Mauritania

The struggle

France took decades to subdue the Saharan emirates, meeting resistance led by figures such as Ma al-Aynayn into the 1930s. The colony had no capital of its own until Nouakchott was built in the late 1950s. Independence came on 28 November 1960, with Morocco contesting the new state's existence for the next decade.

Key people

• Ma al-Aynayn

  1830–1910

  Led Saharan resistance to French expansion

• Moktar Ould Daddah

  1924–2003

  First president

• Horma Ould Babana

  1912–1979

  First Mauritanian deputy to the French assembly