The Cape Riflemen, British soldiers from Cape Colony South Africa, arrive at a farm named Bloemfontein (Afrikaans for “blooming flowers”) between the Orange and Vaal Rivers, build a fort and establish a settlement on hunting land belonging to the San people. The San have largely been pushed out by the Grinqas, who arrived 20 years ago, and by other peoples fleeing the forces of Zulu king Shaka. The town will grow into a provincial capital, where the African liberation party the African National Congress will be formed in 1912. From 1910, Bloemfontein will become South Africa’s judicial capital, and in 2023 will host the Supreme Court of Appeal.

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International telegraph communication begins in Kenya and Tanganyika with the completion by the Eastern and Southern Africa Telegraph Company of two submarine cables from Zanzibar to Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

Residents of Umtali (Mutare) Mashonaland (Zimbabwe) are told at a meeting with Cecil Rhodes, President of the British South Africa Company that has British Queen Victoria’s permission to administer the territory, that they built their town in the wrong place. The national railroad will not be built there, but elsewhere. The company will pay compensation, and the settlers vote to move. Eventually, compensations paid will amount to £300 000 (equal to £51 million in 2023).

South Africa’s Immorality Act becomes law, prohibiting extramarital sex between a white and a black person. In 1950, the act is amended to prohibit whites from having sex with any person of a non-white race.

Africa’s pivotal role in desegregating the United States will be overlooked by future historians, but this day, only days after his meeting with U.S. President John Kennedy (pic), William H. Fitzjohn, a Columbia University PhD and charge d’affaires for Sierra Leone’s Embassy in the U.S., is refused service at a restaurant near Washington because he is black. All diplomats of newly independent African countries face the same discrimination in much of the U.S. The U.S. government is embarrassed, and is further humiliated by its Cold War rival the Soviet Union, which uses the Fitzjohn incident as “evidence of America’s racism.” Because the U.S. now faces the loss of African support at the U.N., Kennedy applies pressure on the state of Maryland to end segregation. This is done with Maryland's 1963 Public Accommodations Law. The entire U.S. is legally desegregated with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

King Sobhuza II of Swaziland (Eswatini) blows a whistle to begin operations at Swaziland Railways. The line will transport iron ore, and not passengers, from the landlocked country to the port of Lourenço Marques (Maputo) in Mozambique.

A separate parliament is introduced for South Africa’s Indian population so they might achieve “representation” under apartheid. With members mostly appointed by the Minister of Indian Affairs, the “Indian parliament” is not given legislative powers, unlike a “parliament” created tomorrow (27 March) for South Africa’s mixed-race (“Coloured”) population.

With the Prohibition of Mixed Marriage Act, apartheid South Africa invalidates the marriages of all citizens who living outside the country and are married to someone not of his or her own race.

The Grand Apartheid goal of making all black South Africans aliens in their own country and citizens in tribal “homelands” becomes the law of the land with the passage of the Black Homelands Citizenship Act. By 1979, 17 other enabling laws will be passed to enforce the act.

Ugandan rebel leaders opposed to dictator Idi Amin conclude a meeting in the Tanzanian town Moshi by uniting and forming the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA). (pic: future Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni)

Egypt is suspended from the Arab League for its peace agreement with Israel. (pic: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat on right with Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin - both co-recipients of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize)

The Map of Africa Monument is dedicated in Agulhas National Park, South Africa. The giant bronze replica of the African continent, 30-metres in circumference, is placed at the continent’s southernmost spot of land.

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