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The opening of the article, and a way into the rest of it without leaving the site.
Benin on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
How these dates were made
Why this bar's edges are floors, not a founding and a fall.
The atlas draws the world at 17 moments in time, not continuously. This bar runs from the first snapshot in which Benin appears to the last, so both edges are floors — the earliest and latest years it is attested, not a founding and a dissolution.
Elsewhere in Africa at the time
Records whose own span overlaps this one, found by the same test the canvas draws with. The bar under each card is where it sits inside this one.
Landmark · Africa
Royal Hill of Ambohimanga
1500 CE – still standing
Polity · Africa
Algeria
Founded 1900 CE · attested to 2026 CEConflict · Africa
Sand War (Algeria–Morocco)
1963 CETrade route · Africa
East African Coastal Trade
900 CE – 1505 CE.jpg/500px-Robben_Island_-_Cape_Town%2C_South_Africa_(3883849594).jpg)
Landmark · Africa
Robben Island
1658 CE – still standing
Polity · Africa
Angola
Attested 1815 CE – 2026 CEConflict · Africa
Nigerian Civil War (Biafra)
1967 CE – 1970 CETrade route · Africa
Atlantic Middle Passage
1600 CE – 1850 CEDated moments inside this span
Events the timeline places between 1279 CE and 2026 CE.
And in the rest of the world
Records running through the same years, on the other side of the map.
Image credits5 pictures from Wikimedia Commons
- Flag of BeninDrawn by User:SKopp, rewritten by User:Gabbe · Public domain
- AmbohimangaLemurbaby · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Flag of AlgeriaOriginal: National Liberation Front of Algeria Vector: SKopp · Public domain
- Robben IslandSouth African Tourism from South Africa · CC BY 2.0
- Flag of AngolaOriginal: Henrique de Carvalho Santos Vector: SKopp · Public domain
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