The Scramble for Africa called the Partition of Africa or the Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, occupation and colonisation of African territory by European powers during a short period known to historians as the New Imperialism. In 1870, only 10 percent of Africa was under formal European control. There were multiple motivations for European colonizers, including desire for valuable resources available throughout the continent, the quest for national prestige, tensions between pairs of European powers, religious missionary zeal and internal African native politics; the Berlin Conference of 1884, which regulated European colonisation and trade in Africa, is referred to as the ultimate point of the Scramble for Africa. Consequent to the political and economic rivalries among the European empires in the last quarter of the 19th century, the partitioning, or splitting up of Africa was how the Europeans avoided warring amongst themselves over Africa; the years of the 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule, bringing about colonial imperialism.

By 1840, European powers had established small trading posts along the coast, but they moved inland, preferring to stay near the sea and just used the continent for trade. Large parts of the continent were uninhabitable for Europeans because of the high mortality rates from diseases such as malaria. In the middle decades of the 19th century, European explorers had mapped areas of East Africa and Central Africa; as late as the 1870s, Western European states controlled only ten percent of the African continent, with all their territories located near the coast. The most important holdings were Mozambique, held by Portugal. By 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia remained independent of European control. Technological advances facilitated European expansion overseas. Industrialisation brought about rapid advancements in transportation and communication in the forms of steamships and telegraphs. Medical advances played an important role medicines for tropical diseases; the development of quinine, an effective treatment for malaria, made vast expanses of the tropics more accessible for Europeans.

Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the last regions of the world untouched by "informal imperialism", was attractive to Europe's ruling elites for economic and social reasons. During a time when Britain's balance of trade showed a growing deficit, with shrinking and protectionist continental markets due to the Long Depression, Africa offered Britain, Germany and other countries an open market that would garner them a trade surplus: a market that bought more from the colonial power than it sold overall. Surplus capital was more profitably invested overseas, where cheap materials, limited competition, abundant raw materials made a greater premium possible. Another inducement for imperialism arose from the demand for raw materials copper, rubber, palm oil, diamonds and tin, to which European consumers had grown accustomed and upon which European industry had grown dependent. Additionally, Britain wanted the southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India.

However, in Africa – excluding the area which became the Union of South Africa in 1910 – the amount of capital investment by Europeans was small, compared to other continents. The companies involved in tropical African commerce were small, apart from Cecil Rhodes's De Beers Mining Company. Rhodes had carved out Rhodesia for himself; these events might detract from the pro-imperialist arguments of colonial lobbyists such as the Alldeutscher Verband, Francesco Crispi and Jules Ferry, who argued that sheltered overseas markets in Africa would solve the problems of low prices and overproduction caused by shrinking continental markets. John A. Hobson argued in Imperialism that this shrinking of continental markets was a key factor of the global "New Imperialism" period. William Easterly, disagrees with the link made between capitalism and imperialism, arguing that colonialism is used to promote state-led development rather than "corporate" development, he has stated that "imperialism is not so linked to capitalism and the free markets... there has been a closer link between colonialism/imperialism and state-led approaches to development."

The rivalry between Britain, France and the other Western European powers accounts for a large part of the colonization. While tropical Africa was not a large zone of investment, other overseas regions were; the vast interior between Egypt and the gold and diamond-rich southern Africa had strategic value in securing the flow of overseas trade. Britain was under political pressure to secure lucrative markets against encroaching rivals in China and its eastern colonies India, Malaya and New Zealand. Thus, it was crucial to secure the key waterway between West -- the Suez Canal. However, a theory that Britain sought to annex East Africa during the 1880 onwards, out of geostrategic concerns connected to Egypt, has been challenged by historians such as John Darwin and Jonas F. Gjersø; the scramble for African territory reflected con

George Gregory, Jr. was a basketball player for Columbia University. In 1931, he became the first black basketball player to be selected as an All-American as the 6-foot, 4-inch center leading the Columbia Lions basketball team, he would serve on the New York City Civil Service Commission and was active as a community leader in Harlem. Gregory led the Columbia Lions to a championship in the Ivy League in the 1930-31 season, together with teammate Lou Bender, the team's first league title. By his senior year, Columbia was playing its games at Madison Square Garden, finished the season with a record of 21–2. Gregory was selected to multiple All-American squads that season. Though he had a full scholarship at Columbia, Gregory worked as a red cap at Manhattan's Penn Station. After completing his undergraduate degree, he played semi-professional basketball, earning as much as $150 a year, while earning his law degree at St. John's University School of Law as a night student, he became involved with the Harlem Center of the Children's Aid Society while he was still at Columbia.

From 1931 to 1953, Gregory ran youth programs in the Bronx. He helped establish the New York City Youth Board in 1947 and served on the Municipal Civil Service Commission from 1954 to 1968, he was chairman from 1950 until 1965 of the planning board covering Harlem in the office of the Manhattan Borough President, overseeing the initiation of $400 million in public projects undertaken in that period. He worked for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection from 1968 until his retirement in 1970. Gregory died at age 88 on May 1994, in his Manhattan apartment due to colon cancer, he was survived by his wife, Helen, as well as by a daughter and three grandchildren

Nigel Ayers is an English multimedia artist. His sound art has included numerous audio releases and live performances through his group Nocturnal Emissions, his sound art collaborations includes work with Bourbonese Qualk, C. C. C. C. Andrew Liles, Randy Grief, Robin Storey, Expose Your Eyes, Stewart Home, Z'EV, Zoviet France. In 1980 he founded the record label Sterile Records, releasing the first records by John Balance, Maurizio Bianchi and Lustmord, among many others. In 1987 he formed the Earthly Delights, specialising in audio works and big explosions that examined the technological landscape and the psychic effect of sound. In the early 90s he performed live soundtracks for the Butoh performances of the Go Go Boys, his visual art has been exhibited in the Tate, ICA, worn by the soccer legend Diego Maradona. Nigel Ayers' sound art work is rooted in collage. Years before digital sampling became commonplace, his recordings used thousands of edited "found" and specially recorded sound samples, his interest in the psychological effects of sound, in particular the recombination of sound to affect perception of time and space is reflected in CD titles such as "Practical Time Travel" where sound functions as snapshots of memory forming new associations as it passes into a simulated dream world.

He is interested in eroding the concept of individualised artistic personality using digital technologies to enable multiple authorship. This is exemplified in the remixable sound sample libraries he has released as a sound developer in the commercially released sample libraries for Sony’s ACID Pro and Propellerhead’s Reason. In his sound installations, such as Soul Zodiac and The Planetarium Must Be Built he has explored the possibilities of digital remixes in both time and space, using everyday equipment such as multiple CD boomboxes. Myths of Technology Organic Chemistry Loop Noir – Paranormal Sound Design Personal website Earthly Delights record label Video of The Planetarium Must be Built artcornwall.org Interview Mind Invaders: A Reader in Psychic Warfare, Cultural Sabotage And Semiotic Terrorism Stewart Home Ed.. International Who's Who in Popular Music 2015 Quietus interview S. Alexander Reed Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music Oxford University Press USA ISBN 0199832609 ISBN 978-0199832606 1991 EST interview 2011 Brainwashed interview 2011 BBC Radio report