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1893

Emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) decrees the construction of a railway to run from his new capital city Addis Ababa to Djibouti, the capital of French Somaliland, which was established five years ago.

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1893

1947

The first Toyota automobile in Africa arrives from Japan as a birthday gift to King Farouk of Egypt. Toyota will not have a formal distributor for its cars in Egypt until 1979.

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1947

1955

The most serious rioting and looting ever experienced in Sierra Leone erupts when unemployed youth and criminals in Freetown hijack a general strike. The strike was called by the Labour Congress to press colonial authorities to agree to a wage increase sought by miners. A young British police officer is lynched. In response, the colonial forces will gather tomorrow (12 February) and disperse rioters by shooting into crowds, killing at least 18.

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1955

1957

Preparations for Ghana’s Independence next month are being followed internationally as the first Sub-Saharan African country breaks from its European coloniser. In Accra, a giant archway is finished. Black Star Gate, featuring the black star of Ghana’s flag, symbolises the power of the nation to achieve its destiny.

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1957

1966

South Africa’s government declares the thriving multi-racial community District Six in Cape Town to be a “Whites only” area, although whites make up only 1% of residents. 31,248 people of colour are to be evicted from their homes and businesses, beginning in 1968. By 1982, 60,000 people will be relocated, to slums in the Cape Flats. The area will never be developed, which is government’s excuse to bulldoze a community whose "crime" during the apartheid era of enforced racial segregation is that different races have for generations lived together here harmoniously.

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1966

1988

Rwanda celebrates its emerging class of competitive cyclists and a national passion for cycling by staging the first multi-day Tour du Rwanda.Rwandan Celestin Ndengeyingoma will be the first winner. At first drawing cycling teams from East Africa, the tour will become an international event in 2008, attracting the world’s top cyclists to Rwanda’s largest sporting event.

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1988

1990

Nelson Mandela is released from prison after 27 years and eight months for opposing South Africa’s apartheid regime. 18 of these years were spent on Robben Island.

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1990

2011

Hosni Mubarak, the autocratic leader of Egypt, is forced to resign under pressure from a popular uprising that has sought his ouster. Egypt’s first democratic elections will be held to choose his successor.

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2011

2020

Sudan’s government agrees to send deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir to stand trial for genocide and war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

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2020

2022

Tunisian NGO Réseau Tunisie Vert wins an environmental victory by blocking toxic rubbish that Italy wants to illegally dump on Tunisia. 200 shipping containers filled with 7,900 tonnes of garbage that were falsely declared as “recyclables” by an Italian shipper were seized in 2020 before they could be emptied, and today the Italian and Tunisian governments reach agreement to send the containers back to Europe.

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2022

Births

1920
King Farouk I

King of Egypt and Sudan, in Cairo, Egypt. The last Egyptian king, he reigned from 1936 until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 ended the country's rule by monarchy.

1921
Alphonse Massamba-Débat

Congolese politician and the second president of the Republic of Congo (1963-1968), in Nkolo, French Equatorial Africa. Appointed by a military junta to run the country the day after they overthrew the country’s first president, Fulbert Youlou, he oversaw an ideological shift toward one-party Communist rule; was himself overthrown by a political rival Marien Ngouabi; and was executed by a firing squad in 1977 after being implicated in Ngouabi’s assassination.

1938
Mohammed Gammoudi

Tunisian Champion athelete, in Sidi Aich, Tunisia. He was the first Tunisian to win a medal at an Olympics, when he took silver at the Men’s 10,000 metres at the 1964 Summer Olympic Games. He surpassed this by taking gold in the Men’s 5000 metres at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games.

1974
Zain Verjee

Kenyan journalist and international news anchor, in Mathare, Nairobi, Kenya. A correspondent and anchor for 14 years at CNN, she co-founded aKoma Media in 2015 as a platform for creative and cultural African content.