A major victory in the Berber Revolt in northern Morocco against the oppressive rule of the Arab governor. Berber forces led by Khalid ibn Hammid al-Zanati defeat the Arab army. The Arab casualties include so many Arab aristocrats the encounter is called the "Battle of the Nobles.”

The Stellenbosch Seminary opens in Cape Colony, South Africa. Until today, Dutch Reform Church ministers have been trained in the Netherlands. The residents of Stellenbosch purchased an old Dutch government building, and donated it to house the new institution, which in 2022 will have become Stellenbosch University, with an enrollment of 29,000 students.

Britain and Germany come to terms over East Africa, with the land that will become Kenya going to Britain and the future Tanganyika going to Germany. A 16-km wide coastal strip of land will continue to be controlled by the Sultan of Zanzibar, Sultan Barghash bin Said, who will also administer the coastal islands of Mafia, Pemba and Zanzibar. The millions of Africans whose lands these are and their leaders are excluded by the foreign powers from land division negotiations.

Telegraphic communication arrives in Africa’s Indian Ocean island nations as a submarine cable is laid by the Eastern and Southern Africa Telegraph Company from Zanzibar. The cable will arrive in Seychelles and Mauritius on 11 November 1893, a distance of 1065 nautical miles (Mauritius) and 1120 nautical miles (Seychelles). (pic: Eastern Telegraph Company headquarters, Zanzibar)

The Maxim machine gun is used in battle for the first time anywhere in the world, when 700 soldiers of the British South Africa Company, whom England’s Queen Victoria permits to administer Matabeleland (Zimbabwe), open fire on 10,000 warriors of Ndebele King Lobengula. As a show of courage, Lobengula orders a frontal attack against the British. The new Maxim guns (pic) inflict 2,500 casualties, while the British loose four men in the battle. Lobengula withdrawals, and the shock of their losses drains the Ndebele’s will, bringing to an end the First Matabele War.

With South Africa’s two former British colonies and two former Boer Republics united as the Union of South Africa, construction begins in Pretoria on a grand new capital building to house the administrative wing of government. Called the Union Building to acknowledge the country's new status, it will be completed in 1913.

For the first time, bombs are dropped out of an airplane. Near Tripoli, Italian pilot Giulio Gavotti drops ordinance onto Turkish Ottoman Empire troops from an Etrich Taube, an early aircraft with distinctive bird-like wings and tail.

L'École de médecine de l'Afrique-Occidentale Française (The French West African School of Medicine) is founded in Dakar, French Senegal to train African doctors, midwives and later pharmacists. In 1944, students will arrive from French Equatorial Africa (Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon and Togo). The awarding of university degrees the equivalent of those issued in France will begin in 1958. (pic: surgical studies 1950s)

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The first airplane to land in Nigeria touches down in Lagos. A British Royal Air Force De Havilland DH 9A aircraft began its journey in Egypt, with stops for refueling along the way. A landing strip made from a cleared field will become the site of the Mallam Animu Kano International Airport, which will begin operations in 1936.

A magnificent statue of Abyssinian Emperor Menelik II is unveiled in the city square of Addis Ababa the day before the Coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie, who commissioned the work. Each year on the anniversary of the Battle of Adwa, Menelik’s triumphal victory that ended the Italian invasion of 1896, Selassie will lay a wreath beneath the statue.

The first edition of Présence Africaine, a pan-African quarterly publication created by Senegalese writer Alioune Diop, goes on sale, in Paris. Diop attracts other intellectuals from Africa, like Léopold Sédar Senghor and Albert Camus, the U.S.’ Richard Write, and French existentialists André Gide and Jean-Paul Satre. A birthplace of the Négritude movement - Frantz Fanon is another contributor - it advocates against colonialism and for pan-Africanism.

The Algerian War of Independence, which will last until 1962, begins when guerillas from the National Liberation Front attack French colonial military and civilian targets.

During the Suez Crisis, warplanes departing from British aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea attack Egyptian airbases, destroying 200 aircraft. Egypt’s President Abdel Nasser orders all surviving planes to fly to safety in Southern Egypt.

Tunisia’s national currency is launched, replacing the French franc that has been in use. It is named the dinar, after the denarius, the silver coin used in Carthage during ancient Roman rule.

Democratic Republic of Congo dictator Mobuto Sese Seko claims to have won his country’s presidential election by the greatest majority in history: 10,131,000 votes to 157.

The largest sea rescue by helicopter lifts 22 seamen to safety from the Liberian cargo ship Mimosa after it collides with the Liberian oil tanker Burmah Agate in the Gulf of Mexico off the U.S. coast. Afterward, the U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter is put on display as an historic aircraft at the U.S. National Air and Space Museum.

The World of Can Themba, is published, a collection of the South African writer’s short stories about urban life under apartheid. The publication brings Themba international readers and appreciation 17 years after his death.

The Apartheid Museum opens in Johannesburg, chronicling with exhibits South Africa’s era of racial oppression. (pic: a sculpted screen image of Nelson Mandela)

As is happening throughout Africa, analogue television is retired and all South African public TV is broadcast in digital, allowing for a new age in electronic media that includes satellite transmissions, internet programmes and live-streaming services.