General Gordon marches south to protect Khartoum from the advancing forces of the Mahdi

Karl Peters hurries round east Africa persuading chiefs to accept the German emperor as their protector

British general Garnet Wolseley sails from London on a mission to rescue Gordon, trapped by the Mahdi in Khartoum

Bismarck grants Karl Peters a charter to rule a German protectorate in east Africa

Italian troops occupy Eritrea, a province of Ethiopia

German warships arrive in Zanzibar harbour to persuade the sultan to cede territory to the Kaiser, William I

Addis Ababa is founded, to become subsequently the capital of Ethiopia

Germany and Britain define neighbouring spheres of interest in east Africa

The German and British agreement in east Africa creates the present-day boundary between Tanzania and Kenya

The Imperial British East Africa Company is given a charter to adminster Kenya and Uganda

Menelik II is crowned emperor in Ethiopia, bringing the crown back to the Solomon dynasty

In the treaty of Uccialli, Menelik II cedes the Ethiopian province of Eritrea to Italy

Zanzibar, under its Arab sultan, is declared a British protectorate

Germany takes direct control of German East Africa as a protectorate

Frederick Lugard's Maxim machine gun settles a Protestant-Catholic clash in Kampala, the capital of Buganda

The British government takes responsibility for Kenya, as the East Africa Protectorate

The Ethiopian emperor, Menelik II, inflicts a shattering defeat on Italian forces at Aduwa

Britain unites Buganda and three other kingdoms into the single Uganda Protectorate

Italy, one of the local colonial powers, accepts Ethiopia's claim to the Ogaden region of the Somali territory

Germany claims Ruanda and Urundi as a joint colony adjacent to German East Africa

Winston Churchill gallops into battle with the Twenty-First Lancers at Omdurman

French and British forces meet at Fashoda, in a potentially explosive incident in the scramble for Africa

Kitchener's victory at Omdurman brings to an end thirteen years of rule in Sudan by followers of the Mahdi

The Sudan begins half a century of supposedly joint rule by Britain and Egypt

Mohammed ibn Abdullah (the Mad Mullah in British eyes) leads an uprising in British Somaliland