Travelling today and every day, major camel caravans, as large as 12,000 animals, are moving from 4 a.m. to sunset down from Mediterranean ports, across the Sahara Desert and into West Africa. Timbuktu, Gao and Djenné will become major cities along the route as the Mali Empire grows, evolving into important cultural centres where large libraries are housed in universities.
To halt France’s colonial expansion into West Africa, the 20,000 warriors of Omar Saidou Tall, Sultan of the Toucouleur Empire (today’s Guinea, Mali and Senegal) attack the French Fort Medina on the Senegal River. 300 Toucouleur warriors and killed by bullets and canon. France loses 13 men. The Tourcouleur siege will last until French reinforcements arrive in July.
The Age of the Horse is at its height in Church Square, Pretoria, where public transport is horse-drawn trolley, and horses pull buggies, goods carts and carry people past the elaborate architectural stylings of late 19t-century buildings. Only rickshaws pulled by Africans and occasional bicyclesprovide alternative transportation to feet and horses.
The cutting of valuable mahogany trees in British Nigeria reaches a high for the decade, with 22,303 logs exported worth £77,054 (equal to £11,616,598 in 2024). However, the forests are already being depleted, and the colonial Acting Governor General reports: “The merchants also have to go further afield to procure trees of the required girth.”
An elite delegation of Sierra Leone politicians, trade union leaders and traditional chiefs meets with Queen Elizabeth II and British government officials at Lancaster House in London and agree to terms for Sierra Leone’s independence, which is set for 27 April 1961.
At his trial in Pretoria, South Africa where he and ten other defendants are charged with plotting a violent insurrection against the apartheid state, Nelson Mandela famously tells the court, “I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, my Lord, if it needs to be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Kenya hosts Sub-Saharan Africa's largest gathering of African ICT experts: Nairobi Tech Week. The event that brings together Africa’s Internet and Communications Technology personnel is held against backdrop of several undersea fibre cables going on line in West and East Africa, which will increase broadband, internet speeds and ICT users.
Chad President Idriss Déby is mortally wounded while commanding government troops against rebels in the town of Mele. He is rushed to the capital N’djamena, but dies from gunshot wounds.
Egyptian modern painter, in Cairo, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Specialising in portraits, he was a pioneer and the best known practitioner of the modern art style in Sudan. Trained in France, he exhibited an early work “The Nun,” at the Grand Palais in Paris, and was awarded the Prix d'Honneur by the French Arts Society. He also taught, and mentored many mid-20th Century painters who like him would be known as Egyptian Masters.
Nigerian banker, in Eket, Akwa Ibam State, British Nigeria. He was Chairman of the Central Bank of Nigeria for the tumultuous period of 1967 to 1975 that saw the Nigerian Civil War, which strained the national treasury, and the oil boom of the 1970s, which suddenly saw Nigeria’s government with too much revenue and too few local investment opportunities. His devotion to keeping down government debt set an example for all African nations to follow.
Kenyan champion runner, in Nyamira, British Kenya. When he won the 10,000 metres race at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games he became Kenya’s first athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. For this and earlier racing triumphs, he was given a farm by Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta.
Nigerian women’s rights activist and writer, in Katsina State, British Nigeria. In 2001 and 2002, she led the successful efforts to overturn the convictions in traditional Islamic Courts of two women accused of adultery and who faced a penalty of death by stoning. In 2014, she led the #BringBackOurGirls campaign that drew global attention to the 270 schoolgirls kidnapped from their school in Chibok by Boko Haram terrorists.
Burkinabé strongman, in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. While earning a business degree in Canada, he took up weight lifting, and discovered his natural talent. In international strongman competitions, he has been World Log Lift Champion from 2018 to the present (2022), and holds the Guinness World Record title for the overhead press weight lift.
