After angering the people of Mozambique on the first sea voyage from Europe to India, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama and his fleet arrives at Mombasa. There they also receive a hostile reception, and will soon sail away.

The City of Cape Town is established as a Dutch settlement at Table Bay, in what will become South Africa.

The Sultanate of Majeerteen (Somalia), Boqor Osman Mahamoud, ensures his independence through a treaty with Italy that makes his kingdom an Italian Protectorate now known as Italian Somaliland. He does so on condition that Italy does not interfere with his governance. Italy is more interested in keeping British and French influence out of the area. Other Somali sultans are also playing European colonial powers off each other, to ensure their own independence. Mahamoud is free to continue earning fortunes through piracy, slave trafficking and weapon trading

Morocco, the United States and 12 European countries sign an agreement to establish and support the Banque d’État du Maroc (State Bank of Morocco). The bank will begin operations in Tangier in February 1907.

The International Commission of Enquiry in Liberia, with its three members from the U.S., the League of Nations and Liberia, is formally launched by President Charles King at the Executive Palace in Monrovia. The commission is tasked with investigating allegations of slavery in the country. (pic: three Liberian men who are believed to be enslaved)

In Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Britain’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, seated on thrones in the Legislative Assembly, officiate at the Opening of Parliament in Salisbury. Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret look down from the balcony.

Hundreds of working class Moroccans in Casablanca who have gathered to hear a speech about national independence from France are massacred on orders from their French army superiors by Senegalese soldiers with the Tirailleurs Sénégalais corps of the French army, whom France has stationed in Morocco.

On a visit to France’s colony Côte d’Ivoire, Kwame Nkrumah (pic: left), President of newly-independent Ghana, challenges all African countries to immediately declare their independence from colonial rule.

Another weapon in apartheid South Africa’s arsenal against dissent, The Unlawful Organisations Act, is passed into law. The act allows government to ban any political or other group it deems a threat to public order or safety.

Zanzibar’s first president, Abeid Karume, is assassinated while playing the board game bao.

Following the assassination of Rwanda's President Juvénal Habyarimana when his plane was shot down yesterday, his prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana becomes Rwanda’s first female head of state. She is in office only for 14 hours. Rebel soldiers surround her home, disarm the U.N. guard protecting her, and shoot her point-blank when she emerges to surrender in order to save her children. The Rwandan Civil War and Genocide now begins. 800,000 Tutsi will be killed in the genocide. A total of 1,143,225 people will be killed during the Civil War.