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1896

The Cape Electric Tramway Co begins operating its electric tram service in Port Elizabeth.

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1896

1911

Two years after a French pilot made a novelty flight over South Africa, Pioneer aviator John Weston makes South Africa’s second air flight, in the mining town Kimberley. He stays in the air for eight and a half minutes in a Weston-Farman biplane. He intends to stay in South Africa, and establish an aviation industry. He will start the Aeronautics Society of South Africa.

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1911

1913

The Congo Free State, the private, for-profit company of Belgium’s King Leopold II that committed mass murder and other abuses while exploiting the Congo’s rubber and resources, is officially dissolved. As the Belgian Congo, the territory is now administered by the Belgian government. Oppression of the Congolese people persists, however.

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1913

1917

Senegalese soldiers serving as infantrymen in the French Army (the Tirailleurs Sénégalais) are photographed using a new colour process. The pictures record them where they are deployed in Saint-Ulrich, Region Alsace in France.

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1917

1925

A new way to hunt game is deployed on East Africa’s savannahs: the motorcycle (pic: a 1925 Indian Scout motorcycle manufactured in the U.S.) gives the safari hunter speed, mobility and agility to chase prey. However, the machine’s noise makes no secret of the hunter’s advance, and can cause animals to flee.

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1925

1929

Passengers on the new Benguela Railway in Portuguese Angola are treated to some of the most luxurious accommodations seen on a Southern African railway. Since World War I, first generation Southern African railways built in the 1880s and 1890s have been upgraded, with temporary wooden bridges replaced by steel and cement structures and station shacks making way for modern facilities.

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1929

1934

The opening of the Exposiçao Colonial (Colonial Exposition) in Porto, Portugal. The World’s Fair-type event features pavilions showcasing Portuguese Angola, Cabo Verde, Portuguese Mozambique, Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau), and São Tomé and Principe. Because Portugal considers its colonies part of Portugal, rendering future independence impossible for these lands, the Africans imported to the fair for “anthropological study” are officially Portuguese citizens – a designation no one takes seriously.

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1934

1976

The Soweto Uprising in Johannesburg becomes a massacre, with up to 700 deaths and 4,000 injuries of young students. They are protesting against the apartheid government’s policy that all school subjects must now be taught only in the Afrikaans language. Teaching in African languages is forbidden. International outrage at the massacre rejuvenates the anti-apartheid movement. (pic: mortally-wounded Hector Peterson being carried in one of history’s most heartbreaking and famous news photographs)

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1976

1995

South Africa’s new democratic nonracial government declares today Youth Day, an annual national holiday commemorating the 1976 Soweto Uprising on this date when young students rose up against apartheid.

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1995

2015

The office of Guinea-Bissau dictator Yahya Jammeh announces that henceforth he must be addressed as “His Excellency Sheikh Processor Alhaji Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh Babili Mansa.”

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2015

Births

1933
Awn Alsharif Qasim

Sudanese scholar and writer, in Khartoum, British Sudan. Considered Sudan’s foremost expert and global scholar on written and spoken Arabic through his works like the Sudanese Encyclopedia of Tribes and Genealogies and the Dictionary of the Sudanese Dialect. He had a powerful influence on Sudan’s higher education in the last third of the 20th century.

1946
Femi Osofisan

Nigerian writer and playwright, in Erunwon, Ogun State, British Nigeria. The author of more than 60 plays, which explore Nigerian social and cultural issues, he was the first African to be receive the Thalia Prize, the top honour of the International Association of Theatre Critics.

1946
Benedict Daswa

South African educationalist and Christian martyr, in Mbahe, Limpopo, South Africa. Staying true to his beliefs as a teacher, school principal and Catholic in a traditional rural area where superstition abounded, he founded but abandoned a soccer team when players demanded to use magic potions to win. When lightning storms terrified his area, he insisted they were natural phenomena, and refused to pay the chief’s tax to fund a magical cure. For his refusal, he was tortured and murdered by a mob. The Catholic Church has proclaimed him a martyr, and he is under consideration for sainthood, representing the persecuted.