The Ottoman invasion of Egypt proceeds nearly unopposed, and Turkish forces reach Birkat al-Hajj, only a few hours march from the capital Cairo. However, the Mamluk rulers of Egypt will launch a counter-attack on 22 January.

Alfred Francis Russell becomes Liberia’s tenth President when President Anthony W. Gardner resigns due to poor health. An early advocate for coffee cultivation in Liberia, Russell had 8,000 coffee trees growing on his personal plantation by the 1850s.

The South African International Exhibition closes in Kimberley, after hosting 400,000 guests who came to see paintings on loan from British Queen Victoria’s Royal Collection. The valuable display of diamonds, gold and other precious minerals is sent to the Chicago World’s Fair to promote South Africa’s mining industry. The exhibit hall will be converted into a hospital during the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1899.

World War I hero Ibrahima Dinah Salifou, son of Mohammed Dinah Salifou, the last king of Guinea’s Nalu people, is decorated with the Légion d’honneur in Paris. Symbolising the courage of the African soldiers of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, recruited from France’s African colonies, he was wounded twice in battle. His award from the French government comes upon the instance of the French Army.

England’s Imperial Airway begins a weekly mail-only service between London, England and Cape Town, South Africa.

Tunisia’s three regional labour federations combine to form the Tunisian General Labour Union. The enlarged body will effectively campaign for Tunisian workers’ rights and for national independence from France.

Tanganyikan army mutineers, demanding better pay and the dismissal of white officers, seize State House, in Dar es Salaam. President Julius Nyerere narrowly escapes, and hides in a Catholic mission for two days.

Amilcar Cabral, one of Africa’s most influential anti-colonial leaders who led the independence movements and a guerilla army in Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau against colonial Portugal, is assassinated by political rivals, in Conakry, Guinea.

The sixth running of the Paris-Dakar Rally, drawing a record 427 entries on a course extended across Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Mauritania, is won by a team driving a Porsche 953.

Africa’s top football championship, the Africa Cup of Nations, changes its name to the MTN Africa Cup of Nations for its 25th edition after a sponsorship deal with South Africa’s mobile phone service MTN. Ghana hosts, and Egypt wins its sixth title. Egypt's Essam El-Hadary is named Best Player.