The German government under the leadership of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck declares its plan to establish a colony in East Africa. To be called German East Africa, the colony will result from an invasion and occupation of what will become Tanganyika (Tanzania), at the cost of millions of African lives.
Britain’s High Commissioner of Southern Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony Alfred Milner (pic) delivers a speech in the Transvaal Republic calling for equal treatment for British citizens there. The speech is seen as a threat by the Transvaal’s Afrikaner population. After this gesture, Milner becomes the most influential British government official advocating for war with the Boer Republics to secure British interests in Southern Africa. The Second Anglo-Boer War will break out next year (1899).
The first Boy Scout Troop in Africa is organised at Claremont Public School in Cape Town, South Africa. Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell conceived the idea of regimenting boys and teaching them survival and other skills after witnessing the amaZulu boy regiments of South Africa.
Forty-one years after Giuseppe Verdi premiered his opera Aida at the opening of the Cairo Opera, a spectacular open-air production is staged at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Staged with hundreds of singers, the production begins at sunset, and continues through the ascent of a full moon.
The Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) airline Ligne Aérienne du Roi Albert adds a second route, from Gombe to Lisala, a distance of 610 km.
British governor of Nyasaland (Malawi) Sir Robert Armitage is convinced that Dr. Hastings Banda’s Nyasaland African Congress plans to murder him and all Europeans, and today he declares a State of Emergency. Banda, other party executives and 1,300 party members are arrested, and detained without trial. During the next month, 50 Africans will be killed and an unknown number will be wounded by police and soldiers brought in from Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The State of Emergency will be questioned in London, and Armitage will be viewed as an obstacle to peace in the colony. He will be replaced in 1960.
In British Kenya, eleven imprisoned rebels of the anti-colonial Mau Mau Rebellion are beaten to death by British guards at the Hola detention camp in Coastal Province, after they refuse to submit to forced labour. 77 more inmates sustain permanent injuries. Autopsies show the Kenyans died of internal hemorrhaging. Governor Evelyn Baring suppresses the findings, and the British government blocks a judicial inquiry.
The Kenyan mothers of political prisoners who have been subject to arbitrary arrest and police torture by the Daniel arap Moi regime stage a protest at Uhuru Park, Nairobi, for the release of their sons and daughters. The demonstration is broken up by police, but one year from today Moi's government will make the gesture of releasing 51 prisoners of the thousands who have disappeared.
The BBC reports that aid for famine relief during Ethiopia’s historic 1983-1985 famine, when 1.2 million people perished, was used to buy weapons by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front to battle Ethiopia’s military government. Rebel soldiers acquired US$95 million in aid by posing as merchants.
Lupita Nyong’o becomes the first Kenyan and the first black African to win an Academy Award (Oscar). She is named Best Supporting Actress, for her work in the 2013 movie 12 Years a Slave.
The start of the Oscar Pistorius trial in Pretoria, South Africa. The paralympian celebrity is charged with murdering his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, in “The Valentine’s Day Killing.” The trial is broadcast live worldwide, and raises debate on social issues like white privilege, celebrity privilege, toxic masculinity and violence against women.
The release of the South African signing group the Bala Brothers’ first U.S. album, Bala Brothers (Live), is accompanied by a live broadcast on the U.S. public broadcasting channel PBS. The album climbs to position #8 on the Billboard World Music Charts.
South African writer and journalist, in Vrededorp, Transvaal, Union of South Africa. His third novel, Mine Boy, in 1946, is considered the first African novel written in English to attract international interest. Working in London as a journalist in the 1940s, he befriended Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta, the future leaders of Ghana and Kenya, and fictionally combined them into the lead character of his novel A Wreath of Udomo, which forecasted the difficulties of governing a newly-independent state.
Kenyan lawyer and activist for constitutional democracy, in Mahiga Location, Nyeri District, British Kenya. As head of the East Africa Law Society and Law Society of Kenya in the 1990s, he campaigned for constitutional democracy at a time when African leaders like Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi were subverting their nations’ constitutions to rule as autocrats. Out of spite, Moi confiscated Kuria’s passport so he could not travel to the U.S. to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Humanitarian Award in 1988.
Ethiopian minister and global health official, in Asmara, Eritrea Province, Ethiopia. As Ethiopia’s health minister, he was recommended by the African Union to be the first African director of the World Health Organisation, in 2017. His tenure began with an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and he was praised for his handling of Ebola and the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020.
Congolese singer and musician, in Kinshasa, Zaire. After performing with the major 1990s Democratic Republic of Congo bands Wenge Musica Maison Mère and Quartier Latin International, he went solo with his first album Sans Interdit (2007). In energetic live performances and music videos, he is featured with a chorus of young singers and dancers.
South African politician, in Seshego, Transvaal Province, South Africa. In 2013, he founded the South African political party the Economic Freedom Fighters, for which he serves as president and Commander-in-Chief.
