Baibars, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria who has greatly expanded Mamluk Egypt’s empire across the eastern Mediterranean to create the world’s most powerful Muslim country, dies by accident in Damascus. He drinks from a cup containing a poisoned drink. The cup was intended for someone else.

Napoleon Bonaparte arrives with the French fleet at Alexandria, Egypt. The French Campaign to conquer Egypt begins.

It is national census day in the U.S. Tabulations will show the country is home to four million enslaved Africans, making the U.S. the modern world’s biggest slave state. All enslaved people will be freed by law in 1862, though most remain enslaved until 1865.

Mozambique’s first newspaper, O Africano, has its first edition published in the port city Quelimane, with the slogan “religion, instruction and morality.”

Britain and Germany exchange African territories and define their African spheres of influence on their quests to colonise the continent. With the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, Germany promises not to interfere with British designs on Zanzibar and gives the East African sultanate Wituland to Britain as well as parts of East Africa that are required to build a railroad to Lake Victoria. Britain gives Germany the Caprivi Strip along the Zambezi River in Southern Africa (Namibia), and allows German colonisation of Tanganyika. The treaty also sets borders between German Togoland (Togo) and the British Gold Coast (Ghana) and between German Kamerun (Cameroon) and British Nigeria. No Africans whose lands are being traded are consulted or considered in the deal.

The cost of building the 113 km Beira Railway in Portuguese Mozambique is budgeted at £70,000 (equal to £9.5 million in 2022), including five trains, passenger and freight cars, and stations. The estimate will proves inadequate because of the difficulties faced when building in swampland. Nearly all 500 Indian labourers and many Europeans die of malaria. The number of deaths of African workers (whose low pay accounts for the railway’s low construction cost), while uncounted, are very high. All mules used in construction die from tsetse fly. (pic: The unsmiling faces of Beira Railway’s contractors in 1894)

The East African Protectorate is established by Britain, with Mombasa as its capital but under the administration of the British Foreign Office. Originally comprised of Kenya, in 1902 the boundaries will be extended into Uganda. A large number of white settlers from England and South Africa will arrive in the next 10 years seeking to profit through commercial agriculture on lands taken from the Maasai and other owners. Britain will encourage the immigration with tax breaks.

South African mining magnet, British imperialist and white supremacist Cecil Rhodes writes his will, which establishes upon his death what will become the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships to be awarded to outstanding individuals. Rhodes ensures that only white and not black South African scholars become beneficiaries.

The South African Division of the British Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve is established to protect South Africa’s coastline as World War I looms.

The National Party is formed in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The Afrikaner party of white minority rule will come to power in the 1948 general elections, and institute an apartheid state.

The airline Ligne Aérienne du Roi Albert begins service in the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), with a 580 km route from Léopoldville (Kinshasa) to Ngombe.

One of Africa’s great hotels, the Hotel Polana, is opened in Lourenço Marques (Maputo) in Portuguese Mozambique, offering luxurious rooms, fine dining and a magnificent view of Delagoa Bay. Mozambicans can be found in the hotel as workers, but are not allowed as guests or diners.

South Africa’s first radio station is established, without call letters and named “JB Calling,” in Johannesburg, by the Associated Scientific and Technical Club of Johannesburg.

A joyous civic celebration is held in Elizabethtown (Lubumbashi) for the opening of a Benguela Railway extension from landlocked Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) to Lobito port on the Atlantic Ocean in Portuguese Angola. (pic: Angolan passengers board the Benguela Railway train)

To control the movement of black South Africans into urban areas and to make them ipso-facto foreigners in their own country, the apartheid government passes the Natives Co-Ordination of Documents Act, which details the type of passports each black South African must carry at all times or be subject to arrest.

The government of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi) commissions the construction of a large regional airport in Salisbury (Harare). (pic: the completed terminal)

The Central Bank of Nigeria, founded in 1958 and entirely owned by the Nigerian government, begins operations, in Lagos.

