Nairobi city (state capital), history - - Pictures
Nairobi owes its origin to the construction of the Uganda Railway between Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean, and Lake Victoria by the British at the end of the 19th century. At that time, Kenya was part of a British colonial protectorate known as British East Africa. The site of present-day Nairobi, then little more than a Masai watering hole, was selected to be the headquarters for the construction of the railroad in 1899, when the tracks reached the area. That year the small settlement became the capital of the province, and in 1900 Nairobi was given township status. The township grew rapidly due to an influx of railway workers and the arrival of various groups of settlers in search of profit and adventure. These settlers included Asians, who came to dominate Nairobi's commerce; Europeans seeking land and wealth; European big game hunters; and Africans from all over British East Africa. Faced with an extremely diverse population, the colonial authorities developed a system of residential and commercial segregation by race. In 1907 Nairobi became the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate. Thetown's importance as an administrative and commercial center continued to increase during World War I (1914-1918). Also in this period, Nairobi experienced severe sanitation problems, which helped bring about outbreaks of bubonic plague on several occasions.
In July 1919 Nairobi became a municipality. In 1923 the position of mayor was created. All mayors were European until 1962, when Nairobi's first African mayor took office. Nairobi developed as East Africa's leading manufacturing center, particularly after World War II (1939-1945), and it achieved city status in 1950. Between the 1940s and the early 1960s, Nairobi was frequently the site of political demonstrations in favor of Kenyan self-government. In 1963 Nairobi became the capital of an independent Kenya. In the years after independence, Nairobi's population skyrocketed as Africans flocked there from all across Kenya and East Africa. The city also soon became East Africa's most important tourist center. In the 1990s Nairobi has been the site of a number of demonstrations calling for greater democracy in Kenya and protesting the leadership of Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi.
