Ruyter, a Khoikhoi man brought to England by Scottish hunter Roualeyn Gordon-Cumming, is featured at an exhibit of African “curiosities” in London. A "curiosity" himself to Londoners, he tells stories about the preserved animals on display. This exhibit is the origin of Big Game trophy hunting. Viewers, particularly men, are fascinated by the 30 tons of animal trophies that Gordon-Cumming shows off from his five-year trip to East and Southern Africa. He describes his slaughter of wildlife as “multitudinous victories over the native Lords of the forest and plain.”

Belgium’s national airline Sabena pioneers a commercial air route into Africa, to Leopoldville (Kinshasa), the capital of Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo). Sabina has been financed by Belgians citizens living in the Congo to replace an experimental air service that flew passengers and cargo from 1920 to 1922. (pic: The Sebena Belgian Congo fleet 1925)

Belgium’s national airlines Sabena begins its first long-haul scheduled flights from Belgium to Congo. The journey takes five and a half days, on a Fokker F-VII aircraft. A newer aircraft introduced in 1936 will reduce flying time to four days.

Fighting against Rhodesia’s white-minority government, militants of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army shoot down an Air Rhodesia passenger jet with a surface to air missile, killing all 59 people on board.

A first serious round-the-world balloon flight takes off from Luxor, Egypt in the helium balloon Jules Verne, piloted by American balloonists Maxie Anderson and Don Ida. The balloon gets as far as New Delhi, India, a distance of 4,667 km.

For the first time, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon host the Africa Cup of Nations. The games of the Cup's 28th edition are split between the countries. After a dramatic penalty shootout against Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia wins the title. Zambia’s Christopher Katongo is awarded Best Player.

Liberia's recent president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, wins the 2018 Mo Ibrahim award, worth US$5 million. The award is given in recognition of quality African political leadership.

The World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” Index, which is followed by investors, has Botswana (pic), South Africa and Zambia ranked highest among African countries. Zimbabwe, Madagascar and Angola are rank lowest.

South Africa has seeb a significant decline in deaths of women during childbirth over the past ten years, reports the health ministry, particularly maternal mortality in health facilities, where deaths are down 31%.

Slavery still exists in Mauritania, the last country in the world to make enslavement of human beings illegal. The Global Slavery Index estimates that there are 90,000 slaves in the country - making up 2% of the population.

In Rwanda, Tech-Enabled STEM learning (or TEST) begins, giving high school students 4th Industrial Revolution e-skills in robotics, virtual reality, labs and sciences. Do-it-yourself self-learning at a student's own pace is the goal.

Egypt's population reaches 100 million, reports the government statistics office. 10% of Egyptians live in Cairo, and nearly all others live in crowded cities along the Nile or the Red Sea - areas that constitute only 8% of the country's land mass. Egypt’s 5% poverty rate has doubled from 2015's rate of 2.6%.

The last Air Namibian planes land for the final time. Now going out of business, the government-owned airline has served as a Southern African regional air carrier, going to Angola, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, but had only one international route, to Germany.