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The city of Timbuktu in Ancient Mali was legendary - its wealth, its culture, its architecture. Its university attracted scholars from as far as Spain, and from all over the Islamic world.

Whispers of its greatness spread as far as England - but it sounded so fantastic that the English assumed it must be mythical, like Atlantis or El Dorado.

It blows my mind that even today, 800 years later, many British people think Timbuktu is a distant made-up place.