The South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) is the only African government exhibit at today’s opening of the Exposition Universelle of 1889, the World’s Fair in Paris featuring the new Eiffel Tower. Because the Universal Exposition celebrates the 100th anniversary of the end of the French monarchy, all European countries with monarchies boycott the event, including Britain and its African colonies. Egypt does open an impressive exhibit, but it is paid entirely by private businesses. One of the most popular attractions is Negro Village, where 400 Africans act out primitive lives in what fair officials call an “educational” living anthropological museum, but which critics call a human zoo (pic).

Alfred Milner is appointed Britain’s High Commissioner of Southern Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony. He objects to discrimination faced by British South Africans living in the Afrikaner Transvaal Republic (e.g, they are not allowed to vote). The discrimination is never resolved by Transvaal President Paul Kruger, and the historic tension between the groups will lead to the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899, and the Transvaal’s defeat in 1902.

The first edition of African Mirror, South Africa’s first motion picture newsreel, is screened in South African theatres. The newsreel shows events, landscapes, people and oddities filmed throughout Southern Africa.

Set in an impressive garden, the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Alger (National Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers) opens to the public in French Algeria. By 2023, the museum will house 4,000 artworks, a priceless mix of French artists (Delacroix, Gaugin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and others) and Algerian artists (Baya, Yelles, Racim).

Italian forces under dictator Benito Mussolini take over Addis Ababa in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Emperor Haile Selassie pleads with the League of Nations to intervene, but receives no help.

On a date chosen for its symbolism – five years to the day when Italian forces conquered Ethiopia – Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns in triumph to his throne in Addis Ababa, after British and allied forces defeat Italy and its allies in the East African Campaign of World War II.

The invasion of Madagascar, named Operation Ironclad, begins, with British and Allied Forces including the South African Air Force and ground troops arriving at the Vichy French colony that is allied with Nazi Germany.

Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) independence leader Kenneth Kaunda meets U.S. Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King (pic: left) in Atlanta, Georgia in the U.S., forging ties between the African liberation and Civil Rights movements. They address issues of mutual concern at a joint press conference at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

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The London-Sahara-Munich World Cup Rally begins in London, and will be the first automobile race to cross the Sahara desert, concluding on 25 May.

U.S. President Bill Clinton doubles United States assistance to South Africa over the next three years, amounting to US$1.2 billion. He urges the world's six other largest industrial countries - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan – as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to expand their assistance to South Africa.

The 20th World Economic Forum is held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 12 African heads of state or heads of government and 1,000 delegates from 85 countries meet to discuss this year’s theme, “Rethinking Africa’s Growth Strategy.”

After right-wing white supremacist groups throughout the world claim attacks on white South African farmers are so widespread they constitute “white genocide,” the South African Police Service releases crime statistics showing that white South Africans make up 8.1% of South Africa’s murder victims, a smaller percentage than the percentage of white South Africans in the country’s overall population (9%).