A Super Quick History of Morocco

hello everyone and welcome [Music] this is africa and here's morocco and his land claimed by morocco now let's take a look shall we the history of morocco stretches way back to the invisible days of the ancient past out of the thick shadows of those distant times we discern the arrival of the people group known as the imaziran amaziah in the singular better known in the west as berbers a nomadic people who spread through and settled across much of north africa for many many centuries they dwelt in the land undisturbed by intruders but then they were disturbed by intruders from around the 8th century bc the phoenicians founded settlements on the coast and did phoenician things the cities afterwards falling under the rule of phoenicia's biggest colony of carthage in tunisia sometime during the 3rd century bc the berbers formed a kingdom of their own called mauritania not to be confused with the modern country of that name anyway there's no confusing the next invaders the romans who took over under emperor claudius after unofficially ruling via puppet kings for many years the romans as usual left traces of their occupations still standing after 2000 years but as their empire declined the berbers fought back to reclaim lost ground but then the berbers had to face the reason for the roman decline germanic invaders in this case the vandals in the 500s the eastern roman byzantines took control and ruled until the late 7th century when the arabs invaded bringing their language and the religion of islam which the berbers adopted and which stands as the country's official religion today in 740 during the berber revolt the spoiler alert berbers revolted against the arabs who had been treating them pretty badly and morocco returned to berbaru though it was not united but rather split into different berber-ruled bits and yes they did fight with each other the two most powerful medieval moroccan states were first the el moravid dynasty which unified the land under its rule founded the city of marakesh which became its capital and delayed the christian reconquest of spain and portugal after winning the battle of sagrahas in 1086 the al-maravids were overthrown by the second great medieval moroccan state the al-muhad leaders adhered to a very strict stern sort of islam which was bad news for jews and christians who were persecuted though the al-mahds for a time enjoyed immense power things also went downhill for morocco during their rule for example after losing this battle against the christians in spain it became clear that the days of moroccan rule in europe were numbered under the ensuing marine sultanate we see that quite a lot of land had been lost though there was a welcome flourishing of culture and learning in the capital of fez this was also the age of ibn batuta the moroccan marco polo who wrote a wonderful book detailing his astonishing travels now under the arab sadhi sultanate the greatest leader of which was ahmed al-mansoor morocco managed to maintain independence from the ottoman empire via diplomacy and hefty payments in gold making morocco the only country in north africa not to fall to turkish rule in 1631 the leadership of morocco was attained by the arab al-uiya dynasty who ruled the country to this day morocco bulked up in power under the long reign of ismail ibn sharif who enriched the nation and built and ward and conquered land and recaptured cities with the help of his elite regiment of black slaves after his death morocco returned to disarray as the sultan's sons fought for the throne but order was restored with the wise leadership of muhammad iii under his rule in 1777 morocco became the first country to recognize the nationhood of the newborn united states of america the two countries signed a treaty of friendship which still stands as the 19th century progressed morocco grew a little nervous as industrialized europe began colonizing africa particularly after the french grabbed their next-door neighbor algeria in 1830 when moroccan forces attacked the french the french struck back and won the war that resulted more humiliation followed from mortified morocco after spain declared war on the country why well we see spain owned and still does infect two cities on the northern moroccan coast called in the 1840s berber warriors made a habit of attacking these towns upsetting spain and instigating the war which morocco did not succeed in and which left the country heavily in debt after a european imperialist quarrel an agreement was reached in which spain took the top and bottom of morocco and france took the middle thus making the country a sort of colonial sandwich in 1921 the berber tribesman abdel kareem led a revolt against the european occupiers in the areef war scoring a great victory against the spanish after which skirmish they killed most of the captured soldiers in revenge spain got nasty and used chemical weapons and then the french entered the war in support of spain and it was over abdel kareem surrendered and was exiled skipping ahead to the 1950s we find morocco fighting for independence more via politics than pyrotechnics more boring perhaps but more effective and in 1956 the french and spanish agreed to hand back power to what became the kingdom of morocco things were uneasy in the years of lead that followed as suspected opponents of the king were written off there were also two wars both over land the sand war in which morocco battled algeria for possession of these pieces of ground but didn't get them there was also war down in the western sahara region which morocco also wanted but whose natives did not want them hence the conflict morocco presently controls most of it but the territory is not internationally recognized as belonging to them though morocco's old buddy the usa does acknowledge it as such anyway despite protests for reform and so on morocco today with its medium level of human development has made a lot of improvements and continues to modernize and welcome tourists and serve up its delicious cuisine and we wish this extraordinarily beautiful country all the best as it steps forward into the future so that's it for morocco and that's all from me for now bye [Music]