The history of how America used special forces in secret to destabilise the region and introduce islamic state so that they can control the mineral rights in a neo colonial dystopia?
Glad you liked it ! I originally got fascinated by the Benin bronze/copper plates with the amazing depictions of Warriors and nobles...then kept reading and found a really awesome history that I do not think gets enough credit. There are a couple other African countries that hopefully I'll get to make videos on too :)
Looking forward to it! And Alex Y, you'd be surprised how much stuff was going on in Africa. Im no professional historian or anything, but I've heard of a ton of ancient cities spread across west Africa.
As a Nigerian, I’m super proud that we’re being recognized as having well over 5000 years of civilization before being colonized. We also traded with Egypt, Mali and the rest of the world. Naija for life
When you think about it, it becomes apparent why Africa is suffering from near constant conflicts. People tend to forget how huuuge it is. Nigeria alone is bigger than France. But then, most of the civilizations that emerged inside of that area were of different ethnic origins. Modern France had only Gauls and then Latin speakers inside of it, while in comparison, Nigeria could be compared with putting Russians, Italians, Swedes and many others side by side. And that's only one country. All in all, general public needs to learn about this. Africa had their share of sophisticated civilizations. Some of those were more advanced than European ones in some aspects. Most people, when thinking about Africa, are seeing a continent that was full of some naked tribes until Europeans colonized them. But it's far from the truth. Spreading the knowledge is the way to go.
Vitalis france was quite varied back in the time. After the fall of rome multiple romance languages emerged in several regions which differed quite a lot from each. It was pretty divided and had its shares of political and religious civil wars from the middle ages up until the 16th century. Centralization helped make the country more homogenous
Centralization was less hard in these regions though, as all these people shared a common origin point. For many in africa, extreme ethnic diversity means that two populations bordering each other could be completely distinct. You mention how multiple romance languages popped up in France, well thats cool and all, but they were all romance languages, and were all thus somewhat similar. Now, imagine that all of those languages were from completely different families. Romance languages and Germanic languages and Sino-Tibetan languages all spoken in the same small region. Only in Africa.
Yeah, various Romance languages spoken in France pale in comparison with the situation present in Africa. It all comes down to the fact that the human race had (allegedly) began there, so there was more time for different language families to emerge. Compare that to Europe, where Indo-European speakers had only spread there recently.
there were countless different languages and cultures/tribes during that time in France, the Romans just decided to call the peoples west of the rhein river as Celts/gauls, with no respect to the large ethnic, cultural varriety. Calling them "gauls" is just like calling all people in Africa simply africans. It was not until the end of the 19th centuries, under napoleon, that French became the predominent language of France spoken by the large majority of its citizen.
It's refreshing to see a history channel actually include Sub-Saharan Africa as a worthy topic of discussion. It's sad that Africa is almost always brushed aside or ignored as if it doesn't belong, despite it's rich and ancient history. Great work. I make videos about African history as well.
I have seen several of your videos, love your channel man! I am glad you liked my video :) High praise coming from you. Seeing pictures of the Benin bronze plaques of warriors inspired me to start researching for this video, really amazing craftsmanship
Thanks! It's funny because one of my subscribers messaged me in my discord telling me to check out this video. Then another one of them said that he saw you comment on one of my videos before and said "I wonder if your videos inspired him to make this one." You have some good stuff too man. I subbed and you did a great job on this one. Nothing is watered down or half-done, you did Nigeria it's full justice in this video and all of your facts are precise.
Well as you see the whole history of one of the major nations in africa is covered in 6 minutes and half of it is european influence. So yes their history is not that rich. And just not as rich as european or asian history. Not saying I do not appreciate videos like this, just saying that sub saharan africa has little history
They really cut up Africa badly. It really effects Nigeria and other countries till today. I guess they call it ‘divide and conquer’. I am a proud Nigerian 🙏🏾 loving being Yoruba too
Some people REALLY get triggered when talking about Africa and/or African civilizations. They get really angsty for seeing Africans had their own great civilizations.
I scrolled down the comment section I didn’t see a single comment from people who were “triggered”. West African history isn’t talked much about but anyone who likes history knows about their accomplishments.
As a proud Edo and Nigerian guy, I'm really honoured and grateful for this exposure... It's crazy to think that growing up all I learnt in school about my country's history started from 1914... Thanks a lot for this🇳🇬🇳🇬
You can Google Benin art and. Igbo Ukwu art and Ife. The igbos believed in a creator God, a supreme God before the Whiteman came. They also have a creation story from a certain kingdom: this kingdom was seen as the origin of all igbos, the king was revered and never seen yet he never fought a war, he was a priest king who had no slaves. If a slave escapes to Nri, they are no longer slaves. Blood shed was forbidden
The time frame given to the Benin empire was actually wrong. The Edo people have actually occupied the south southern region of the country for hundreds of years before Christ existed. Great exposé by the way.
This is why TH-cam is 10x better than anything I learned in school. I grew up in a small town Kansas and when I was in school I was told that areas in Africa had no history. However after learning online and traveling I’ve learned so much. Thank you for spreading true knowledge
This was really interesting, thank you! I've asked my parents about the history of Nigeria, but neither of them really know much (despite growing up in Nigeria). My mother told me that in her day they learned British history and not Nigerian history in school...which to me is just crazy!
The UK definitely destroyed some serious world heritage, they sacked and burned the Benin empire to the ground, looted historical bronze sold some at auction and kept other in their museums and still won’t apologize or return the items to this day.
A peaceful British party was slaughtered by the people of Benin, which lead to the sacking of their city. The looted items were sold by the victors to pay for the campaign which was the global norm at the time.
I'm from Ethiopia and my husband is Nigerian and I wanted to learn more about his history and this is great! We're both american born and still learning our history but this is simple and really easy to understand. Thanks!!
Well done Epimetheus 👏🏿👏🏿 I’m so glad that African history is finally being discussed. Too many times the only time Africa is mentioned is in reference to Egypt or Slavery&Colonialism. Hence many people thought that sub-Saharan Africa had no history prior to Europe/Arab intervention. Glad to see more people disproving it and having real historical discussions about Africa! Cheers mate
Also the Walls of Benin is an architectural wonder that is underrated af! Took over 600 years to build and is the 2nd (arguably the first depending on how you measure it) longest walls ever made before the modern era, right up there with the wall of china. Benin city in general was just awesome, a dutch traveler said that the King’s court ALONE was the same size as the town of Harleem😳😳😳
kwadwo baidoo True, Although I wouldn’t mind if he does Mali, or Dhar Tichitt before he comes to Ghana. Even though I’m Ghanaian i wanna spread the love all around haha
Matilda, Igbo build Benin kingdom, tomorrow you will say you are not igbo, read history, you know who you are, leave British and their evil government and lies, only to oppress us, they carry 3 kingdom but together, ndi ara ndi are everywhere?
Missing-nin i heard lagos is beautiful, god willing i will visit one day and stay at some beautiful resort. Much love and success for Nigeria from Ethiopia.
@@archyarchfiendx2938 Stop the nonsense we aren't Biafra is a word coined by one man- Ojukwu. We are traditionally ancestrally and customarily Igbo. Get your facts right ignorant and gullible youths.
Wow! as an Egyptian i see a lot of coverage to my country's history in media but rarely do sub-Saharan African nations get any limelight. i thoroughly enjoyed your video and learned a lot about Nigeria in the process
I am grateful for this because Nigerian history taught to me in school started from the year 1914 when we were colonized and pretty much centred around the British history than real Nigerian history
Same here in Zambia it's so annoying that we define our selves ( flags national anthems etc) based on our brief but horrible interaction with the whites, I wish we could forget that stuff it's all associated with feelings of inferiority, we have a greater past to be proud of
Thats so interesting! My country was colonised in the 1600s by Britain and got its independence 100 years ago. But still to this day in our schools all we learn about is how the British beat us and thats why we speak English, we learn nothing about the peoples and cultures that existed before or after
Nok culture and civilization was in the interior of Nigeria circa 9000 years ago, the problem for archaeology in west Africa is the climate and rainforests which degrade archaeological evidence much quicker compared to other regions
that true.. that why Aztec, Maya and Malaysia-Indonesia stone city dont survive long, included thailand, cambodia, burma, vietnam only in Indonesia few palace ruin still exist like "Keraton Kaibon Banten" and " Ratu Boko" some wood palace dont survive at all. Angkor wat is huge city, with stone road, stone bridge, many temple, palace but few ruin and temple survive. the best preserve in China in Datong, Beijing, Middleeast, North india, Europe, North Africa because on climate. jungle easy take over southeast asia, central and south america and also in rainforrest africa in south nigeria, ghana, and benin.
The Nok thrived in the Northern part of Nigeria though, which isn't covered by rainforests, but Savanna (Sahel, Sudan, Northern and Southern Guinea Savanna) instead.
