Britain declares that it will militarily take over and administer the Natal colony in South Africa. The colony was established by British adventurers, and taken over by Boer settlers, whose antagonistic relations with the Zulu nation have endangered all settlers. To prevent war, Britain is assuming control. However, Britain will itself mount a war of conquest with the Zulu nation.

The first telegram is sent in South Africa, beginning the age of electronic communications in Southern Africa. The Cape of Good Hope Telegraph System (pic: office in Cape Town) will begin commercial service in 1860.

The port of Lourenço Marques (Maputo) in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) is officially designated as a settlement – a village – by colonial authorities in Lisbon.

The area near Lake Nyasa occupied by Swahili Muslims from the East Coast of Africa - the followers of slave-trader Mlozi bin Kazbadema (pic) who entered Central Africa for a supply of enslaved people - is attacked by a force of over 400 Sikh and African riflemen. The force is armed with artillery and machine guns under the direction of the British Consul for Mozambique and the Interior. Two of Mlozi’s forts fall to the attackers, who then surround and begin to bombard Mlozi’s fortified headquarters.

Italy promotes its war of conquest in Tripoli with propaganda postcards meant to show the first aerial bombings ever undertaken, on 1 November 2011 against Ottoman Empire troops. Unsophisticated viewers do not notice the aeroplanes are painted into the sky, and the crowd of Libyan civilians (not Ottoman soldiers) who are supposed to be bombed are happily looking in another direction.

The Women’s War begins when 10,000 women from the Bende District in British Nigeria, belonging to six ethnic groups (Ibibio, Andoni, Ogoni, Efik, Ijaw, and Igbo), stage a march to protest chiefs they believe have sold out to British colonial authorities and are about to approve direct taxation on women. Direct taxation on men was imposed last year. In addition to helping to support a household, a working woman usually helps her husband pay his tax. Because women do not have individual power under traditional or colonial governments, they have turned to collective power. The protest spreads throughout eastern Nigeria. Three women admired for their intellect - the “Oloko Trio”: Ikonnia, Nwannedia and Nwugo – inspire action, but they also diplomatically lower tension when there is a danger of violence. Today, the three are killed by police when they try to block a road. Without their leaders, violence breaks out, and women loot factories where workers have been exploited, and destroy Native Council buildings. Another leader, Madame Nwanyereuwa, will advise protest songs, dances and sit-down occupations. The uprising will become peaceful under her guidance. No colonial power has ever witnessed such widespread protest from occupied Africans, which will disrupt colonial administration for months. (See 10 January for the conclusion in 1930)

South African boxer Vic Toweel sets the record for knockdowns in a title fight, in Johannesburg. Seeking to remain the world bantamweight champion, he knocks England’s Danny Sullivan to the canvas 14 times before the fight is stopped after the 10th round.

The Uganda National Theatre is inaugurated in Kampala. One of the country’s first large-scale modern architecture projects, the building’s clean curved façade is accented by soaring abstract sculpture. In 2017, government will have plans to tear it down for commercial development, but the scheme will be stopped by artists and the public who will succeed in preserving a civic landmark.

The 1.4 million year-old fossil of a Homo Erectus is discovered at the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. The find furthers evidence that humankind’s ancestors originated in East Africa.

Anti-American sentiment in Libya under Muammar Gadhafi climaxes when a mob burns the US Embassy in Tripoli. The embassy is closed, and will not reopen for 15 years.

Bamako, Mali’s multi-purpose stadium opens, seating 25,000. The Stade Modibo KéÏta is named for the Mali’s first president.

South Africa’s apartheid “homelands,” where black South Africans were to be exiled, leaving the white minority as South Africa’s only citizens, are being dismantled as the apartheid system ends. The “countries” of Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Transkei and Venda, carved out of South African territory in the 1960s and 1970s, agree to be reincorporated into South Africa. The 10 million residents of these “Bantustans” will have their South African citizenships restored on 15 December 1993.

Now a democratic state, South Africa has been invited join the World Trade Organisation, and does so today.

A milestone for women’s rights in Egypt as conservative lawyer Nabih al-Wahsh is sentenced to three years in prison for declaring it is Egyptian men’s “national duty” to rape women as punishment for wearing currently-fashionable torn jeans.