Aden has a long and complex history.* On the trail of Marco Polo|Marco Polo described it as a hub of commerce, where goods arriving by ship from the East were transferred to smaller boats for the trip up the Red Sea and on to Alexandria and Christendom.* At one point it ruled a small empire, the part of Africa just across from it. * In the 19th century, it became a British protectorate.* It was the capital of South Yemen until Yemen was re-united in 1990. http://wikitravel.org/en/Aden