@@strpth414 The climate changed immensely throughout the world in the last few thousand years, such as the volume and cleanliness of various rivers that were documented by historians, that are now dried up valleys or barely streams today.
Nigeria has a very rich history that deserves to be discussed more. I'm of Ghanaian origin myself but I've found Nigerian history very interesting too!
I am proud of my Edo people and our Ancestors, they were amazing warriors, the image with two lines on the forehead shown at the end of this video was the Queen mother and first female Commander General of the Edo people (Igodomigodo's) in 1504 to 1550. The image is our identity to the world. I still have the pendant on my necklace. Oba gha tö kpe re 🙌
Woiller- Relic African isn’t a language and ö is not an accented o that is only used in Germany. Ever since our languages were written in Roman script we had to use accented letters because many Nigerian languages are tonal. It isn’t your creation as you did not make roman script.
It's Lah-goes, as named originally by the Portuguese, Lay-goes comes from the mispronunciation by English colonizers, same with Igbo, the g isn't silent but the English couldn't pronounce the gb sound
Just did my Ancestry DNA and I’m mostly Nigerian. I’m so happy to finally know and proud to discover that my ancestors were Kings and Queens who were very creative like myself.
It should be noted that the images of walls you show when talking about the Walls of benin, around the 2:00 mark are actually the walls of eredo a different city state. The walls of Benin aren't really a superstructure but rather a many different structures that that were built over a very long time and eventually interlinked.
From Wikipedia which also has an etching that has an image of the walls in the background; “The Walls of Benin are a series of earthworks made up of banks and ditches, called Iya in the Edo language, in the area around present-day Benin City, the capital of present-day Edo, Nigeria. They consist of 15 km (9.3 mi) of city iya and an estimated 16,000 kilometres (9,900 miles) of rural iya in the area around Benin.[1] The 'walls' of Benin City and surrounding areas were described as "the world's largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era" by the Guinness book of Records.”
Nahom Alem most? You know the capial of ancient Axum is in Ethiopia (Tigray). I thought Eritreans hate Ethiopia and want no part in associaion of Ethiopia?
Shockingly they were the most realistic most detailed and most sophisticated sculptures of the time and Era. The Ife art was described as hyper realistic . Till date no one exactly knows how they mined and melted and cast the art works...at an age before the Italian Renaissance
It's so sad that history normally talk about Egypt and kemetic as ancient civilization in Africa Before them west africa was Nigerias diversity can't be compared cos it has so many stolen history's Our artifacts are there in the British museum they stole everything about us ... Today I have to pay them to see the goodness and wonderful arts of my forefathers ...the British amalgamated the country just to reap from it through the Islamic caliphate ...
The Egypt version of African history, I am afraid, was spread by African-Americans because, in my opinion, some could not trace back their lineage to specific tribe/ethnic group so Egypt, to them, symbolizes Africa as home.
African artifacts should be returned to the countries that they came from. If Europeans really wish to see examples of African culture they should visit the relevant countries. In museums in the West, the context in which those artifacts were made and used is lost.
@Shashe Marni How many "A A" can find their origin. Were slaves moved from Eygpt to America? If they are Black Hamites how has it been beneficial to tracing origin?
I’m a Nigerian. Most of the time our country is spoken about in terms of corruption, over population and fraud. While these aren’t false, there is so much more to us than that. Thank you for giving a more realistic picture of Nigeria. Subscribed
A generation of Nigerians were taught history of Nigeria AD 1000 to present day but from the year 2000 many schools stopped teaching history. History was meant for the arts students in classes of senior secondary only. A lot of people in Nigeria don't know their history. I believe this is deliberate and it has benefited the modern political elite.
Thanks a lot for sharing the knowledge of the Nigeria's history from the beginning until present in 6 minutes, good explanation. I see that the ancient Nigerian civilization was sophisticated along with its counterpart Egypt.
Visit the British museum in London, there's a whole floor dedicated to Benin artworks ( bronzes) looted by the Brits during the Benin invasion of 1897....Some are over a 1000 years old
I knew and learnt about this long time ago in Fine Art class while I was in junior secondary school. I know very well about the Nokia culture and the Benin civilization. Proudly Yoruba. God bless Nigeria 🇳🇬
@Tolu , No one supposed to teach you your own history you have the duty and responsibility as a human to find out for yourself who you really are As the old saying goes “ ignorance is the tool the enemy uses to control the world
Actually the country (polity) of Nigeria has only some 60 years of age, a century if you consider its colonial precursor. What the number of languages show is not so much antiquity but historical diversity (and thus lack of unity), and incidentally it is a problem for the unity of Nigeria, which has been struggling with separatist tendencies since its foundation. To put a counter-example in Europe, Italy is a very old country, founded by Rome in its early expansion and social war (the only part of the Empire that wasn't a province, i.e. not a colony but the metropolis) and what Romans did was actually to erase all that linguistic diversity in favor of Latin, be it classical or vulgar (the direct ancestor of modern Italian dialects, as well as of other Romance languages). So I'd say that an "old country" probably has erased all or most of its original linguistic diversity by imposition of the official language. Maybe that will happen to Nigeria some day and that day they will speak, most likely, a Nigerian variety of English, much like the French speak a "Gaulish" (or "Frankish") variety of Latin.
Lol Nigeria is younger than my parents. We don’t have over 500 languages. Most are dialects of larger languages. All these groups were their own independent nations until the Europeans conquered them
As a Nigerian I commend your excellent work here! However, the Nri Kingdom flourished even earlier than 940AD. Also, the Nok were possibly conducting advanced metallurgical work some 5000 years ago and some evidence of that are currently coming to light.
@@GlobalAfrikanProgress thanks for asking. It took centuries, the Europeans had literally dedicated their lives to it. It started sometime in the 1200s with the Roman but it came to prominence in the 1400s when the Portuguese took some part of Guinea all the way to Ghana. Ghanaians and banished “Nigerians” were used to fight “Nigerians” alongside with so many psychological games
@@GlobalAfrikanProgress in other words, the Europeans could not penetrate west Africa/Africa in general with fire power, impossible. They had to start off smart let’s say by setting deals with the oyo empire who hates the bini kingdom, they (the British and oyos) would arrive at whatever deal they make and then set off to go fight Bini. Once they defeated Bini, they would convince Bini to help them take revenge on oyo having them take oyo. They did the same with Ghanaians and Bini people against Igbos then marched to the Hausa/fulanis. A very demonic act, it was incredible. No one has ever practiced it in a mass. Two faced personalities is usually practiced by one person or a group of people at best. We’ve never seen a whole nation. Even though all this happened, we black people were just stupidly ignorant. only the Igbos made things hard for the British (till this day). Umuchukwu! Children of light! The fulanis were very smart enough they realized that they should just sign a deal with the British.
@@GlobalAfrikanProgress No guns. Because europe was destroyed and pillaged by the mongols which is how guns ended up in europe, Africa was never pillaged by filthy mongols so guns never ended up in Africa, except guns ended up in Ethiopia through specific situations and Ethiopians won the war against Italians and killed all the Italians, there were no europeans in Ethiopia, ever, which is funny no one mentions. When African countries have guns they win all wars.
martins freimanis They are. Unfortunately some of these are not in Nigeria anymore. The Benin Bronzes for example are in the British museum. But the Ife bust are there and are definitely worth seeing.
Bari Martin Yeah but there are still very ugly stuff coming from African cultures such as female mutilation also these people have a terrible record of human rights violations
Constantine V Yeah, their human rights record isn't as great as those fine people who massacre billions and treat people like shit based on superficial nonsense. Why are you even hear you self loathing loser. Why not do the world a favor?
Constantine V im not going to try and talk shit to you like the other guy but... I must say that all places that are developing as people will have violence look at ww1 and ww2 almost war of ideas. We can see the same happening in Africa. Some wars there are wars for resources like American bloods and crips are doing for areas to sell crack. Just like ww2 which is often called the war for resources. Im ok with people pointing it out but as a black person I hate it when people try to act like it's alien to this world and blacks are the only ones who take part in tribalism. It's like they don't know the usa and ussr was going to nuke every thing to no return because they had a different opinion on gov. But they will gloss over that pure act of tribalism. But I don't think thats what you intended to do my good man.
I was born in America. I recently did a ancestry, DNA test and it said I was 40% Nigeria wow so I am here gaining all the knowledge I can and researching about my ancestors I am so happy right now
Great vid! However you missed out on the Kanem Bornu empire in the far north east, they successfully fended off the expansion of the sokoto caliphate to that part of Northern Nigeria. As a result there is a proliferation of Christian minority ethnic groups
Wonderful short history of Nigeria, it is amazing how many Nigerian kingdoms lasted from 500 to 1000 years. The British only colonized Nigeria for 45 years.
