Sahle Selassie, the teenage son of Wossen Seged, King of Shewa (Ethiopia), hearing that his father has been murdered, rushes from the monastery where he is a student to the palace at the capital Qunt. There he is proclaimed Ras, rather than king, to avoid public disapproval at what might seem a hasty coronation. However, Selassie has to hurry before his older brother Marra Biete can arrive and declare himself king. Selassie will use similar cleverness to negotiate an end to civil war involving some Oromo clans. By the 1820s, he will feel comfortable assuming the title Negus, or King of the Shewa.

Recording his trip in his journal, a passenger whose name will be lost to history must urgently travel to the construction of the Beira Railway in Portuguese Mozambique. He learns that the only passenger ship on the Pungwe River to take him there is the Kimberley. He also learns that the ship’s owner, Captain Dickie, lays in a supply of whiskey and champagne for each trip. If passengers don’t drink and pay for it all, Dickie “accidentally” runs the Kimberley into a sandbar, where it remains stuck until the ship’s bar is drunk dry. In desperate need to travel without delay, the passenger purchases the ship’s entire liquor supply for £25 (equal to £4,206 in 2023), and the Kimberley makes the trip in a record time of 12 hours.

The League of Nations sets up an Anti-Slavery Commission to investigate reports of slavery in Liberia, and “to prevent compulsory labour from developing into conditions analogous to slavery.”

Namibia liberation leader Sam Nujoma makes his case before the U.N. for the necessity of Namibian independence from South African rule. In order to travel to New York to make his address, he had to elude South Africa’s attempts to detain him.

Anti-apartheid leaders Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu (pic: at Robben Island Prison in 1966) are sentenced to life imprisonment along with six other defendants as the Rivonia Trial ends in Pretoria, South Africa. One defendant is acquitted. Mandela will spend the next 27 years as a political prisoner, with the international community pressuring the apartheid regime for his and the others’ release.

Cape Town’s District Six, a thriving multi-racial community, is set to be demolished under apartheid policies of racial segregations. Government today unveils a 10-year scheme to remake District Six through the Committee for the Rehabilitation of Depressed Areas. All property transactions in District Six are frozen, and a 10-year ban on new building or building alternation is imposed, as government prepares to bulldoze the community and evict 30,000 black residents.

The U.N. General Assembly approves a resolution that South West Africa, which is occupied by South Africa’s apartheid regime, will henceforth be called Namibia, “in accordance with the wishes of the Namibian people.”

The opening of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, which filmed in Tunisia its climactic scenes meant to be in Egypt. This first of many Indian Jones movies is a lighthearted adventure, but perpetuates the Western viewpoint that Africa’s archeological treasures are loot to be taken without regard to their cultural and historic value to local people.

Cameroon and Nigeria sign the Greentree Agreement that ends a border dispute involving the petroleum-rich Bakassi Peninsula. The dispute began in 1913, and has been settled in Cameroon’s favour by the International Court of Justice. (pic: Cameroon President Paul Biya, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo)

Rafiki, Uganda’s beloved and best-known gorilla, is killed by poachers. The rare silverback gorilla was 25. Four men are arrested. In a landmark ruling that will come in January 2021, the man found responsible for the killing will be sentenced to 11 years in prison