Portuguese explorer Golfo da Conceicã and his fleet have rounded the southern tip of Africa and have reached their furthest spot on the east coast heading north, at what will one day be Bushman’s River Mouth in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. He wishes to sail further, but returns to Portugal at the insistence of the captains of the other ships.
Portuguese Captain-Major Alvaro Caetano de Melo Castro reclaims Portuguese rule over Mombasa by vanquishing the local representatives of the Imamate of Oman. However, Portuguese control lasts only five years before the return of the Imamate of Oman, which occupies the Horn of Africa.
In response to an invasion of white Boers from South Africa, who have already killed 1,500 Basotho soldiers and seized large tracts of farmland and grazing land, Basotho King Moshoeshoe has appealed to Britain for assistance. Today, the British cabinet designates Moshoeshoe’s kingdom as a British Protectorate, and orders the Boers to leave. Britain does not know what to do with the territory, but its later plans to incorporate the land into South Africa in 1871 and 1910 will fail. In 1966, the protectorate will become the independent country of Lesotho.
South African pilot Samuel Kinkead, a World War I flying ace, attempts a world air speed record. He dies when his seaplane dives into the sea off England’s Isle of Wight.
Cameroon President Ahmadou Ahidjo issues a decree banning criticism of government. Opposition leaders critical of his call for a single-party state are arrested.
Mauritius achieves national independence, from Britain. The capital is Port Louise. The national population is 798,413.
Tunisair enters the jet age by taking delivery of its first Boeing aircraft, a 707. The plane will be put to use when direct flights from Tunis to London begin next month (April 1972).
After its loss in the Battle of Lukaya the day before, the Ugandan army disintegrates. Tanzanian troops advance toward Kampala. Long victimised by the regime of dictator Idi Amin, whose invasion of Tanzania in October 1978 began the Uganda-Tanzania War, many Ugandans greet the Tanzanian troops as liberators. Uganda’s army chief flees to Zaire, followed by a stampede of deserting Ugandan soldiers who loot, rape and kill their fellow Ugandans during their escape to Sudan and Zaire.xxx
Armed police sent by Kenya’s authoritarian government of Daniel Arap Moi demolish the open-air Kamiriithu Community Education and Cultural Centre to prevent the production of the play Mother Sing for Me. In 1977, Moi imprisoned for one year writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o for a political play he produced at the centre.
The Bophuthatswana Crisis ends when the South African military deposes Lucas Mangope, the despotic ruler of the South African “homeland” created under apartheid.
Construction begins on The Grand Egyptian Museum. Scheduled to open in 2022, the display areas are giant in size to fit the monumental statues from Egypt's antiquity.
President of Liberia (1920-1930), in Monrovia, Liberia. His administration was characterised by scandal, fights with neighbouring countries and open corruption. He resigned when an International Commission uncovered slavery and forced labour in the country.
Libyan religious leader who served as the Emir of Cyrenaica, in Al-Jaghubub, Tripolitania Vilayet, Ottoman Empire. As a politician, he ruled the country from 1951 to 1969 as the King of the United Kingdom of Libya. He was deposed in a 1969 military coup d’état that brought to power Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
