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1652

Dutch settlers under the command of Jan van Riebeeck arrive in two ships (with a third arriving tomorrow) at the future site of Cape Town. Their plan is to build a port to be used by ships of their employer, the Dutch East India Company.

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1652

1862

Weary of being attacked by the Ashanti and other peoples of the Gold Coast (Ghana) and unable to make a profit there now that the Atlantic slave trade has collapsed, Holland gives up and transfers its forts and other fixed assets to British ownership. Britain now controls the Gulf of Guinea east to Lagos. (pic: Dutch fort Elmina in 1865)

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1862

1941

The capital of Italian Ethiopia, Addis Ababa falls to the British during World War II. This is a major step toward the expulsion of Italy from the country, which the Italians invaded and occupied in 1935. Bagpiper players lead the British troops into the liberated city.

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1941

1953

At a “People’s Protest Day Rally” in South Africa, anti-apartheid leaders outline a “plan of action” to confront government’s discriminatory and racist laws.

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1953

1959

The Pan-African Congress is founded by Robert Sobukwe in South Africa. The radical liberation group rejects multi-racial democracy and advocates black African nationalism to replace the apartheid government.

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1959

1966

The Bouar Megaliths in Central African Republic are placed on UNESCO’s list of potential World Heritage Sites. Built in the Neolithic Period approximately 5,500 years ago, their meaning and use have been lost in time.

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1966

1972

The name of Chad’s capital Fort-Lamy is changed to N’Djamena by President François Tombalbay. He uses the Arabic name for the nearby village of Niǧāmīnā, which means “place of rest.”

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1972

1992

The Human Rights Commission of South Africa reports an historic high for political violence was reached last month (March 1992), with 437 persons killed and 898 injured. The Commission finds that "the extreme level of violence was undoubtedly the result of forces working to destabilise” the transition from apartheid to democracy.

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1992

1994

Rwanda President Juvénal Habyarimana and all passengers, including Burundi President Cyprien Ntayamira, are killed when their plane is shot down by rockets. Immediately, the Presidential Guard unleashes murderous reprisals against Habyarimana’s political rivals. Sections of the armed forces and ethnic Hutu groups will quickly escalate violence against the Tutsi population they hold responsible for the assassination. Years of ethnic rivalries are unleashed as the Rwanda Civil War begins, and with it Africa’s worst genocide, against the Tutsi people.

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1994

2019

Namibia’s first "Slut Shame" walk is held in Windhoek. Activists and the public march against "rape culture and the blaming and shaming of rape victims."

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2019

2022

35 years after the assassination of Burkina Faso's visionary Pan-Africanist leader, Thomas Sankara (right), his killer and power usurper, Blaise Compaoré (left), is found guilty in an Ouagadougou court after a six-month trial. He is given a life sentence.

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2022

Births

1926
Jeanne Martin Cissé

Guinean diplomat, educator and independence fighter, in Conakry, French Guinea. She was Guinea’s first female teacher, in 1944, and her exceptional diplomatic and administrative talents led to her appointment as he first female President of the U.N. Security Council in 1972. That year she was also appointed Guinea’s Permanent Ambassador to the U.N.

1935
J.P. Clark (John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo)

Nigerian poet, in Kiagbodo, Delta State, British Nigeria. His memorable poems pursued the themes of colonialism in Africa, inhumanity, the splendours of nature, government corruption and protest against societal ills.