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1825

Scottish journalist and explorer Alexander Gordon Laing departs Tripoli riding a camel south in an attempt to become the first European to cross the Sahara Desert and reach the trading centre of Timbuktu. He will join the thousands of Africans who make what for them is a routine trip, and who do so without publicity.

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1825

1892

Liberian Martha Ann Ricks, born into slavery in the U.S. and who immigrated to Liberia at age 13, meets Britain’s Queen Victoria at Windsor Palace, England after the British monarch hears of Ricks’ desire to present her with a handmade quilt that took 25 years to make. Ricks is accompanied by the wife of Liberia’s ambassador to Britain, and the quilt, which depicts a Liberian coffee tree, is Liberia’s first diplomatic gift. The queen and royal court express their admiration for Ricks’ skilled needlework.

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1892

1919

Held to divide the spoils of World War I in Africa among European powers, the 1919 Paris Peace Conference awards the Kionga Triangle (pic) south of the Rovuma River to Portugal. The territory will become the country of Mozambique.

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1919

1931

The 1931 Constitution of Ethiopia goes into effect under Emperor Haile Selassie. Ethiopian intellectual Tekle Hawariat Tekle Mariyam (pic) who is also Ethiopia’s first playwright, and modeled after the Japanese constitution that retains an Emperor as supreme head of government, it replaces the Fetha Nagast, which has been the supreme law since the Middle Ages.

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1931

1957

The British Secretary of State for the Colonies approves new prison rules in British Kenya. These allow the torture of imprisoned rebels of the anti-colonial Mau Mau Rebellion who refused to obey orders.

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1957

1960

Planes from Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S. fly U.N. military personnel into the Democratic Republic of Congo to secure the country. It is the largest air transport operation since the Berlin Airlift in 1948.

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1960

1962

Algeria joins the Arab League, less than two months after the country gains its independence. (pic: youth in Algiers take a free bus ride)

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1962

1969

Ghana’s Fertile Vehicles Assemblies company begins production of the Toyota Corona for the West African market. The inexpensive, durable, easy to fix compact car will become popular throughout the continent.

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1969

1986

Publication of Decolonization of the Mind, a philosophical work by Kenyan intellectual Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. The book argues that Africans have been mentally colonised by European languages, creating a schizophrenia of thought that causes the African mind to conceptionalise and reason in a foreign language, while daily activities and emotions are expressed in the African’s own language. Africa’s development cannot happen, he asserts, until the divided thought process is united when Africans write and thereby think imaginatively and intellectually in their own languages.

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1986

2010

The East African Submarine Cable System goes into operation, linking Sudan with South Africa, and with landing points in nine countries and connectivity to ten inland countries. Connected countries no longer have to rely exclusively on satellite access for voice and data communication. EASSy interconnects with multiple international submarine cable networks for onward connectivity to Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. Commercial service will begin on 30 July 2010.

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2010

2021

The Great Mosque of Ghana is dedicated by President Nana Akufo-Addo. The second largest mosque in West Africa, its construction was funded by the Turkish Hudai Foundation in Accra with the support of the Turkish government. The building is a replica of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

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2021

Births

1933
Awn Alsharif Qasim

Sudanese writer and prominent scholar of Arabic language and literature, in Khartoum, Sudan. He wrote more than 70 books on Islamic history and did groundbreaking work on the linkages between Arab/Islamic culture and Sudanese culture. His Directory of the Sudanese Dialect is an essential reference study.

1990
Wizkid (Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun)

Rapper and Grammy Award winner, in Lagos, Nigeria. He got his name for his early and precocious start as a professional singer, at age 11, and was at the forefront of the Afrobeats revolution in pop music.