About

The African history left out of the textbooks.

All ThingZ Africa tells the true stories of the people who shaped the continent: queens who out-negotiated empires, kings richer than anyone could count, revolutionaries, scientists and the ordinary people who stood up to colonial rule.

Every episode follows one figure. We tell the whole story: the triumphs, the hard choices and the parts that are still argued about. So far that has meant Queen Nzinga, Thomas Sankara, Mansa Musa, Yaa Asantewaa, Wangari Maathai, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, King Leopold II, Shaka Zulu, King Njoya, Jaja of Opobo, Moshoeshoe I of Lesotho and Menelik II of Ethiopia.

How we make an episode

Each episode starts with a researched, fact-checked script and a recorded narration. The pictures are historical paintings, photographs, engravings and maps, almost all from Wikimedia Commons, where the licence of every image is known. Each episode page lists who made the images we used. When a picture illustrates a moment rather than showing the actual place or day, we say so.

Where the record is disputed, or was written mostly by a figure's enemies, we say that too.

Get involved

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