The first Tripolitian War ends with the signing in Tripoli of the Treaty of Peace and Amity. The war to end piracy by the Barbary Coast states (Algeria, Libya) against international shipping in the Mediterranean concludes with the US paying US$60,000 (equal to US$1.6 million in 2023) in war reparations, in exchange for an end to piracy. The Pasha of Tripoli will break the agreement in 1812, leading to the second Tripolitian War.
The first bicycle is imported into Nyasaland (Malawi), by John Moir. Though the high-seated bike with the enormous front wheel is the fashion of the day, it proves impractical on the territory’s muddy, pitted roads.
Britain’s Prince of Wales (far right in pic), the future King Edward VIII, tours Durban, South Africa on his three-month visit to Africa. He despises non-white people, and focuses if not wholly restricts his interactions to British colonialists.
The first airplane to fly across the Indian Ocean, a flying boat called the Guba II, departs Australia, headed West for Diego Garcia (Mauritius) and Seychelles en route to Mombasa, British Kenya.
French President Charles de Gaul travels to Algiers to appease both sides of the Algerian War of Independence by promising a continuing French Algeria but with reforms to boost Muslim rights.
Parliamentary elections are canceled by Ghana President Kwame Nkrumah as “unnecessary.” Following a rigged constitutional referendum in 1964, Nkrumah himself chooses the MPs he wants in the legislature. He will be deposed by a military coup d’état in eight months.
Zaire troops open fire on 2,500 students from Lovanium University who are marching with a list of demands to the home of Zairian strongman Mobutu Sese Seko (pic). At least 23 students are killed, and as many as 200 are wounded.
The first president of Seychelles, James Manchem (pic: centre), is deposed in a coup d’état staged by members of the opposition Seychelles Democratic Party, who have returned from military training in Tanzania. Prime Minister France-Albert René (pic: left) agrees to become president, but with these preconditions: that no political individual be harmed and new elections be held by 1978.
Benin singer and songwriter Angélique Kidjo is labeled “Africa’s premier diva” by the international press.
U.S. President Barack Obama has a State Visit to Egypt. He meets with Egypt President Hosni Mubarak and delivers an address to Cairo University.
In a widespread probe of corruption in the South African Police Service, six senior Gauteng province police officers are arrested on corruption charges along with two retired senior officers.
First President of Mali (1960-1968), in Bamako Coura, French Sudan. He helped establish the Union of French West African Teachers, and was imprisoned for criticising colonialism. As president, he proved autocratic: imprisoning political opponents, and overturning the national constitution before he was ousted by a military coup d’état.
Burkina Faso film director, in Bobo-Dioulasso, Upper Volta. A product of one of Africa’s most vibrant filmmaking countries, he graduated from Burkina Faso’s Institute Africain d’Education Cinematographique, and began directing short films before his breakout, award-winning 1995 feature film Keïta!
President of Zambia from 2021 to the present, in Hachipona, Northern Rhodesia. His election victory in 2021 came after five previous attempts to win the presidency.
