History of Zanzibar led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War, also known as the shortest war in history. The islands gained independence from Britain in December 1963 as a constitutional monarchy. A month later, the bloody Zanzibar Revolution, in which several thousand Arabs and Indians were killed and thousands more expelled and expropriated, led to the Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba. That April, the republic merged with the mainland Tanganyika, or more accurately, was subsumed into Tanzania, of which Zanzibar remains a semi-autonomous region. Zanzibar was most recently in the international news with a January 2001 massacre, following contested elections. Zanzibar has been inhabited, perhaps
Battle of Zanzibar Battle of Zanzibar The Battle of Zanzibar was an encounter between the German "Kaiserliche Marine" and the British Royal Navy early in the First World War. While taking on coal in the delta of the Rufiji River in German East Africa) the German cruiser learned that a British cruiser, , which had been part of the Royal Navy's Cape Squadron sent to counter "Königsberg", had put in at Zanzibar for repairs. "Königsberg" captain, Commander Max Looff, decided to attack "Pegasus" while she was in port. On 20 September 1914 "Königsberg" sailed past the picket ship at the entrance to Zanzibar