Upon its independence today, the Trust Territory of Somalia (formerly Italian Somaliland) merges in a prearranged plan approved by both countries with the State of Somaliland, which gained its independence five days ago. They form the Somali Republic.

The Eritrean War of Independence begins, and will last for 30 years as Eritrean fighters battle current and future Ethiopian governments. The war ends with victory independence is achieved in 1991. However, the war will prove costly, and will conclude with 60,000 Eritrean soldiers and 95,000 Eritrean civilians killed and 75,000 Ethiopian soldiers killed. (pic: a female Eritrean soldier)

Burundi achieves national independence, from Belgium. The capital is Gitega. The national population is 2,907,000.

Rwanda achieves national independence, from Belgium. Its capital is Kigali. The national population is 3,053,000.

Having been approved in a French referendum by 91% of the vote, the Évian Accords that grant independence to Morocco are also approved in a referendum held in Morocco, by 99.72% of the vote.

Jamshid bin Abdullah begins his reign as Sultan of Zanzibar. He will be the briefest-serving Zanzibari Sultan, lasting only 195 days, and he will also be the very last sultan when he is deposed during the country’s January 1964 revolution.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation’s regional radio service Radio Good Hope begins broadcasts out of Cape Town.

Created by a treaty signed by 23 African nations in 1963, The African Development Bank begins operations at its headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Only African countries may join the bank for financing of development projects, although non-Africans will be able to join from 1982.

‍

France turns over its Algerian nuclear and rocket launch sites, in use since 1947, to Algeria’s government.

The University of Nairobi, founded in 1956, becomes the first national University in Kenya.

The University of Dar es Salaam is founded, after being established as an affiliate college of the University of London in 1961.

The University of Benin, founded in 1970, becomes a full-fledged university.

Ethiopia’s military government nationalises all urban land. Rental houses and apartments are also nationalised. Three million urban residents are organised into urban dwellers' associations.

The South African Medical Health Service is established as a full service branch of the South African Defence Force.

Radio 2000 goes on the air in South Africa, the country’s first all-sports station.

As negotiations between South Africa’s anti-apartheid groups and government continue toward the creation of a non-racial democratic state, Finland ends its sanctions on the country. Egypt Air makes its first flight from Cairo to Johannesburg.

The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park & Mausoleum is dedicated in Accra, Ghana. The country’s founding father and first president is buried within a monument that is shaped like an eternal flame, on the site where he declared Ghana’s Independence. His statue stands in front.

Caught off-guard by the violence in Rwanda that began in April and which quickly spiraled into mass-killings, the U.N. establishes an inquiry into genocide against the Tutsi people.

Walter Sisulu University is created in Eastern Cape, South Africa from the merger of Border Technikon, Eastern Cape Technikon and the University of Transkei.

The U.S. Marine Corps assume command of the first U.S. military base on African soil, Camp Lemonneir in Djibouti, from the U.S. Navy that built the base at a strategic coastal location to provide security for the Horn of Africa.

Tanzania’s capital Arusha, known as the “Geneva of Africa” because of the many peace negotiations conducted and accords and treaties signed there, is officially declared a city by the Tanzanian government.

The break-away Maakhir State of Somalia declares itself independent of Somaliland, an autonomous region of the Federation of Somalia. The small Horn of Africa quasi-state will be reincorporated into Somaliland in 2009.

Burundi and Rwanda become full members of the East African Community.

The East African Common Market Protocol is launched by the chairman of the East African Community, Kenya President Mwai Kibaki. The protocol permits the free movement of workers, capital, goods and services within the EAC.

Morocco voters approve political reforms proposed by King Mohammed VI. These give more power to the legislature, make the prime minister and not the king the head of government, and strengthen the courts’ independence from the monarchy. Another measure approved makes the local Berber language a second official language, besides Arabic.

On his first state visit to an African nation, U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Tanzania. He meets with Tanzania President Jakya Kikwete, lays a wreath at the memorial to the Tanzanians and Americans who died in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing in Dar es Salaam, and participates in trade and investment discussions with business leaders.