Sudan

The Kingdom of Kush — Africa's forgotten empire

The Kingdom of Kush (c. 2500–350 CE) was one of the ancient world's great civilisations — the Nubian state south of Egypt that conquered and ruled Egypt as its 25th dynasty (747–656 BCE), built more pyramids than Egypt, and maintained sophisticated urban culture for nearly 3,000 years along the Nile, almost entirely ignored by Western history until recent decades.

Christian Nubia — the kingdoms that resisted Islam for 700 years

The Christian kingdoms of Nubia (c. 350–1504 CE) — Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia — adopted Christianity in the 6th century and resisted Islamic expansion for 700 years after Egypt's conversion, producing a remarkable Coptic-influenced Christian civilisation whose painted churches and manuscripts survived buried in the sand until modern archaeologists uncovered them.

The Mahdist Revolution — Sudan's holy war against empire

The Mahdist Revolution (1881–1898 CE) — led by Muhammad Ahmad, who proclaimed himself the Mahdi (Expected Messiah), defeated the Anglo-Egyptian forces, killed General Gordon at Khartoum (1885), and established an Islamic state that controlled Sudan until the Battle of Omdurman (1898) — was one of the most successful anti-colonial uprisings of the 19th century.

Sudanese independence and the long road to civil war

Sudan's independence (1 January 1956 CE) was immediately troubled — the Arab Muslim north and the Christian and animist south had been administered separately under British rule but merged into one state, planting the seeds of a civil conflict (1955–1972, 1983–2005) that killed over 2 million people before South Sudan's secession in 2011.

The Darfur genocide and Sudan's unending crises

The Darfur conflict (2003–present) was a genocide conducted by the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militia proxies against non-Arab African populations in western Sudan — approximately 300,000 killed, 2.7 million displaced — for which Omar al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court.

South Sudan's independence — the world's newest nation

South Sudan's independence (9 July 2011 CE), following a referendum in which 98.8% voted for secession from Sudan, made it the world's newest internationally recognised state — but within two years it descended into civil war between rival factions of the liberation movement, creating one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.