X-Nico

7 unusual facts about West Africa


George Africanus

George John Scipio Africanus (c. 1763–19 May 1834) was a West African former slave who became a successful entrepreneur in Nottingham.

German South-West Africa

The Herero went on the offensive, sometimes surrounding Okahandja and Windhoek, and destroying the railway bridge to Osona.

At the 100th anniversary of the camp's foundation, German Minister for Economic Development and Cooperation Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul commemorated the dead on-site and apologised for the camp on behalf of Germany.

Nioro

Nioro is the name of two towns in West Africa

Peter Sampson

He initially trained as a butcher, before being called up to the army and stationed in West Africa during World War II.

Port of Las Palmas

In turn, it constitutes one of the main ports of Spain and the first of the geographical area of West Africa.

Robey Leibbrandt

Later he wanted to become an officer in the South African Army, but when World War I broke out, he was ordered to invade German South-West Africa, an order, which he morally could not follow, because "Germans should not war against Germans".


Alexander Kilham

Kilham's second wife, Hannah Kilham née Spurr (1774–1832), whom he married only a few months before his death, became a Quaker, and worked as a missionary in the Gambia and Sierra Leone; she transcribed to writing several West African languages.

Alice Koroma

Also in attendance at the funeral in the Wesleyan Church in Makeni included Christians and Muslims religious leaders, senior Sierra Leone Police officers, including Inspector General of the Sierra Leone Police Francis Alieu Munu, and members of the international delegations, mainly from West Africa including the First Lady of Nigeria Patience Jonathan.

Alwyn Robbins

In 1940 Robbins obtained a commission in the Survey Branch of the Royal Engineers and was posted to West Africa.

Bursa corrugata

This marine species occurs in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa, the Canary Islands, Cape Verdes and Brazil; in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Lesser Antilles.

Calueque

On 27 June 1988, the South Africans retreated across the dam to South-West Africa and the same day Cuban MiG-23 fighters attacked the facilities.

Coming of age

In the traditional faith of the Yoruba people of West Africa and the myriad of New World religions that it subsequently birthed, men and women are often initiated to the service of one of the hundreds of subsidiary spirits that serve the Orisha Olodumare, the group's conception of the Almighty God.

Cristóvão Falcão

His father, João Vaz de Almada Falcão, was an upright public servant who had held the captaincy of Elmina on the West African coast, but died, as he had lived, a poor man.

Ctenoplectrini

Dry and cool mid-Miocene climates also coincide with the divergence between Ctenoplectra bequaerti from West Africa, and Ctenoplectra terminalis from East Africa and Southern Africa, perhaps related to fragmentation of the equatorial African rainforest belt.

Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath

The third campaign takes place in Iberian Peninsula where they try to hold the front against the USSR while the government evacuates people and resources from Europe to West Africa.

Empower Mali Foundation

The Empower Mali Foundation is a Utah-based charitable organisation that was created in February 2013 to assist rural communities in Mali, West Africa, in the areas of education, healthcare, clean water and clean energy.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia

The church developed out of the work of the Finnish Missionary Society that began in 1870 among the Ovambo and Kavango people in the northern area of what became German South-West Africa.

Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

The work of the Sisters continued to spread through the continent of Africa, expanding to West Africa, and then to both North America and to South America as well as to Asia.

Ghanaians in the United Kingdom

In 1555 John Lok, a London merchant and Alderman, brought five Africans from the town of Sharma, in what is today Ghana, to London to be trained as interpreters in order to assist England’s trade with the western coast of Africa.

Grand Popo Football Club

The duo apparently adopted their unusual moniker after Ariel Wizman visited the West African village of Grand-Popo in Benin to film a television programme and decided that the community was missing a football club.

Helen Ukpabio

In 2008, the TV news documentary Dispatches Saving Africa's Witch Children by UK broadcaster Channel 4 stated the views that she expresses have led to a massive upsurge in children stigmatised and abandoned by their families in West Africa, particularly in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

History of Guinea

In 2000 Guinea became embroiled in the instability which had long blighted the rest of West Africa as rebels crossed the borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone and it seemed for a time that the country was headed for civil war.

Inez Holden

In the 1950s, in a poor financial state, friends including Sally Chilver, (Robert Graves's niece), who worked at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, arranged for her to be paid for research into the archives of the Baptist Mission to West Africa.

Joris Putman

From the age of three months until he was nine he and his parents lived out of Europe, firstly in Burkina Faso, West Africa, later in Bangkok, and from 1990 in Semarang in Indonesia, before returning to the Netherlands in 1993.

