Flashback

When Emperor Tewodros II came to power in Ethiopia in 1855, the country had been fragmented for nearly a century. The central government had been abolished in 1769, and the country was divided into small kingdoms. In the country’s history,…

In the short history of Burkina Faso, one name towers above the rest: Thomas Sankara. Born into a working-class Catholic family in the northern town of Yako, Sankara entered the military at age 19. He rose through the ranks, impressing his…

ADF STAFF Abebe Bikila’s run to international fame started by accident. Abebe had wanted to run the marathon for Ethiopia in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. But his reported personal best time in the marathon was faster than the world…

Léopold Sédar Senghor was an intellectual, a writer, a scholar, a statesman and the first president of Senegal. He wrote Senegal’s national anthem and said he considered himself first and foremost a poet. But his writings indicate that he…

ADF STAFF Kwame Nkrumah was Ghana’s founding president and a leader who ascended to the heights of power and experienced the depths of failure. Today, despite his flaws, he is remembered as a hero in his home country and across the…

A recently translated letter written 1,800 years ago shows that a Soldier’s life then was much like a Soldier’s life now. The Egyptian Soldier, Aurelius Polion, wrote the letter while serving as a volunteer in the Roman Legion, in the…