Missionary recruits from Kingston, Jamaica sent by the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society of Switzerland arrive in Gold Coast (Ghana). They bring with them seedlings they wish to introduce to Ghana’s agriculture: cocoa, coffee, breadnut, breadfruit, guava, yam, cassava, plantains, cocoyam, banana and pear. Cocoyam becomes a staple in the Ghanaian diet, while cocoa and coffee become valuable cash crops.

Rioting breaks out in Fes, Morocco when it is learned that the Treaty of Fes, which the Sultan of Morocco Abd al-Hafid was forced by France to sign almost at gunpoint and which has been kept secret until now, has made the country a French protectorate. France responds to the violence with a naval bombardment of the Jewish quarter, leaving it in ruins (pic). As a consequence of the disturbances, French Resident General Hubert Lyautey will decide that Rabat rather than Fes should become the nation’s capital.

The Tripoli Grand Prix is first raced. This is also Africa’s first international auto race, and will be held regularly in the Italian protectorate (later colony) of Libya until 1940.

The dedication of the Huguenot Monument, in Franscheok, South Africa. Fleeing persecution in Belgium and France, Huguenot settlers arrived in the area in the 1600s and 1700s, and had a significant cultural impact on the Cape Colony community.

Jan Smuts International Airport opens in the Johannesburg suburb Kempton Park. The first plane to land is a South African Airways Skyways aircraft. Smuts was a general and prime minister whose administration subjugated South Africa’s black majority with discriminatory laws. Elsewhere in Johannesburg, 35year-old lawyer Oliver Tambo is protesting those laws. In 1960, his anti-apartheid activism will force him into a 30-year exile. In 2006, the Jan Smuts International Airport will be renamed the Oliver Tambo International Airport.

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Tanzania’s government-owned newspaper The Nationalist has its first edition. The newspaper struggles against the popular 30 year-old The Standard (pic), which government eventually nationalises in 1970.

The first Kenyan to head the Kenya Air Force, Colonel Dedan Njuguna Gichuru, begins serving what will be the longest term of any Commander of the service – seven years and 70 days.

As revolution spreads through Ethiopia, police open fire on students and striking railway workers in Dire Dawa, wounding 17. The revolution will cause Dire Dawa’s Europeans, Yemeni Arabs, and Indians to emigrate. As a result, the Greek and Armenian churches will close for lack of members.

As the Rwandan genocide accelerates its frenzy, thousands of mostly Tutsi men, women and children take refuge from the violence at St. Jean Catholic Church, on Lake Kivu. They are hunted down and exterminated by police, Hutu militants and armed civilians using guns, grenades, machetes, spears and clubs.

Acknowledging the role of traditional leaders in modern South African society, President Nelson Mandela in his dual official capacity as Chief of South Africa’s Temba clan inaugurates the Council of Traditional Leaders. He wears traditional attire (pic) as 150 tribal leaders are inducted into Parliament. Also attending are neighbouring monarchs King Mswati III of Swaziland (Eswatini) and King Letsie III of Lesotho.

Cameroonian photographer Steve Mvondo breaks out of his business of wedding photography in Yaoundé to experiment with a series of black and white photographs of women wearing brightly-coloured head wraps. He creates one of the most iconic series of 21st Century African photographs.