After failing to conquer Egypt, France signs the Treaty of Paris, returning the country to control by the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon Bonaparte’s African adventure resulted in 15,000 French soldiers killed in combat and 15,000 more soldiers dead of disease.

The Champs du Mars racecourse is opened in British Mauritius as a means, it is hoped, to bring the British and French colonists together socially. The thoroughbred racecourse will become a major success, attracting tens of thousands of spectators for events that will continue into the 21st century. (the racecourse in 1910)

Mongelima, a river fisherman in Panga, Belgian Congo, demonstrates fish trap construction for anthropologist Herbert Lang, who is taking photographs for the Lang-Chapin Expedition. Sponsored by New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the five-year study of the country’s people and natural environment acquires the most comprehensive collection of zoological and cultural materials ever assembled from Central Africa, which will prove to have significant historical value.

Regularly scheduled air service begins between Freetown, Liberia and Bathurst (Banjul) Gambia, on Elders Colonial Airways. Short Scion Senior flying boats are flown on the routes connecting the town of Conakry in French Guinea with Bolama Island off Portuguese Guinea (Guinea-Bissau) and Bissau in the same country. Where airports do not exist, the planes land on water, and passengers disembark or board using small boats.

In Kliptown, South Africa, the Congress of the People meets to consider a document that offers a Bill of Rights for all people and lays a philosophical foundation for the struggle against apartheid. The document will be given the name the Freedom Charter.

In a letter to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Kenya’s colonial governor Evelyn Baring (pic) describes in detail and with unrestrained delight the torture techniques he has institutionalised against imprisoned rebels of the anti-colonial Mau Mau Rebellion. Among those tortured is Barack Obama Sr., father of the future President of the U.S.

Mozambique’s independence party Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Liberation Front of Mozambique), or Frelimo, is founded in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, to fight against Portuguese colonial rule.

The law allowing for 90-day detention of South Africans is amended to allow the state to hold anti-apartheid activists, for whom the law is designed, for 180 days without trial, without visitors and without access to a lawyer. The law permits detainees to be kept in solidary confinement for six months, and strips the courts of any power to release prisoners.

Mozambique achieves national independence, from Portugal. The capital, Lourenço Marques, will be re-named Maputo next year (1976). The national population is 10,170,000. Interior Minister Amando Guebuza, who will become President in 2005, orders all Portuguese residents to renounce their Portuguese citizenships and become Mozambicans or leave the country in 24 hours, carrying no more than 20 kilos of luggage.

As “black on black” violence continues in South Africa, encouraged by opponents of the end of apartheid, a gunman opens fire on a commuter train in the black township Soweto, killing six.

As drought in the Sahel brings widespread famine and disease to the region, Sudan records its highest temperature ever, 49.6 °C (121.3 °F), at Dongola (pic).