Africa
Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
It was in 1959 that Mary and Louis Leakey discovered at Olduvai Gorge the remains of a hominid skull dated at 1.8 million years old, and a few years later footprints were uncovered at Laetoli dating back as far as 3.5 million years ago.
It is little wonder then that Tanzania has often been described as the 'Cradle of Mankind'. Over the past thousand years or so, migrating peoples came from many parts of Africa and settled in different areas of Tanzania whilst Arabs and Persians arrived with the monsoon winds, settled along the coast and started trading in ivory, gold, spices and slaves.
In 1498 the explorer Vasco da Gama arrived on the East African coast and the Portuguese were to establish a precarious control over the area for two centuries as they soon realised the vast wealth of natural resources; however they were ousted by the Arabs early in the 18th Century.
In the mid 19th century missionaries and explorers from Europe descended upon the region and by the turn of the century Germany had direct control of what was known as German East Africa. After World War 1 power was usurped by the British who governed the territory known as Tanganyika.
Independence was granted in 1961with the new nation's founding father, Julius Nyerere, becoming President the following year. Meanwhile Zanzibar fought for its own independence that was duly gained in 1963 and, after a coup that toppled the ruling Sultan, the two states were merged in 1964 to create the United Republic of Tanzania. The country today has over 120 tribes with most of the population engaged in subsistence farming. Major foreign currency earners are coffee, cotton, sisal, tea, cashew nuts and increasingly gemstones and tourism.
