* Afonso I of Kongo ( c. 1456 – 1542 or 1543 ), king of Kingdom of Kongo in west central Africa

* Afonso I of Kongo ( 1456 – 1543 ) the first Christian king of the Kingdom of Kongo

map of the Kingdom of Kongo

The Kingdom of Kongo was a powerful kingdom that existed from the 14th to the 18th century.

Some notable pre-colonial states and societies in Africa include the Nok culture, Mali Empire, Ashanti Empire, Kingdom of Mapungubwe, Kingdom of Sine, Kingdom of Saloum, Kingdom of Baol, Kingdom of Zimbabwe, Kingdom of Kongo, Ancient Carthage, Numidia, Mauretania, the Aksumite Empire, the Ajuuraan State and the Adal Sultanate.

By the 15th century CE, the farming Bakongo people ( ba being the plural prefix ) were unified as the Kingdom of Kongo under a ruler called the manikongo, residing in the fertile Pool Malebo area on the lower Congo River.

Kongo gained captives from the Kingdom of Ndongo in wars of conquest.

* 1665 – Battle of Ambuila, in which Portuguese forces defeat the forces of the Kingdom of Kongo and decapitated king Antonio I of Kongo, also called Nvita a Nkanga.

In 1482 – 1483, Captain Diogo Cão, sailing southwards on uncharted Congo River, discovered the mouth of the river, and became the first European to encounter the Kingdom of Kongo.

The Kongo Kingdom c. 1700

* The Kingdom of Kongo begins.

* May 3 – The ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, Nkuwu Nzinga, is baptised by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I.

* Catholic missionaries arrive in the African Kingdom of Kongo.

The first large political entity in the area, known to history as the Kingdom of Kongo, appeared in the thirteenth century and stretched from Gabon in the north to the river Kwanza in the south, and from the Atlantic in the west to the river Cuango in the east.

The Kingdom of Kongo was divided into six provinces and included some dependent kingdoms, such as Ndongo to the south.

To the south of the Kingdom of the Kongo, around the river Kwanza, there were various important states, of which the Kingdom of Ndongo, ruled by the Ngola ( King ), was the most significant.

The concept of the Middle Kingdom at peace, strong and united under a forceful ruler, which had been only a longed-for ideal in the time of the Warring States, was finally realized by the establishment of a Chinese Empire under the Ch'in dynasty ( 221-207 B.C. ).

The Kingdom of Pontus was independent from the 3rd century BC, until the middle of the 1st century BC.

It has recently been suggested that the regional decline at the end of the Akkadian period ( and First Intermediary Period of the Ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom ) was associated with rapidly increasing aridity, and failing rainfall in the region of the Ancient Near East, caused by a global centennial-scale drought.

The Mormaerdom or Kingdom of Moray was ruled by the family of Macbeth ( Mac Bethad mac Findláich ) and Lulach ( Lulach mac Gille Coemgáin ); not overmighty subjects, but a family who had ruled Alba within little more than a lifetime.

During Alexius II's reign, the Byzantine Empire was invaded by King Bela III losing Syrmia and Bosnia to the Kingdom of Hungary in AD 1181, later even Dalmatia was lost to the Venetians.

Here Alexios III eventually surrendered, with Euphrosyne, to Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, who was establishing himself as ruler of the Kingdom of Thessalonica.

Thus the possibility of re-incorporating Portugal ( up to then Southern Galicia ) into a Kingdom of Portugal and Galicia as before was eliminated and Afonso became sole ruler ( Duke of Portugal ) after demands for independence from the county's church and nobles.

Finally, in 1143, the Treaty of Zamora established peace between the cousins and the recognition by the Kingdom of León that Portugal was a sovereign kingdom.

The Kingdom of Peru was the entire South American Sub-continent.

Dependent on the Kingdom of Peru was the Captainship General of Chile

His inability to resist the demands of his nobles was to leave a heritage of disunity in Aragon and further dissent amongst the nobility, who increasingly saw little reason to respect the throne, and brought the Kingdom of Aragon close to anarchy.

Alfonso requested support from Braccio da Montone, who was besieging Joan's troops in L ' Aquila, but had to set sail for Spain, where a war had broken out between his brothers and the Kingdom of Castile.

Some scholars believe that Amos's message was recorded after he delivered it to the Northern Kingdom, upon returning to his southern homeland of Tekoa, a town eight kilometres south of Bethlehem.

The deposed Emperor attempted to escape in a boat with his wife Agnes and his mistress, but was captured ( note that by some, Andronikos not only survived, but also managed to escape to the then self-proclaimed Kingdom of Cyprus ).

Historically, the size of farms and landed estates in the United Kingdom was usually expressed in acres ( or acres, roods, and perches ), even if the number of acres was so large that it might conveniently have been expressed in square miles.

