European officials carved up a continent at a conference with no Africans present

At the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, representatives of European powers divided Africa into colonial territories using straight lines on a map, with no African delegates invited to the table. In barely two decades, European control of the continent rocketed from about 10% to over 90% of its land. Many of today's African national borders still trace the arbitrary lines drawn in that room, splitting ethnic groups and merging rivals with little regard for who actually lived there.

— Historical account, Scramble for Africa — Berlin Conference, 1884-1885