Laportea aestuans

aestuans is a food plant for an edible snail, Archachatina ventricosa, native to parts of coastal West Africa.

Lisa I'Anson

Later on she was also presenting other live TV shows including the very first and subsequent MOBO awards (music of black origin), The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium and a live link from Ghana, West Africa direct to London with then British Prime Minister and U.S. President, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

M'bilia Bel

There she started working with guitarist Rigo Star, and between 1989 and 1990 she went on tour to the United States, the United Kingdom, and West Africa.

Maltahöhe

After the end of the German colonial era in South-West Africa the settlement became a small hub for tourism, serving as gateway to popular destinations like the Sossusvlei, Solitaire, Sesriem, and Duwisib Castle.

Mittelafrika

German strategic thinking was that if the region between the colonies of German East Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania minus the island of Zanzibar), German South-West Africa (Namibia minus Walvis Bay), and Cameroon could be annexed, a contiguous entity could be created covering the breadth of the African continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Monoplex tranquebaricus

This species is distributed in European waters, in the Atlantic Ocean along the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, West Africa, Gabon, Angola and in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Keys.

Moringa community

In March 2007, Abubakar “Abu” Abdulai contacted Jeffry Lohr from an Internet Cafe in Cape Coast, a city in Ghana, West Africa, hoping to study at Jeffry’s Lohr woodworking school in Pennsylvania so that he could gain skills that would help him develop his country.

Ogboni

Its members are generally considered to be part of the nobility of the various Yoruba kingdoms of West Africa.

Orchestra Baobab

Organized in 1970, as a multi-ethnic, multi-national club band, Orchestre Baobab adapted the then current craze for Cuban Music (growing out of the Congolese Soukous style) in West Africa to Wolof Griot culture and the Mandinga musical traditions of the Casamance.

Outjo

The town was founded by Germans under the command of Colonel Theodor von Leutwein in 1897 as a small military base in order to explore the northern area of German South-West Africa.

Owabi Wildlife Sanctuary

Owabi Wildlife Sanctuary is a bird sanctuary, located in Kumasi, Ghana, West Africa.

Papalolo

He got into acting through joining the theatre group of the late theatre icon, Adedeji Hubert Ogunde, with whom he performed across the West African coast (Republic of Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Liberia) in the 1960s.

Pedro Gilbert

Gilbert was eventually captured in West Africa two years later when his ship was sunk in a naval engagement with the British brig sloop HMS Curlew, commanded by Henry Dundas Trotter.

SS Corvus

In 1941 she made one voyage to West Africa visiting Lagos and Port Harcourt as well as crossing the Atlantic twice, visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia and New York City.

SS Pfalz

Renamed Gertrude Woermann in 1904, and wrecked off Swakopmund, German South-West Africa, on 19 November that same year.

Stephenson Clarke Shipping

While the fleet was capable of worldwide operations, it was focused on operations in Northern Europe, including the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, West Africa, Macaronesia, Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea.

The African Beat

The album features compositions by African and American musicians, all based on aspects of West African (especially Nigerian) music.

The Book of Negroes

Aminata Diallo, the daughter of a jeweller and a midwife, is kidnapped at the age of 11 from her village Bayo, near Segu in West Africa and forced to walk for days to the sea in a coffle with hundreds of strangers and a handful of people from her village.

Thomas Cocklyn

On April 1, 1719, Cocklyn was a participant in the capture of the West African-bound English slave ship the Bird Galley at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River.

Tintenpalast

The Tintenpalast, which is located just north of Robert Mugabe Avenue, was designed by German architect Gottlieb Redecker and built by the company Sander & Kock between 1912 and 1913 out of regional materials as an administration building for the German government, which colonized Namibia at the time.

Tipton Road

One match of the 1982 ICC Trophy was played at Tipton Road, but the game between East Africa and West Africa was abandoned without a result after East Africa had reached 53/2 from 25.1 overs.

Village by Village

Village by Village is a small UK International development charity/NGO working in Ghana, West Africa to help rural communities improve their quality of life.

Wassoulou Empire

The Wassoulou Empire, sometimes referred to as the Mandinka Empire, was a short-lived (1878–1898) empire of West Africa built from the conquests of Dyula ruler Samori Touré and destroyed by the French colonial army.

