The main force of the British naval fleet sails into Table Bay, Cape Town in South Africa's Cape Colony. The British invasion of Bavarian-controlled Cape Town begins. Britain is fighting the Napoleonic Wars with France. Bavaria is a vassal state of France.

James Mux Priest takes the oath of office for the first of his two terms as Liberia’s Vice President, under President Daniel Bashiel Warner this term. The first African-American Presbyterian missionary sent to West Africa from the U.S., he will be appointed as a justice of Liberia’s Supreme Court in 1883.

Seeking to settle the interior of Angola with white farmers, Portuguese colonial authorities choose Humpata as the settlement site for the Trekboers - Afrikaner migrants who are leaving South Africa to escape British rule. They will remain for a century, until their last descendants depart during the Angolan Civil War.

The Acting Council General of British Nigeria, James Phillips, and his party of 250 Nigerian soldiers are ambushed and killed by forces of the Kingdom of Benin. Beninese scouts have learned that he is on a secret mission to kill the Oba (king) of Benin, and take possession of the country. Phillips has disguised his African soldiers as porters, but his plan is already known. Determined to take Benin as a possession one way or another, Britain will use Phillips' death as an excuse to launch a full-scale war, destroy Benin City, and arrest the Oba.

The grandson of enslaved Africans, Félix Éboué, the first black person appointed to a high position in France’s colonies, arrives in Fort Lamy as Governor of Chad. When World War II breaks out, he will inspire Chadian support for the Free French, the resistance government in exile under General Charles de Gaul who will oppose the puppet Vichy government of Nazi-occupied France.  Éboué’s work will assist the Free French to gain control of French Equatorial Africa.

The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith is signed by Harry Schwarz of South Africa’s liberal United Party and Zulu leader Mongosuthu Buthelezi (pic). It is the first time that black and white politicians commit to racial equality and political pluralism, 20 years before the end of apartheid.

In the first of three trips to Egypt during his presidency, U.S. President Jimmy Carter meets with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, in Aswan, Egypt. Their goal is to find a way to break 30-years of warfare and animosity between Arab nations and the state of Israel.

For the first time, the transnational motor race the Paris-Dakar Rally is driven entirely in Africa; starting and finishing in Dakar, Senegal. The race course runs as a loop through neighbouring countries and the Ténéré desert.

After 30 years, the Dakar Rally (originally the Paris-Dakar Rally when the starting point was France prior to 2002) ceases to be an African event. The race is canceled because of a terrorism threat in Mauritania. Future Dakar Rallies will be held in South America until 2020, when the venue will move to Saudi Arabia.

The release of the film Lionheart, the first film directed by Nigerian actress Genevieve Nnaji, who also wrote the script. This is the first original production from Nigeria purchased and distributed by the global on-line streaming service Netflix. The film will be chosen as the first submission ever made by Nigeria for consideration by the Academy Awards (Oscars) for the Best International Film category.