The original Italian edition of Leo Africanus’ travel book Description of Africa has now seen five printings since 1550 and editions published in Latin and French. A Muslim who grew up in North Africa before converting to Christianity and relocating to Italy, Africanus’ travelogue will be the definitive description of African geography for centuries. He reports that the entire east coast from what will become Kenya to Mozambique is named Zanzibar.
The German East Africa Company is incorporated. Modeled after Britain’s East India Company and run by imperialist Carl Peters, the firm aggressively takes over lands that will become the colony German East Africa (Tanganyika).
Operating under different names from its founding in 1866, the college outside Cape Town, South Africa gains university recognition, and is now Stellenbosch University.
The Empress of Ethiopia Zewditu, the only woman head of an African country in the 20th century and Ethiopia's only female Empress Regnant, dies in Addis Ababa. Ras Tafari, the Crown Prince of Ethiopia, assumes the position of Emperor. He will be installed as Haile Selassie I in November.
King Hassan II, having conferred with U.S. President John Kennedy in Washington, is given a New York tickertape parade. He then receives New York’s highest award, the Gold Medal of Honor, for being “a dynamic, progressive leader.”
The first sitting of the U.N. Special Committee Against Apartheid. For the next 31 years, the committee will draw global attention to the activities of South Africa’s white minority government’s apartheid policies of racial oppression, and recommend boycotts and sanctions. In 1994, with multi-racial democracy achieved in South Africa, the committee will disband, after having proved to be one of the U.N.’s great successes.
Royal Air Maroc launches its subsidiary Royal Air Inter to fly domestic routes in Morocco. The local flights will connect Agadir, Al Hoceima, Casablanca, Fez, Marrakesh, Oujda, Rabat, Tangier and Tetouan.
Kenya’s space facilities at Malinda continue to service other countries’ space needs with the launch of material destined for the International Space Station, using a Falcon 9 rocket.
Tunisia’s Central Bank issues its new 10 dinar note, and for the first time a woman appears on one of country's banknotes. She is Dr. Tewhida ben Sheikh, born 1909 and died in 2010 at age 101, who was the first Muslim woman to become a doctor in North Africa.
Uganda Roman Catholic Kizito Lwanga dies mysteriously hours after he has once again criticised the human rights record of President Yoweri Museveni’s government. In 2020, he expressed fears that he was being poisoned after he first spoke out on Uganda’s human rights abuses, and during the January elections this year he told friends that he feared he might be killed.
Senagales writer, in Matam, French Senegal. His 1961 autobiographical novel Ambiguous Adventure was his most impactful and enduring work.
South African singer and actress, in Randfontein, Transvaal, South Africa. A major singer in the 1950s, she was arrested under apartheid laws for allegedly having an affair with a white film director. Her singing career and contributions to South Africa’s performing arts were recognised by government in 2004. She received the 2001 South African Music Award’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Eritrean champion cyclist, in Asmara, Eritrea. From a country where cycling rivals soccer as the national sport, he was a triple junior world champion at age 18, and became Africa's first world championship award winner when he took silver in the under-23’s category in 2021. In 2022, he became the first Eritrean and the first African to win a cycling World Tour race, the prestigious one-day Gent Wevelgem in Brussels, Belgium.
