The settlement of Porto-Novo is established on the Gulf of Guinea. Growing into the port city that will become the capital of the Benin, it is founded as a location to transfer enslaved Africans onto ships owned by the Portuguese Empire.

French colonial authorities in French Sudan Volta begin the four-year construction of the canal linking Timbuktu with Kabara. To do the work, the French use slave labour.

The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment by the International Missionary Society screens short educational films in African villages of British colonies and territories in East and Central Africa. The films are silent with musical accompaniment because few viewers know English, and are narrated in local languages using loudspeakers. The first movies that tens of thousands of Africans have ever seen are Veterinary Training of African Natives, Tropical Hookworm and African Peasant Farms.

The South African Air Force’s 11 Squadron flying Hawker Hartebeests aircraft land in Nairobi to fight with the British in World War II. In three days (22 May), the SAAF’s 12 Squadron will arrive, flying Junkers Ju 86 aircraft in preparation for air combat against Italian forces in Ethiopia.

Just as his father, the King of the Maseko-Ngoni people of Nyasaland (Malawi) Gomani I, ordered his subjects not to pay British taxes and was killed by the British for his defiance, his son King Gomani II instructs his people not to pay British taxes to protest the merging of Nyasaland with Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). He has been stripped of his office by the British, but thousands of Ngoni still recognise him as king, and surround his house today. Fearing bloodshed, Gomani allows police to arrest him. Despite being elderly and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, while being transported he overpowers his guards, and escapes. He will manage to go to Mozambique. The Portuguese colonial authorities there will capture him, and turn him over to the British to stand trial.

The General Union of Algerian Muslim Students begins an indefinite student strike at the University of Algiers in support of the National Liberation Front, which is seeking independence from France. The strike disproves France’s assertion that Algeria’s intellectuals and elites are not militant.

Hostilities end in South West Africa, as the final ceasefire in the civil before the country gains independence as Namibia takes effect. South African and Angolan troops that have been fighting lay down their weapons.

Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane resigns (pic: left) after he is named as a suspect in the murder of his ex-wife (pic: right). Economist and former cabinet minister Moeketsi Majoro is elected prime minister.