The Great Mosque is under construction in Timbuktu, as commanded by King Mansa Musa. The Mali Empire is at the height of its power. When Musa returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca, he was inspired to erect a magnificent mosque in West Africa.

The Rand Rebellion ends in South Africa’s Witwatersrand Region after 153 striking white miners are killed. Prime Minister Jan Smuts sends 20,000 troops and bomb-dropping airplanes to crush armed strikers protesting decreased wages and the hiring of black workers. The use of deadly force against white people in South Africa was an anomaly that causes a public backlash against government.

Protesting the arrest of Kenyan nationalist Harry Thuko (pic) by British colonial authorities, up to 8,000 of his supporters assemble at the Nairobi police station where he is being held. When they refuse to disperse, and women led by Thuko associate Mary Muthoni Nyanjiru surge forward, police open fire. Nyanjiri and up to 100 people are killed. White colonialists, angered by Thuko’s demand that colonial lands taken from Kenyans be returned to their owners, join the massacre, shooting fleeing protestors in the back. Thuko is exiled without a trial.

After 30 years since the project was announced, a hydro-electric generation plant begins operations near the Zambezi River waterfalls Mosi-oa-Tunya, creating power for the town of Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and the Victoria Falls Hotel in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).

British forces begin their recapture of British Somalia from Italy, which defeated them the year before, with a beach landing near Berbera. The British advance is swift, and is met by little resistance. The colony will be taken from the Italians in days.

The first aerial combat missions flow by Africans with jet aircraft are performed by South African Air Force pilots attached to the U.S. Air Force, assisting with the U.N. mission in Korea. Flying against North Korean jets, SAAF’s 2 Squadron flying F-86 Sabre fighter-bombers, is led by ace pilot Major Jean de Wet.

Miriam Makeba’s first solo record, Lovely Lies, performed with the group The Manhattan Brothers, becomes the first South African song to enter Billboard’s Top 100 chart in the U.S., rising to position 45.

The 11th Africa Cup of Nations is hosted by Ghana, whose national team becomes the Cup’s winningest champions. Ghana takes its third title with a final’s victory over Uganda. Opuku Afriyie is Top Scorer.

Angola lodges a complaint with the U.N. over South African military raids done against the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia personnel who are in Angola. The U.N. Security Council condemns “the racist regime of South Africa for its premeditated, persistent, and sustained armed invasions of the People's Republic of Angola, which constitutes a serious threat to international peace and security."

The house of South Africa liberation leader and first president of a democratic South Africa, Nelson Mandela, is designated a Public Heritage Site. Built in 1945, the small brick home with a corrugated iron roof at 8115 Orlando West in Johannesburg’s black township Soweto was the Mandela family residence when he was an attorney challenging the apartheid system of black racial oppression.

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Mauritania is the world’s final country to ban slavery, but does little to stop the practice. Up to 680,000 people (20% of Mauritania’s population) live in slavery.