What the Yoruba people call Ogun Ahoyaya ("The Battle of the Boiling Canons") begins as British warships bombard Lagos (pic) to remove Oba Kosoko and restore his uncle, Akitoye, who Kosoko dethroned in a coup d’état six years ago. A British invasion last month failed, but after three days of putting up a fierce resistance against British landing parties, Kosoko will flee Lagos on 29 December.
The cornerstone is laid for the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk Church, in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The crucifix-shaped building will become a landmark for the local Afrikaner community.
One of Africa’s oldest medicinal brands, Nigeria's Alabukun, is invented by a chemist’s apprentice, Jacob Sogboyega Odulate. The aspirin-caffeine powder will be put to multiple uses in West Africa, where it will be one of the most familiar consumer products, achieving its success entirely by customer word of mouth, not advertising.
The Sultanate of Hobyo, one of only five African countries that have thus far resisted European colonisation, is conquered by Italian forces arriving from Eritrea. This ends the resistance led by Omar Samatar.
Italy continues its war crimes from the air in Abyssinia (Ethiopia), as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini approves the dropping of poison gas on Ethiopian forces. Mustard gas is used on the village of Jijiga and elsewhere. Even after the conquest of Ethiopia is complete, Italy continues to use poison gas against guerrilla forces holding out in the mountains.
The premier of Hollywood’s most beloved movie about Sub-Saharan Africa, The African Queen. Filmed in Uganda and Congo, which is unusual during this time of studio soundstage productions, it stars Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, whose performance will win him the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actor of 1951.
The first Paris-Dakar Rally begins. 80 cars, 90 motorcycles and 12 trucks compete on the 10,000-km land course, interrupted by a Mediterranean boat crossing.
The Algerian Civil War begins. Islamic rebel battle a military government, which will nullify the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in today’s first-round election for the national legislature. The military will stage a coup d’état to ensure the second round of voting will not take place, which the FIS seems likely to win. During the next ten years, both sides will commit war crimes, and up to 200,000 civilian will die.
A massive earthquake, the largest of the 21st century and the third largest ever recorded, erupts below the ocean off Sumatra, and triggers a tsunami that travels the length of the Indian Ocean to strike the east coast of Africa eight hours later. At noon, the “wall of water” is nine metres high at landfall in some places, and kills 289 people on the Horn of Africa. The Somalia coast including the Puntland province is hardest hit. Tanzania records ten deaths; three people die in Seychelles, and two people die in South Africa – fatalities that are furthest from the quake’s epicenter - and one person is killed in Kenya. Madagascar is struck but suffers no fatalities. Many more deaths would have occurred had the tsunami not landed at low tide.
In the second round of voting, former football great George Weah is elected President of Liberia, defeating incumbent Vice President Joseph Boakai with a landslide 62% of the vote.
Togo’s port at Lomé becomes West Africa’s second busiest, handling 1.1 million shipping containers this year, 100,000 more than Nigeria’s port at Lagos. Ghana’s Tema port continues to dominate West Africa’s shipping, handling 9.5 million shipping containers in 2018.
West African colonial administrator and military leader, in Cayenne, French Guiana. As a leader of the Free French in North Africa, he fought the Nazi puppets the Vichy France during World War II. As Governor of Chad during the war, he was at the forefront of the French African resistance. The grandson of enslaved Africans, he was first black person appointed to a high post in France’s colonies, and was the first black person to be buried in the Pantheon in Paris.
Pioneering Nigerian media star and writer, in Oyo, British Nigeria. Credited with being Africa’s first black stage director and Nigeria’s first film editor, at the country’s first TV station, Western Nigeria Television in 1959, he was also Nigeria’s first newscaster. He wrote, directed and acted in several films, translated the Nigerian national anthem into his Yoruba language, and was a well-known newspaper columnist and poet.
President of Togo (1967-2005), in Pya, French Togoland. Although he installed himself in power through a military coup d’état, and cultivated a cult of personality to make him seem superhuman (he traveled with an entourage of 1000 dancing women who sang his praises), he died of natural causes as Africa’s longest-serving non-monarch head of state.
Ugandan boxer, in Masaka, Uganda. After “The Destroyer” won a gold medal in the 1990 Commonwealth Games, his professional career included winning the World Boxing Council International Super Featherweight title, the African Boxing Union light welterweight title, the North American Boxing Federation super featherweight title, and others. Entering politics, he was among the members of the Forum for Democratic Change who were kidnapped by agents of President Yoweri Museveni’s government in 2021, and went missing for 11 days.
