Heritage · c. 200,000 years ago
Tunisia's first toolmakers lived 200,000 years ago.
Did you know that stone tools found near the desert oasis of Kebili, roughly 200,000 years old, are often cited as the earliest evidence of human activity in what is now Tunisia?
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Heritage · c. 10,000–6,000 BC
A Stone Age culture named after Gafsa.
Did you know that the Capsian culture, which flourished across North Africa from about 10,000 to 6,000 BC, takes its name from the Tunisian oasis town of Gafsa, known to the Romans as Capsa?
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Firsts · c. 1100 BC
Utica is older than Carthage.
Did you know that Utica, near the mouth of the Medjerda River, is traditionally considered the first Phoenician colony in North Africa, with classical authors dating its foundation to around 1100 BC, nearly three centuries before Carthage?
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Language · 814 BC (traditional)
Carthage literally means 'New City'.
Did you know that the name Carthage comes from the Phoenician Qart-ḥadašt, which simply means "New City", a fitting name for the colony that Tyrian settlers traditionally founded in 814 BC?
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Language · c. 500 BC
'Gorilla' is a Carthaginian travel word.
Did you know that the English word "gorilla" comes from the voyage of Hanno the Navigator, a Carthaginian who sailed down Africa's Atlantic coast around 500 BC and reported hairy, savage people his interpreters called Gorillai?
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Heritage · c. 250 BC
A Punic town frozen in time.
Did you know that Kerkouane on Cap Bon, probably abandoned during the First Punic War around 250 BC and never rebuilt by the Romans, is the best-preserved Punic town anywhere, complete with private hip-baths in its houses?
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Science · after 146 BC
Rome spared Carthage's farming manual.
Did you know that when Rome destroyed Carthage in 146 BC it burned or gave away the city's libraries but had Mago's 28-book farming manual translated into Latin, making it one of the few Punic books that survived?
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Myth or fact · 146 BC
Rome probably never salted Carthage.
Did you know that the famous story of the Romans sowing Carthage's fields with salt after 146 BC is not found in any ancient source and seems to be a modern invention that appears in print only from the 19th century?
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Records · 2nd century AD
A 132 km aqueduct fed Carthage.
Did you know that the Zaghouan Aqueduct, linked to Emperor Hadrian's visit in AD 128 that is said to have ended a five-year drought, carried water 132 kilometres to Carthage, making it one of the longest aqueducts in the Roman Empire?
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Culture · 203
A martyr's prison diary from 203.
Did you know that Vibia Perpetua, a 22-year-old noblewoman martyred in Carthage's arena in 203, kept a prison diary that survives in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, one of the oldest and most notable early Christian texts?
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Records · 238
A 22-day emperor from El Jem.
Did you know that Gordian I was proclaimed Roman emperor at Thysdrus, today's El Jem, in 238 and reigned only 22 days, while the town's amphitheatre, built around that time, could seat an estimated 35,000 spectators?
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Culture · 397
Carthage helped fix the Bible's contents.
Did you know that the Council of Carthage that met on 28 August 397 confirmed a list of biblical books that closely matches the Old and New Testament canon still used by the Catholic Church today?
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Language · 455
'Vandalism' was coined 1,300 years later.
Did you know that the word "vandalism" honours the Vandals who ruled from Carthage and sacked Rome in 455, but it was coined only in 1794 by the French bishop Henri Grégoire to condemn revolutionary destruction?
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Heritage · 534
Temple treasures paraded after Vandal defeat.
Did you know that after Belisarius retook Carthage from the Vandals, his triumph in Constantinople in 534 displayed treasures said to include the menorah of the Jerusalem Temple, looted by Rome and then taken by the Vandals?
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Society · 610
An emperor launched from Carthage.
Did you know that the Byzantine emperor Heraclius set sail from Carthage, where his father was exarch of Africa, to overthrow the tyrant Phocas and was crowned in Constantinople on 5 October 610?
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Society · 647
A rebel exarch fell at Sbeitla.
