History of Africa Series - Summary

Hello, this is the list of the History of Africa Series in Order.  It was twenty episodes long and lasted over two seasons.  This is a list of all the episodes in order.

Season 1
Mother Africa - YouTube (44:56)
Zeinab Badawi travels across Africa to learn about the origins of humankind in the first episode of History of Africa.  She learns how and why humans evolved in Africa.  She gets access to the actual bones that were discovered.  Her travels take her to Tanzania and learns about a tribe where they continue to live as hunter-gatherers.  This community has been rarely filmed and provides insights into how our ancestors lived.  *Recommended for a science class and anthropology.*

Cattle, Crops, and Iron - YouTube (45:16)
Zeinab Badawi works through the history of Africa.  She travels to meet the Maasai tribe of East Africa.  The Maasai are the best-known group from Africa.  The Maasai explain how humans started to domesticate animals and became pastoralists.  Then Zeinab travels to Zimbabwe and visits a lively family.  She looks at how humans make a living from farming after settling down.  Then she learns about the impact of the Iron Age which would pave the way for the development of urban civilizations.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Gift of the Nile (45:16)
Zeinab Badawi continues to explore the history of Africa and this time she is touring Egypt.  She explores Egyptian Civilization and the Nile River. They were the first civilization in Africa to invent writing.  They left behind spectacular monuments.  She films the mummy and the treasures of King Tutankhamun.   She goes beyond the mummies and the pyramids.  Who were the actual Egyptians?  What were the origins of Ancient Egyptians? *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Kush (44:48) 
Kush is a forgotten kingdom.  Kush is often overshadowed by Ancient Egypt and other kingdoms.  However, it was the kingdom that conquered its neighbor to the north and took over.  Kush ruled Egypt for one hundred years.  Their influence could be felt in the Middle East.  Today Kush is in modern-day Sudan.  Khartoum, the capital, is where the Blue and White Nile meet.  The waters merge to create the Nile River and it is from here the waters flow north and into the Mediterranean Sea.   Zeniab Badawi explores this kingdom and discovers an interesting history.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Aksum (48:48)
The Kingdom of Aksum was considered one of the four greatest civilizations of the ancient world.  Zeniab Badawi describes how the kingdom grew rich and powerful as a result of control of the Red Sea trade.  The Red Sea was the center of trade for the Middle East, Africa, and India.  According to local tradition, it was founded by the son of the Queen of Sheba.  It was the home to the Ark of the Covenant.  It gave a grateful world coffee.  Examining this civilization provides an insight into modern Ethiopia and Eritrea. *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Kings and Emirs (45:17)
Zeianab Badawi explores the fall of the Kingdom of Askum and how Christian Rulers followed in that fall.  She learns about the legacy of King Lalibela who ruled in the 12th/13th Century.  He built a complex of rock-hewn churches which would have been considered a great feat of engineering.  She also explores the arrival of Islam and how the emirs coexisted with the kings.  She then visits Harar and watches the hyena men of Harar who feed hyenas by hand.  *Highly recommended for a history class.  Part 1 on the churches can be shown to a geography class.*

North Africa (45:18)
Zeinab Badawi heads up to North Africa in this episode.  She is learning about the Berbers otherwise known as the Amazigh people.  She visits Carthage and looks into the history of Carthage and its place in African History.  Then she talks about the Berber and the Great Berber Kings and how they kept control during Roman Rule.  The tour continues to other ancient sites that were built by the Romans.  *Highly recommended for a history class.  A short clip can be showed to an English class.*

Ancestors, Spirits, and God - YouTube (45:11)
Zeinab Badawi examines the role of religion in Africa.  She first examines the indigenous religions that people still follow.   Her first stop is Zimbabwe to learn about a community that follows traditional African Religion.  Then she heads to Senegal and meets a Muslim man.  She discovers that he blends both Islam and ancestral beliefs and talks to trees.  Finally, she learns about the impact of Judaism and Christianity in Africa and how Africans had an impact on Christian thinking.  *Highly recommended for a history class, potential applications in an speech/communications class.*

Islam in Africa - YouTube (44:49)
Zeinab Badawi travels to several countries and looks at the spread of Islam.  She explores how many Africans practice Islam particularly the Sufi form of Islam.  Arab culture also had a huge influence in Africa and she explores that as well.  She then looks at the rise of Islamic Dynasties in North Africa.  These dynasties would build monuments, mosques, and empires and they would play a part in Africa’s history.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Season 2
Desert Empires - YouTube (45:11)
Zeinab Badawi visits historic and magnificent ruins in Mali and Mauritania, sites that are rarely seen.  She learns about the trans-Saharan trade that helped make these empires rich.  The trade-in gold gave rise to three great empires on the African continent, the Ghana Empire, The Mali Empire, and Songhay Empire.  Then under protection, Zeinab visits Timbuktu which was overrun by extremists in 2012.  Mansa Musa, the ruler of Mali was considered to be the wealthiest individual to have ever lived. *Highly recommended for a history class.*

