, today Annaba
Ancient The area of Annaba has yielded evidence of very early human occupation at Ain el Hanech, near Saïda (circa 200,000 BC), including artifacts that show remarkable toolmaking craftsmanship. According to some sources,
prehistoric Algeria was the site of the most advanced development of flake-tool techniques in the Middle Early Stone Age (Middle
Paleolithic). The town of Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) first entered historical records at the end of the 3rd century BC as a possession of Massinissa's Numidian Kingdom.
Augustine of Hippo was bishop here from 396 AD until his death in 430 AD. The city was destroyed in the 5th century by the
Vandals. Gelimer, the King of the Vandals and Alans from 530 to 534 AD, faced with the starvation of his followers and their children, and realizing he had no chance of regaining his kingdom of North Africa, surrendered to Flavius
Belisarius, a general of the Byzantine Empire under Justinian I, at Bône.
Byzantines then ruled Hippona (Hippo's new name after 395) before the
Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in 699 AD. Later,
Abbasids,
Aghlabids, and
Fatimids ruled Bona before the rise of the
Zirids. It was relocated to its present place after flooding and
Banu Hilal the ravages that occurred in 1033 during
Hammadid rule. It was attacked by a
Pisan fleet in 1034 and was conquered by
Kingdom of Sicily in 1153. The
Almohads took it in 1160.
Al-Bakri, in the 11th century, wrote about the city: Bona is an ancient city, it is the city of
Augustine, the scholar of Christianity. It is located on the coast of the sea, on a high and fortified piece of land overlooking the city of Seboussa. Today, it is called the city of Zawa, and it is about three miles away from the modern city. It has mosques, markets, and a public bath. The land is fertile, with fruits and crops. The modern city of Bona was surrounded by walls after the year 450
[Hijri year]. In the modern city of Bona, there is a well by the sea, carved in solid rock, called the well of Nithra, from which most of the inhabitants drink. During the 11th century, the
Banu Hilal, an
Arab tribe living between the
Nile and the
Red Sea, settled in
Tunisia,
Tripolitania (western
Libya) and
Constantinois (eastern
Algeria) which was the portion known as Annaba. After the demise of the Almohads, the rule of the
Hafsids began in Annaba in 1250. Hafsid rule was interrupted by brief occupations of the
Marinids and
Castile (in 1360) and ended with that of the
Zayyanids. Rule by the
Ottoman Empire began in 1533, and that lasted until French occupation in 1832, excepting rule by the
Spanish Empire between 1535 and 1540. The
Barbary pirates also lived in Annaba from the 16th through 19th centuries.
Modern During the rule of France (empire and republics), this city was called Bône. It was one of the main French settlements, and it still has a sizeable minority of the "
Pied-Noir". One notable
pied-noir from Bône was
Marshal Alphonse Juin, a very senior French military commander and then the Central European
NATO Commander. Construction was undertaken at Bône during 1856–69 to build an sheltered port to handle the iron ore from the
Mokta el Hadid. A short railroad line was built from the
iron ore mine at Ain Mokra to the docks of Bône. This railway was opened in 1864, the first one to be built in Algeria. Full-scale production or iron ore began in 1865. Also in 1865, Emperor
Napoleon III visited Algeria, including going to the mine and the city of Bône. In 1865, the mine produced 22,000 tonnes of iron ore, which increased to 255,000 tonnes in 1869. The ore was extracted from underground galleries, and then shipped from Bône to the French iron and steel works. Before the mine was opened, Bône had just 10,000 inhabitants. By 1924, there were 41,000 people, and the port was being used to export phosphates, lead ore, and zinc ore, too. During
World War II in 1943, Bône was an important goal of the
U.S. Army and
British Army in
Operation Torch, advancing eastward from
Morocco,
Oran, and
Algiers across North Africa. Bône was a crucial highway and sea location for the invasion of Tunisia, and thence the driving of the
Axis powers (Germany and Italy) out of Africa in May 1943. Bône remained in Allied hands until the end of the war in 1945, and then it remained a part of
French Algeria until the independence of Algeria in 1962. ==Geography==