In all reality, the continent of Africa should have about 1200 countries. Amazing how many tribes there are in each of these countries today and especially throughout history.
Armors were not that useful in tropical heat, I've read of certain West African monarch (can't recall the details) who was gifted a full European plate armor and spent all day under the sun in it, dying of suffocation. At the extreme it's basically a solar oven and you don't want to cook yourself alive, really.
@@LuisAldamiz So what about Spain and Southern Italy? Not to mention Greece, Malta, and the multitudes of Mediterranean islands which all have hot weather? All of these regions used armor and they are no less hot than African countries (Sahara region notwithstanding). It's a common misconception that Africa is unusually hot. Armor in Africa was not used not because of the heat (or because it's tropical which is another misconception). The average temperature in the region in question is 25 degrees Celsius (78 Fahrenheit). Sicily could Certainly match that. Armor wasnt used because horses werent used and armies travelled entirely by foot. Armor is a lot easier to cope with if you're on a horse. And it's the case in Europe as well. Foot soldiers and bowman are either lightly armored or not at all. This idea of heavily armored soldiers in multitudes marching across the land is purely Hollywood, It just didnt happen. Knights who were generally of the upper classes and could afford a horse would be the only ones in a kings army with full plated armor. As for the story of the African in full plate armor well yeah, thats understandable seeing he was on foot wearing that full plate armor (which no foot soldier in Europe would wear). If Africans had horses perhaps they would have worn armor but seeing that horses werent native to Africa and most of the ones imported would catch diseases and die (unlike how they thrived in America after the Spanish bought them there), horses and armor were never a part of their military history. I've often wondered how Africa would have developed over the millennia if horses had been native to the continent.
@@cryp4life509 - It's not a misconception that the Tropics, not just Africa are generally hot year round, and that's even more serious near the deserts like th Sahara. Also the most extreme temperatures are by the interior of continents and not by the coast, that's why the Mediterranean region is warm but seldom really hot (when it is it's towards the interior, Seville, Skopjie, Ankara, places like those rather than Athens, Istanbul or Cádiz). I really don't know, I read that story once and it implied the guy sturdily posing with his shiny new armor for the whole day... under the Sahelian Sun, which is probably one of the hottest on Earth. People do die every year all around the world because of heat shock, so maybe it was that rather than "being cooked alive" literally. I would guess that heavy armored knights had tricks for the heat waves, like fighting with less armor or not fighting at all, I really can't say. But considering that we evolved our hairlessness and sweatness in order to survive the Sahelian heat, I woild think it's a bad idea to use heavy armor in such a context unless you really know what you're doing. Tropical Africans had horses in some cases at least but, much like China in their difficult wars with the Huns (Xiong Nu), they had to import them often enough and generally relied more on infantry instead. IMO the problem here is that horses really did not spread to Tropical Africa until rather late and the contexts in which they existed were heavily reliant on Muslim allegiance and also probably favored the camel better (arid zones near the Sahara). Armor was not invented for horsemanship anyhow, but for all purposes but primarily infantry (hoplites, legionaires, stuff like that). Of course the "terminal" knight armor was not apt for infantry: too heavy. Eeven in the 12th century, when it was not so extreme yet, the almost unarmored Almogavars, forced knights down their horses (by killing the mounts AFAIK) so they had to fight at a disadvantage on two legs, sometimes with a broken leg, I guess. They won many battles against the Byzantine cataphracts that way before being defeated by Basque and Gascon pikemen at Thebes (Pyrenean mercenaries in Greece are often overlooked but they seem to me quite important in the development of infantry as dominant in the Late Middle Ages, even before the famous Swiss and Scottish pike formations).
kwadwo baidoo I love africa no matter where you from we are one it makes me proud when ghana, naija, ethiopia, kenya, senegal... win because it's a win for our people. One Love africa👑🖤❤️🖤
Dont let this white ppl write your history. No one can write your history better than you. You begging these fool to write your history, is a slavery mentality. Have you ever see any white person beg a black man to write about his history?
I'm super grateful for this video, I'm a teacher and I needed to teach Nigerian history to my class but I had no idea of what to say because I wasn't taught. This video has given me a lot to talk about with them and I hope I can make it simple enough for kids to understand 💕🇳🇬
That's terrifying. You're a teacher and your excuse is that you "wasn't taught" and now you gain knowledge from a youtube video. Maybe, just maybe you could research the subject that you are required to teach. God help your class.
If you are going to base your class on a 6 min video no matter how accurate maybe it's time to get your school to employ a history major who knows what the word 'research' means. The person who prepared this wasn't born with these facts in his or her head. Sorry for your students
@@maximillianafrancine1451 I try not to judge but going off the comment she isn't qualified to teach this subject at all. Personal responsibility is sorely lacking today it seems.
@@54356776 the thing is even Africans often think that the more ignorant they are about there own identity, the whiter they can be (in their heads,). This is someone whose name is Enitan. A more typical York Yoruba name is hard to find. She was probably hired as the token African but to be more like the Westerners, you cannot be too African and bother to actually learn anything to teach a class of curious kids. It boggles the mind that in this century there are still Africans like this. Meanwhile, so many Afro Westerners are dying to know their real identity
As a direct descendant of victims of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade on both sides of my family, it is quite depressing to hear that these people actively sold perhaps my ancestors and certainly others into generations of slavery for monetary gain.
If its helps you could also think of your ancestors as slave traders who got kidnapped as well, there are many ways the slave trade happened depending on the ethnicity, some were sold as prisoners of war by other tribes some were forcefully annexed by the europeans, some colaborated with the westerners to kidnap people and got the same treatment when they stepped out of line. Its a very grey situation, but no matter what it is non of your ancestors were ever born slaves. I do hope that helps
@@idaraudoh2808 I very much doubt it. I'm an easy going, non material, non violent kind of guy. So is my Dad and by all accounts his dad and granddad - my great, great granddad. So are my brothers and cousins. We're not violent. Most of the victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were indeed victims. They had nothing to do with it. Otherwise they would have had access to modern European guns to defend themselves, guns that were indeed used against them. Slave traders are not the kind of people that looked for a fair fight. They attacked people who they seriously believed they would defeat. What typically happened in those days was that a often peaceful village would be surrounded in the dead of night, then at daybreak the huts would be set on fire and the black African slave traders would attack in force with European guns and machetes. They then preceded to slaughter the adults or anyone that put up a fight and enslave everyone else - mostly teenagers and young children and women. There are many accounts from Europeans that the enslaved were both very young and had few 'battle' scars on them. This indicates they weren't even the defeated from a battle. Of course statistically some of the slave traders were indeed enslaved themselves, but considering the numbers that were involved, estimates range from 12 million to 25 million it is highly very few of these victims were slave traders themselves. This figure does not include of course the millions more who died in slave raids and those who died on the forced march to the coast. So, in short it is highly unlikely my ancestors hunted down and sold people for guns, trinkets or alcohol. As such, I do not consider it a grey area at all, but a stark black and white issue with us Caribbean/Americas black people being the victims of black African betrayal, greed, short sightedness, violence and uncivilized behaviour.
Thanks for the succinct, refreshing original content covering an interesting and important topic. Just wanted to say, I noticed some dumb hate in the Reddit comments about your voice, but I think you do a great job -- and I'm a particularly harsh critic of US narrations on Audible etc.
Just so you know " mr history teller..Lagos was not part of oyo empire: " oyo empire was to the north of Lagos..but rather Lagos was part of Benin empire and was established or founded by a Benin king Ado as eko kingdom" hence the king of Lagos is still loyal to the king of Benin edo state till this day...Lagos became what it is today after it was declared the capital of Nigeria the population grew from less than 200.000 in 1930 to over a million in 1960..
Thanks for actually doing some real honest history research and on my people(Yoruba from Oyo, SW Nigeria, mistaken for the lost *city of Atlantis* by the first English and Germans there) I can confirm it was spot on, which is unusual and rare.
@Riffian BVLL No it's not, and to belittle an art does not make your viewpoint anymore factual. I find West African art more interesting and sophisticated than Greco-Roman art, that's my own personal opinion. I find them more out bringing of human nature and spirituality and are completely related to the people, unlike Greco-Roman art that's inspired by other cultures.
@Abraham Girt who told you that? have you visited every African country? 😑 fuck you mean mostly. you think you know just because you're too ignorant to really find out about Africa. 😑
@Abraham Girt Africa is more than that. I will not talk for other African countries but my country is highly urbanized and even poor people have ways to feed themselves, mostly through farming. there's orphanages and homeless people's homes. there's poor people everywhere in the world but Africa has been painted in an extremely unfair light. it's so bad that people ask me if i live in trees or how I am able to use internet. there's extremely poor nations in Africa but that's not every country.
