Heritage · c. 2500 BC
Sierra Leone's rock shelters hold ancient pottery.
Did you know that pottery from the Kamabai rock shelter and Yengema cave in northern and eastern Sierra Leone shows people have lived there for thousands of years, with some finds dated to around 2500 BC?
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Science · by the 9th century
Iron smelting arrived over a thousand years ago.
Did you know that iron working had reached the area of modern Sierra Leone by the 9th century AD, and by around AD 1000 coastal peoples were already farming the land?
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Culture · c. 15th century
Ancient stone figures still guard rice fields.
Did you know that small soapstone figures called nomoli, carved centuries ago by the Sapi, are still dug up by Mende and Kissi farmers, who sometimes place them in rice fields to bring good harvests?
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Geography · 1462
A Portuguese sailor named the Lion Mountains.
Did you know that the Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, sailing past the coast in 1462, named its mountainous peninsula Serra Lyoa, or Lion Mountains, the name that eventually became Sierra Leone?
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Culture · c. 1490-1530
Sapi ivories ended up in European palaces.
Did you know that Sapi carvers in Sierra Leone made intricate ivory salt cellars, spoons and hunting horns for Portuguese buyers around 1500, and these Afro-Portuguese ivories now sit in museums across Europe?
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Society · c. 1545-1560
The Mane invasions reshaped the coast.
Did you know that the Mane, warriors from the interior who swept into Sierra Leone from about the 1540s, conquered the coastal peoples and founded ruling lineages that reshaped the region's politics and languages?
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Firsts · 1562
England's first slaving voyage targeted Sierra Leone.
Did you know that John Hawkins began England's role in the Atlantic slave trade in 1562 by seizing at least 300 Africans on the coast of Sierra Leone and selling them in Spanish Hispaniola?
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Economy · 1670s
A tiny island fort shipped thousands of captives.
Did you know that Bunce Island, a tiny island only about 500 metres long in the Sierra Leone River, became a British slave fort that shipped tens of thousands of captives across the Atlantic over more than a century?
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Myth or fact · 1719
Pirates once seized the Bunce Island fort.
Did you know that the Welsh pirate Howell Davis captured the Bunce Island slave fort in 1719, and his successor Bartholomew Roberts, the most successful pirate of the Golden Age, later raided the Sierra Leone coast too?
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Culture · 1745
Amazing Grace's author was enslaved here.
Did you know that John Newton, who later wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, was himself held almost as a slave on Plantain Island off Sierra Leone around 1745 before becoming a slave-ship captain and then an abolitionist?
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Myth or fact · 1782-1783
Bunce Island's owner helped end the American war.
Did you know that Richard Oswald, a part-owner of the Bunce Island slave fort, negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris with Henry Laurens, his former business agent in Charleston who had sold Bunce Island captives?
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Society · 1787
London's Black Poor founded the Province of Freedom.
Did you know that in 1787 around 400 poor Black Londoners, many of them former American Loyalists, sailed to Sierra Leone with abolitionist backing to found a settlement named the Province of Freedom?
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Society · 1789
The first settlers' town was burned in 1789.
Did you know that the first settlers' town, Granville Town, named after abolitionist Granville Sharp, was burned down in 1789 by the Temne ruler King Jimmy after disputes over the land?
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Society · 1792
Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia founded Freetown.
Did you know that Freetown was founded in March 1792 by about 1,190 Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia, who had escaped slavery during the American Revolution and sailed across the Atlantic in 15 ships?
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Society · 1800
Jamaican Maroons arrived in Freetown in 1800.
Did you know that around 550 Jamaican Maroons, deported by Britain after fighting the Second Maroon War, reached Freetown in 1800 and helped put down an uprising by Nova Scotian settlers?
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Firsts · 1808
Freetown became the anti-slavery navy's base.
Did you know that Sierra Leone became a British Crown colony on 1 January 1808 and Freetown became the base for the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, which seized slave ships after Britain's abolition of the trade?
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Society · 19th century
Freed captives from slave ships became Krio.
Did you know that tens of thousands of Africans freed from captured slave ships, known as Liberated Africans or recaptives, were landed at Freetown and helped form the Krio people alongside the earlier settlers?
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Firsts · 1827
West Africa's oldest university is in Freetown.
Did you know that Fourah Bay College, founded in Freetown by the Church Missionary Society in 1827, is the oldest Western-style university in West Africa, earning Freetown the nickname Athens of West Africa?
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Society · 1839
A Mende farmer led the Amistad revolt.
Did you know that Sengbe Pieh, a Mende rice farmer from Sierra Leone also known as Joseph Cinqué, led the 1839 revolt on the slave ship La Amistad and won freedom before the US Supreme Court?
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Records · 1845
One of Africa's oldest secondary schools.
Did you know that the Sierra Leone Grammar School, founded in Freetown in 1845 by the Church Missionary Society, is one of the oldest secondary schools in sub-Saharan Africa?
