Marked Gao

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Songhai empire

From Gao on the Niger, Sunni Ali and then Askia Muhammad built the largest empire in West Africa’s history. It fell after a Moroccan army with guns beat it at Tondibi in 1591.

Date
1464 to 1591IX · Oceans crossed
Place
Gao · Timbuktu · Djenné · TondibiAfrica
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
5 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. ISunni Ali
  2. IIAskia Muhammad and the pilgrimage
  3. IIIGao, Timbuktu and Djenné
  4. IVScholars of Timbuktu
  5. VTondibi, 1591

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Sunni Ali
  • Askia Muhammad
  • Ahmad Baba
  • Ahmad al-Mansur

Objects

  • The Tomb of Askia, Gao
  • The Tarikh al-Sudan

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1464 to 1591. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?