Did you know that Gregory the Patrician, the Byzantine exarch of Africa who rebelled against Emperor Constans II in 646, was killed the next year fighting the Arabs at Sufetula, the Roman town of modern Sbeitla?
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Myth or fact · c. 703
A Berber queen's last stand in an arena.
Did you know that the Berber queen Kahina is said to have fortified herself inside the Roman amphitheatre of El Jem before her final battle against the Arab armies around 703?
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Culture · 796
An 8th-century fort played Monty Python's Jerusalem.
Did you know that the Ribat of Monastir, a fortress founded in 796 to guard the coast of Ifriqiya, stood in for Jerusalem in the 1979 film Monty Python's Life of Brian?
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Society · 827
A judge led the invasion of Sicily.
Did you know that the Aghlabid conquest of Sicily in 827 was led by Asad ibn al-Furat, an elderly Kairouan judge and jurist who had studied with Malik ibn Anas in Medina and died of plague besieging Syracuse?
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Records · 9th century
The world's oldest standing minaret.
Did you know that the minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, built in the 830s, is considered the oldest minaret in the Muslim world and the oldest minaret still standing anywhere?
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Science · 9th century
A 48-sided reservoir 128 m wide.
Did you know that the larger of the Aghlabid Basins in Kairouan, completed in the 9th century to store water for the city, is a 48-sided polygon measuring 128 metres across?
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Society · 969
Cairo's founders started out in Mahdia.
Did you know that the Fatimid dynasty that founded Cairo in 969 had built its first capital at Mahdia on the Tunisian coast, only moving its court to Egypt a few years after conquering it?
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Society · 1057
Kairouan lost its crown in 1057.
Did you know that in 1057 the Banu Hilal Arab tribes looted Kairouan, forcing the Zirid rulers to abandon the city that had been the capital of Ifriqiya for nearly four centuries and retreat to coastal Mahdia?
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Science · c. 1077
A Tunisian brought Arab medicine to Europe.
Did you know that Constantine the African, a native of Ifriqiya who became a monk at Monte Cassino, translated the works of Arab physicians such as Ibn al-Jazzar of Kairouan into Latin, shaping European medicine for centuries?
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Society · 1148
Normans once held a Tunisian kingdom.
Did you know that Norman Sicily ruled a "Kingdom of Africa" along the Tunisian coast, taking Djerba in 1135 and Mahdia in 1148, before the Almohads drove the Normans out by 1160?
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Society · 1270
A French saint-king died at Tunis.
Did you know that King Louis IX of France died near Tunis on 25 August 1270 during the Eighth Crusade, most likely of dysentery, and was later canonised as Saint Louis?
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Science · 1332
A Tunisian pioneered sociology in 1377.
Did you know that Ibn Khaldun, born in Tunis in 1332, wrote the Muqaddimah, whose theories of group solidarity and the rise and fall of dynasties lead many scholars to call him a forerunner of sociology and economics?
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Culture · 1535
Charles V's Tunis war became tapestries.
Did you know that the painter Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen sailed with Charles V on the 1535 conquest of Tunis and designed a set of twelve tapestries of the campaign that travelled with the emperor wherever he went?
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Culture · 1573
Cervantes fought at Tunis in 1573.
Did you know that Miguel de Cervantes, the future author of Don Quixote, took part in the Spanish occupation of Tunis and La Goulette in 1573, which the Ottomans reversed the following year?
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Society · 1606
An English pirate turned Tunisian corsair.
Did you know that the English pirate Jack Ward struck a deal with the Tunis janissary commander Uthman Dey in 1606, made the city his base and later converted to Islam as Yusuf Rais?
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Myth or fact · c. 1630
Testour's minaret clock runs backwards.
Did you know that the octagonal minaret of the Great Mosque of Testour, built by Andalusian Muslim refugees from Spain, carries a mechanical clock that is said to run anticlockwise?
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Economy · 1630s
An Italian convert rebuilt Porto Farina.