Wildlife of São Tomé and Príncipe

São Tomé and Príncipe are oceanic islands which have always been separate from mainland West Africa and so there is a relatively low diversity of species, restricted to those that have managed to cross the sea to the islands.


see also

A. G. Hopkins

His principal works include An Economic History of West Africa (1973), and, with Peter Cain, British Imperialism, 1688-2000 (2001), which won the Forkosch Prize of the American Historical Association and is considered by many to be the most influential interpretation of British expansion offered in the last half century.

African Banking Corporation

In 1920 ABC opened a branch in Windhoek, South West Africa, but later that year Standard Bank of South Africa acquired ABC.

AGETIP

The AGETIP model is similar to a Social Fund, a term more commonly used for a similar type of institution in developing countries in Latin America and African countries outside West Africa.

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes

In one of the most significant sections of Traveling Shoes, Angelou recounts an encounter with a West African woman who recognizes her, on the basis of her appearance, as a member of the Bambara group of West Africa.

Aluspah Brewah

He played with Ajax Academy in Ghana and Ashanti Gold SC West Africa before departing for Europe at the age of 17 years for Royal Antwerp FC of the Jupiler League.

Appliqué

Appliquéd cloth is an important art form in Benin, West Africa, particularly in the area around Abomey, where it has been a tradition since the 18th century and the kingdom of Danhomè.

Banc d'Arguin National Park

By 1763 the British had expelled France from the West African coast, and France recovered control only when the Congress of Vienna in 1815 recognized French sovereignty over the coast of West Africa from Cap Blanc south to Senegal.

Barthélemy Adoukonou

Between 1977 and 1984 he was rector of the Minor Seminary of St. Paul at Djimi, Abomey, Missionary Professor at the University of West Africa in Abidjan and professor of methodology of research in human and social sciences at the University of the State of Abomey-Calavi and at the Major Seminary of Saint Gall in Ouidah, Benin.

C. chinensis

Calyptraea chinensis, the Chinese hat snail or Chinese hat shell, a small sea snail species found in North-West Africa, in the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Black Sea and the Atlantic Ocean

Charity Zormelo

Charity Akoshiwo Tornyewonya Zormelo, subsequently Mrs Fiawoo (1904, Keta – 14 October 1945) was the first woman graduate from the Gold Coast, and the first woman from English-speaking West Africa to earn a B. S. degree.

Coccinia intermedia

Based on the current collections, Coccinia intermedia is likely to occur in the Dahomey Gap region and the Isoberlinia woodlands of West Africa.

Copper metallurgy in Africa

In sub-Saharan West Africa there were only two known source of copper that were commercially viable Dkra near Nioro, Mali and Takedda in Azelik, Niger.

David Mbiyu

David's print production (graphic design work includes West Africa magazine, Africa Week magazine and Eastern Africa magazine.

Diene Sagna

As a dance artist, Diene has worked with some of West Africa's greatest artists, including Youssou N'Dour, Baaba Maal, Salif Keita, Coumba Gawlo, Mory Kanté, Angélique Kidjo and Georges Momboye.

François Joseph Clozel

Interested in understanding the region, he took an active part in developing French scientific research in West Africa in collaboration with the anthropologist Maurice Delafosse.

G.V. Series

At the same time in West Africa (what became Nigeria and Ghana, specifically) EMI was recording and releasing Sakara, Juju and Apala music on 78rpm discs in the Parlophone B, HMV JL, HMV JZ and Decca WA/GWA/NGA series (1947–52), as well as HMV owned local labels, such as Ghana's Taymani Special.

Gherkin

The term can also be used to refer to the West Indian Burr Gherkin (Cucumis anguria), a related species, originally from West Africa and introduced to the West Indies, probably by the Portuguese.

Grebo

Grebo people, an ethnic group or subgroup within the larger Kru group of West Africa

Green Actors of West Africa

The initial concept of Green Actors in West Africa was first discussed in September 2004 during a meeting of NC-IUCN’s West African partners in Aburi, Ghana.

Hans Schinz

As a result of the expedition, he published Deutsch-Südwestafrika, Forschungsreisen durch die deutschen Schutzgebiete Groß- Nama- und Hereroland, nach dem Kunene, dem Ngamisee und Kalahari, 1884-1887 (German South West Africa: Research Expedition of Herero and Nama Country, the Kunene Region, Lake Ngami and the Kalahari- 1884-1887).

Kouré, Niger

Kouré is best known for West African giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis peralta), an endemic subspecies of West Africa.

Latécoère 24

One obvious route from France's colonial possessions in West Africa and the Brazilian mainland involved a 1,400 mi ( 2,250 km) flight due south, from the Cape Verde Islands to Fernando de Noronha, as its greatest step.