"No land has boring history, we just have a lack of evidence." Goddamn is African history understudied around the world. Thank you for this
But this is surface gist
@@john3v16grace9 wdym?
So understudied-
The history of how America used special forces in secret to destabilise the region and introduce islamic state so that they can control the mineral rights in a neo colonial dystopia?
compare this heap of shit to rome, to greece, to egypt and then come back
Holy crap, a main stream history channel covering africa outside of Egypt???
Wow, im surprised!
Thanks so much Epimetheus :D
Glad you liked it !
I originally got fascinated by the Benin bronze/copper plates with the amazing depictions of Warriors and nobles...then kept reading and found a really awesome history that I do not think gets enough credit. There are a couple other African countries that hopefully I'll get to make videos on too :)
Looking forward to it!
And Alex Y, you'd be surprised how much stuff was going on in Africa. Im no professional historian or anything, but I've heard of a ton of ancient cities spread across west Africa.
Epimetheus
Ancient Nubia!
Yeah unfortunately most people think us Africans lived in hunts until the Europeans came, this video shows obviously not
How about the hebrews ?
From the bottom of my heart as a person with Nigerian blood, I thank you for this quick and fascinating history of 🇳🇬!!!
The brief history of Nigeria
@Não Consigo Pensar Em Um Nome weak jab, snowchimp
@Não Consigo Pensar Em Um Nome speak Portuguese?...your ancestors must be slave owners
@Sundiata Keita The difference is that Epimitheus has a much larger audience which he can reach compared to you
What the fuck is going on in this thread.
As a Nigerian, I’m super proud that we’re being recognized as having well over 5000 years of civilization before being colonized. We also traded with Egypt, Mali and the rest of the world. Naija for life
Its a shame we never got Gun Powder like the Turks. Blast the English ships from the shore. 👀
Naija for life
🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
Who is we?
Thanks to 23&me , I know Nigeria, west Africa and Egypt are part of my genetics.
When you think about it, it becomes apparent why Africa is suffering from near constant conflicts. People tend to forget how huuuge it is. Nigeria alone is bigger than France. But then, most of the civilizations that emerged inside of that area were of different ethnic origins. Modern France had only Gauls and then Latin speakers inside of it, while in comparison, Nigeria could be compared with putting Russians, Italians, Swedes and many others side by side. And that's only one country.
All in all, general public needs to learn about this. Africa had their share of sophisticated civilizations. Some of those were more advanced than European ones in some aspects. Most people, when thinking about Africa, are seeing a continent that was full of some naked tribes until Europeans colonized them. But it's far from the truth. Spreading the knowledge is the way to go.
Well said, greetings from an African
Vitalis france was quite varied back in the time. After the fall of rome multiple romance languages emerged in several regions which differed quite a lot from each. It was pretty divided and had its shares of political and religious civil wars from the middle ages up until the 16th century. Centralization helped make the country more homogenous
Centralization was less hard in these regions though, as all these people shared a common origin point. For many in africa, extreme ethnic diversity means that two populations bordering each other could be completely distinct. You mention how multiple romance languages popped up in France, well thats cool and all, but they were all romance languages, and were all thus somewhat similar. Now, imagine that all of those languages were from completely different families. Romance languages and Germanic languages and Sino-Tibetan languages all spoken in the same small region.
Only in Africa.
Yeah, various Romance languages spoken in France pale in comparison with the situation present in Africa. It all comes down to the fact that the human race had (allegedly) began there, so there was more time for different language families to emerge. Compare that to Europe, where Indo-European speakers had only spread there recently.
there were countless different languages and cultures/tribes during that time in France, the Romans just decided to call the peoples west of the rhein river as Celts/gauls, with no respect to the large ethnic, cultural varriety. Calling them "gauls" is just like calling all people in Africa simply africans. It was not until the end of the 19th centuries, under napoleon, that French became the predominent language of France spoken by the large majority of its citizen.
It's refreshing to see a history channel actually include Sub-Saharan Africa as a worthy topic of discussion. It's sad that Africa is almost always brushed aside or ignored as if it doesn't belong, despite it's rich and ancient history. Great work. I make videos about African history as well.
I have seen several of your videos, love your channel man!
I am glad you liked my video :) High praise coming from you.
Seeing pictures of the Benin bronze plaques of warriors inspired me to start researching for this video, really amazing craftsmanship
Thanks! It's funny because one of my subscribers messaged me in my discord telling me to check out this video. Then another one of them said that he saw you comment on one of my videos before and said "I wonder if your videos inspired him to make this one." You have some good stuff too man. I subbed and you did a great job on this one. Nothing is watered down or half-done, you did Nigeria it's full justice in this video and all of your facts are precise.
Epimetheus
Are planing doing Somalia? Thanks
From Nothing 👍
Well as you see the whole history of one of the major nations in africa is covered in 6 minutes and half of it is european influence. So yes their history is not that rich. And just not as rich as european or asian history. Not saying I do not appreciate videos like this, just saying that sub saharan africa has little history
They really cut up Africa badly. It really effects Nigeria and other countries till today. I guess they call it ‘divide and conquer’. I am a proud Nigerian 🙏🏾 loving being Yoruba too
@@OsundairoBrothers Thank you :)
Shola Sholade can you teach me the Yoruba way, I think my ancestors came from Yorubaland
@@OsundairoBrothers damn g i see you shooting your shot
Yesss i love being yoruba!!!
U should not call self yurubo just say najerian tribe or ethnic only make your country less power
Some people REALLY get triggered when talking about Africa and/or African civilizations. They get really angsty for seeing Africans had their own great civilizations.
100%, I’m white British and it’s weird to see all this white fragility in response to impressive African civilisations
@Nikolan Gladowski not according to British law…if you’re not from the UK you may be unaware of British laws and conventions
They just can't believe anything good can be associated with African countries.But then they claim to be the onesthat go by the facts.
I’m Nigerian, grew up in Ireland. Never knew there were people like that
I scrolled down the comment section I didn’t see a single comment from people who were “triggered”. West African history isn’t talked much about but anyone who likes history knows about their accomplishments.
Those metal sculptures are impressive, considering how long ago they were made!
Linfamy yeah true
Linfamy we do this in Haiti 🇭🇹
Mike Raymond wow that's awesome too!
Linfamy yeah
Keep in mind this was at the same time as Greek sculptors, so they weren’t the best imo
Massive respect for doing pre-colonial & pre-atlantic slave trade African history!
KingCribble Agreed, we need more of these!
Decriminalize Darwinism Sorry that I didn't say "pre-trans-atlantic slave trade" whilst talking on my phone, my semantics obsessed friend.
KingCribble dont worry we will remind you
well it was Nothing speacial realy
What do you mean by "pre-slavery"? There was no "pre-slavery Africa", only post-slavery, but that is disputed since there still exist modern slavery.
As a proud Edo and Nigerian guy, I'm really honoured and grateful for this exposure... It's crazy to think that growing up all I learnt in school about my country's history started from 1914... Thanks a lot for this🇳🇬🇳🇬
Love Nigeria from Ethiopia 🇪🇹❤️🇳🇬
From Ethiopia 🇪🇹, to my Nigerian 🇳🇬 brothers and sisters. - WE LOVE YOU -
እኛ እርስ በራስ እንገዳደላለን፦ አፍሪካ ከጥግ እስከ ጥግ አንድ ናት
We love Ethiopia too, our Solomonic dynasty brothers to the east. 👍🏾
One love 🇪🇹❤️🇳🇬
Those metal sculptures were breathtaking! Thanks for introducing me to some African history.
Benin Bronzes
You can Google Benin art and. Igbo Ukwu art and Ife. The igbos believed in a creator God, a supreme God before the Whiteman came. They also have a creation story from a certain kingdom: this kingdom was seen as the origin of all igbos, the king was revered and never seen yet he never fought a war, he was a priest king who had no slaves. If a slave escapes to Nri, they are no longer slaves. Blood shed was forbidden
I’m a British Nigerian🇬🇧 🇳🇬, I’m from the Edo tribe and I’m so proud. My ancestors were innovators and royalty.
I’m from Jamaica But found out my ancestors are from edo (Benin) and Togo
Adesua Dynast why u come to Britain ?
The time frame given to the Benin empire was actually wrong. The Edo people have actually occupied the south southern region of the country for hundreds of years before Christ existed.
Great exposé by the way.
@Mwaniki Mwaniki Okay,so u guys learn about Nigerian tribes in ur schools? I don't think we are thought about other African tribes in Nigerian schools
@Mwaniki Mwaniki Okay nice
This is why TH-cam is 10x better than anything I learned in school. I grew up in a small town Kansas and when I was in school I was told that areas in Africa had no history. However after learning online and traveling I’ve learned so much. Thank you for spreading true knowledge
This was really interesting, thank you! I've asked my parents about the history of Nigeria, but neither of them really know much (despite growing up in Nigeria). My mother told me that in her day they learned British history and not Nigerian history in school...which to me is just crazy!
