The Norwegian slave ship Fredensborg, built in Denmark, sinks in a storm off Norway, with one enslaved African losing his life. The ship has finished transporting 265 enslaved Africans from Gold Coast (Ghana) to St. Croix, and three enslaved Africans were kept on to work the return trip to Norway. The ship’s discovery by divers in 1973 caused Northern Europeans to admit they also profited by the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Slavery is officially abolished in Cape Colony, South Africa, by British colonial authorities.
The Transvaal Museum opens, in Pretoria, Transvaal Republic. With its name changed to the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, it will become Southern Africa’s largest natural history museum.
King Fuad I of Egypt opens the Alexandria Stadium, which will become Egypt’s and Africa’s oldest stadium. An elaborate opening ceremony is attended by international dignitaries. Students march in patriotic displays.
The Thiaroye Massacre: Senegalese soldiers serving in France’s colonial army revolt over poor conditions, back pay and low pensions at Thiaroye army camp outside Dakar. French soldiers open fire, and kill more than 300 men. The incident becomes an important rallying point in the Senegalese fight for national independence.
In the run-up to its independence as Central African Republic, the Territorial Assembly of French Equatorial Africa becomes the Legislative Constitutive Assembly.
The fourth edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is won by the host country, Ghana. This is the second and final Africa Cup (the other was the 1962 cup) with high-scoring play, averaging more than four goals per game.
The South African armed forces get into motion picture production with the first of a series of recruiting films. Kaptein Caprivi is an action film about an army unit rescue of Afrikaner farmers taken hostage by Chinese terrorists. C R Swart, the first State President of the Republic of South Africa, introduces the story.
Former South African Defense Minister under the apartheid regime, General Magnus Malan (pic: left, with apartheid leader Prime Minister P.W. Botha), and nineteen co-accused are charged with murder for killing thirteen people in Durban’s Kwamakutha township in 1987.
South Africa becomes the first African country to legalise same-sex marriage, with the passage of the Union Bill.
A survey of biologists and climatologists chose the Danakil Depression as “the most uninhabitable place on earth.” Located in the Danakil Desert that spans Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, the depression was made by volcanic lava trapping a lake, which evaporated to leave toxic mineral deposits.
One of Egypt’s great intellectuals, nationalists, feminists and modernists, in Diyarbekir Vilayet, Ottoman Empire. As a jurist, he headed Cairo’s Court of Appeals. As a nationalist, he opposed British rule of Egypt. As a scholar, he help found Cairo University. As the Arab world’s first feminist, he held the traditional belief that men were superior to women but he opposed the wearidddng of veils and Muslim women’s lack of education. In 1899, he argued in his most famous book The Liberation of Women that historically Egypt was the centre of world learning but was surpassed by Europe because European women were more emancipated.
South African writer, poet and historian, in Gqumahashe, Orange Free State, South Africa. Through his newspaper Izwi Labantu, his novels, plays, histories and other writings, he did more to communicate in and thus document and preserve the isiXhosa language. He helped standardise the language’s grammar and vocabulary, and would be honoured with the title “Imbongi yesizwe,” (“Herald of the Nation”).
Egyptian philosopher, in Port Said, Egypt. The “father of Arab existentialism” applied philosophical discourse to contemporary issues, for example to expose the basic religious and intellectual incoherency of Islamic fundamentalism.
Moroccan novelist, poet and journalist, in Fes, Morocco. Known primarily for his novels, all written in French, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. A social psychiatrist, he also produce noteworthy books aimed at young people for use in school courses.
Anna Bossman, Ghanaian lawyer, diplomat and human rights official, in Kumasi, Ghana. Specialising in energy law for major international firms, she turned to public service as the African Development Bank’s Director of the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Department, as Deputy Commissioner of Ghana's Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Ghana’s ambassador to France and as Ghana’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO.
