Tanzania

This nation is today known as the United Republic of Tanzania. The earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, but later migrations of Bantu and Nilotic-speaking people would account for the majority of the nation's current population. Islam would have been introduced here as early as the 8th or 9th century by Arab traders who had reached the East African coast. In 1840 the island of Zanzibar was claimed by an Omani sultan, which in turn became the center of the Arab slave trade. On the mainland, meanwhile, Germany incorporated present day Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi into German East Africa, but lost control over the territories following the First World War, with Rwanda and Burundi going to Belgium, and Tanzania falling under British mandate.

In 1954, Julius Nyerere founded the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) to strive for the independence of the mainland territory (then known as Tanganyika). In 1961, when Britain granted this, Nyerere was appointed Prime Minister, and later elected President. Shortly thereafter, Nyerere committed the new state to socalism and a Pan-Africanist doctrine.

The Sultan of Zanzibar was overthrown in 1964 by African revolutionaries, and the island merged with its mainland neighbor to form Tanzania on April 26.