The Tswana migrated to the region that is now Botswana by 1800 and displaced the native San. Missionaries, including David Livingstone and Robert Moffat from Scotland, arrived in the first half of the 19th century and established missions. The territory was taken under British protection in 1885, after all the principal chiefs complained that Boers, or Afrikaners, from the Transvaal region in what is now northern South Africa, were invading their territories.

The history of Botswana is in general the history of the Kalahari area, intermediate between the more populated savanna of the north and east and the less populated steppe of the south and west. Although reduced to a peripheral role in southern Africa for most of the 20th century, at other times Botswana has been a central area of historical development. Since independence, Botswana has taken a nonaligned stance in foreign affairs. While it opposed the former racial policies of neighboring South Africa, Botswana has, out of economic necessity, maintained close ties with that country.

During World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) contingents from Bechuanaland, as Botswana was then called, served overseas and on their return helped stimulate economic and political change. The first elections to a legislative council were held in 1961. Under the name Botswana, the country achieved independence in 1966, with the former prime minister, Sir Seretse Khama, as the first president. When Khama died in 1980, he was succeeded by Quett Ketumile Joni Masire, who was reelected by the legislature in 1984, 1989, and 1994. Masire retired from politics in 1998 and was succeeded by his vice president, Festus Mogae. The National Assembly elected Mogae to a new five-year term in 1999.