Somalia: from Ancient times until 1961...

Somalia is an old nation, with a long (too long for this blog, fascinating as it is) and remarkable history. This area may be the area known as the Land of Punt by the Egyptians who came to trade for incense and aromatic herbs. According to Ancient Egyptians this land was the “cradle of Egypt”, the ethnic ruling class’s ancestral land was believed to be Punt, although its location is not certain. In any case, according to Egyptian hieroglyphs, Punt was prosperous.

From the 2nd to the 7th century AD parts of the area belonged to the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum, until the Arab tribes established the Sultanate of Adel on the coast of the Golf of Aden, which centered on the port of Zeila. The Somali people began slowly to migrate into this region from Yemen in the 13th century, and by the 1500s the Sultanate of Adel disintegrated into small, Arab states ruled by Somali chiefs.

By 1875 Egypt had managed to occupy towns on the Somali coast, although this was temporary, as the British had become interested in the rich coast-land and in 1884-1885 signed "protectorate" treaties with Northern Somali chiefs. By 1881 Britain claimed Somaliland as under it’s “protection.” Italy also had its fingers in the pot, as expansion into Somalia began in 1885 and continued to lead into direct administrative control of the territory known as Italian Somaliland in 1905.

Italy then received more of Somalia from the British in 1925, during World War I, which was used as a base to invade Ethiopia. Despite Italian and British squabbles over land from 1940-1948, the General Assembly announced in 1949 that the Italian controlled area (Italian Somaliland) would receive its independence by 1960. By the end of 1956, Somalia was granted internal autonomy and in almost complete charge of domestic affairs.

This encouraged those in British Somaliland to demand their own self-government, leading the British to grant their protectorate independence on June 26, 1960, just after Italy granted independence to its territory on July 1st, 1960. The two merged and became the United Republic of Somalia. By the next year Somalia had made their own constitution, and in August of that year Aden 'Abdullah Osman Daar was confirmed as the first president.

Sources are here, here, here, here, here, and here.