Scramble for Africa
European powers rapidly colonized virtually all of Africa, with the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 establishing rules for colonial claims — though no Africans were invited or consulted.
Historical Consequences
Arbitrary borders dividing ethnic groups and combining rivals, creating conflicts persisting to this day. Extraction of resources, destruction of indigenous political systems, and the seeds of anticolonial nationalism. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent.
Belgian Congo
King Leopold II's personal colony in the Congo Free State (1885-1908) was the site of one of history's worst colonial atrocities, where rubber quotas enforced through mutilation, hostage-taking, and terror killed an estimated 1-10 million people (the exact number is heavily debated).
World War I
The first industrialized global conflict, killing an estimated 15–22 million people (roughly 9–11 million military and 6–13 million civilian), and fundamentally redrawing the map of Europe and the Middle East.
Rwandan Genocide
Over approximately 100 days beginning April 7, 1994, Hutu extremists and militia (Interahamwe) systematically slaughtered an estimated 500,000–800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians.