Today like every day this year during the Golden Age of the Swahili Empire of East Africa, the wealthy keep builders and carvers busy creating imposing and intricate tombs.

After Germany lost German Togoland in World War I, the new country of Czechoslovakia decides to become an African coloniser, and makes plans to acquire Togoland - even creating a flag that features the Czechoslovakia flag in the upper left corner. However, to ensure this does not happen, the League of Nations today declares its mandate over Togoland. In 1922, the League will give Britain and France administrative duties over the country. No Togolese are consulted or considered in the handover of their lands.

The President of Morocco’s Republic of Rif, Abd el-Krim, whose army inflicted a disastrous defeat on invading Spanish forces in 1921 and who became an international celebrity as a result, is forced to surrender to French and Spanish forces. The invading armies used chemical weapons against civilians to achieve their ends. El-Krim will be exiled to Réunion until 1947.

General elections in South Africa give the Afrikaner National Party control of government, after 46 years of rule by British colonists since the end of the Second Anglo-Boer War. No black South African is permitted to vote in the election. Prime Minister Jan Smuts is replaced by D.F. Malan, who vows to eradicate any hope of black majority governance by instituting a radical policy of racial segregation and black political disenfranchisement called apartheid (literally, “apartness”).

With a membership now of 34 nations, the Organisation of African Unity holds its second summit in Cairo, Egypt. U.S. activist and black leader Malcolm X addresses the assembly.

Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Mariam is sentenced to death in absentia by the Ethiopian Supreme Court for genocide. Under Mengistu’s Derg junta, an estimated 500,000 Ethiopians were killed in 1977 and 1978 during political purges called the Red Terror. He is living in Zimbabwe as a friend of President Robert Mugabe, who refuses to extradite him.

Botswana’s Mpule Kwelagobe, age 19, becomes the first black African to win the world’s top beauty pageant, Miss Universe. She will be appointed a U.N. Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador.

The Islamic terrorist group Ansar Dine, which controls northern Mali including Timbuktu, merges with the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad to form an Islamist state called the "Islamic Republic of Azawad." The jihadist organisastions share the goal of conquering the south of Mali for incorporation into a state run by Sharia Law. However, by June the groups will be rivals once more, clashing militarily.

Togo reports the highest growth in mobile phone use in Africa during the last five years. Although starting from a low base, Togo’s mobile phone penetration is up 700% since 2013.

19th century Zimbabwean prophet and rebel leader Mbuya Nehanda Nyakasikana is honoured with a 3-metre tall statue unveiled in Harare’s City Centre. The spiritual medium urged Zimbabweans to fight back against the British South Africa Company’s colonisation of their lands. The uprising, called the First Chimurenga (1886-97), ended with her defeat and death, but inspired decades of rebellions against British colonial authority. She became an icon for Africa’s independence struggles.