Africa

Nile River

World's longest river.
Headwaters (start): Lake Victoria
Mouth (delta/end): Mediterranean Sea
-Cairo, Egypt

Madagascar

World's fourth largest island.
-Also a country.

Great East African Rift

Region of tectonic plate activity in E. Africa by the plates diverging.

Highest point in Africa

Mount Kiliminjaro
-18,240 feet
-Kenya/Tanzania border.
-It's a volcanoe.
-Apart of GEARVS

Lowest point in Africa

Djibouti's Lake Assal
-571 feet below sea level.
-Also apart of GEARVS.

Horst

Special plateaus formed by the surrounding land diverging.
-Common in GEARVS.

Graben

Special valley/ depression formed by the surrounding lands diverging.
Ex: The many lakes in GEARVS.

Sahara Desert

World's largest desert.
-1/3 of Africa.
-As large as the contiguous USA.

Loess

Geographic term for blowing silt or sand.
Saharan loess gets blown across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

Erg

Geographic term for sand dune.

Big Daddy

World's largest erg.
-1,100 feet.
-In the Namib Desert in Nambibia.

Largest city in Africa. (Population)

Cairo, Egypt.
-Approximately 14 million.

Largest country in Africa. (Population)

Nigeria.
-8th largest in the world.
-Approximately 155 million

Pharoah Scorpion I's tomb

Heiroglyphics carved into bone fragments.
-Discovered and dated to 3300 BC. (5300 years old)
-Oldest human writing ever found.

Mesopotamia

Meso (between) potamia (rivers).
-Ancient Irag.
-Between Tigris and Euphrates River.
-One of the world's oldest civilizations.

Cuneiform

Ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia.
-Wedge shaped pressed into clay tablets.
-The oldest sample dates back to 3200 BC. (5200 years old)

Fertile crescent

Considered the cradle of world civilization.
-Includes the river valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.
-Mesopotamia (Iraq), Jordan (Israel), and the Nile (Egypt)

Meaning of the world's oldest writing

Reciepts for taxes paid to Pharoah Scorpion I. He may have been the first pharoah of a unified Egypt.

Maghrebs

Islamic North Africa.

Arab Spring 2011

Wave of pro-democracy revolts that led to three North African dictators being overthrown in 2011.
-Tunsinia (he fled)
-Egypt (he was arrested)
-Libya (he was killed)

Shariah law

Strict interpretation of Islam.
-Practiced by Islamic fundamentalists (extremeist).

Timbuktu, Mali

Ancient trade center in Maghred.
-Founded by the Tuareg herders.
-Today the word timbuktu means a far away place (middle of nowhere).

Tuareg

Nomadic herders of North Africa (Berbers) in the Sahara Desert.

Zawahari

New leader of Al Qaida (Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization) from Egypt.

Col. Ghadafi

Former dictator of Libya and enemy of the USA.
-Overthrown and killed by his own people during the Arab Springs revolt.

Pan Am 103

Flight from London to NYC.
-Dec. 1998
-Blown up over Scotland by a Libyan bomb placed on board.
-Worst terrorist attack until 9/11.

NATO airwar over Libya 2011

NATO warplanes (including America) bombed Ghadafi's forces leading to his overthrowing by Libyan rebels.

Sahel

Arabic word for shore.
-Southern shore (edge) of the Sahara.
-Geographic boundary between the two main parts of Africa, North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Desertification in the Sahel

Combination of drought and growing population in the sahel.
-Means the Sahara is expanding northward.

Animism

Religon in which people believ in the presence of the spirits and forces and nature.
Ex: Sub-Saharan Africa and Japan.

The Lost Boys of Sudan

Large group of about 10,000 orphans.
-Southern Sudanese boys who fled to Kenya (becoming refugees) to scape the genocide from the north in the 1990s.

South Sudan

Broke away from Maghreb.
-Northern Sudan in 2011 after 5 decades of fighting and genocide.

Operation Restore Hope 1992

US soldiers were sent to Somalia to make sure the donated food aid got to the starving Somalis. This ended in 1993 after the battle of Mogadishu when US army blackhawk helicopters were shot down.

Maersk Alabama

US ships hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. These were rescued by Navy SEALS.

Somali pirates

They launch raids from Somalia (Horn of Africa) taking over ships and demanding ransom money.

Berlin conference 1884

European powers settled colonial disputes in Africa.
-All African lands were colonized by Europeans except Ethiopia and Liberia.

Rwandan genocide 1994

Two rival African tribes, the Hutus and the Tutsis, engaged in a genocide against each other.
-About 1 million people were killed.

Imbabazi

The orphanage that Roz Carr established for orphans of the Rwandan genocide.
-Word means "motherly love".

Zanzibar

Well known Tanzanian tropical resort island in the Indian Ocean.

Swahili

Lingua franca (commonly used language) of Eastern Africa.

Jane Goodall

British scientist.
-World's leading expert on chimps.
-She has a research park in W. Tanzania on Lake Tanganyika.

Serengeti plains/park

Large national park in Tanzania.
-Famous for its diversity of wildlife.

Savanna

Tropical grasslands
Ex: Serengeti plains/parks.

Human welfare in Africa
(Standard of living)

Lowest in the world, primarily because most African countries are in the developing world and are extremely poor.

HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa

About 75% of all HIV/AIDS cases in the world are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
-Major health issues.

Philanthropist Bill Gates

He's the richest American and is now giving away his wealth to various causes.
Ex: Donated $100 million to try and find the HIV vaccine.

Pres. G.W. Bush's emergency program for AIDS relief

First bill funded $15 billion for AIDS medications for Africa.
-Renewed the bill in 2008 for $30 billion more.

Malaria

Disease spread by mosquitoes that is common in the tropics, but especially bad in Sub-Saharan Africa.
-Leading cause of death of young children in Africa.

Botswana's diamonds

Worlds leading producer of diamonds.
-Native Kalahari bushmen are being evicted from their lands as the mining operations expand.

Apartheid

Racial segregation system of South Africa.
-Ended in the 1990s.

Afrikaaners/ Afrikaans

White South Africans.
-Mostly British and Dutch.
-Afrikaans is a South African dialect, it is a blend of English and Dutch.

Homelands

Reservations where the native black South Africans were forced to live during the apartheid era. Some are now independent nations.

Mandela's 90th birthday celebration.
46664 concert in London

2008 concert, 46664 was Mandela's prison number. That's how many tickets were sold to benefit his AIDS charity.

Kofi Annan

Leader of the United Nations from 1997-2007.
-From Ghana.
-Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.