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A short sale is the sale of stock you don’t own in the hopes of profiting by buying it back at a cheaper price later.

Kwame Nkrumah's reputation was later redeemed, as I could judge on seeing the impressive marble mausoleum where his remains lie in downtown Accra. Erected in the early 1990s, the memorial is in a peaceful location, surrounded by water and fountains in five acres of park. It stands on the very spot where Nkrumah made his declaration of independence.

Somalia fell to the British and Italians, with the bulk of the country coming under Italian rule and the British controlling the northwest.

Burundi also has a Hutu majority population and gained its independence from Belgium in 1962. It has witnessed similar atrocities such as the mass killings of Tutsis in 1993, and human rights abuses continue today.

Shaka established his capital KwaDukuza about 80 kilometres north of Durban. In the Zulu language this means 'place of the lost person'. From there he ruled for several years.

Mzilikazi is widely regarded as the second greatest Nguni fighter and leader after King Shaka. He had defied Shaka and refused to be cowed, telling him: 'I will create my own nation.' Exceptionally, Shaka allowed him to retain his title and keep his own armed forces.

The Zulus, with their military renown, are among the most famous of Africa's ethnic groups and South Africa's biggest. They are a subgroup of the Nguni people, who include the Thembu, whose most illustrious son is Nelson Mandela.

The original inhabitants of the Cape in Southern Africa were the pastoralist Khoikhoi (sometimes just Khoi), later pejoratively referred to by Dutch settlers as the Hottentot; and the San, who were hunter-gatherers and received the derogatory name of 'bushmen'. Collectively they are known as the Khoi-san.

The first Europeans to reach the Cape in Southern Africa in 1488 were the Portuguese, as was usually the case.

Louverture said: 'I was born a slave, but nature gave me the soul of a free man.' He did not live to see the day of freedom. He died in prison in 1803.

Legislation abolishing the trade was enacted first by Denmark in 1803, Britain in 1807, the United States a year later, the Netherlands in 1814, France in 1818, Brazil in 1850 and Portugal as late as 1878.

If a white enslaver had children with a captive African woman, the children could be put to work.

In 1546 in Cabo Verde the Afro-Portuguese mixed-race community asked Portuguese officials if they could share civic power with them in the local government, a request that the Portuguese refused.

The colony of Luanda was established by the Portuguese in 1575. They had conquered the coastal areas of this part of Africa, and Luanda was the biggest of their slave trading hubs.

Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.

The book remains fundamentally a readable investment guide for individual investors. It stresses the importance of regular savings and investing in index funds as the only reliable way to build wealth.

As the well-known Wall Street maxim puts it: When you are sure you have the keys to beating the market, they change the locks.

In my view, the most compelling evidence that our stock markets are extremely efficient is that they are extraordinarily hard to beat.

In an efficient market, there are no possibilities for earning extraordinary gains without taking on extraordinary risks.

The Benin Bronzes are perhaps the most iconic body of art found south of the Sahara, and they have become even more famous thanks to their huge significance in the restitution debate.

The idea that Europeans 'discovered' parts of Africa is a misconception. Africans such as Tippu Tib had long traversed large portions of the African interior and were familiar with its topography and terrain.

Some local sources suggest that Mozambique is derived from the name of a tenth-century Arab trader called Musa Bek.

Salt was still very important but cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean were also used as currency for internal trade.

At this time, the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta visited Mali and wrote his book Al Rihla, meaning 'The Journey'.

The Mouride movement was founded by the Senegalese mystic and poet Cheikh Amadu Bamba Mbacke. In 1895 he set up a global trading company based on three principles: follow Allah; work and provoke no one; and pray and study the Koran. Its followers became known as Mourides and today they number in the millions.

I got an idea of just how extensively Islam grew in West Africa when I was in Senegal, which made up part of the Ghana Empire. In the Senegalese capital Dakar, when it was time for Friday lunchtime prayers just about everybody stopped what they were doing and headed to the mosque. Around 95% of Senegalese today are Muslim.

Dr. Kane explained to me how Ghana traded gold, weight for weight, for salt with the rulers of North Africa, which had abundant sources of rock-salt bars from salt mines.

Today, around 40% of the population of Morocco and 30% of Algerians are Berber, and there are small but sizable minorities in Tunisia and Libya as well as millions of people of mixed heritage. The Berber language is still often spoken within these communities.

Broadly speaking, Sunnis (who today constitute about 90% global Muslims) focus on following the Prophet's example, with no intercessor being necessary between the believer and Allah; whereas Shias emphasize the lineage of the Prophet's family through a series of imams and rely on a 'clergy' such as ayatollahs to guide them in their faith.

Keen to get a sense of the Coptic community today, I went to Cairo to meet Father Basilios Sobhy of the Church of the Virgin Mary in the district of Zeitoun. He explained how Coptic developed from the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic language and is still used in church services today.