Madagascar King Radama II (pic) is assassinated. He is strangled on orders of Prime Minister Rainivoninahitriniony in a palace coup d’état. Radama’s radical measures have outraged conservatives in government and traditional Malagasy society. His widow Rasoharina is installed as Queen after Army Commander-in-Chief Rainilaiarivony, who is not part of the coup, suggests that Madagascar’s absolute monarchy be replaced with rule by the queen and of an oligarchy of the island’s elites.

Construction begins on the Cape Colony’s Houses of Parliament. When opened in 1884, it will be fitted with electric rather than gas lights after the successful electrification in 1882 of the legislature’s temporary meeting venue at the Cape of Good Hope Lodge.

After a French military intervention that forces Tunisia’s ruler Bey Muhammad III Sadiq to sign the Treaty of Bardo today, the North African country of one million people becomes part of France’s Empire, as French Tunisia. The country will remain a French protectorate for 75 years, until Tunisia’s independence in 1956. France’s first project is to confiscate Tunisians’ lands to be divided and sold as plots to French and Italian colonisers. (pic: Tunis)

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The first nonstop commercial flight and airmail service across the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and South America begins. An Atecoere 28-3 mail plane equipped with floater pontoons leaves Dakar, Senegal and will arrive in Natal, Brazil on 13 May. The 3,058-km flight will take 19 hours and 35 minutes, and carry 122 kg of mail.

The Alake of Egbaland, who is the hereditary ruler of the Egba clan of Nigeria’s Yoruba people, attends the coronation of King George VI in London. For the first time, African royalty has been invited to the installation of a king of Great Britain, which has now colonised a third of the African continent. Other attendees include the Sultan of Zanzibar, and representatives of Egypt's king and Ethiopia's emperor.

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The final Tripoli Grand Prix is held, eight months after the start of World War II. The global conflict will suspended all international sports competitions in Africa. One of the world’s great Formula One races, begun in 1925, will never be held again.

The Berlin Airlift ends with the Soviet Union lifting its blockade of roads into the German capital, which began on 24 June 1948. The South African Air Force has joined the successful international airlift to drop food and supplies to isolated Berliners. The South Africans fly 1,240 missions to deliver 4,133 tons of supplies.

The death of King Gomani II Maseko-Ngoni of the Kingdom of Nyasaland (Malawi) becomes a milestone in the country’s independence movement, with key nationalist leaders attending his funeral. He was on trial for defying British rule by telling his subjects not to pay British taxes. The protest was in response to Britain’s merging of Nyasaland with Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Zambia and Zimbabwe) without any consultation or consideration given to the indigenous peoples. The arrest and trial ordeal affect the elderly leader’s health. His people consider him a martyr.

Two months before Algeria achieves a bitterly fought-for Independence from France, French colonial administrators of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers remove 300 works of art by French artists. Under police guard, they ship them to the Louvre Museum in Paris. The theft is in violation of the Evian Accords that stated that the art works were the official property of the soon to be independent Algerian State. The incoming Algerian government sues France for breach of treaty to get back masterworks by Courbet, Delacroix, Gaugin, Monet, Renoir, Rodin and others. In December 1968, France will return 157 paintings and 136 drawings.

French and Belgian paratroops descend on Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) to restore order in the mining town of Kolwezi. The rebel group the Front for the National Liberation of the Congo has killed 120 Europeans, including 41 Belgians and 6 French military aid workers) and 514 Zairian civilians. The Battle of Kolwezi will conclude with the rebels’ ouster on 19 May.

The Unity Bridge opens, linking Mozambique and Tanzania across the Ruvuma River. The opening comes 35 years after the project was first proposed by Mozambican and Tanzanian presidents Samora Machel and Julius Nyerere.