The Bible documents Three Wise Men arriving at the birth of baby Jesus Christ bearing gifts that include frankincense. The spice originates in what will become Somaliland, and has been cultivated there already for four millennium.

The Three Kings and the Angel figures appear on the newly completed Clock Tower in Venice, Italy. One of the kings, Balthazar, is African, conforming to the Biblical account that one of the kings carried as a gift for baby Jesus spices that originated in the Horn of Africa. However, in the next centuries, the all three kings will be seen as Caucasian in European depictions, until Balthazar’s racial identity is popularly restored in the 21^st century.

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Tens of thousands of Africans from British Kenya fighting overseas during World War II are targeted with morale boosters by the British Army, which arranges letters and news from home. Private businesses contribute. Nairobi’s K.W.E.O. Comforts Depot sends out thousands of cards in Swahili bearing Christmas season wishes.

The monumental statue Cristo Rei (Christ the King) overlooking Lubango, Angola spreads its arms in welcome for its first Christmas. Built this year by Portuguese engineer of Madeira Frazão Sardinha, the 30 metre-high white marble statue is similar to others raised in Portuguese colonial countries. The statue will be declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2018.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation’s English, Afrikaans and Springbok radio stations as well as the Sotho and Zulu services start broadcasting on FM frequencies.

Africa’s first regularly-held film festival, the Festival International du Film Amateur de Kelibia (FIFAK), opens in Kelibia, Tunisia. Organised by the Ministry of Culture and the Kelibia and the Tunisian Federation of Amateur Filmmakers, it showcases non-professional movies. Carthage will follow with Africa’s second film festival, opened in 1966, the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage (JCC). Sub-Saharan Africa will see its first film festival in 1969 when the Festival Pan-Africain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO) opens in Burkina Faso. The large Cairo International Film Festival will begin in 1976, and the Durban Film Festival will premier in South Africa in 1979.

Release of the movie Amistad, by U.S. director Steven Spielberg and staring Benin actor Djimon Hounsou. The story of the La Amistad slave ship revolt of 1839 by enslaved West Africans, which led to a dramatic U.S. Supreme Court trial, uses the 1967 poem Dry Your Tears, Afrika, by Ivorian poet Bernard Binlin Dadié’s.

Rwandans part with single-use plastic bags, banned starting 1 January 2008 because of the significant pollution and environmental harm they cause. Starting today, stocks of plastic bags are shipped to neighbouring countries. The ban will be responsible for Rwanda’s reputation as one of Africa’s cleanest countries.

As he does every year, Santa Claus arrives at the tropical beaches of Banjul on a donkey cart, to spread good cheer among Gambian children.

The Beit al-Ajaib, known as Zanzibar’s House of Wonders, which was built as the palatial home of the Omani sultans in Stone Town, partly collapses from old age and neglect. Sultan Barghash bin Said constructed the palace in 1883 as a modern showcase of luxury – the building was the first in Zanzibar to have electricity and an elevator. Sultans lived there until 1964. The country of Oman, which once colonised Zanzibar, pledges funds for rebuilding.