Lexa Karlyn Vlogs that is not true.. History is taught in classes,your mum just doesn't remember which is quite sad
I'm sorry to say but your summary is wrong in several places
Back when Nigeria was a British colony and in the years after, they were taught British history. But that’s not the case anymore.
It’s very true! My parents were born and raised in Ghana, they didn’t learn African history either....
Wow you are gorgeous
Love Nigeria 🇳🇬 from Somalia 🇸🇴 🙏🏾
Thanks :)
Love Somalia and it’s people 🇸🇴from NY
Are you a pirate
@@devinstreater1763 thank you 😊
@@devinstreater1763 please tell me this is just an unfunny joke
Love Nigeria from Somalia 👍😁🇸🇴
Love Somalia from Nigeria 🇸🇴😘🇳🇬😁
We love You, too.
🇸🇴
Hope Somalia gets better man. Love from America
do you have internet in somalia?
The UK definitely destroyed some serious world heritage, they sacked and burned the Benin empire to the ground, looted historical bronze sold some at auction and kept other in their museums and still won’t apologize or return the items to this day.
A peaceful British party was slaughtered by the people of Benin, which lead to the sacking of their city. The looted items were sold by the victors to pay for the campaign which was the global norm at the time.
@@Soril2010 buT bRiTaiN is eViL
@@Soril2010 really? that's ur justification?
Destroyed, erased and stole. They’ll never return what they’ve taken or sincerely apologise for what they’ve done and what they continue to do.
@@elmaestro9593 yes.
Love Nigeria From India...
We love you from Nigeria.
❤
Love Nigeria from latinamerica, my country México.
From India with a french name haaa
Thank you😊
Love my African brothers in the West! Love from Ethiopia 🇪🇹
Love you too
Amen my brotha 🙌🏾
Love my California niggahs from New York niggahs.
Love you too from mississippi
I'm from Ethiopia and my husband is Nigerian and I wanted to learn more about his history and this is great! We're both american born and still learning our history but this is simple and really easy to understand. Thanks!!
I'm proud to be Nigerian 🇳🇬 we are Kings 🤴🏾
Well done Epimetheus 👏🏿👏🏿 I’m so glad that African history is finally being discussed. Too many times the only time Africa is mentioned is in reference to Egypt or Slavery&Colonialism. Hence many people thought that sub-Saharan Africa had no history prior to Europe/Arab intervention. Glad to see more people disproving it and having real historical discussions about Africa! Cheers mate
Also the Walls of Benin is an architectural wonder that is underrated af! Took over 600 years to build and is the 2nd (arguably the first depending on how you measure it) longest walls ever made before the modern era, right up there with the wall of china. Benin city in general was just awesome, a dutch traveler said that the King’s court ALONE was the same size as the town of Harleem😳😳😳
Hope he does Ghana next
kwadwo baidoo True, Although I wouldn’t mind if he does Mali, or Dhar Tichitt before he comes to Ghana. Even though I’m Ghanaian i wanna spread the love all around haha
We was kangs'nd shiet
jonny sins lool you’re so pathetic, have nothing better to do than trotting out old memes eh?
As an Edo Nigerian, I thank you for making this.
I'm Edo too...maybe we could link😄
Matilda,
Igbo build Benin kingdom, tomorrow you will say you are not igbo, read history, you know who you are, leave British and their evil government and lies, only to oppress us, they carry 3 kingdom but together, ndi ara ndi are everywhere?
@@promisejoshua2345 You're a fool
@@promisejoshua2345 What on earth are you talking about
@@promisejoshua2345 yeah don’t call me no damn igbo ☠️
as a Nigerian I’ve gotta say this was really well done. subbed.
Missing-nin it is I kinda wish they pronounced the word Yoruba or even Lagos right but meh
Missing-nin when was that wall built
Dreama Dreama construction began in 800 and stretched into the mid 15th century en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Benin?wprov=sfti1
Missing-nin i heard lagos is beautiful, god willing i will visit one day and stay at some beautiful resort. Much love and success for Nigeria from Ethiopia.
Missing-nin i remember searching for a video about that wall.
Love to our Nigerian brothers and sisters from South Africa. Love to all Africans and our family in the diaspora.❤️❤️
@Charmaine Thank You❤️
🤝🏽💪🏾
I love my Nigerian Igbo people, respect to all my Nigerian people Igbo or not.
@Neon Dawn zoo man, you are a fool
@@archyarchfiendx2938 Stop the nonsense we aren't Biafra is a word coined by one man- Ojukwu. We are traditionally ancestrally and customarily Igbo. Get your facts right ignorant and gullible youths.
We, the Igbos not #Biafra love you dear.
You learned from the Yorubas, respect them
Duke Temz fuck no, I didn’t learn from them folks Lmao fuck outta here boy
Can make history of Somalia?
Please! 👍 Btw this was great video. I love Nigerians cuz they are cool😊👍
Love Somalia and hope peace returns to your country.
uyu man
Thank you brother love all the away from Somalia❤ 😁
uyu man
Peace is what every Somali is hungry and looking for. Ask god to help us find it brother.
king Awiye of Somalia Yeah I really want to see this, going back to punt
Zakariya Abdullahi
Me too
Wow! as an Egyptian i see a lot of coverage to my country's history in media but rarely do sub-Saharan African nations get any limelight. i thoroughly enjoyed your video and learned a lot about Nigeria in the process
Would be great if these black Americans would talk about these western African instead of Egypt and nubia
People can discuss what ever they like who are you to gatekeep? Grow up
@@nword1380 ??????
I am grateful for this because Nigerian history taught to me in school started from the year 1914 when we were colonized and pretty much centred around the British history than real Nigerian history
Same here in India and many colonial countries of British
Same here in Zambia it's so annoying that we define our selves ( flags national anthems etc) based on our brief but horrible interaction with the whites, I wish we could forget that stuff it's all associated with feelings of inferiority, we have a greater past to be proud of
Thats so interesting! My country was colonised in the 1600s by Britain and got its independence 100 years ago. But still to this day in our schools all we learn about is how the British beat us and thats why we speak English, we learn nothing about the peoples and cultures that existed before or after
They wanted to destroy your culture and identity because they felt superior which we know is false
@@OhyesSofresh Very true, it was classic colonial strategy and they did it all over the world
Nok culture and civilization was in the interior of Nigeria circa 9000 years ago, the problem for archaeology in west Africa is the climate and rainforests which degrade archaeological evidence much quicker compared to other regions
that true.. that why Aztec, Maya and Malaysia-Indonesia stone city dont survive long, included thailand, cambodia, burma, vietnam only in Indonesia few palace ruin still exist like "Keraton Kaibon Banten" and " Ratu Boko" some wood palace dont survive at all. Angkor wat is huge city, with stone road, stone bridge, many temple, palace but few ruin and temple survive. the best preserve in China in Datong, Beijing, Middleeast, North india, Europe, North Africa because on climate. jungle easy take over southeast asia, central and south america and also in rainforrest africa in south nigeria, ghana, and benin.
@Naija guy where please? I will be glad to research this.
The Nok thrived in the Northern part of Nigeria though, which isn't covered by rainforests, but Savanna (Sahel, Sudan, Northern and Southern Guinea Savanna) instead.
@@strpth414 Back then it was covered in forest and is probably underground.
@@strpth414 The climate changed immensely throughout the world in the last few thousand years, such as the volume and cleanliness of various rivers that were documented by historians, that are now dried up valleys or barely streams today.
Bro love you men, talking about my country. Respect
Thank you man! Glad you liked it :)
Lol as soon as i seen the vid trump saying shit hole countrys was floating around my head.
Nigeria has a very rich history that deserves to be discussed more. I'm of Ghanaian origin myself but I've found Nigerian history very interesting too!
Samuel Aguda I love your country and it's people.
cincybest we love much more.
I am proud of my Edo people and our Ancestors, they were amazing warriors, the image with two lines on the forehead shown at the end of this video was the Queen mother and first female Commander General of the Edo people (Igodomigodo's) in 1504 to 1550. The image is our identity to the world. I still have the pendant on my necklace.
Oba gha tö kpe re 🙌
Woiller- Relic we don’t know how to pronounce our own languages? 😂
Woiller- Relic African isn’t a language and ö is not an accented o that is only used in Germany. Ever since our languages were written in Roman script we had to use accented letters because many Nigerian languages are tonal. It isn’t your creation as you did not make roman script.
@@dokorobia8713 lmao tell him.
Ise !! ✊🏽🇳🇬
I’m glad I’m not African, the tribalism is disgusting.
