Africa Today/Yesterday Logo

1249

The last of the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt, Sultan As-Salih Ayyub, dies after surgery to amputate an infected leg. With his death, Egyptian rule over parts of Palestine and Syria also ends.

#
1249

1497

The first sea voyage from Europe to India, by Portugal’s explorer Vasco da Gama, rounds the Cape of Good Hope, Africa’s southernmost location.

#
1497

1924

Troops from Egypt, which has co-governed Sudan with Britain since 1899, are ordered out of Sudan by Britain because of their ties with Sudanese nationalists.

#
1924

1943

The post-World War II global future is being shaped at the First Cairo Conference. Attending are U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (pic: centre), the first U.S. president to visit Egypt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (pic: right) and Chinese leader Chaing Kai-Shek (pic: left). Egypt provides a safe half-way point for the leaders to meet as World War II is being fought.

#
1943

1958

Unable to prove that Nelson Mandela and 90 other anti-apartheid activists committed treason, prosecutors in Pretoria, South Africa re-indict Mandela and 29 other defendants with the charge of conspiracy to endanger the state. 61 other defendants will be re-indicted on this charge in April 1959.

#
1958

1969

The national football team of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Leopards, has its biggest win ever, a 10-1 home victory against Zambia.

#
1969

1970

Portugal commences Operation Green Sea, an amphibious assault on Conakry seeking to overthrow Guinea’s President Sékou Touré. He is a supporter of independence movements in the Portuguese colonies of Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau. The attempted coup d’état fails, and the West African backlash against Portugal results in Algeria and Nigeria also choosing to support the independence groups.

#
1970

1973

The release of the South African motion picture Boesman and Lena. South African playwright Athol Fugard writes and stars in the adaptation of his play, directed by Ross Devenish. The story challenges the apartheid system at the height of its power by exploring black poverty and forced removal from homes.

#
1973

1990

U.S. President George H.W. Bush arrives in Cairo to hold talks with Egypt President Hosni Mubarak about the Persian Gulf Crisis.

#
1990

2008

The first MTN Africa Music Awards is held in Abuja, Nigeria. Nigerian rapper D’banj wins Artist of the Year.

#
2008

2013

In the place of honour before South Africa’s Union Building, the seat of executive government in Pretoria, a statue of J.B.M. Hertzog is removed. Hertzog was a staunch white supremacist who laid the foundation for apartheid with laws oppressing blacks during his time as prime minister (1924-1939). A statue of liberation hero and South Africa’s first democratically-elected president, Nelson Mandela, will take its place. (pic: the statue relocated to Pretoria park)

#
2013

2019

Maxence Melo Mubyazi, Tanzanian investigative journalist and founder of the on-line Central and East African discussion group Jamii Forums, is awarded the 2019 International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists. He is symbol of attacks against the press by Tanzania’s authoritarian President John Magufuli, who has had him detained and harassed for exposing government corruption and mismanagement.

#
2019

Births

1861
Ranavalona III

Queen of Madagascar and the last monarch of Madagascar, in Amparibe, Manjakazafy, Madagascar.  Crowned queen at age 21 upon the death of her mother Queen Ranavalona II, she struggled for 13 years to keep Madagascar independent, until France invaded the island in 1896, and abolished the monarch the next year. Following the custom of widowed Madagascan queens to have political marriages with their already married prime ministers, she wed Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony, who allegedly poisoned her first husband shortly before her coronation to clear the way for his own marriage to her. Displeased by the Malagasy people’s love for their queen, France exiled her in 1897, never permitting her to return.

1943
Safi Faye

Senegalese film director, in Dakar, French West Africa. After directing documentary and short films, her 1975 movie Kaddu Beykat made her the first Sub-Saharan African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film.

1986
Oscar Pistorius

South African paralympian champion, in Sandton, South Africa. Both his feet were amputated at age 11 due to a congenital defect. The gold medalist in the 2012 Paralympics was the first amputee sprinter to compete at an Olympic Games running on prosthetic "blades.” A national hero, he was convicted for murdering his girlfriend in 2014 at a sensational trial that was broadcast live worldwide.