The Battle of Salt River is the first military engagement between an indigenous people of South Africa - 170 warriors of the ǃUriǁʼaekua (the grammatical marks represent tongue clicks) -  and 150 Portuguese soldiers bearing firearms and led by Francisco de Almeida. The ǃUriǁʼaekua employ skillful military strategy to maneuver the Portuguese forces to where they want them, and then win a decisive victory. All the invaders are killed, including the commander Almeida. Embarrassed by the defeat, Portugal forbids its ships to land along the Southern Africa coast.

Enslaved Africans from Africa's West coast accompany the Portuguese colonisers who today establish the settlement of Rio de Janeiro on the Atlantic Ocean coast of South America. The Africans will provide the labour essential to the creation of what will become Brazil. Brazil will be the second largest importer of enslaved Africans behind the U.S. during the centuries of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

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The Mamluk Sultanate’s 600-year rule over Egypt ends when Pasha Muhammad Ali, who saw the Sultanate as an obstacle to his goal of a united Egypt under his control, invites the Mamluk leadership to a party for his son at the Cairo Citadel. When the guests arrive, they are surrounded and killed by Ali’s troops.

The U.S. slave ship Uncas is the first ship captured by the U.S. Navy, off the coast of South America, in operations to end the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Cape Agulhas Lighthouse goes into service at Africa’s southern-most point, in South Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.

Stellenbosch Gymnasium opens as an institute of higher learning, in Cape Colony, South Africa. The institution will grow into Stellenbosch University, where more than 30,000 students from 100 countries will study in 2024.

The army of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II wins a major victory at the Battle of Adwa, the decisive battle of the first Italo-Ethiopian War. With the invading army of Italy destroyed, this concludes Italy’s ambition to colonise East Africa. Adwa becomes a Pan-Africanism symbol of defiance against European colonialism.

The Port of Lobito opens in Portuguese Angola. When the Benguela Railway opens in 1905, the port will be accessible for shipping from the country’s interior, as well as from landlocked Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo), allowing economic growth through exports.

Mozambique's first newspaper, O Africano!, publishes its first edition.

French Upper Volta is established. The failure of a scheme to grow cotton to make the colony economically self-sustaining will be the reason Upper Volta will be dismembered in 1932, and the land incorporated into Mali and Côte d’Ivoire. However, the colony will be re-established in 1947, this time permanently until it becomes an independent country in 1958 and later renamed Burkina Faso.

The former German protectorates Ruanda (Rwanda) and Urundi (Burundi), which were joined into a single protectorate named Ruanda-Urundi by the League of Nations in 1922, are coupled with the Belgian Congo as a single administrative unit governed by Belgium.

With multiple stops planned for refueling, four British Royal Air Force pilots flying Fairey IIID biplanes begin an air journey from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa. After arriving in Cape Town, they plan to fly northward all the way to England, where they will arrive on June 2.

French Aviator Maurice Rossi sets an air distance record of 8,822 km by flying in a circle over Algeria for 75 hours and 23 minutes.

Anti-colonial rioting throughout Gold Coast (Ghana) ends as British authorities impose the Riot Act. They arrest The Big Six leaders of the pro-Independence party the United Gold Coast Convention. The independence leaders, including Ghana’s future first president Kwame Nkrumah, are seen as martyrs by the people.

Truida Louw becomes the first South African woman to direct a feature-length motion picture with the release today of Man in die Donker, a melodrama about a doctor whose life is undermined by gossip.

The Pick n Pay supermarket chain begins when South African businessman Raymond Ackerman purchases four small Cape Town food stores that have the name Pick n Pay. The stores keep their name but become supermarkets. In 2022, there will be 1,628 Pick n Pay supermarkets in seven African countries, employing 90,000 workers.

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The U.K. parliament passes the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1968, reducing the right of citizens from Africa’s Commonwealth countries to migrate to the U.K. The arrival of 200,000 Kenyan Asians fleeing Kenya’s “Africanisation” policies has alarmed the British.

South Africa’s apartheid-era radio stations are rebranded: English service Radio South Africa becomes SAFM and Afrikaans language Radio Suid Afrika becomes Afrikaans Stereo.

Seychelles first independent newspaper and first newspaper in full colour, Today in Seychelles, begins publication. Without the bias of Seychelles’ government-owned Nation newspaper, Today seeks to inform all groups as well as international visitors.