Tanzania

Tanzania is the “cradle of mankind”, and it was here, in the Olduvai Gorge, that Dr Louis Leakey discovered the fossilised remains of Homo habilis, or “handy man,” calculated to be 1.75 million years old and the fore-runner of modern man.

Tanzania was occupied by various African tribes, most recently the Masai from Kenya, who have retained their proud traditions. Arab merchants visited the coast some 2,000 years ago and settled in Zanzibar around the eighth century AD, later establishing trade routes into the interior.

The inter-marriage of Arabs and local people created a new people with their own language – Kiswahili (Swahili)whose word for ‘a journey’ is ‘safari’ – which has become the international description of a trip into the wild.

The Portuguese established temporary settlements in the 16th century, supplanted by the Omans in the late 17th century who developed the slave trade and made Zanzibar their capital. The scramble for Africa by the European powers at the end of the 19th century led to occupation of the mainland by Germany, although Zanzibar became a British protectorate.
At the end of the First World War, Germany was forced to surrender its territory to the British and the administration of the mainland was renamed Tanganyika. Tanganyika achieved independence in 1961 under Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere as the first President. Zanzibar became independent two years later and shortly afterwards joined with the mainland to become the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964.