According to a single unsupported piece of recent research, refugees from the collapsed Assyrian Empire claim to have reached the region of Lake Chad and founded the kingdoms of Kanem and Kebbi.

In 1981 the two countries went to the brink of war over Bakassi and another area around Lake Chad, at the other end of the two countries ' common border.

Recent linguistic research suggests that all of Africa's major language groupings south of the Sahara Desert ( except Khoisan, which is not considered a valid genetic grouping anyway ), i. e. the Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan and Niger – Congo phyla, originated in prehistoric times in a narrow band between Lake Chad and the Nile Valley.

The Kanem Empire originated in the 9th century AD to the northeast of Lake Chad.

Finally, around 1396 the Bulala invaders forced Mai Umar Idrismi to abandon Njimi and move the Kanembu people to Bornu on the western edge of Lake Chad.

Government forces clashed violently with rebel forces, including the Movement for Democracy and Development, MDD, National Revival Committee for Peace and Democracy ( CSNPD ), Chadian National Front ( FNT ) and the Western Armed Forces ( FAO ), near Lake Chad and in southern regions of the country.

The country's topography is generally flat, with the elevation gradually rising as one moves north and east away from Lake Chad.

The Ennedi Plateau and the Ouaddaï highlands in the east complete the image of a gradually sloping basin, which descends towards Lake Chad.

Lake Chad is the second largest lake in west Africa and is one of the most important wetlands on the continent.

Bordered by Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon, Lake Chad currently covers only 1350 square kilometers, down from 25, 000 square kilometers in 1963.

The Chari and Logone Rivers, both of which originate in the Central African Republic and flow northward, provide most of the surface water entering Lake Chad.

Although Chadian society is economically, socially, and culturally fragmented, the country's geography is unified by the Lake Chad Basin.

Once a huge inland sea ( the Pale-Chadian Sea ) whose only remnant is shallow Lake Chad, this vast depression extends west into Nigeria and Niger.

Lake Chad, located in the southwestern part of the basin at an altitude of 282 meters, surprisingly does not mark the basin's lowest point ; instead, this is found in the Bodele and Djourab regions in the north-central and northeastern parts of the country, respectively.

North and northeast of Lake Chad, the basin extends for more than 800 kilometers, passing through regions characterized by great rolling dunes separated by very deep depressions.

Southeast of Lake Chad, the regular contours of the terrain are broken by the Guéra Massif, which divides the basin into its northern and southern parts.

South of the Chadian border, the koros divide the Lake Chad Basin from the Ubangi-Zaire river system.

Chari RiverChad's major rivers are the Chari and the Logone and their tributaries, which flow from the southeast into Lake Chad.

At N ' Djamena the Logone empties into the Chari, and the combined rivers flow together for thirty kilometers through a large delta and into Lake Chad.

The seventh largest lake in the world ( and the fourth largest in Africa ), Lake Chad is located in the sahelian zone, a region just south of the Sahara Desert.

Lake Chad also changes greatly in size from one year to another.

The droughts of the late 1960s, early 1970s, and mid-1980s caused Lake Chad to shrink once again, however.

The only other lakes of importance in Chad are Lake Fitri, in Batha Prefecture, and Lake Iro, in the marshy southeast.

However, two French traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, learned from the Cree that the best fur country was north and west of Lake Superior and that there was a " frozen sea " still further north.

Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes to be explored by Europeans, since the Iroquois who occupied the Niagara River area were in conflict with the French, and they did not allow explorers or traders to pass through.

A French map produced in 1712 ( currently in the Canadian Museum of Civilization ), created by military engineer Jean-Baptiste de Couagne, identified Lake Ontario as " Lac Frontenac ".

It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.

Lake Champlain ( French: lac Champlain ) is a natural, freshwater lake in North America, located mainly within the borders of the United States ( states of Vermont and New York ) but partially situated across the Canada-United States border in the Canadian province of Quebec.

The most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva ( Lac Léman in French ).

Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615, and French missionaries began to establish posts along the Great Lakes.

Bismarck proposed that Prussia should exploit Austria's weakness to move her frontiers " as far south as Lake Constance " on the Swiss border ; instead Prussia mobilised troops in the Rhineland to deter further French advances into Venetia.

* 1755 – French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George.

French cartographers discovered the remnants of an ancient north-south canal running past the east side of Lake Timsah and ending near the north end of the Great Bitter Lake in the second half of the 19th century.

* July 26 – Seven Years ' War ( French and Indian War ): At the southern end of Lake Champlain, British forces capture Fort Carillon from French, and rename it Fort Ticonderoga.

The best-known, most elaborate, and most popular events are in New Orleans, while other South Louisiana cities such as Lake Charles, Lafayette, Mamou, Houma, and Thibodaux all of which were under French control at one time or another, are the sites of famous Carnival celebrations of their own.

On 1 January 1996, the community officially changed its name from Lac La Martre to the Tłı ̨ chǫ name " Wha Ti ", meaning " Marten Lake ," the same meaning as the French and then on 4 August 2005 to the current spelling.

Fort Ticonderoga, formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the Canadians and the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain in upstate New York in the United States.

In 1755, following the Battle of Lake George, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the governor of the French Province of Canada, sent his cousin Michel Chartier de Lotbinière to design and construct a fortification at this militarily important site, which the French called Fort Carillon.

The French built the fort to control the south end of Lake Champlain and prevent the British from gaining military access to the lake.

The Baby Killers, a 2010 steampunk novel by Jay Lake from PS Publishing recasts Le Pétomane as a French secret agent.

The French, the first European visitors to the region, often referred to Lake Huron as La Mer Douce, " the fresh-water sea ".

In 1656, a map by French cartographer Nicolas Sanson, refers to the lake as Karegnondi, a Wendat word which has been variously translated as " Freshwater Sea ", " Lake of the Hurons ", or simply " lake ".

The French colonists and explorers, who spelled the term Kilistinon, Kiristinon, and Cristinaux, used the term for numerous tribes which they encountered north of Lake Superior, in Manitoba, and west of there.

* Kapapamahchakwew ( Kā-papāmahcahkwêw, Kapapa Machatiwe, Papamahchakwayo, French: ‘ Esprit Errant ’, better known as Wandering Spirit, war chief of the Plains Cree under Mistahimaskwa, born 1845 near Jackfish Lake, Saskatchewan, committed on 2 April 1885, the so-called Frog Lake massacre, killed the Indian Agent Thomas Quinn and eight whites and one Métis, surrendered in July at Fort Pitt, was hanged on 27 November 1885 in Battleford, Saskatchewan )