In an attempt to recapture lands of the Western Roman Empire lost to the Vandals, the forces of Justinian I, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Emperor (Byzantine), land in North Africa to battle the army of Gelimer, Emperor of the Vandalic Kingdom of Carthage. The Battle of Ad Decimum ends with a Roman victory. Gelimer flees to the mountains of what will become Libya, but will be captured in 534 and taken along with his royal treasures to the Roman capital at Constantinople. The Roman Pretorian Prefecture of Africa will now be established.

Although Poland and Lithuania will never become major colonial powers in Africa, their vassal state the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia today appoints a Dutch governor for a settlement they wish to establish on the Gambia River on St. Andrews Island (Kunta Kinteh Island). The fort and settlement that will be built are helpless without a water supply, but one will be provided by the king of the local Barra people. Even with this mercy, the enterprise will fail, and the settlement will be sold to the Dutch West India Company.

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Al-Husayn I ibn Ali, the first bey (king) of Ottoman Empire-controlled Tunisia, is killed by his nephew, Ali Pasha, who invaded the country with the support of the king of Algeria and defeated his uncle last week at the Battle of Smindja. Husayn has fled to the town of Sousse, but is captured and beheaded. However, he has established the Husainid Dynasty, which will rule Tunisia until 1956.

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The West African port city Saint-Louis takes advantage of its strategic position in northern Senegal near Mauritania and evolves from a commercial centre to a seat of government (and will become the capital of French West Africa in 1895). Today, the French-built fort around which a town of more than 10,000 people has grown is taken over by government as an administration centre (pic: the fort in 1814).

Sekhukhune, King of the Pedi nation of South Africa, is speared and killed by assassins believed to be under orders from his half-brother and rival Mampuru II. During his reign, he fought a successful war against Boer settlers and their Swazi allies, but lost a war against the British who also brought in Swazi warriors.

In the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, British forces suppress a nationalist uprising by mutinous Egyptian soldiers under Ahmed ‘Urabi, who seek to rid Egypt of British and Turkish control. The deployment of British soldiers against ‘Urabi is intended to be temporary, but British forces will remained in Egypt for 76 years, until 1956.

The Court Treatt Expedition, which will be the first successful journey by automobile from “Cape to Cairo,” departs Cape Town, South Africa in two Crossley light body trucks. With no roads or bridges for most of the journey, they will rely on local men to build rafts and pull the vehicles across swamps and rivers. The cars will arrive in Cairo in 16 months.

The first full-length motion picture with sound is shown in South Africa, in Johannesburg. The movie is the American musical Syncopation. (pic: The Coliseum movie palace, in Johannesburg)

Indian forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo that are part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission launch an offensive against Katanga secessionists. This is done without the knowledge of the U.N., and leads to an international diplomatic crisis.

In the first politically-motivated air hijacking in Africa, a common occurrence elsewhere in the world, militants with the Eritrean Liberation Front fighting for independence from Ethiopia take command of an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Djibouti City. They force the plane to land in Aden, South Yemen. One passenger is killed. The hijackers are arrested in Aden.

South Africa’s apartheid government calls it “a mistake,” but top South African businessmen led by Gavin Relly, chairman of South Africa’s giant mining conglomerate, Anglo American Corp., meet in Zambia with Oliver Tambo, the exiled President of the anti-apartheid liberation party the African National Congress, which is banned in South Africa. Tambo reports, “This has been a very important contribution to the process of seeking ways and means of ending the violence of apartheid.”

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South African Nobel Peace Prize recipient Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Gordon Oliver, the mayor of Cape Town, lead 30,000 marchers in protest after 23 people are killed by police during a demonstration for voting rights. Oliver convinces the apartheid government to allow the march, despite police objections, and it receives the first official permission granted for a protest demonstration in a half century of anti-apartheid activism.

A Soweto, South Africa train is attacked by armed men who kill 26, as “black on black” political violence claims more victims. In July 1991, evidence will emerge that the attackers are members of the Five Reconnaissance Regiment, which is part of the South African army's Special Forces. This will support claims that pro-apartheid forces are fomenting tribal violence to destabalise the country. Between 1990 and 1993, 572 people will be killed in train attacks.

The Catholic Archbishop of Accra, Ghana, Charles G. Palmer-Buckle, issues an apology on behalf of today’s Africans for the role that previous generations of Africans played in the enslavement of African peoples.

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A partial eclipse of the sun is visible in Southern Africa. The event has millions of schoolchildren sent out by teachers to observe through eye-protecting devices.