To my Nigerian 🇳🇬 sisters and brothers, LOVE from Romania 🇷🇴❤😃
Just a pronunciation correction: Lagos is pronounced LAY-gos not LAH-goes, and the ‘g’ in “Igbo” is silent, so EE-bow. 😄😄
No, the g is not silent
🐅
It's Lah-goes, as named originally by the Portuguese, Lay-goes comes from the mispronunciation by English colonizers, same with Igbo, the g isn't silent but the English couldn't pronounce the gb sound
@@AI-tc8fv Regardless of the etymology, Nigerians pronounce it as LAYgos.
Pls teacher it's igbo pronounced egbo...the g is not silent
I'm French Guianese and I'm proud to be a Nigerian descendant !
My dear, we welcome you to the mother land.
You don’t know where you descend from just like I don’t as a black American, and that ancestry crap has been proven false.
You’re Guianese that’s what you are.
@@tonysparks9453
Why is your anger overtaking you? Get delivered in the name of Jesus Christ!
@@KingofgraceSARA are you bleaching? You look funny
Edo state. My dad is nigerian we have a rich history. Go super eagles!
AND NOT A SINGLE TELEPHONE COULD EVER BE FOUND THERE...HUMBLE THYSELF!
Lord NU you hear him referring to 1800 BC, did telephones exist then? Stupid fool
@@agbaya5314 Coming from you, that's a compliment...so keep it coming why not?
Lord NU me insulting you is a compliment? What a comeback
Lord NU dumb you
Thank you so much for sharing this🙏🏾
I love how you gave good info about the Nok and Yoruba, we often go overlooked even though we have a very rich history.
This may be the first time I've ever not been disappointed by the comment section.
Check out the book, "Timbuktu Chronicles: Aida and the Chosen Soldier."
Check the replies 😂
Go on any sort of video talking about African history trust me this type of racist behaviour is common 🤦🏾♂️
Because they envy black/African people
@@Usthereout who
Love Nigerian from east Africa Ethiopia 🇪🇹 God bless
Just did my Ancestry DNA and I’m mostly Nigerian. I’m so happy to finally know and proud to discover that my ancestors were Kings and Queens who were very creative like myself.
Nigeria is in you king, lead on ♥️
You are something else man. I'm happy i found your account when I did. I can tell you're going to grow.
Thanks :)
Well done, this was brilliant. I’m glad you gave the north of Nigeria fair coverage.
It should be noted that the images of walls you show when talking about the Walls of benin, around the 2:00 mark are actually the walls of eredo a different city state. The walls of Benin aren't really a superstructure but rather a many different structures that that were built over a very long time and eventually interlinked.
From Wikipedia which also has an etching that has an image of the walls in the background;
“The Walls of Benin are a series of earthworks made up of banks and ditches, called Iya in the Edo language, in the area around present-day Benin City, the capital of present-day Edo, Nigeria. They consist of 15 km (9.3 mi) of city iya and an estimated 16,000 kilometres (9,900 miles) of rural iya in the area around Benin.[1] The 'walls' of Benin City and surrounding areas were described as "the world's largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era" by the Guinness book of Records.”
_I met a bunch of Nigerians in the army, and they were really cool and humble. Respect to my nigerians homies from a fellow Colombian_ 🇨🇴🇨🇴 🇳🇬
Nice
Thanks for doing history on my country Nigeria i appreciate it
I would love for nigerian scholars to do it
since you are Nigerian, was the information in the video accurate?
@@JusFaithelz sure
"The third largest English-speaking population on earth..."
I've already learned something and I'm absolutely fascinated.
My name is Babatunde Omokoku - Yoruba Tribe 🇳🇬 . My Mom is Trini 🇹🇹. Btw Lagos is pronounced : Lay - go ‘s
EKAARO bawo
It's actually lay gus
You’re Trinidad and Nigerian mixed? Let me guess, you live in America?
Lagos isn’t pronounced like that, it’s called Eko
It's pronounced lay-gos but La-go's is the Portuguese pronunciation cos the Portuguese gave it that name
It feels so good to finally see and know more about Nigeria history. Thank you for this 🇳🇬
its not a real history. not even scratch the surface.
Love it man, can you do a history of Ethiopia?
Very likely at some point got it on my list :)
Very interesting history, would love to visit the old churches there one day
Tedros A. Balema no
Nahom Alem most? You know the capial of ancient Axum is in Ethiopia (Tigray). I thought Eritreans hate Ethiopia and want no part in associaion of Ethiopia?
Those are metal sculptures?! O_O I never would have imagined, those are so detailed!
Mary Gebbie go to Benin art to learn more.
Shockingly they were the most realistic most detailed and most sophisticated sculptures of the time and Era. The Ife art was described as hyper realistic .
Till date no one exactly knows how they mined and melted and cast the art works...at an age before the Italian Renaissance
Unfortunately the British stole half of them, they're locked up in museums and the refuse to entertain the idea of giving them back.
My family has been passing down our metal arts for generatioms now. I get 3 metal sculptures from My dad in his will.
@@jyranechjm5766 wow.
It's so sad that history normally talk about Egypt and kemetic as ancient civilization in Africa
Before them west africa was
Nigerias diversity can't be compared cos it has so many stolen history's
Our artifacts are there in the British museum they stole everything about us ...
Today I have to pay them to see the goodness and wonderful arts of my forefathers
...the British amalgamated the country just to reap from it through the Islamic caliphate ...
The Egypt version of African history, I am afraid, was spread by African-Americans because, in my opinion, some could not trace back their lineage to specific tribe/ethnic group so Egypt, to them, symbolizes Africa as home.
@@ayoadeoriola34 What version are you speaking of? Egypt was an African civilization. The truth is the only version that matters.
African artifacts should be returned to the countries that they came from. If Europeans really wish to see examples of African culture they should visit the relevant countries. In museums in the West, the context in which those artifacts were made and used is lost.
@Shashe Marni My opinion... state yours
@Shashe Marni How many "A A" can find their origin. Were slaves moved from Eygpt to America? If they are Black Hamites how has it been beneficial to tracing origin?
There's nothing I love more than learning about African History.
One word "Amazing "
Proudly an Igbo... God bless Nigeria
Mumu
@@crypt2732 your name be mumu?
I’m a Nigerian. Most of the time our country is spoken about in terms of corruption, over population and fraud. While these aren’t false, there is so much more to us than that. Thank you for giving a more realistic picture of Nigeria. Subscribed
No that’s exactly what you are.
Amazing video! I guess you are the first who made a good video about Nigeria :D
A generation of Nigerians were taught history of Nigeria AD 1000 to present day but from the year 2000 many schools stopped teaching history. History was meant for the arts students in classes of senior secondary only. A lot of people in Nigeria don't know their history. I believe this is deliberate and it has benefited the modern political elite.
Thanks a lot for sharing the knowledge of the Nigeria's history from the beginning until present in 6 minutes, good explanation. I see that the ancient Nigerian civilization was sophisticated along with its counterpart Egypt.
I like Nigeria
Elias Frahat how come that i see you everywhere
Are yiu stalking me or am i stalking you? o.O
STOP BEING EVERYWHERE
Just luck ;)
It's not luck when it happens everytime
Nigga what nah I see him on every channel I visit
Great to see some African history from you, I'd love to see some more.
Isn’t it kinda wierd that this is rarely covered in movies, I would prefer this to the 500th troy movie any day
then you're an idiot besides there aren't many Troy movies
@Supreme Ace because he's an idiot who can't help himself but calling people names to feel better ot smart.
BECAUSE OF PALE FACE RACIST AKA WHITE PEOPLE....DUH
@Joe Doe being logical proves that white people are racists? Yikes
@Joe Doe are you speaking English? If so, you need to work on your grammar lmao
As a Nigerian l have learnt so much about my countries history thanks
Kabir Iposu how the hell you don't know about your country history
Because when I was just baby when my parents moved to New Zealand and they didn't tell me about the history of Nigeria
Kabir Iposu o ok my apologies
Kabir Iposu You should check out Home team history channel. Covers a lot of Africa history.
Those metal portraits were amazing. I had never heard of them before.
Visit the British museum in London, there's a whole floor dedicated to Benin artworks ( bronzes) looted by the Brits during the Benin invasion of 1897....Some are over a 1000 years old
I knew and learnt about this long time ago in Fine Art class while I was in junior secondary school. I know very well about the Nokia culture and the Benin civilization.
Proudly Yoruba. God bless Nigeria 🇳🇬
not only Nokia, it's Samsung
@@PAWNB3YOND your problem is beyond solutions.
God doesn’t exist, just look at Nigeria.
It's Nok not Nokia. Just kidding. I know it's a mistake from auto correct.
@@PAWNB3YOND😭😭🤣
I'd just use this opportunity to reiterate the fact that I'm proud to be Nigerian!!🇳🇬🇳🇬💪✊
Why? What makes you so proud to be a Nigerian? And are you living in Nigeria somewhere?