Did you know that Usta Murad, an Italian-born convert who rose to become dey of Tunis, expanded the corsair harbour of Porto Farina, today's Ghar el-Melh, so greatly that it was considered a second founding?
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Heritage · 1690s
An Istanbul-style mosque in Tunis.
Did you know that the Sidi Mahrez Mosque in Tunis, built in the 1690s, was modelled on the imperial mosques of Istanbul, with a central dome, corner cupolas and tiles imported from Iznik?
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Heritage · 1831
Tunisia's flag was born after Navarino.
Did you know that the red Tunisian flag was created by Hussein II Bey after his fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, to tell Tunisian ships apart from others, and was approved in 1831?
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Firsts · 1846
Tunisia abolished slavery before France.
Did you know that Ahmad I Bey abolished slavery in Tunisia in January 1846, two years before France and nearly two decades before the United States, making Tunisia a pioneer in the Muslim world?
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Firsts · 1861
The Arab world's first written constitution.
Did you know that the Tunisian Constitution of 1861, granted by Muhammad III as-Sadiq Bey, is widely regarded as the first written constitution in the Arab world, although it was suspended just three years later?
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Society · 1875
The school that trained Tunisia's leaders.
Did you know that Sadiki College, founded in Tunis in 1875 by the reforming minister Hayreddin Pasha to teach modern sciences and languages, later educated Habib Bourguiba and much of Tunisia's ruling elite?
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Economy · 1880s
A vet discovered Tunisia's phosphate wealth.
Did you know that Tunisia's phosphate industry, still a pillar of its economy, began when Philippe Thomas, a French army veterinarian and amateur geologist, discovered huge deposits near Métlaoui in the 1880s?
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Science · 1909
Tunis lab work won a Nobel Prize.
Did you know that Charles Nicolle, director of the Pasteur Institute of Tunis, discovered in 1909 that body lice transmit epidemic typhus, a finding that earned him the 1928 Nobel Prize in Medicine?
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Culture · 1920s
A baron painted Sidi Bou Said blue.
Did you know that Sidi Bou Said's famous blue-and-white look was popularised in the 1920s by the French-British baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger, whose palace Ennejma Ezzahra is now a museum of Arab and Mediterranean music?
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Society · February 1943
America's first big clash with Germany.
Did you know that the Battle of Kasserine Pass in February 1943 was the first major engagement between American and German forces in the Second World War, and the US troops were pushed back over 80 kilometres?
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Society · 1956
Polygamy was banned in 1956.
Did you know that Tunisia's Code of Personal Status, enacted on 13 August 1956 just months after independence, banned polygamy and required a judge for divorce, and 13 August is still celebrated as National Women's Day?
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Society · early 1960s
A president's Ramadan orange juice.
Did you know that President Habib Bourguiba once drank a glass of orange juice on television in broad daylight during Ramadan in the early 1960s, to make his point that fasting hindered the fight against underdevelopment?
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Society · 1963
French sailors left Bizerte only in 1963.
Did you know that France kept its naval base at Bizerte for more than seven years after Tunisian independence, handing it over only on 15 October 1963, a date now marked as Evacuation Day?
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Culture · 1966
Africa's pioneering film festival began in Tunis.
Did you know that the Carthage Film Festival, launched in Tunis in 1966, was the first festival of its kind in the Arab world and inspired the creation of Burkina Faso's FESPACO three years later?
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Culture · 1976
Tatooine is really in Tunisia.
Did you know that Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine was filmed in southern Tunisia in 1976, with the Hotel Sidi Driss, a troglodyte dwelling in Matmata, serving as the Lars family homestead?
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Sport · 1978
Africa's first World Cup win.
Did you know that at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina Tunisia beat Mexico 3–1, becoming the first African and Arab team ever to win a match at a FIFA World Cup?
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Society · 17 December 2010
A fruit seller sparked the Arab Spring.
Did you know that Mohamed Bouazizi, the Sidi Bouzid street vendor whose self-immolation on 17 December 2010 sparked the Tunisian Revolution and the Arab Spring, was posthumously awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2011?
