Muhammad Ali Pasha, also known as Muhammad Ali of Egypt and the Sudan, was the Albanian Ottoman governor and the de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, who is considered the founder of modern Egypt. At the height of his rule, he control...

Bernardino Drovetti was an Italian diplomat, lawyer, explorer and antiquarian, appointed by Napoleon as French consul to Egypt at a time when the country and its antiquities were being opened rapidly to European knowledge and acquisition. H...

Giovanni Battista Belzoni — Italian showman, engineer and explorer of Egyptian antiquities. His quest for adventure brought him to England in 1803 and by means of his gigantic physique, earned a living in circuses in England, Spain and Port...

Johann Ludwig (also known as John Lewis, Jean Louis) Burckhardt was a Swiss traveller and orientalist. He wrote his letters in French and signed Louis. He is best known for rediscovering the ruins of the city of Petra in Jordan. During h...

Shaka (Tshaka, Tchaka or Chaka; sometimes referred to as Shaka Zulu; was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom. He is widely credited with uniting many of the Northern Nguni people, specifically the Mtetwa Paramountcy and the Ndwa...

Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais was a French chess master, possibly the strongest player in the early 19th century. La Bourdonnais was born on the island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean in 1795. He learned chess in 1814 and began...

Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius was a leader of the Boers who was instrumental in the creation of the Transvaal Republic, as well as the earlier but short-lived Natalia Republic, in present-day South Africa. On 16 December 1838, Pret...

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both of these works, he analyzed the risin...

Ferdinand de Lesseps was the French developer of the Suez Canal, which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas in 1869, and substantially reduced sailing distances and times between the West and the East. He attempted to repeat this success w...

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Perhaps one of the most popular nat...

Tewodros II was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855 until his death in 1868. He was born Kassa Hailegiorgis (English: "restitution" and "His [or the] power"). His rule is often placed as the beginning of modern Ethiopia, ending the decentralized...

Sir Samuel White Baker was a British explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. He served as the Governor-General of...

Paul Kruger was instrumental in negotiations with the British, which later led to the restoration of Transvaal as an independent state under British rule. In 1882, the 57 year old Paul Kruger was elected president of Transvaal. He l...

John Hanning Speke was an officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa and who is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile. In 1844 he was commissioned into the British army and p...

James Augustus Grant was a Scottish explorer of eastern equatorial Africa. In 1846 he joined the Indian army. He saw active service in the Sikh War (1848—49), served throughout the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and was wounded in the operations fo...