The Nok people of West Africa have begun to harvest honey as a food source, and transport honey in clay pots. This will be determined by an analysis in 2020 of the contents of 485 Nok pottery vessels.

The people of Sierra Leone vote in elections for the first time, for their representatives to a parliament established by a new constitution. However, as a British protectorate, the country is ultimately ruled by a British governor. He has the local authorities, the chiefs, collect hut tax. People who are unable to pay their tax must perform forced labour for white employers.

Seydou Keïta has set up a photography studio at his family’s house in Bamako, Mali, and begins to preserve his negatives, which eventually number 30,000. He will become Mali’s most famous photographer, taking portraits, recording street scenes, rural and cultural life, and creating an artistic and historical record of a country and its people that will span four decades.

Publication of the first novel of Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (as James Ngugi), Weep Not, Child. This is the first novel published in English by an East African author. The story takes place during the tumultuous Mau Mau Rebellion, and is critical of colonial rule.

To counter radio reports broadcast on international and African stations about the apartheid regime and its atrocities, South Africa Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd endorses Radio South Africa, whose transmission will cover the African continent and “tell the truth.”

The U.K. parliament passes the Immigration Act of 1971, ending permanent migration from Commonwealth countries like Kenya and Nigeria. The law comes after a huge influx of Africans from black and Indian Commonwealth countries in the 1960s. Critics call the act racist.

In reaction to the furious news coverage of the brutal police killing of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, South Africa’s apartheid government seeks to control dissent in the private media with the Newspaper Imprint Registration Act.

The launch of Afristar I, a communications satellite built by Alcatel Space to broadcast digital radio to Africa. Small hand-held radios pick up the satellite’s radio channels on three L-band beams. A second Afristar Satellite will be launched in 1999.

Mauritania joins Egypt, Palestine and Jordan as the only members of the Arab League to officially recognise the state of Israel.

Zambia’s largest shopping mall opens, the 43,000 m2 Manda Hill Shopping Mall, in Lusaka.

The opening of perhaps the world’s most stylish cricket stadium, the Gahanga International Cricket Stadium, in Kigali, Rwanda. Government officials and world cricket stars arrive to dedicate the state-of-the-art facility, which uses Bermuda grass. The futuristic domes that shelter spectators recall the traditional beehive huts of Central Africa, and are covered with 83,000 individual tiles.