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Society · 2015
A union-lawyer quartet won the Nobel.
Did you know that the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize went not to a person but to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a group of a trade union, an employers' body, a human rights league and the bar association?
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Culture · 2020
Four neighbours share couscous on UNESCO's list.
Did you know that couscous was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in December 2020 through a rare joint nomination by four rival neighbours: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania?
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Sport · 2021
Slowest qualifier, then Olympic champion.
Did you know that Ahmed Hafnaoui was only 18 and the slowest qualifier for the final when he won the 400-metre freestyle gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, in a time of 3:43.36?
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Firsts · 2021
The Arab world's first woman premier.
Did you know that Najla Bouden, a geology professor appointed in October 2021, became the first woman to serve as prime minister not only in Tunisia but anywhere in the Arab world?
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Sport · 2022
The first Arab woman in a Slam final.
Did you know that Ons Jabeur, nicknamed Tunisia's "Minister of Happiness", became the first African and Arab woman of the Open Era to contest a Grand Slam singles final when she reached the Wimbledon final in 2022?
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Culture · 2022
Harissa is officially world heritage.
Did you know that Tunisia is the world's biggest exporter of prepared harissa, the chilli paste that UNESCO added to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list on 1 December 2022?
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Heritage · 2023
Djerba joined the World Heritage list.
Did you know that the island of Djerba became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023, recognised for its scattered settlement pattern of farmsteads, mosques and synagogues, including the ancient El Ghriba Synagogue?
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Nature ·
The Sahara's biggest salt flat.
Did you know that Chott el Djerid in southern Tunisia is the largest salt pan of the Sahara, covering over 7,000 square kilometres and stretching some 250 kilometres, and is famous for its shimmering mirages?
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Nature ·
A lake for a million wings.
Did you know that Lake Ichkeul near Bizerte, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980, is a stopover for hundreds of thousands of migrating birds each year, though dams have made its waters increasingly salty?
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Society ·
Matmata's people live underground.
Did you know that some Berber residents of Matmata still live in traditional underground troglodyte homes dug around open courtyard pits, and many rebuilt them after 22 days of rain made dwellings collapse in 1969?
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Language ·
Tunisia gave Africa its name.
Did you know that the whole continent of Africa takes its name from the Roman province of Africa, which was centred on the territory of Carthage in today's northern Tunisia, later Arabised as Ifriqiya?
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Language ·
Tunisians and Maltese partly understand each other.
Did you know that Tunisian Arabic, called Derja or Tounsi by its roughly 12 million speakers, is so closely related to Maltese that the two share an estimated 30 to 40 per cent spoken mutual intelligibility?
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Language ·
Berber clings on in a few villages.
Did you know that Berber, the language of North Africa's original inhabitants, now survives in Tunisia only in a small number of communities, such as the hilltop village of Chenini and parts of the island of Djerba?
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Geography ·
Africa's northern tip is Tunisian.
Did you know that the northernmost point of the African continent is Ras ben Sakka on Cape Angela in Tunisia, about 15 kilometres from Bizerte, which in turn is Africa's northernmost city?
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Myth or fact ·
Djerba may be the Lotus-eaters' island.
Did you know that the Greek historian Polybius identified the land of Homer's Lotus-eaters, whose fruit made Odysseus's men forget their homeland, as the Tunisian island of Djerba, then called Meninx?
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Myth or fact ·
Dido's oxhide trick founded Carthage.
Did you know that according to legend Queen Dido founded Carthage by asking for as much land as an oxhide could cover, then cut the hide into thin strips to encircle the whole hill of Byrsa?
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Nature ·
Africa's only native deer lives here.
Did you know that the Barbary stag, a red deer subspecies surviving in the forests of the Tunisian–Algerian border, is the only member of the deer family native to Africa?
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Myth or fact ·
Seven Kairouan visits equal one Hajj.
Did you know that a local tradition in Kairouan holds that seven pilgrimages to its Great Mosque are equal to one pilgrimage to Mecca, reflecting the city's status as one of Islam's holy cities?
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