Lucas Cornelius Steyn

He assisted the South African delegation to the United Nations from 1946 to 1949, and was a legal adviser in the 1950 International Court of Justice hearing into South Africa's refusal to give up South West Africa.

Mahoganies at Banana, Ribeira Montanha

The Mahoganies at Banana, Ribeira Montanha, comprise two African mahogany trees on the island of Santiago in the Cape Verde archipelago, lying 600 km off the coast of north-west Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.

Marcel Lefebvre – Archbishop in Stormy Times

Following a career as an Apostolic Delegate for West Africa and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, he took the lead in opposing the changes within the Church associated with the Second Vatican Council.

Matse Uwatse

In 2009 she won the Women in Media and Entertainment Awards for her "Excellence in Radio Presenting", and the African Voices Awards in Nairobi, Kenya as the "Most Outstanding Radio Presenter in West Africa" 2009.

Programme to Combat Racism

It funded a number of liberation movements while those groups were involved in violent struggle, including UNITA and the MPLA in Angola; FRELIMO in Mozambique; SWAPO in South West Africa/Namibia; the Patriotic Front in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe; and the ANC and Pan Africanist Congress in South Africa.

Pular

Pular language, a Fula language, spoken mainly in Guinea, West Africa

Ralph Randolph Gurley

Ralph Randolph Gurley (May 26, 1797 – July 30, 1872) was a clergyman, an advocate of the separation of the races and a major force in the American Colonization Society, which offered passage to their colony in west Africa (now Liberia), to free black Americans.

Robert C. Lawson

There are now 582 churches world-wide, including congregations in West Africa, Mexico, Canada, the British West Indies, the Dominican Republic, England, Haiti, and the Philippines.

Samori Ture

1830 in Manyambaladugu (in the Konyan region of what is now southeastern Guinea), the son of Dyula traders, Samore grew up in West Africa being transformed by growing contacts with the Europeans.

Simone Cipriani

The Ethical Fashion Initiative harnesses the power of fashion as a vehicle out of poverty by connecting top designers, including Vivienne Westwood and Stella McCartney, to marginalized artisans in East Africa, West Africa and Haiti.

Swakopmund tracking station

Swakopmund tracking station is a Chinese space tracking station in Swakopmund, Namibia, South-West Africa which is used for the Chinese manned space programme.

Sylviane Diouf

She received the 2001 Africana Book Award for Older Readers from the African Studies Association for her book Kings and Queens of West Africa, part of a four-book series (Scholastic, 2000).

Théophile Delcassé

He gave a great impetus to French colonial enterprise, especially in West Africa, where he organized the newly acquired colony of Dahomey, and despatched the Liotard mission to the upper Ubangi.

Thomas Andrewes

He was involved in trade in the Caribbean, and with Maurice Thompson and Samuel Moyer he financed trading ventures with west Africa.

Tiv people

The Tiv are the best known example from West Africa, as documented by Laura Bohannan (1952) and by Paul J. Bohannan and Laura Bohannan (1953); in East Africa the best known example is the Nuer, documented by E.E. Evans-Pritchard (1940).

United National South West Party

The UNSWP favoured incorporation of South West Africa into South Africa, and won elections to the Legislative Assembly elections in 1929, 1934, 1940 and 1945.

Veer Singh Dillon

The son of Devinder Singh was a war hero in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani conflict and has even won honours for the same, while his grandson is still actively serving in the Army of the republic of India and also played a role in the liberation of Freetown in West Africa on Behalf of the United Nations' forces.

Vene

Pterocarpus erinaceus, tree native to West Africa commonly known as vène

Watsi

Medical partners include Nyaya Health, Dr. Rick Hodes, Wuqu' Kawoq, Children's Surgical Centre, CURE International, African Mission Healthcare Foundation, Hope for West Africa, Project Muso, Lwala Community Alliance, Living Hope Haiti, Floating Doctors, Burma Border Projects, Partner for Surgery, International Care Ministries, The Kellermann Foundation, and World Altering Medicine.

West Africa Democracy Radio

In April 2011, Sourcefabric worked with West Africa Democracy Radio to build a news platform for the station using Airtime, Newscoop and Soundcloud integration.

Wolfgang Lüth

U-43 was due to depart Lorient on a war patrol to an area off Freetown, west Africa, but early on 4 February 1941, she sank while tied to the Ysere, (an old sailing ship which was used as a floating pier).

Yeelen

Niamanto Sanogo plays Niankoro's father, who is tracking his son through the Bambara, Fulani and Dogon lands of West Africa using a magical wooden post to guide him.