The history of Togo can be traced to archaeological finds which indicate that ancient local tribes were able to produce pottery and process tin. During the period from the 11th century to the 16th century, the Ewé, the Mina, the Gun, and various other tribes entered the region. Most of them settled in coastal areas. The Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century, followed by other European powers. Until the 19th century, the coastal region was a major slave trade centre, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast".
Gnassingbé Eyadéma was a Togolese military officer and politician who was the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was immediately succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé.
The national flag of Togo consists of five horizontal stripes, alternating between green and yellow, with a red square bearing a five-pointed white star in the canton. It is one of many African flags that use the pan-African colours of green, yellow, and red. Togolese artist Paul Ahyi designed the flag in 1960, just before its adoption on 27 April of that year, coinciding with Togo's proclamation of independence. When Togo was an autonomous republic within the French Union, it flew a green flag with the French tricolour in the canton and two five-pointed yellow stars, one in the lower hoist and one in the upper fly.
Benjamin Kudjow Thomas Boukpeti is a French-born Togolese slalom canoeist who competed at the international level from 2003 to 2012. Competing in three Summer Olympics, Boukpeti won a bronze medal in the K1 event in Beijing in 2008, and remains Togo's first and only Olympic medalist.
The Nawdba, sing. Nawda, to whom some refer as Lossos in Togo, are an ethnic and linguistic group of people living in the Doufelgou District (Préfecture) of the Kara Region in Northern Togo, West Africa. The district capital is Niamtougou which is also an important regional market town. The Nawdba live on a plateau in the Togo Mountains between two mountain ranges: the Kabiyé Mountains to the South and the Défalé Chain to the North. They occupy the communities of Niamtougou, Koka, Baga, Ténéga, Siou, Djogrergou, Sioudouga, Kpadeba, Hago, Koukou, and Kounfaga. The Doufelgou District is bordered by the Kozah District to the South, by the Binah District to the East, by the Bassar District to the West, by the Kéran District to the North, and by the international border with Bénin to the Northeast.
Nicolas Grunitzky was the second president of Togo and its third head of state. He was President from 1963 to 1967. Grunitzky was Prime Minister of Togo from 1956 to 1958 under the French Colonial loi cadre system, which created a limited "national" government in their colonial possessions. He was elected Prime Minister of Togo —still under French administration— in 1956. Following the 1963 coup which killed his nationalist political rival and brother-in-law Sylvanus Olympio, Grunitzky was chosen by the military committee of coup leaders to be Togo's second President.
The Sétif and Guelma massacre was a series of attacks by French colonial authorities and pied-noir European settler militias on Algerian civilians in 1945 around the market town of Sétif, west of Constantine, in French Algeria. In response to French police firing on demonstrators at a protest on 8 May 1945, native Algerians rioted in the town. Others attacked French settlers (colons) in the surrounding countryside, resulting in 102 deaths. The French colonial authorities and European settlers retaliated by killing an estimated 6,000 to 45,000 Muslims in the region.
French Togoland was a French colonial League of Nations mandate from 1916 to 1946, and a UN trust territory from 1946 to 1960 in French West Africa. In 1960 it became the independent Togolese Republic.
Kara is a city in northern Togo, situated in Kara Region, 413 km north of the capital Lomé. Kara is the capital of the Kara region and, according to the 2010 census, had a population of 94,878. The Kara River flows through the city and is its main resource of water. The city developed from the 1970s onwards from the village originally known as Lama-Kara. Its growth was largely due to the influence of the previous Togolese head of state Gnassingbé Eyadéma; he was born in the nearby village of Pya and understood Kara's strategic position at a crossroads of two trade routes.
Yao Roland Kpotsra is a Togolese diplomat and politician. He was Togo's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1996 to 2002 and again from 2007 to 2009; he was also Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2003.
On 24 January 1974, a Togo Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain carrying several notable political figures crashed at an isolated location near the village of Sarakawa in northern Togo. Gnassingbé Eyadéma, the President of Togo, was on board the aircraft, which was flying from Lomé to his native village, Pya. As the C-47 descended for landing, it crashed near Sarakawa. Eyadéma survived, but his French pilot and all three other passengers died.
Paul Ahyi was a Togolese artist, sculptor, architect, painter, interior designer and author. Ahyi is credited with designing of the flag of Togo.
The Union of Chiefs and Peoples of the North was a political party in Togo.
The Togolese People's Movement was a political party in Togo between 1954 and 1967.
Mass media in Togo includes radio, television, and online and print formats. The Agence Togolaise de Presse news agency began in 1975. The Union des Journalistes Independants du Togo press association is headquartered in Lomé.
Marie Madoé Sivomey, born Marie Madoé Gbikpi–Benissan, was a Togolese politician who was the first woman to serve as a mayor in Togo, overseeing the capital, Lomé, from 1967 to 1974.
The Massacre of El Ouffia took place on 6 April 1832 during the French conquest of Algeria. It was a war crime committed against the tribe of El Ouffia near El Harrach by the Troupes Coloniales under Colonel Maximilien Joseph Schauenburg.
The minor presence of horses in Togo comes out of a few breedings and practices of equestrianism represented, at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, in the region of Mango and in the north of the current country. Horses were introduced at that time thanks to the Tem, who were the founders of a small kingdom that focused on the use of rifles and cavalry. The distribution of horses in the south is much more recent, as breeding was very limited due to the presence of the tsetse fly. After sporadic imports of horses by German and French colonial troops, a diplomatic gift from Niger in the 1980s allowed the creation of the first Togolese honorary cavalry regiment. The use of the horse-drawn vehicle has always been unknown in Togo.
Agomé-Yoh or Agomé-Yo is a Togolese commune in the Kloto Prefecture, in the southwest of Togo in the Plateaux region. It is situated in the center of the Missahoé protected forest, neighboring Missahoé and near Kpalimé.