Kolbe was born in Elliehausen, near Göttingen, Kingdom of Hanover ( Germany ) as the eldest son of a Protestant pastor.

Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent.

Weil returned to France via Sweden and the United Kingdom, and was detained at Le Havre in January 1940.

" This was farsighted, because when the House of Hanover ascended the British throne they would retain the territories that became the Kingdom of Hanover ( situated in modern-day Germany's Lower Saxony ).

The Act of Settlement was, in many ways, the major cause of the union of Scotland with England and Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

In the United Kingdom, His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act was, with the consent of the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and South African governments, passed through parliament and the Crown thus passed to the next-in-line descendant of Sophia: Edward's brother, Prince Albert, Duke of York.

At its peak, the Electron was the third best selling micro in the United Kingdom, and total lifetime game sales for the Electron exceeded those of the BBC Micro.

This view claims that Luke was uninterested in the politics of the Roman Empire but rather his main focus is on the power of God and building up the Kingdom of God.

During the 19th century criminal law reform incrementally reduced the number of capital offences to five ( see Capital punishment in the United Kingdom ), and forfeiture for felony was abolished by the Forfeiture Act 1870.

In 1999, the different concepts ( from Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom ) for Galileo were compared and reduced to one by a joint team of engineers from all four countries.

In AD 867 the Vikings seized Northumbria, forming the Kingdom of York ; three years later they stormed the Britons ’ fortress of Dumbarton and subsequently conquered much of England except for a reduced kingdom of Wessex, leaving the new combined Pictish and Gaelic kingdom almost encircled.

From 1846 onwards the establishments in the United Kingdom were gradually reduced, while the last vestige of the British quarantine law was removed by the Public Health Act 1896, which repealed the Quarantine Act 1825 ( with dependent clauses of other acts ), and transferred from the privy council to the Local Government Board the powers to deal with ships arriving infected with yellow fever or plague, the powers to deal with cholera ships having been already transferred by the Public Health Act 1875.

The treaty reduced the Latin Kingdom to a strip along the coast from Tyre to Jaffa.

The reduced empire ( titled: Syria, Kingdom of the Seleucids ) and the expanded states of Pergamum and Rhodes, after the defeat of Antiochus III by Rome.

Over time, as trust territories attained independence, the size and workload of the Trusteeship Council was reduced and ultimately came to include only the five permanent Security Council members ( China, France, the Soviet Union / Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States ).

The Latin Kingdom is reduced to a geopolitical coastal strip that extended from Tyre to Jaffa.

Also, the treaty reduced the Latin Kingdom to a geopolitical coastal strip that extended from Tyre to Jaffa.

Following the Treaty of Trianon, the Kingdom of Hungary was reduced greatly in size and this caused much resentment.

A reduced kingdom continued to exist after Almoravid rule ended, and the Kingdom was later incorporated into subsequent Sahelian empires, such as the Mali Empire several centuries later.

The Major Domo held and wielded the real and effective power to make decisions affecting the Kingdom, while in the mid to late Merovingian period, kings had been reduced to performing merely ceremonial functions, which made them little more than nominal kings or figureheads.

However, despite having defeated Austria, forced Russia into an uneasy alliance and reduced Prussia to the rank of second-rate power, Napoleon did not mange to force the United Kingdom to make peace.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the amount of support ordered may be reduced based on the number of nights per week the child regularly spends at the non-custodial parent's home.

To reinforce the much reduced and demoralised police the United Kingdom government recruited returned World War I veterans from English and Scottish cities.

" While there, Pitt reduced the national debt, formed the Triple Alliance against France, and won passage of the Act of Union that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

After initial reverses, most notably the disastrous Battle of Seminara, Ferdinand II of Naples, with the able assistance of the Spanish general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, reduced the French garrison in the Kingdom of Naples.

The reduced empire ( titled: Syria, Kingdom of the Seleucids ) and the expanded states of Pergamum and Rhodes, after the defeat of Antiochus III by Rome.

A Home Zone is a living street ( or group of streets ) as implemented in the United Kingdom, which are designed primarily to meet the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, children and residents and where the speeds and dominance of the cars is reduced.

The Sicilian Vespers further weakened the position of Charles, and the Kingdom was soon reduced by the Epirotes to a small area around Durrës.

His son Charles II succeeded him in Achaea as well as Sicily ( now reduced to the Kingdom of Naples ), but was a prisoner in Aragonese hands.

For example, in the United Kingdom, as the keystone prevention method, proponents of SEPs assert that, along with other programs, they have reduced the spread of HIV among intravenous drug users.

Competing powers include the United Kingdom, Manchuria, Germany, and an alliance of Australia and the reduced United States of America, all of which control certain extrasolar planets themselves.

During his rule, Kingdom of Cilician Armenian was reduced by Mamluk raids and conquests.