City States - YouTube (44:47)
Zeinab Badawi travels to Nigeria and is granted a rare interview with the King of the Benin.  The Kingdom of the Benin is in Southern Nigeria.  She also meets with the Queen Mother of Lagos and learns about the history of the Yoruba People.  She learns more about the Benin Bronzes, these bronzes date back to the 13th Century.  She also interviews the Emir of Kano, a ruler in Nigeria’s Muslim city-states, and talks with the former governor of Nigeria’s central bank.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Coast and Conquest - YouTube (44:44)
Zeinab Badawi visits spectacular historic sites in Africa.  She visits the Swahili Coastal settlements of Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique on the Indian Ocean.  Then she talks about how the Arab’s arrival in this area trigged the start of the slave trade in Africa.  The Arabs and their Swahili partners were the first to trade in humans and Zeinab highlights how this slave trade was different from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  She looks into this dark period of African history and how it is looked at by modern Africans.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Southern Kingdom (44:49)
Zeniab Badawi travels the width and breadth of Africa to learn more about the kingdoms of Africa.  Africa is home to a variety of civilizations that have rivaled other ancient civilizations.  In this series, Zeniab interviews a variety of historians, archeologists, and citizens to learn more about these civilizations.  She travels the length and breadth of Africa to discover its history.  Africa’s history is long, often complex, and not really well known.  Zeniab brings light into this hidden part of history and in this episode looks at the kingdoms of Southern Africa.  *Recommended for a history classroom.*

The Golden Stool - YouTube (44:48)
Zeinab Badawi travels to Ghana and the Ivory Coast and learns about the Asante people and the Asante Kingdom.  She learns about the history, myths, and legends of the Asante.  The tour continues with a trip to the festival of Akwasidae.  This festival features the king of the Asante, known as the Asantehene, and the king wears golden regalia.  Then Zeinab learns about the Asante queen who led the resistance movement against the British.  Finally, Zeinab learns about the golden stool.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

No Longer at East - YouTube (45:12)
Zeinab Badawi continues her exploration of the history of Africa.  This time, Zeinab explores the lives of Africans before the arrival of Europeans.  She goes to Kenya and sees traditional religious practices in Kenya.  Then she meets with a traditional medicine practitioner in Congo.  In Uganda, she sees traditional justice in action while community elders hear a marriage dispute.  She interviews a local king in Zambia.  This episode is a run-up to the episode on slavery and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Slavery and Salvation - YouTube (45:03)
Zeinab Badawi looks at the impact of slavery on Africa itself.  Much is known about what happened to the enslaved Africans when they arrived in the Americas and Europe, but little is known about the impact on Africa.  She explores one of the eviler chapters in human history the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  She travels to several countries to see where and why the trade began.  She also talks with academics to answer the question of why some Africans helped sell their fellow Africans into slavery.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Slavery and Salvation - YouTube (44:51)
Zeinab Badawi visits Ghana and learns about the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  The slave trade led to competition for enslaved Africans between European nations.  These nations build forts along the Atlantic coast.  She hears about the inhumane conditions that the slaves were kept in while waiting for shipment across the Atlantic.  Zeinab also looks at the driving forces behind abolition and why did many Africans return to the Continent, particularly to Liberia.  How were these returnees received by the local communities?  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Diamonds, Gold, and Greed - YouTube (44:58)
Zeinab Badawi travels to South Africa and Zimbabwe.  She learns about how Southern Africans came to grasp the destruction and suffering that was inflicted on them by white settlers.  Then she learns about how the original settlers of the Cape tried to resist the settlers and the cruel reprisals for their endurance.  Then she explores the history of the Zulu, particularly Shaka the King of the Zulus.  She meets with a descendant of Shaka and they talk about their illustrious ancestor.  *Highly recommended for a history class.*

Kongo and the Scramble for Africa - YouTube (44:56)
Zeinab Badawi travels to central Africa, focusing on Angola and the Congo.  She is exploring the great Kongo Empire.  She learns about the role played by women in African History particularly learning about Queen Nzinga.  Queen Nzinga was a leader who battled the Portuguese for a quarter of a century in the 1600s.  Decades later Kimpa Vita was burned alive after her failed resistance.  One woman also shares her memories from when the Belgians ruled the Congo.  *Recommended for a college history class, the first half can be used for a high school history class.*

Resistance and Liberation - YouTube (45:10)
Africa is made up of 54 nations that were united by their history despite the diversity of backgrounds.  For the most part, these nations got their freedom peacefully, however, there were times when the struggle for freedom got violent.  Zeinab Badawi looks at how across Africa freedom fighters rose up to fight for freedom in Africa.  She interviews a Mau Mau fighter in Kenya.  A member of the resistance in Algeria’s war for independence.  She talks about the families of Africa’s best-known independence leaders: Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Congo’s Patrice Lumuba, and Senegal’s Leopold Senghor.  *Even though it is fast, recommended for a history class.*