Nairobi was founded in 1899 as a supply depot for the East African railway line which was being constructed between Mombasa and Uganda. It was totally rebuilt in the early 1900s after an outbreak of plague and the burning of the original town. Thereafter the settlement continued to grow, becoming the capital of the British East African Protectorate in 1907 and the capital of the newly independent Kenya in 1963 and now has a population of 1.5 million.
The US Embassy in Nairobi was bombed in August 1998 by Osama Bin Laden's terrorist group Al-Qaida.
Nairobi is served by Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.