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Firsts · 1864
Fourah Bay's first student became a bishop.
Did you know that Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a freed Yoruba captive who was the first student enrolled at Fourah Bay College, was consecrated in 1864 as the first African Anglican bishop?
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Geography · 1896
The interior was only claimed in 1896.
Did you know that Britain declared a protectorate over the Sierra Leone hinterland only on 31 August 1896, so for most of the 19th century British rule covered little more than the Freetown coast?
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Society · 1898
Bai Bureh fought a war over a hut tax.
Did you know that the Temne chief Bai Bureh led the 1898 Hut Tax War against a new British tax on houses, holding off colonial forces for months before being captured and exiled to the Gold Coast?
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Firsts · 1904
A mountain railway served Hill Station's elite.
Did you know that the Sierra Leone Mountain Railway, opened in 1904, climbed from Freetown to Hill Station so European officials could live on cooler heights away from malaria, before closing in 1929?
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Economy · 1930
Diamonds were first found in Kono in 1930.
Did you know that diamonds were first discovered in Sierra Leone in 1930 in the Kono District, a find that would shape the country's economy and, decades later, help fuel its civil war?
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Records · 1939-1945
Freetown was a vital WWII convoy port.
Did you know that during the Second World War Freetown's huge natural harbour was a key Allied convoy assembly point, where merchant ships gathered before the dangerous voyage north to Britain?
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Society · 1951
A doctor became the first prime minister.
Did you know that Milton Margai, a doctor who was the first person from the protectorate to qualify in medicine, founded the Sierra Leone People's Party in 1951 and became the country's first prime minister?
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Firsts · 1961
Independence came on 27 April 1961.
Did you know that Sierra Leone won independence from Britain peacefully on 27 April 1961, a date still celebrated every year as Independence Day, with Milton Margai as its first prime minister?
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Economy · 1964
The leone currency was born in 1964.
Did you know that the leone, named after the country itself, was introduced on 4 August 1964, replacing the British West African pound at a rate of two leones to the pound?
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Firsts · 1966
Freetown had a woman mayor in 1966.
Did you know that Constance Cummings-John became mayor of Freetown in 1966, making her one of the first women in Africa to lead a capital city?
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Firsts · 1967
An election win undone in hours.
Did you know that Siaka Stevens' victory in the March 1967 election was one of the first times an African opposition party ousted a ruling party at the ballot box, but a military coup stopped him within hours of being sworn in?
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Society · 1968
Sergeants restored the elected leader.
Did you know that in April 1968 a group of non-commissioned officers mounted the so-called Sergeants' Revolt, overthrowing the military junta and handing power back to Siaka Stevens?
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Society · 1971
Sierra Leone became a republic in 1971.
Did you know that Sierra Leone dropped the British monarch as head of state and became a republic on 19 April 1971, with Siaka Stevens as its first executive president?
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Records · 1972
A Valentine's Day diamond of 969 carats.
Did you know that the Star of Sierra Leone, found near Koidu on 14 February 1972, weighed 968.9 carats, making it one of the largest gem-quality diamonds ever discovered?
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Economy · 1974
The country scrapped its whole railway.
Did you know that Sierra Leone shut down its entire national railway, a 2 ft 6 in narrow-gauge line once running hundreds of kilometres inland, with the last trains running in 1974?
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Society · 1978
One party ruled legally from 1978.
Did you know that a 1978 constitution made Siaka Stevens' All People's Congress the only legal party, turning Sierra Leone into a one-party state that lasted until 1991?
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Society · 1991
A photographer-turned-rebel started the war.
Did you know that the civil war began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front, led by former army corporal and photographer Foday Sankoh, crossed into Sierra Leone from Liberia?
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Records · 1992
The world's youngest head of state at 25.
Did you know that Captain Valentine Strasser seized power in a 1992 coup aged just 25, making him the youngest head of state in the world at the time?
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Society · 1999
Rebels stormed Freetown in January 1999.
Did you know that in January 1999 rebel forces launched Operation No Living Thing on Freetown, killing thousands of civilians before Nigerian-led ECOMOG troops drove them out of the capital?
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Records · 2000
The SAS rescue of Operation Barras.
Did you know that in September 2000 British special forces carried out Operation Barras to rescue soldiers held by the West Side Boys militia, one of the most daring hostage rescues in modern British military history?
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Records · 1999-2005
Once the world's largest UN peacekeeping force.
Did you know that the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL, grew to about 17,500 troops, briefly making it the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world?
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Society · 2002
The war was declared over in January 2002.
Did you know that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah formally declared the civil war over on 18 January 2002, after a conflict that killed an estimated 50,000 people and displaced over two million?
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Firsts · 2012
A historic war crimes conviction.
Did you know that former Liberian president Charles Taylor, convicted in 2012 by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, was the first former head of state convicted by an international court since the Nuremberg trials?
