( C . TO ) T HEMES IN W ORLD H ISTORY DATES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AFRICA King Agaja of Dahomey ( - ), West Africa, stops slave trade * ; it is reintroduced in the 1740s The first outbreak of smallpox ( ) brought by sailors, in Cape Town, South Africa Peak of international slave trade, all the colonial powers are involved in it. Several hundred thousand Black Africans are taken across the Atlantic every year. As many as two-thirds die on board ship itself Mohammed Ali rules Egypt, - ; Egypt breaks away from Ottoman empire Liberia founded ( ) in West Africa as home for freed slaves Abd-al-Kadir leads Arab resistance ( - ) against French presence in Algeria EUROPE Carolus Linnaeus invents a taxonomic system * to classify plants and animals ( ) Emelian Pugachev heads a peasant uprising ( – ) that sweeps across Russia The beginning of the French Revolution * ( ) Louis Braille develops a system of finger reading * ( ); passenger trains introduced in England ( ) Liberal and socialist movements in several European countries ( ) DATES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AFRICA Suez Canal * , one of the most important trade routes in the world, opens ( ) Beginning of the European “Scramble for Africa” Mahatma Gandhi * advocates satyagraha to resist racist laws ( ) South Africa introduces laws to reserve per cent of land for whites ( ) First trans-African railway from Angola to Mozambique completed ( ) Afrikaner National Party wins power in South Africa ( ).
The policy of Apartheid is put in place Ghana is the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to become independent ( ) Organisation of African Unity founded ( ) Nelson Mandela * freed in South Africa ( ); process of dismantling apartheid begins EUROPE Russian serfs are freed ( ) Germany and Italy emerge as unified nation-states The making of the first film ( ); the modern Olympics are held for the first time in Athens ( ) World War I ( - ); the Russian Revolution of