 as founder of the Zambia African National Congress, in 1964 he became the first president of independent Zambia.

From An African Biographical Dictionary
Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was the first president of Kenya and the leading figure in his country's independence movement.

South African statesman; winner of the Nobel peace prize.

1942–, South African political leader. Mbeki was Mandela's choice as his successor as leader of the ANC, and he became the country's second postapartheid president after the ANC's landslide win in 1999.

Egyptian soldier and politician, president from 1981. He was vice-president to Anwar Sadat from 1975 and became president on Sadat's assassination in October 2001.

Zimbabwean politician, prime minister from 1980 and executive president from 1987.

Egyptian army officer and political leader, first president of the republic of Egypt (1956–70). A pan-Arabist and advocate of Third-World unity, Nasser was one of the most important Arab leaders of the 20th century.

1909–72, African political leader, prime minister (1957–60) and president (1960–66) of Ghana. Under his leadership the Gold Coast achieved (1957) independence and, in 1960, became the Republic of Ghana.

Libyan political leader. Blending Arab nationalism, revolutionary socialism, and Islamic orthodoxy, Qaddafi proceeded to run Libya's government as a stridently anti-Western dictatorship.

From Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, also known as Anwar el-Sadat and Anwar al-Sadat, was president of the Arab Republic of Egypt (1970-1981) and the “architect of a new Mideast.” Sadat was assassinated by Muslim fundamentalists within his own army on October 6, 1981.

Emperor of Ethiopia (1930–74). He was born Tafari Makonnen, the son of a noted general and the grandnephew of Emperor Menelik II.

From The Encyclopedia of African History
21st president of the Republic of Liberia, plunged his country into a brutal seven-year civil war.

1930–, Nigerian writer. In 2007 he was awarded the Man Booker International Prize.

Writer and critic, born in Cape Town, SW South Africa. The political situation in his native country provides him with the base from which to launch his allegories and fables, attacking colonialism and demythologizing historical and contemporary myths of imperialism.

From France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
The writings of Frantz Fanon constitute a complex reflection on the legacy of slavery and empire on both sides of the Atlantic.

From The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music
The creator of the Afrobeat style of music (in which African rhythms replaced American R&B and soul rhythms), Kuti was the most politically outspoken of the African musicians who found international success in the seventies and eighties.

Senegalese author and film director who wrote and made films in French and Wolof, often regarded as the father of sub-Saharan African cinema.

Writer, born near Abeokuta, SW Nigeria. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.