It's sad that I was only ever taught European history at my school and not really about my own country
Thanks for the video, it was very informative
I am glad you liked it :)
Tolu Abatan I don’t think Nigerians know much about their own country enough to teach about it in schools.
@Tolu , No one supposed to teach you your own history you have the duty and responsibility as a human to find out for yourself who you really are
As the old saying goes “ ignorance is the tool the enemy uses to control the world
@@kwame1410 you are right if you want to learn about your history go learn it your self
521 different languages that is crazy!!! Goes to show you how old that country is.
Yes we have so many languages
Actually the country (polity) of Nigeria has only some 60 years of age, a century if you consider its colonial precursor. What the number of languages show is not so much antiquity but historical diversity (and thus lack of unity), and incidentally it is a problem for the unity of Nigeria, which has been struggling with separatist tendencies since its foundation.
To put a counter-example in Europe, Italy is a very old country, founded by Rome in its early expansion and social war (the only part of the Empire that wasn't a province, i.e. not a colony but the metropolis) and what Romans did was actually to erase all that linguistic diversity in favor of Latin, be it classical or vulgar (the direct ancestor of modern Italian dialects, as well as of other Romance languages). So I'd say that an "old country" probably has erased all or most of its original linguistic diversity by imposition of the official language. Maybe that will happen to Nigeria some day and that day they will speak, most likely, a Nigerian variety of English, much like the French speak a "Gaulish" (or "Frankish") variety of Latin.
Lol Nigeria is younger than my parents.
We don’t have over 500 languages. Most are dialects of larger languages.
All these groups were their own independent nations until the Europeans conquered them
Tribes.
@umar b - I know and that's more or less what I was trying to say.
Proudly Nigerian and Igala as well as urhobo
TRIBE NONSENSE...BACK AWAY BADGER!
@@LordNuDTru141 What
As a Nigerian I commend your excellent work here! However, the Nri Kingdom flourished even earlier than 940AD. Also, the Nok were possibly conducting advanced metallurgical work some 5000 years ago and some evidence of that are currently coming to light.
Watch your authentic history here
th-cam.com/video/XKXn5NQBBUE/w-d-xo.html
Hello Family, I just dont understand how watu so great were defeated by the British. These types of questions keep me stressed out.
@@GlobalAfrikanProgress thanks for asking. It took centuries, the Europeans had literally dedicated their lives to it. It started sometime in the 1200s with the Roman but it came to prominence in the 1400s when the Portuguese took some part of Guinea all the way to Ghana. Ghanaians and banished “Nigerians” were used to fight “Nigerians” alongside with so many psychological games
@@GlobalAfrikanProgress in other words, the Europeans could not penetrate west Africa/Africa in general with fire power, impossible.
They had to start off smart let’s say by setting deals with the oyo empire who hates the bini kingdom, they (the British and oyos) would arrive at whatever deal they make and then set off to go fight Bini. Once they defeated Bini, they would convince Bini to help them take revenge on oyo having them take oyo. They did the same with Ghanaians and Bini people against Igbos then marched to the Hausa/fulanis.
A very demonic act, it was incredible. No one has ever practiced it in a mass. Two faced personalities is usually practiced by one person or a group of people at best. We’ve never seen a whole nation. Even though all this happened, we black people were just stupidly ignorant.
only the Igbos made things hard for the British (till this day). Umuchukwu! Children of light!
The fulanis were very smart enough they realized that they should just sign a deal with the British.
@@GlobalAfrikanProgress No guns. Because europe was destroyed and pillaged by the mongols which is how guns ended up in europe, Africa was never pillaged by filthy mongols so guns never ended up in Africa, except guns ended up in Ethiopia through specific situations and Ethiopians won the war against Italians and killed all the Italians, there were no europeans in Ethiopia, ever, which is funny no one mentions. When African countries have guns they win all wars.
I’m Nigerian, I’m Edo. This was so interesting to learn
You were God-sent! I’m beyond impressed and equally grateful!
I’d like to visit Nigeria. All those historical figures and art looks so fascinating
martins freimanis They are. Unfortunately some of these are not in Nigeria anymore. The Benin Bronzes for example are in the British museum. But the Ife bust are there and are definitely worth seeing.
Nearly all of our Benin culture has been stolen
I suggest you visit the British museum, they stole everything.
Their in the British Museum, all our stuff was teefed.
Go to Europe if you want to see them cause they were all stolen
Love to my Nigerian brothers from Mesopotamia Baghdad you have awesome cultures and music 🇳🇬 ♥️ 🇮🇶
Edo we stand I love benin
Yes, I'm so happy, someone is talking about Nigeria❤❤❤❤❤
I really wanna share this with people who think African culture isn’t beautiful
Bari Martin Yeah but there are still very ugly stuff coming from African cultures such as female mutilation also these people have a terrible record of human rights violations
Constantine V Yeah, their human rights record isn't as great as those fine people who massacre billions and treat people like shit based on superficial nonsense.
Why are you even hear you self loathing loser. Why not do the world a favor?
Truth6598 I'm here because I am interested in African history
Constantine V Whatever you say bud...
Constantine V im not going to try and talk shit to you like the other guy but... I must say that all places that are developing as people will have violence look at ww1 and ww2 almost war of ideas. We can see the same happening in Africa. Some wars there are wars for resources like American bloods and crips are doing for areas to sell crack. Just like ww2 which is often called the war for resources. Im ok with people pointing it out but as a black person I hate it when people try to act like it's alien to this world and blacks are the only ones who take part in tribalism. It's like they don't know the usa and ussr was going to nuke every thing to no return because they had a different opinion on gov. But they will gloss over that pure act of tribalism. But I don't think thats what you intended to do my good man.
I was born in America. I recently did a ancestry, DNA test and it said I was 40% Nigeria wow so I am here gaining all the knowledge I can and researching about my ancestors I am so happy right now
Subbed. Subbed. And subbed.
9ja represent! 🙌🏾 🇳🇬
Theit metalwork is really impressive. Wow. Glad I subbed to you to learn about this stuff.
Well done. You're doing what nobody else does, in a a way everybody can appreciate.
So much history sequenced and well compressed in a 6 minute video..I'm glad to see this. 💪 Thank you Epimetheus.
Proud Nigerian
What a great and informative video of an undereprestened nation! Can you do the Philippines one of these days? 😇
Great vid! However you missed out on the Kanem Bornu empire in the far north east, they successfully fended off the expansion of the sokoto caliphate to that part of Northern Nigeria. As a result there is a proliferation of Christian minority ethnic groups
Wonderful short history of Nigeria, it is amazing how many Nigerian kingdoms lasted from 500 to 1000 years. The British only colonized Nigeria for 45 years.
70 years.
mena seven Benin lasted for over 2000 years
In all reality, the continent of Africa should have about 1200 countries.
Amazing how many tribes there are in each of these countries today and especially throughout history.
That's why Nigeria makes no sense and is falling apart
Im so proud we had/have people so advanced on the continent ,love from zim
Imagine an armor made by these blacksmiths who made these incredible sculptures.
I mean i know what you mean but practically I've used in Combat not really effective since those would not protect against Blow weapons
Armors were not that useful in tropical heat, I've read of certain West African monarch (can't recall the details) who was gifted a full European plate armor and spent all day under the sun in it, dying of suffocation. At the extreme it's basically a solar oven and you don't want to cook yourself alive, really.
@@LuisAldamiz So what about Spain and Southern Italy? Not to mention Greece, Malta, and the multitudes of Mediterranean islands which all have hot weather? All of these regions used armor and they are no less hot than African countries (Sahara region notwithstanding). It's a common misconception that Africa is unusually hot. Armor in Africa was not used not because of the heat (or because it's tropical which is another misconception). The average temperature in the region in question is 25 degrees Celsius (78 Fahrenheit). Sicily could Certainly match that. Armor wasnt used because horses werent used and armies travelled entirely by foot.
Armor is a lot easier to cope with if you're on a horse. And it's the case in Europe as well. Foot soldiers and bowman are either lightly armored or not at all. This idea of heavily armored soldiers in multitudes marching across the land is purely Hollywood, It just didnt happen. Knights who were generally of the upper classes and could afford a horse would be the only ones in a kings army with full plated armor. As for the story of the African in full plate armor well yeah, thats understandable seeing he was on foot wearing that full plate armor (which no foot soldier in Europe would wear).
If Africans had horses perhaps they would have worn armor but seeing that horses werent native to Africa and most of the ones imported would catch diseases and die (unlike how they thrived in America after the Spanish bought them there), horses and armor were never a part of their military history. I've often wondered how Africa would have developed over the millennia if horses had been native to the continent.
