A major earthquake at Oran, a large coastal city in northwest Algeria, is recorded in a contemporary woodcarving which clearly shows minarets toppling and a tsunami swamping large ships. Quake damage occurs as far as Carthage, Tunisia and Spain.
The Fashoda Crisis begins as French forces arrive and build a fort at Fashoda (Kothok, South Sudan) on the White Nile, to stake France’s territorial claim of the area. Fashoda is strategically important because it lies at the intersection of two imaginary lines across Africa – one north to south from Cairo to Cape Town and one east to west from French Somaliland to Dakar in French Senegal. British and Egyptian forces fighting together to control Sudan will soon arrive, numbering ten times the French garrison, and will politely enquire what the French are doing. However, in Paris and London, a diplomatic crisis will erupt that will nearly lead to war. With no public support in France for a war in Sudan, Paris will withdraw from Fashoda on 6 November, leaving undisputed control of Sudan to Britain and Egypt (until 1956). However, by withdrawing, France gains an ally in London that whose support will be critical when France and Germany go to war (World War I). Throughout the crisis, the Sudanese people whose lands are coveted by Europeans are not involved or considered.
The Pretoria High School for Girls is founded in South Africa, by Lord Alfred Milner.
Departing Nairobi today on their pioneering 16-month drive from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt, the Court Treatt Expedition’s attempt to duplicate Cecil Rhodes’ proposed route for a Cape-to-Cairo Highway will show that the Rhodes route is impractical, compared to other routes.
An all-girls secondary school, Queens College, is established in Lagos, British Nigeria, with a first class of 20 students. In 2023, more than 4000 students will attend what will have become one of Nigeria’s and one of Africa’s top schools.
The Transvaal University College changes its name to the University of Pretoria. The Afrikaans language will become the medium of instruction in 1932.
The colonial governor of French West Africa issues a decree defining the chieftaincy system of Kaya, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso). Village elders nominate a chief, who is approved by the governor. Chiefs are to be paid, and their salaries will come from a poll tax collected annually from villagers. (pic: Burkinabe architecture in full flower, 1934)
The Federal Republic of Somalia introduces a national coat of arms. The design features two cheetahs and the national flag’s white star against a blue background.
Munjuku Nguvauva II is installed as the Paramount Chief of the Ovanbandero people of South West Africa (Namibia). He will speak at the U.N., advocating for independence for his country, which is controlled by South Africa. He will help independence leader Sam Nujoma escape arrest by South African authorities, who are running the territory as another apartheid state with a white minority government. South Africa also wants to replace Nguvuava with a puppet chief. When they succeed, he will go into exile. This causes disturbances among Namibians, and South Africa will seek to bring him back. He will refuse all offers to return until Namibia’s Independence is achieved in 1990.
At the 2nd Conference of Non-Aligned Countries in Cairo, the first to be held in Egypt, a majority of countries represented (27) are African. An international boycott of Portugal is urged for its refusal to relinquish its African colonies. Another boycott is proposed against South Africa for its apartheid policies. (pic: Ghana's President Kwama Nkruma second from left and Egypt's President Gamal Nasser in centre)
Ugandan MiG fighters bomb Tanzanian forests as tensions escalate between the countries.
The French media reports that Central African Republic dictator Jean-Bédel Bokassa (pic: left) secretly gave French President Valéry Giscard (pic: right) two diamonds when Giscard was France’s finance minister. The resulting “Diamond Affair” scandal contributes to Giscard’s 1981 re-election failure.
North Africa’s largest earthquake of the 20th century strikes El Asnam, Algeria at 1:25 in the afternoon, with the force of 7.1 on the Richter scale. 2,633 people are killed, and because El Asnam’s hospital is destroyed, 8,369 injured people must be transported 160 km for treatment. Quake damage of US$5.2 billion represents 22% of Algeria’s GDP.
Egypt is such an important ally of the United States that U.S. President Ronald Reagan sends three former U.S. Presidents to attend the funeral of assassinated President Anwar Sadat: Presidents Richard Nixon (pic: top right), Gerald Ford (pic: top left) and Jimmy Carter (pic: bottom).
The inauguration of the Cairo Opera House, replacing Egypt's historic Khedivial Opera House that was destroyed by fire in 1971. Containing seven theaters, a music library, an art gallery and a museum, the complex’s Main Hall seats 1,200.
The Ken Saro-Wiwa Prize, named for the activist who worked for the environmental and human rights of Nigeria's Ogoni people, 2007 award for Prose fiction is given to Nigerian writer Jude Dibia for his novel Unbidled. Dibia tells the story of the emotional and spiritual triumph of a woman over a history of incest and abuse from men.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Michael Levitt, a South African-born biochemist, for his theoretical modeling of large chemical systems, work he began in 1967.
Nemat Abdullah Khair is appointed the Chief Justice of Sudan. She is Sudan’s first woman Chief Justice. For the past few years she has been an outspoken critics of the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. She is Africa’s seventh woman Chief Justice, following Mali’s Kaïta Keyentao (2006), Sierra Leone’s Umu Hawa Tejan-Jalloh (2008), Seychelle’s Mathilda Twomery (2011), Zambia’s Irene Mambilima (2015), Ghana’s Sophia Akuffo (2017) and Ethiopia’s Meaza Ashenafi (2018).
Senegalese sculptor who was the first black person elected into the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, in Dakar, French West Africa. His monumentally-sized sculptures of Africans – he did series of sculptures on the Nuba, Fulani, Zulu and Maasai people – are exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world.
Eritrean writer, in Asmara, Eritrea. His focus on the migrant experience has been valuable literature from a country with Africa’s highest percentage of emigrants. His published works dating from 1986 also include poetry.
Nigerian fashion tycoon, in Ilorin, Kwara, British Nigeria. The daughter of a Sudanese seamstress, she became patron of Nigeria’s Fashion Designers Association after first founding the real estate, energy and banking conglomerate Bolmus Group International. As the firm's CEO, she became one of Africa’s richest women.
