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1899

National Zoological Garden of South Africa is established on a farm in Pretoria. 9,000 animals of 700 species resided in “The Pretoria Zoo” in 2023.

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1899

1912

The weekly newspaper Abantu-Batho (The People) is launched in Johannesburg, South Africa, by Pixley ka Isaka Seme, a founding member of the liberation party the South African Native National Congress (later the African National Congress). Queen Regent Labotisbeni of the Swazis in neighbouring Swaziland (Eswatini) contributes financially and donates a printing press. The newspaper will promote African royalty at a time when traditional leadership is being repressed by colonial rule, but will mainly report and comment upon the major issues of the day through the writings of important black intellectual figures.

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1912

1952

The leaders of the pro-independence Kenya African Union (KAU) are arrested: The so-called Kapenguria Six are Jomo Kenyatta (pic: seated centre), Paul lNgei, Kungu Karumba, Bildad Kaggia, Fred Kubai and Achieng Onek. British colonial authorities want to brand KAU as a terrorist group identical to the Mau-Mau militants. Kenyatta, who will be independent Kenya’s first president, has given a speech stating they are nationalists, not terrorists. Independence will be achieved largely by members of KAU, a pioneering independence movement that will inspire similar movements throughout Africa.

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1952

1956

The key leader of Kenya’s anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, is captured by British colonial forces. Although this is an important set-back for the rebellion, fighting continues by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama and General Baimungi.

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1956

1964

Ethiopian runner Abebe Bilika wins his second Olympics gold medal in a row when he places first in the Men’s Marathon, which is run along the streets of Tokyo at the Summer Olympic Games. Kenya’s Wilson Kiprugut wins Bronze.

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1964

1967

Miriam Makeba’s record Pata Pata is released. The international hit will break the Top 40 in the U.S. by reaching position 12 on Billboard’s Top 100 chart and position 7 on Billboard’s R&B Chart on 16 December 1967.

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1967

1969

Somalia’s Republic form of government is overthrown in a military coup d’état. Junta leader Siyad Barre becomes dictator. In 1990, the U.N. Development Programme will report, "the 21-year regime of Siyad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa." His government will kill up to 60,000 Somalis in one year alone: 1988-1989.

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1969

1993

Burundi President Melchior Ndadaye (pic) is killed in an attempted coup d’état staged by soldiers of the Tutsi ethnic group. As the highest-ranking civilian official to survive the coup, Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi becomes Acting President. She is Burundi’s first female head of state.

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1993

2002

Covenant University is founded, in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria. In 2022, the enrollment will be 8,000 students.

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2002

2009

Johannesburg’s Soccer City (FNB Stadium), originally built in 1986, finishes a major expansion to reach a capacity of 94,736. It is now the largest stadium in Africa. A celebratory party ensues for what will be the principal venue for the FIFA World Cup 2010, the first World Cup to be held in Africa.

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2009

2021

The U.N.-African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), which has kept the peace in the Sudanese region since 2007, concludes its duties when its last mission base at Zam Zam closes. This has been the largest peacekeeping force in U.N. history.

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2021

Births

1918
Albertina Sisulu

One of the most prominent women activists in the decades-long struggle against South Africa’s racist apartheid policies, in Tsomo, Transkei, South Africa. As wife of liberation leader Walter Sisulu and a fearless campaigner herself, she was constantly arrested. She was once kept in solitary confinement for two months, and was “banned” during much of the 1960s.

1928
Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Poet, novelist and literacy activist, in Southampton, England. Arriving in Kenya in 1954 to run a Christian missionary bookstore, she became a nationalised Kenyan citizen that year, and met and married a Kenyan while distributing books to women prisoners as part of her lifelong advocacy of reading. The “mother of Kenyan literature” wrote poems and novels, but her influence also lay in her workshops for Kenyan and East African writers, and the book shops and the book distribution initiatives that she ran.