History from Africa & Middle East
3 verified stories set in Africa & Middle East.
Two Lions Stopped a Railway by Eating the Workers Building It.
In 1898, a pair of maneless male lions terrorized British Uganda Railway construction camps in Tsavo, Kenya. Over nine months of nocturnal predatory attacks, the lions dragged dozens of Indian indentured laborers from their tents, completely halting the imperial infrastructure project until engineer John Henry Patterson hunted them down.
The Navy Named Two Warships Meow and Bow-Wow. They Won a War.
In 1915, the British Admiralty approved an audacious plan to transport two tiny armed motorboats three thousand miles through the African bush to challenge German naval dominance on Lake Tanganyika. The eccentric commander who led the mission suggested naming them Cat and Dog—rejected by the Admiralty—so he tried the French equivalents, Mimi and Toutou, meaning Meow and Bow-Wow. The Admiralty approved them without knowing the translation. After months of hauling the boats by train, river barge, and ox team through jungle and over mountains, they launched on Christmas Day 1915, capturing one German gunboat and sinking another to break Germany's grip on Central Africa.
A New Sultan Moved In. Britain Opened Fire.
On August 27, 1896, the British Royal Navy bombarded the palace of Zanzibar after Prince Khalid bin Barghash seized the throne without colonial approval. Lasting exactly thirty-eight minutes from first shot to surrender, it remains the shortest recorded war in world history.