History of the Kingdom of Dahomey

The History of the Kingdom of Dahomey spans 300 years from 1600 until 1900 with the rise of the Kingdom of Dahomey as a major power on the Atlantic coast of current day Benin. The Kingdom became a major regional power in the 1720s when it conquered the coastal kingdoms of Allada and Ouidah. With control over these key coastal cities, Dahomey became a major center in the Atlantic Slave Trade until 1852 when the British imposed a naval blockade to stop the trade. War with the French began in 1892 and the French took over the Kingdom of Dahomey in 1894. The throne was vacated by the French in 1900, but the royal families and key administrative positions of the administration continued to have a large impact in the politics of the French administration and the post-independence Republic of Dahomey, renamed Benin in 1975. Historiography of the kingdom has had a significant impact on work far beyond African history and the history of the kingdom forms the backdrop for a number of novels and plays.

Egiptul redeschide Piramida lui Kefren

Egiptul a redeschis una din marile sale piramide în încercarea de a relansa industria turistică afectată de protestele de anul trecut, transmite BBC, citată de Agerpres.

Ministrul antichităţilor, Mohamed Ibrahim Ali, a anunţat joi că Piramida lui Kefren şi alte şase vechi morminte din Platoul Giza au fost redeschise după trei ani de restaurare. Muhammad Ibrahim a subliniat că aceasta este primul dintr-o serie de situri arheologice care vor fi redeschide în acest an pentru a scoate în evidenţă că Egiptul este o ţară sigură pentru turişti.

Large water reservoirs at the dawn of stellar birth

ESA’s Herschel space observatory has discovered enough water vapour to fill Earth’s oceans more than 2000 times over, in a gas and dust cloud that is on the verge of collapsing into a new Sun-like star.

Stars form within cold, dark clouds of gas and dust – ‘pre-stellar cores’ – that contain all the ingredients to make solar systems like our own.

Water, essential to life on Earth, has previously been detected outside of our Solar System as gas and ice coated onto tiny dust grains near sites of active star formation, and in proto-planetary discs capable of forming alien planetary systems.