The first Europeans to see Mount Kilimanjaro, German missionary Johannes Rebmann and his travel companion Johann Ludwig Krapf, record the sight of the flat-topped, snow-capped mountain rising above the savannah of East Africa.

One of the first Pan-African visions is proposed by Xhosa journalist and minister Tiyo Soga in the South Africa publication King William’s Town Gazette and Kaffrarian Banner when he proposes the idea of the “distinctiveness” of African people, which acts as a unifying force, whether Africans are found at “the South American Colonies of Spain and Portugal . . . the Negro Republic of Liberia (or) in the present struggle in America, though still with chains on his hands and with chains on his feet.”

Construction begins on a railroad line from Durban to Pietermaritzburg in South Africa’s Natal Colony. The line’s original purpose is to serve the diamond mining activities of Griqualand West. When gold is discovered in the Transvaal, the line willl be extended further west.

The first motion pictures projected onto a Southern African screen impresses viewers in Johannesburg when they are exhibited at the Empire Palace of Varieties. Promoter Carl Hertz will tour South Africa to exhibit the mechanism, called the Bioscope. From this moment forward, the movies are referred to in local African languages as “iBhioscobo.”

The introduction of colour-capturing film stocks prompts photographers to return to Africa to document the continent anew. Africa's wonders and peoples can now be fully recorded with the addition of the previously missing element of colour. (pic: Abyssinian elder)

A marketing campaign to attract tourists to East Africa advertises Kenya as “Britain’s Most Attractive Colony.”

South African singer and anti-apartheid activist Miriam Makeba’s first album, Miriam Makeba, is released. Recorded in New York, the LP features songs sung in SiZulu, isiXhosa, English and Indonesian.

Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa dam again transmits electricity, to Maputo. 18 years ago, saboteurs during the country’s civil war cut transmission lines, forcing power generation to halt.

Scientists announce that the Highland Mangabey monkey found in remote Tanzanian mountains in 2003 is actually an entirely new genus of the African monkey. This is the first new monkey genus to be discovered since 1923.

The West African Cable System begins operation, linking South Africa with the UK along Africa’s West Coast. Costing US$650 million, the 14,530-km data and telephone cable has 12 African landing points. DRC, Namibia, Republic of Congo and Togo now have their first direct connection with a global submarine cable system. An upgrade in December 2015 will triple the cable’s carrying capacity.