Construction begins on the mosque of al-Hakim in Egypt. The structure is designed to hold the entire population of Cairo, and will take 124 years to complete.

The makers England’s DeShell beauty products go all the way to British East Africa for an advert intended to show Maasai women admiring a model’s beautification routine and its results. Unfortunately, the photo shows the women looking at her with undisguised contempt.

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British forces fight back against the Italian army invading British Somalia. British planes will fly 184 bombing missions in two weeks, and reinforcements increase the British garrison to five battalions.

The Sudanese Civil War begins, pitting north and south. Southern Christians have been marginalised within British colonial rule, which favours the Muslim north and has given northern politicians great power in Khartoum, to the exclusion of Southern leaders. Inflamed by a fake “official cable” ordering colonial authorities to institute oppressive measures in the south, an isolated mutiny of southern soldiers of the British colonial Sudanese Defence Force in Torit yesterday expands with mutinies in Juba, Yei and Maridi today. Until 1963, the conflict will be fought as a guerilla war – against a post-colonial Sudan national government from 1956 - and then expand into more deadly warfare. Between 500,000 and one million people will die before a peace treaty is signed in 1972, but north-south tensions will not ultimately be resolved until the Second Sudanese Civil War ends with independence for South Sudan.

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Expressing the political philosophy of Libya’s leader Muammar Gadhafi, The Little Green Book is becoming the country’s top selling book of all time. School children study its passages two hours a week, and portions are read daily on state radio and TV. The book is written as a series of slogans, which lend themselves to placement on billboards throughout Libya. The book defines the tribe as the primary social unit, calls for humankind to speak one language, and seeks the abolishment of spectator sports and the performing arts because people must play sports, act and play instruments themselves rather than watch others do so.

The Gulf of Sidra incident occurs when two Libyan air force jets fire on U.S. aircraft participating in a naval exercise over international waters. Libya claims that area of the Mediterranean for itself. The U.S. returns fire and shoots down both jets. Libya ruler Muammar Gaddafi will seek revenge (also for the U.S. 1986 air strike on Libya) by bombing a civilian jetliner, Pan-Am Flight 103, on 21 December 1988, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground when it crashes in Lockerbie, Scotland.

The South African Bishops’ Conference decides sanctions against the country because of apartheid are no longer necessary, due to steps being taken toward the creation of a multi-racial democratic government.

As South Africa seeks to correct centuries of colonial theft of lands and apartheid laws that rendered black South Africans landless and homeless, an "expropriation of land without compensation" debate rages. Government seizes two properties, both game farms, for land distribution, and offers R20 million compensation. The owners seem greedy, and demand R200 million.

Wealthy (“high end”) American tourists to Rwanda more than double in 2018-2019, with bookings for luxury accommodations up 114%. Rwanda is ranked as one of the Top 10 countries in the world that is seeing a significant rise in big-spending visitors as its reward for a marketing campaign to attract "high value tourist trade"