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Records · 2014-2016
Sierra Leone had the most Ebola cases.
Did you know that the West African Ebola epidemic infected about 14,000 people in Sierra Leone, more than in any other country, and killed nearly 4,000 there before it was declared over?
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Nature · 2017
A mudslide buried a Freetown suburb.
Did you know that on 14 August 2017 a mudslide from Sugar Loaf Mountain buried part of Regent near Freetown after heavy rain, killing more than 1,100 people in one of Africa's deadliest floods?
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Economy · 2022
Three zeros were knocked off the leone.
Did you know that in July 2022 Sierra Leone redenominated its currency by removing three zeros, so 1,000 old leones became one new leone, and notes now carry national heroes like Bai Bureh?
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Heritage · 2023
Freetown's famous Cotton Tree fell in 2023.
Did you know that Freetown's centuries-old Cotton Tree, a symbol of the city where freed settlers are said to have prayed on arrival in 1792, was toppled by a heavy storm on 24 May 2023?
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Firsts · 2024
Back on the Security Council after 50 years.
Did you know that Sierra Leone began a two-year term on the UN Security Council in January 2024, its first seat there in more than fifty years, since its previous term in 1970 to 1971?
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Society · 2024
A national emergency over the drug kush.
Did you know that in April 2024 President Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency over kush, a cheap synthetic drug blend so feared that some addicts were reported digging up graves for human bones?
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Society · 2024
Child marriage was outlawed in 2024.
Did you know that in July 2024 Sierra Leone banned child marriage, setting penalties of up to 15 years in prison for anyone who marries, or helps marry, a person under 18?
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Society · 2025
Sierra Leone took the ECOWAS chair in 2025.
Did you know that President Julius Maada Bio was elected chair of the Economic Community of West African States in June 2025, taking over from Nigeria's Bola Tinubu?
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Myth or fact ·
Were there ever lions in the Lion Mountains?
Did you know that there is no proof lions ever roamed the Freetown peninsula, and one popular theory says the Lion Mountains name came from the roaring thunder or the lion-like shape of its hills?
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Nature ·
Eleven primate species on one river island.
Did you know that Tiwai Island, a 12-square-kilometre island in the Moa River, is home to 11 primate species, one of the highest densities of primate diversity anywhere in the world?
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Nature ·
Pygmy hippos hide in Sierra Leone's forests.
Did you know that the shy, endangered pygmy hippopotamus, only about a tenth the weight of a common hippo, survives in Sierra Leone's forests, including the Gola Rainforest and around Tiwai Island?
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Nature ·
Elephants and chimps roam Outamba-Kilimi.
Did you know that Outamba-Kilimi National Park in northern Sierra Leone shelters chimpanzees, forest elephants and pygmy hippos in a mix of savanna and forest near the Guinea border?
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Geography ·
Bintumani is the country's highest peak.
Did you know that Mount Bintumani, also called Loma Mansa, rises to about 1,945 metres in the Loma Mountains, making it the highest point in Sierra Leone and one of the highest in West Africa?
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Records ·
One of the world's great natural harbours.
Did you know that Freetown's harbour, in the estuary of the Sierra Leone River, is often described as the largest natural harbour in Africa and one of the largest in the world?
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Nature ·
Gola protects rare Upper Guinean forest.
Did you know that the Gola Rainforest National Park protects one of the largest remaining blocks of Upper Guinean lowland forest, home to rare birds such as the white-necked rockfowl?
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Language ·
Krio unites a country of many languages.
Did you know that Krio, an English-based creole with words from Yoruba, Portuguese and other languages, is the mother tongue of only a small minority yet is understood by the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans?
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Language ·
In Krio the country is simply Salone.
Did you know that Sierra Leoneans affectionately call their country Salone, its name in Krio, a word heard everywhere from music to football chants?
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Culture ·
Rare masks danced by women.
Did you know that the Sowei helmet masks of the women's Sande society are among the very few African masks traditionally worn and danced by women rather than men?
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Culture ·
Cassava leaves and rice rule the table.
Did you know that cassava leaves, pounded and stewed with palm oil, fish or meat and served over rice, are so central to Sierra Leonean cooking that many people feel a meal without rice is not a real meal?
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Society ·
Two peoples make up two-thirds of the nation.
Did you know that the Mende and Temne peoples each make up roughly a third of Sierra Leone's population, while about 16 other ethnic groups share the rest of the country?
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Geography ·
Freetown has its own island getaway.
Did you know that the Banana Islands, a small chain just off the tip of the Freetown peninsula, are home to fishing villages and the ruins of old colonial-era buildings, reachable only by boat?
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Society ·
Secret societies still shape adult life.
Did you know that the Poro society for men and the Sande society for women are secret initiation societies that for centuries have taught law, customs and adulthood across much of Sierra Leone?
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