An empty quarter Arabia is the huge peninsula lying between northeast Africa and the bulk of continental Asia. Its long southern coast faces across the Indian Ocean towards India. So it is well placed for trade. But until the 20th century the region has had no other natural advantages. The centre is a desert, as inhospitable as its name suggests ('Rub' al Khali', the Empty Quarter). Here only nomads can liv ...

The Barbary coast: 16th - 20th century AD With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time - Spain in the west, Turkey in the east. The Spanish-Turkish rivalry lasts for much of the 16th century, but it i ...

Rival masterpieces: 5th century BC By one of the strange coincidences of history, the 5th century BC produces the first masterpieces in two incompatible styles of sculpture. Nearly 2500 years later, these styles become bitter rivals in the studios of our own time. One is the classical realism which will prevail from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. The other is the sculpture of Africa, distor ...

Walking tall: from 4 million years ago Africa is the setting for the long dawn of human history. From about four million years ago ape-like creatures walk upright on two feet in this continent. Intermediate between apes and men, they have been named Australopithecus. Later, some two million years ago, the first creatures to be classed as part of the human species evolve in Africa. They develop a technology ...