Zanzibar was believed to be first inhabited by Africans three to four thousand years ago. Centuries later, the islands became a major trade route from the Roman Empire to the Indo-Chinese ports, prompting Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Arabians, Indians, Chinese and Europeans to start settling there. In about 150 A.D, the famous Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy even mentioned the archipelago in his work.
Around the 4th century, Bantu people lived there, while Islam made its entry at around 7th AD through the Arab and Persian emigrants who fled from their war-torn homelands. The following years spelled years of harmony and prosperity as the people established trading goods like gold, ebony, ivory, tortoise shells and slaves in exchange of cloth, porcelain and beads.
Zanzibar continued to become an independent Sultanate until the 15th-century arrival of Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama, who established a Portuguese colonial rule in the islands. During the two centuries of Portuguese occupation, Portugal built churches and religious missions in Zanzibar, but the archipelago's strong Muslim influence persists up to this day.
After the Portuguese lost their last holding in Zanzibar, the Omanis took over until the revolution in 1964. During this time, the Busaid family ruled, and among them is Seyyid Said bin Sultan or Said the Great, who made an empire out of the archipelago through the lucrative slave trade, prompting the transfer of the Sultanate's capital from Muscat to Zanzibar in the 1840's.
After Said the Great's death in 1856, power struggles among the heirs made the throne fall into British hands. The British struggled to abolish slavery in Zanzibar. In 1896, a cousin of a sultan that just died declared himself the new king, angering the British who sparked the shortest war in history, as still seen in the Guinness Book of World Records. The British opened fire on Stone Town until the late sultan's cousin lowered his flag 40 minutes later.
The British protectorate paved way to Zanzibar's independence in 1963. The following year, Pemba's president, John Okello, began the bloodiest revolution in the archipelago. In a matter of days, African revolutionaries killed more than 17 thousand Arabs and Indians. This led to the foundation of a revolutionary government that lasted until Zanzibar joined Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964.
Zanzibar was granted a constitutional right to maintain its own president, prime minister, cabinet members and congress. During Abied Karume's rule as president, he established relations with many socialist countries and this relationship enabled the construction of infrastructures like roads and airports, which have become vital in the archipelago's declaration as a free market for tourism since the ‘80s.