The ox wagon remains the primary means of overland transportation in Southern Africa. A wagon pulled by 18 oxen and carrying from 2,700 kgs to 4,500 kgs is driven twice a day: at 5pm to 9pm and from 2am to 5 am. During the day the oxen graze and drivers sleep. Daily distance covered can be up to 23 km, or 56 km in rare cases where there are roads.
The first railway line is opened in British Mauritius. The line runs 50 km but does not service the capital Port Louis, where another line is being built.
A rail line from the town of Umtali (Mutare) reaches Salisbury (Harare), opening the interior of what will be Zimbabwe with swift, scheduled passenger and cargo transportation.
As work progresses on a large iron bridge spanning the Zambezi River before Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls), a safety mat is installed to prevent workmen from falling to their deaths. Word is spreading internationally about an impressive engineering feat underway to connect Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) with Northern Rhodesia (Zambia).
Belgium’s national airline Sabena begins operations, financed by Belgians living in the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) who want a replacement for a local airline that operated from 1920 to 1921. Sabena has shipped planes to Africa for use, and is collaborating with France’s Air France and Germany’s Deutsche Luft Hansa (Lufthansa) to chart routes. The first flight from Europe to Congo will come in 1935. During World War II, all Sabena routes in Europe will be suspended. However, its African routes will continue to operate. Before and after the war, Sabena’s African routes will be the airline’s most profitable.
"NIGERIA: Our Youngest Colony," is the advertisement in the Times of London today, drawing attention to the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. On display at the exhibit are products from British Nigeria within a village setting. The adverts promise, “It is though you actually were in Nigeria.”
Trader Horn, a Hollywood movie shot in East and Central Africa, is released. Two Africans died during production, one killed by a crocodile and another by a charging rhinoceros. The man’s death by rhino is included in the finished film to thrill Western audience; a testimony on the diminished value African life in this era. The director and several crew members contracted malaria during production.
Italian forces surrender to the British and Southern African armies in Gondar, Ethiopia, ending Italy’s six-year occupation of Ethiopia.
Egypt is readmitted into the Arab League, 12 years after its suspension for entering into a peace agreement with Israel.
Long shunned by the Organisation of African Unity, which has taken steps to isolate the apartheid regime, the now democratic state of South Africa joins the OAU as its 53rd member.
Exiled from the Democratic Republic of Congo, former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko leaves temporary accommodations in Togo for a stay in Morocco, where he will die on 7 September 1997.
The Rabat-Salé Tramway opens in Rabat, Morocco, transporting 172,000 passengers a day.
The mayor of Kampala, Uganda, bans gifts of money, food or any aid to street children. 15,000 children age 7 to 14 live on the capital city’s streets. The ban is intended to end their exploitation by criminals, who organise children into bands of beggars, and collect their takings. Authorities hope child-welfare organisations will assist the legitimately homeless children who are abandoned or are escaping abuse and poverty.
General of the South African Communist Party and Minister of Housing in South Africa’s first democratic government under President Nelson Mandela, in Obeliai, Lithuania. As an anti-apartheid activist in the 1950s and 1960s, he was repeatedly arrested after his political party was banned. He went into exile, heading the liberation party the African National Congress’ military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. His wife Ruth was assasinated in 1982 when they were living in Mozambique.
South African anti-apartheid activist who became South Africa’s first black Minister of Defence, in Doomfontein, South Africa. When the country became democratic in 1994, he led the formation of a new independent armed forces.
Rwanda’s first female head of state, in Nyruhengeri, Butare, Ruanda-Urundi. Her appointment as Prime Minister in 1993 was part of a power-sharing agreement. When the plane of President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down, she became acting president. She was assassinated the next day, 7 April 1994. The Rwanda civil war and Africa’s worst genocide followed.
