Emperor Gelawdewos of Ethiopia receives a delegation of Jesuit priests sent by his ally, King John III of Portugal. The priests inspect the country to see if conditions are satisfactory for the Pope in Rome to set up churches and a religious bureaucracy there. Galawdewos tolerates their visit, but is more interested in conquest to secure his hold on the Horn of Africa.

The commander of the French forces conquering West Africa, General Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes, establishes his headquarters at Kita, French Sudan (Mali). He regularly ignores orders from his army superiors that interfere with his ambition to achieve military conquests and land acquisition, However, because his marauding is successful he is rewarded by constant promotions. Also ignored by his superiors is Desbordes’  violence toward Africans. “The Peaceful conquest of the Niger is an illusion," he states.

The Usambara Railway is officially dedicated in German East Africa (Tanzania). The 350.5-km line connects the Indian Ocean port of Tangara port with Lake Ukerewe (Lake Victoria). The railway uses 18 locomotives and 31 carriages, and has 562 employees (527 Africans and 35 Europeans).

South Africa’s government dominated by white British colonialists sets in motion what Prime Minister Jan Smuts says may take a hundred years to achieve: a country with complete racial segregation, where the white community lives in privileged urban areas and the nations of the Tswana, Xhosa, Zulus and others are obliterated. The Native (Urban Areas) Act goes into effect. From this day, black South Africans are not permitted to own land in urban areas. They may not reside in urban areas. Black South Africans who now reside in urban areas must be evicted, and none may work in an urban area without permission of the local white authority. (pic: built near Johannesburg’s sewage plant, the location Sophiatown is an instant slum where black people are confined)

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Historian and founder of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History, Carter G. Woodson, an American born of enslaved Africans, creates Negro History Week as a means to inspire new historical research on the U.S.’ African Diaspora. The name will change to Black History Week, and eventually evolve into an annual observation that designates February as Black History Month.

Regular scheduled airmail service between the African and South American continents begins as Germany’s Lufthansa Airways flies from Bathurst, The Gambia to Brazil. No airplane is capable of making the trip non-stop, so relay ships are positioned in the South Atlantic. An aircraft lands beside a ship at sea, is lifted on board with a winch, refueled, and shot back into the sky using a catapult. The trip takes four days. After 300 round-trip flights, the successful service ends in 1939 upon the outbreak of World War II.

To secure its claim of the Ogaden Desert region, the Somali Republic sends its army across the border into Ethiopia. Hostilities escalate, the Organisation of African Unity calls for a ceasefire, and Sudan’s President Abboud will negotiate a peace deal on 30 March. No territory changes nationality.

A non-election election allows Algerians to rubber-stamp the choice by the governing National Liberation Front to make a president of acting Defense Minister Col. Benjedid Chadli. The only candidate on the ballot, he replaces President Houari Boumediene, who died of a blood disease on 27 December 1978.

The new staff at the Namibian Broadcasting Company demands removal of their fellow employees who worked for and broadcasted propaganda for the pre-Independence South West Africa Broadcasting Company. The old workers’ jobs were guaranteed as part of independence negotiations.

The upgraded Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Academy is opened by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. The US$51 million state-of-the-art facility hopes to train 4,000 personnel -- air pilots, mechanics and other aviation workers -- yearly by 2025, with many arriving from other African countries.

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Africa’s biggest art mystery is partly solved when Nigerian painter Ben Enwonwu’s masterpiece portrait of Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi is recovered, in London. Enwonwu painted three portraits of the princess in 1973, and all disappeared when he died in 1994. Two are still missing.

Kenya’s coffee farmers are switching to avocados. They are earning ten-times more for crop, and are making Kenya Africa's 2nd biggest avocado exporter behind South Africa. Areas under avocado cultivation have been increased to 7,500 hectares. 75% of growers are small farmers.