The Battle of Cape Town is fought, and won by British forces, who defeat Bavarian forces that control the colony.

The founding in Bloemfontein, South Africa of the South African Native National Congress (renamed the African National Congress in 1923) to counter discrimination against black people in the Union of South Africa. The South African liberation song and future national anthem Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika is sung for the first time at this meeting.

South Africa’s wine cooperative the Koöperatieve Wijnbouwers Vereniging van Suid-Afrika, or KWV South Africa, is formed to unite wine makers and improve wine quality. Creating a global awareness of South African wine and brandy (all its products are exported and none are sold locally), KWV will control the wine industry during apartheid era, ensuring that black wine makers have no place in the industry. Losing its monopoly when apartheid ends in the 1990s, the co-operative will be restructured as a business.

A general strike in Gold Coast (Ghana) is led by Kwame Nkrumah. The strike's goal is to press the British colonial government to convene a constituent assembly to write a national constitution.

The brutality of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo sees government forces mutilating before executing all the prisoners of war they have captured in the fighting at Manono.

Reading defeat in the Nigerian Civil War, Biafra leader Odumegwu Ojukwu advises his cabinet to negotiate a peace agreement, and then he goes into exile in Côte d’Ivoire.

A declassified report from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency confirms that South Africa’s apartheid regime tested a nuclear weapon off its Atlantic coast in 1979, developed with the aid of Israel. However, a former senior Israeli intelligence official says it was an Israeli weapon that was tested. South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation has long denied the existence of a nuclear program.

Militants seeking independence for the Angolan province Cabinda attack an army convoy that is escorting a bus transporting Togo’s national football team. The Togo team is on its way to Cabinda to play a match of the Africa Cup of Nations championship, which is being hosted by Angola. The militants machine-gun the bus, killing the bus driver, the team’s assistant manager and media officer, and seriously injuring several players.

The first multi-party elections in Puntland, 16 years after the region was established as an autonomous state within the Somalia Federation, results in an upset defeat of incumbent President Abdirahman Farole by former Somalia Prime Minister Abdiweli-Mohamed Ali.