ancient civilisations and empires in history

let's list 'em.
off the top of my head, there's ancient greece (philosophy! sculpture! tragedy!), rome (gladiators), the byzantine empire/constantinople (mosaics, awesome architecture), ancient india (uh.. elephants?), ancient egypt (pyramids and papyrus!) .. ancient china (vases, funny hats and robes), feudal japan (ninjas)

am I missing any? add please.

"Africa had empires, dude...  Fukken EMPIRES.   You can't tell me they're inferior when they had fukken EMPIRES. The Mali Empire, Oba of Benin, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, the Fulani Empire, the Dahomey, Oyo, Aro confederacy, the Ashanti Empire, and the Songhay.  How many empires did europe have?  Like, three?  Fuuuuck, bitches!"

First let's define Kingdoms, Confederacies, and Empires, because they are not the same thing.

Kingdom: A politically organized community or major territorial unit having a monarchical form of government headed by a male monarch of a major territorial unit; especially one whose position is hereditary and who rules for life or is a paramount chief.

Empire: major political unit having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority; especially : one having an emperor as chief of state.

Confederacy: the body formed by persons, states, or nations united by a league (not an emperor or king, and thus neither a kingdom nor an empire.)

I actually learned a lot about African history by reading the Wikipedia articles I looked about the "empires" you spoke of.
Here's what happened to those empires and I'll even list the ones that aren't empires at all.

Mali Empire: Richest empire in all of Africa. Eventually conquered by the African Muslim group the Songhai.

Oba of Benin: A person not a kingdom. "Kingdom of Benin" however, was an empire and was eventually destroy by the British.

Kanem-Bornu Empire: Pretty much Chad and small bits of other African countries. Declined due to poor administration and attacks from the Fulani, eventually conquered by the Sudanese.

Fulani Empire: One of the most powerful African states in the continent, later colonized by the British.

Dahomey: KINGDOM: NOT AN EMPIRE. Now the Nation of Benin. At one point one of the largest slave exporting nations in all of Africa. (An African King enslaving other Africans, just thought I'd point that out before the "white man keeping down the black man bandwagon" starts rolling. At one point colonized by France and later granted independence.

Oyo: NOT AN EMPIRE, NOT EVEN A KINGDOM. A city in modern day Nigeria, the birthplace of the Mali Empire, I believe (don't quote me on that part about Mali).

Aro Confederacy: NOT AN EMPIRE: I think the name says it all. It was a kingdom comprised of city states. Also a large slave exporting area. Again black people enslave black people, do not hop on the "evil white man bandwagon".

Ashanti Empire: Wikipedia only found Ashanti Confederacy, therefore also: NOT AN EMPIRE. It was a kindom lasting from about 1400-1600 and was later colonized by Britain.

Songhai: An ETHNIC GROUP in Africa, particularly Muslims. Also NOT AN EMPIRE. But they were the people that destroyed the Mali Empire in its decline.

As for European Empires we have: France, England, Spain, Portugal, which makes 4. After I discerned which things you listed were actually empires, Africa also had 4. All of which were later colonized by Britain or France. Yes, that's right, France coquered someone. To your credit, these empires had a lot of great successes on their own, but compared with those of Europe, did not contribute anything to western civilization, and were later colonized by the peasly four empires that Europe had. In that repsect, I can see why people call the African Empires inferior. Thanks for giving me a chance to learn something of Africa, though.