Portuguese slave traders are doing profitable business kidnapping people from the interior of Portuguese Mozambique and shipping them to Brazil. One slave ship, the São José Paquete Africa, is caught in rough seas today off Cape Town. At 2 a.m., the ship collides with submerged rocks, and sinks only 100 metres from shore. The captain, crew and half of the enslaved people make it to shore. The Africans will be re-sold in South Africa’s Western Cape on 29 December. The wreckage will be discovered by divers in the 1980s, and will be identified as from the São José Paquete Africa in the 2010s. On 2 June 2015, a memorial ceremony will be held on the site for the 200 enslaved Africans who perished on the ship.

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South Africa is linked telegraphically to Europe with a submarine cable laid by the South African Telegraph Company, from Durban to Zanzibar and Aden. (pic: the Aden central telegraph office)

Lewanika, the king of Barotseland where the Lozi people live in an area that covers what will become Angola, Botswana, DRC, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, gives all Barotseland mineral rights to Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company in exchange for British protection. Lewanika feels threatened by the Ndebele people, and is feeling insecure after he was temporarily removed from power in 1884-1885 by his internal rivals.

Founded as Uganda Railways but covering much of Kenya, the company name changes again to Kenya and Uganda Railways and Harbours to reflect its management done of Kenya’s harbours, where passengers and shipping arrive and depart. (pic: poster with artist’s romantic vision of Mombasa’s port)

The Tunisian national railway, the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Tunisiens (SNCFT), is established, providing passenger and freight service and a rail link to Algeria to the west.

Visitors to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) number 79,000 this year, down from 350,000 in 1970 before the Rhodesian Bush War devastated the tourism sector. As insurgents battle the white minority government, international tourists no longer arrive to visit Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls). The remaining tourists are white South Africans.

France explodes a nuclear bomb half as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima in Algeria at the Saharan Military Experiments Centre. The explosion exposes the nomadic Touareg people to radiation, and draws protests from Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria and Japan.

The release (U.K.) of the film drama 11'09"01 September 11, with 11 international film directors telling stories of their countries’ reactions to the New York World Trade Centre terror attacks of 11 September 2001. Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and Burkina Faso director Idrissa Ouédraogo contribute short dramas lasting eleven minutes, nine seconds and one film frame.

The release of the movie Dry Season, marking a new height in Chadian filmmaking, is released. Set during Chad’s long civil war, the film by Chadian director Mahamat Saleh Haroun will earn critical praise and a Grand Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, amongst other awards.

The first trains roll on Senegal's TER regional express system. Taking five years to build and costing more than US$1 billion, the trains will slash commuting times and help decongest Dakar traffic. The electric system has 14 stations along its 55-km route.