Egyptian history can be roughly divided into the following periods:

Egypt ⁱ/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic:  جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.

Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.

Yosef Ben-Jochannan (born December 31, 1918), also known as Dr. Ben, is an African American writer and historian. He is considered one of the more prominent Afrocentric scholars.

Ben-Jochannan claims to have been born the only child of an Afro-Puerto Rican Jewish mother named Julia Matta and an Ethiopian father named Kriston ben-Jochannan, in a Falasha community in Ethiopia.

He was educated in Puerto Rico, Brazil, Cuba, and Spain, earning degrees in engineering and anthropology. In 1938, Ben-Jochannan earned a BS in Civil Engineering at the university of Puerto Rico, despite the fact that the University of Puerto Rico did not offer this degree, nor was there an Engineering Department until 1942. In 1939 a Master's degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Havana, Cuba. He received doctoral degrees in Cultural Anthropology and Moorish History from the University of Havana and the University of Barcelona, Spain.

Ben-Jochannan immigrated to the United States in the early 1940s. He worked as a draftsman and continued his studies. He claims that in 1945, he was appointed chairman of the African Studies Committee at the headquarters of the newly founded UNESCO, a position from which he stepped down in 1970. In 1950, Ben-Jochannan began teaching Egyptology at Malcolm King College, then at City College in New York City. He claims that from 1976 to 1987, he was an adjunct professor at Cornell University.