At the colony of Mississippi-in-Africa, which has been established on the West African coast by African-Americans freed from slavery in the U.S., Josiah Finley, the colony’s governor, is murdered by a local fisherman. Tension runs high between the Americans, who act like colonialists and have declared their authority over the land, and the indigenous people. The Americans build homes in Mississippi-in-Africa (pic) that replicate the Southern mansions where they were once enslaved, and assume the role of slave masters over the local people. The conflict between American settlers and local people also disturbs the neighbouring colony, Liberia, which will ultimately absorb Mississippi-in Africa in 1842. In Liberia, which has also been colonised by African-Americans, indigenous people will not be permitted to become citizens until 1904. But this will not happen until the resentments of the indigenous peoples lead to the brutal Liberian Civil War of the 1890s, which will pit descendants of African-American settlers against local peoples. A 1930 League of Nations investigation into slavery in Liberia will finally end to the practice.

Brazzaville is founded by Italian explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, who names the settlement after himself. Brazza is popular with Africans for his easy-going manner, and he will object when French companies arrive to exploit the Congolelese.

The Union of South Africa commissions aviation pioneer John Weston, who set an air record in June by keeping his airplane flying above the ground for eight and a half minutes, and his company, Paterson Aviation Syndicate, to train military personnel for flight. The unit will be the beginning of the South African Air Force.

The Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye commits the victors of World War I, including Britain, France and the U.S., to eradicating the practice of slavery within Africa.

U.S. author Ernest Hemingway takes his second and final hunting trip to Africa, to the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), British Kenya and Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi). His popularizing of Big Game killing will disturb many conservationists, but his work as a writer has created memorable prose about Africa like this description of a lion’s roar: “When you hear it you first feel it in your scrotum and it runs all the way up through your body.”

The main hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the Aga Khan Hospital, opens as a small community hospital. A large 170-bed facility (pic) will be built in 1964.

Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila becomes the first black African to win a medal at an Olympics when he takes gold in the Men’s Marathon at the Summer Olympic Games. The second to do so is Morocco’s Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, who will win Silver in the same event, the Men’s Marathon.

Kenyan runner Kipchoge Keino wins his second Olympic Games gold medal in the 1500 metres, cementing Kenya’s reputation as a world-class producer of great runners.

After eleven years of war to achieve independence from Portuguese colonial rule, and after the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde unilaterally declared independence in 1973, Guinea-Bissau formally becomes an independent country. The capital is Bissau. The national population is 757,668.

Although he had asked that the new Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in the Côte d’Ivoire capital Yamoussoukro be built shorter than St. Peter’s in Rome, on which it is modeled, and his wish is not honoured, Pope John Paul II consecrates the world’s largest church today. The basilica has an area of 30,000m² and dome height of 158 metres.

Release of the film drama Samba Traoré by Burkina Faso director Idrissa Ouédraogo. This psychological study of guilt and redemption, with dialogue in the Mossi language like much of Ouédraogo’s work, receives critical acclaim internationally.

Two of Kenya’s top contemporary musicians, Afropop star Nameless and singer-songwriter Wahu, become man and wife, thrilling their fans and the Kenyan media.

South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) arrests National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi (pic). President Thabo Mbeki interferes by firing the head of the NPA, but Selebi is eventually tried and found guilty of corruption in July 2010.

The 4 de Abril Bridge, connecting the Angolan cities of Benguela and Lobito, is dedicated by President José Eduardo Dos Santos and named for the date that a peace agreement ended the Angolan Civil War. The bridge provides a much needed transportation link.

The new Angola-South Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry signs a Memorandum of Understanding that allows Angola to share business support services and boost trade with South Africa’s Western Cape Province.