Exiled to Ceylon for leading a revolt against British colonial rule of Egypt, Ahmed ‘Urbani establishes Sri Lanka’s first school for Muslims, the Hameed Al Husseinie College.

The Berlin Conference sets the legal framework for European powers’ Scramble for Africa. The treaty negotiations find representatives from 13 European powers and the U.S. dividing Africa for the economic and military advantage of Europe. No Africans are represented, and no thought is given to Africans’ interests.

The first edition appears of a new weekly newspaper for British Kenya, the African Standard, out of Mombasa. English journalist W.H. Tiller acts as reporter, editor, proof reader, publisher and production manager. In 2023, the newspaper will be the daily The Standard, Kenya’s oldest newspaper.

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German ships on Lake Tanganyika bombard the British port Mokolobu during World War I. Germany hopes such attacks will force England to divert troops from Europe to protect its African holdings.

The League of Nations, a forerunner of the United Nations, holds its first meeting in Geneva. The founding members from Africa are Liberia and South Africa. Abyssinia (the Ethiopian Empire) will be the next African country to join, in 1923.

The swiftness and power of attacks on Italian forces by militants led by Omar Samatar stun Rome. Samatar is supported by the population of the Sultanate of Hobyo (northern Somalia), which is resisting Italian colonisation. The Italian commander of a force to retake the town of El-Dhere, which was captured by Samatar’s group on 9 November 1925, is killed in an ambush. Italy must wait for reinforcements from Eritrea before its forces will finally be able to conquer one of only five African countries that have resisted European colonisation.

The Bafour Declaration is approved in London, and while designed principally to lay the groundwork for a future State of Israel, the policy makes all U.K. Dominions autonomous communities within the British Empire. Co-proposer for the idea of semi-independence is South Africa’s Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog (pic), who wishes a free hand at oppressing South Africa’s black majority without interference from London.

The six-month Exposition Coloniale Internationale closes in Paris. The World’s Fair celebrated France’s colonial occupation of Africa by highlighting the natural resources and mineral wealth of France’s African possessions.

Kenya’s historic New Stanley Hotel has been demolished, and construction has begun on a modern version to open in 1960. Finished in 1913, the older hotel introduced first-class service to East Africa, and drew royalty as guests as well as celebrities like British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and writer Ernest Hemingway. The old hotel also housed Nairobi’s post office, and its bar was the country’s first stock exchange where brokers bought and sold shares in local companies.

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Sudan’s first president, General Ibrahim Abboud, resigns from office rather than let protests against his government result in bloodshed. Civil war has broken out in the country’s Christian south in rejection of Abboud’s Islamisation policies.

Niger’s military government proposes to move the country forward as a multi-party democracy.

The release of the Kenyan short film, Watu Wote: All of Us, by director Katja Benrath. The film recreates a 2014 attack on a Kenyan bus by al-Shabaab terrorists who wanted to start a religious war. Instead, when the terrorists tried to separate the Muslim from the Christian passengers, who they intended to kill, the Muslims stood in solidarity with the Christians. The film will be nominated for an Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Film 2017.

Zimbabwe's army stages a coup d’état against President Robert Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabweans have known since national independence 37 years ago, after widespread popular protests have called for his ouster. Mugabe is placed under house arrest.

Africa’s first high-speed rail system, linking the Moroccan cities Casablanca and Tangier, is inaugurated by King Mohammed VI and French President Emmanuel Macron.