Historian Olivette Otele has been awarded a professorship in history by Britain's Bath Spa university.

This makes the Cameroon-born academic the first black woman to become a history professor in the UK, History Today magazine has said.

Prof Otele, who specialises in colonial and post-colonial history, tweeted the news herself saying that she hope her appointment would "open the door to many hard working women, especially women of colour... and specifically black women in academia".

In a profile printed in History Today, she lists Congolese historian Elikia M’Bokolo as her greatest influence, and included in the languages she speaks are the Cameroonian languages Ewondo, Eton and Bulu.