@@cryp4life509 - It's not a misconception that the Tropics, not just Africa are generally hot year round, and that's even more serious near the deserts like th Sahara. Also the most extreme temperatures are by the interior of continents and not by the coast, that's why the Mediterranean region is warm but seldom really hot (when it is it's towards the interior, Seville, Skopjie, Ankara, places like those rather than Athens, Istanbul or Cádiz).
I really don't know, I read that story once and it implied the guy sturdily posing with his shiny new armor for the whole day... under the Sahelian Sun, which is probably one of the hottest on Earth. People do die every year all around the world because of heat shock, so maybe it was that rather than "being cooked alive" literally. I would guess that heavy armored knights had tricks for the heat waves, like fighting with less armor or not fighting at all, I really can't say. But considering that we evolved our hairlessness and sweatness in order to survive the Sahelian heat, I woild think it's a bad idea to use heavy armor in such a context unless you really know what you're doing.
Tropical Africans had horses in some cases at least but, much like China in their difficult wars with the Huns (Xiong Nu), they had to import them often enough and generally relied more on infantry instead. IMO the problem here is that horses really did not spread to Tropical Africa until rather late and the contexts in which they existed were heavily reliant on Muslim allegiance and also probably favored the camel better (arid zones near the Sahara).
Armor was not invented for horsemanship anyhow, but for all purposes but primarily infantry (hoplites, legionaires, stuff like that). Of course the "terminal" knight armor was not apt for infantry: too heavy. Eeven in the 12th century, when it was not so extreme yet, the almost unarmored Almogavars, forced knights down their horses (by killing the mounts AFAIK) so they had to fight at a disadvantage on two legs, sometimes with a broken leg, I guess. They won many battles against the Byzantine cataphracts that way before being defeated by Basque and Gascon pikemen at Thebes (Pyrenean mercenaries in Greece are often overlooked but they seem to me quite important in the development of infantry as dominant in the Late Middle Ages, even before the famous Swiss and Scottish pike formations).
@@cryp4life509 Africans wore armors.
Please do history of Ghana next!!
kwadwo baidoo
I love africa no matter where you from we are one it makes me proud when ghana, naija, ethiopia, kenya, senegal... win because it's a win for our people. One Love africa👑🖤❤️🖤
Dont let this white ppl write your history. No one can write your history better than you. You begging these fool to write your history, is a slavery mentality. Have you ever see any white person beg a black man to write about his history?
Yes I love Ghana as well, from a fellow Nigerian! 💚
Your Ghana came from Nigeria.. The yoruba kingdom.
@@gabbykeys1399..guy, dont go that far. Know what u re talking about. Don't be silly
Beautiful history. As a Nigerian I'm impressed with how you simplified Nigerian history
Didn’t watch the video, does it go into how the tribal leaders would fight other tribes and then sell the losers into slavery to the Arabs?
I'm super grateful for this video, I'm a teacher and I needed to teach Nigerian history to my class but I had no idea of what to say because I wasn't taught.
This video has given me a lot to talk about with them and I hope I can make it simple enough for kids to understand 💕🇳🇬
That's terrifying. You're a teacher and your excuse is that you "wasn't taught" and now you gain knowledge from a youtube video.
Maybe, just maybe you could research the subject that you are required to teach. God help your class.
If you are going to base your class on a 6 min video no matter how accurate maybe it's time to get your school to employ a history major who knows what the word 'research' means. The person who prepared this wasn't born with these facts in his or her head. Sorry for your students
@@54356776 I hadn't even seen ur comment before I pointed out the same thing. How on earth is she qualified to teach any subject at all?
@@maximillianafrancine1451
I try not to judge but going off the comment she isn't qualified to teach this subject at all. Personal responsibility is sorely lacking today it seems.
@@54356776 the thing is even Africans often think that the more ignorant they are about there own identity, the whiter they can be (in their heads,). This is someone whose name is Enitan. A more typical York Yoruba name is hard to find. She was probably hired as the token African but to be more like the Westerners, you cannot be too African and bother to actually learn anything to teach a class of curious kids. It boggles the mind that in this century there are still Africans like this. Meanwhile, so many Afro Westerners are dying to know their real identity
I’m British and I do apologise for the things we did. I love your country bro. From UK 🇬🇧
you don't have to apologize you didn't anything.
As a direct descendant of victims of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade on both sides of my family, it is quite depressing to hear that these people actively sold perhaps my ancestors and certainly others into generations of slavery for monetary gain.
If its helps you could also think of your ancestors as slave traders who got kidnapped as well, there are many ways the slave trade happened depending on the ethnicity, some were sold as prisoners of war by other tribes some were forcefully annexed by the europeans, some colaborated with the westerners to kidnap people and got the same treatment when they stepped out of line. Its a very grey situation, but no matter what it is non of your ancestors were ever born slaves. I do hope that helps
@@idaraudoh2808 I very much doubt it. I'm an easy going, non material, non violent kind of guy. So is my Dad and by all accounts his dad and granddad - my great, great granddad. So are my brothers and cousins. We're not violent. Most of the victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were indeed victims. They had nothing to do with it. Otherwise they would have had access to modern European guns to defend themselves, guns that were indeed used against them. Slave traders are not the kind of people that looked for a fair fight. They attacked people who they seriously believed they would defeat. What typically happened in those days was that a often peaceful village would be surrounded in the dead of night, then at daybreak the huts would be set on fire and the black African slave traders would attack in force with European guns and machetes. They then preceded to slaughter the adults or anyone that put up a fight and enslave everyone else - mostly teenagers and young children and women. There are many accounts from Europeans that the enslaved were both very young and had few 'battle' scars on them. This indicates they weren't even the defeated from a battle. Of course statistically some of the slave traders were indeed enslaved themselves, but considering the numbers that were involved, estimates range from 12 million to 25 million it is highly very few of these victims were slave traders themselves. This figure does not include of course the millions more who died in slave raids and those who died on the forced march to the coast. So, in short it is highly unlikely my ancestors hunted down and sold people for guns, trinkets or alcohol. As such, I do not consider it a grey area at all, but a stark black and white issue with us Caribbean/Americas black people being the victims of black African betrayal, greed, short sightedness, violence and uncivilized behaviour.
@@haatpraat2993 what ever you consider is fine, as long as it makes you feel better about the history 👍🏾
Thanks for the succinct, refreshing original content covering an interesting and important topic.
Just wanted to say, I noticed some dumb hate in the Reddit comments about your voice, but I think you do a great job -- and I'm a particularly harsh critic of US narrations on Audible etc.
Love Nigeria 🇳🇬 from Ghana 🇬🇭😘
Just so you know " mr history teller..Lagos was not part of oyo empire: " oyo empire was to the north of Lagos..but rather Lagos was part of Benin empire and was established or founded by a Benin king Ado as eko kingdom" hence the king of Lagos is still loyal to the king of Benin edo state till this day...Lagos became what it is today after it was declared the capital of Nigeria the population grew from less than 200.000 in 1930 to over a million in 1960..
You should have made your own video and tell your own story(at least your own version).
You mean to tell Lagos is not originally Yoruba? 🤯 please can you send the links of your sources?
@@initeeko9782 th-cam.com/video/jt4KP54NpJM/w-d-xo.html
You mean Lagos island. Lagos island is just 1% of the whole Lagos. I hope u know that
@Naija guy or Aku or Lukumi
Thanks for actually doing some real honest history research and on my people(Yoruba from Oyo, SW Nigeria, mistaken for the lost *city of Atlantis* by the first English and Germans there) I can confirm it was spot on, which is unusual and rare.
Thank you :)
and Igbos are the lost tribe of israel
Their art is beautiful, on par with ancient Greco-Roman art. Looted by the British of course.
@Riffian BVLL yeah on par, in fact more sophisticated and interesting in my opinion.
@Riffian BVLL No it's not, and to belittle an art does not make your viewpoint anymore factual. I find West African art more interesting and sophisticated than Greco-Roman art, that's my own personal opinion. I find them more out bringing of human nature and spirituality and are completely related to the people, unlike Greco-Roman art that's inspired by other cultures.
@Riffian BVLL We're not talking about alphabets and architecture here, despite heavy influences coming from the Nile and Middle East.
thank you for showing an African country without starving kids!
@Abraham Girt who told you that? have you visited every African country? 😑 fuck you mean mostly. you think you know just because you're too ignorant to really find out about Africa. 😑
@Abraham Girt My family Over there Is definitely not starving...
@Abraham Girt Africa is more than that. I will not talk for other African countries but my country is highly urbanized and even poor people have ways to feed themselves, mostly through farming. there's orphanages and homeless people's homes. there's poor people everywhere in the world but Africa has been painted in an extremely unfair light. it's so bad that people ask me if i live in trees or how I am able to use internet. there's extremely poor nations in Africa but that's not every country.