The House of Kinkanga is founded in the Kingdom of Kongo as Álvaro V Mpanzu a Nimi becomes Kongo’s ruler. His own powerful aristocracy along with two others will be immortalised in the Kongolese saying inspired by the traditional way of supporting a cooking pot: “Kinkanga, Kimpanzu and Kinlaza are the three stones on which Kongo cooked.”
German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck signs a charter to the Society for German Colonisation to establish a German protectorate over what in the future will become Burundi and Rwanda. When the German army enforces the decree, any people resisting the takeover of their country are slaughtered.
The South African Anglo-Boer War’s Siege of Ladysmith ends when British troops break through the Boer positions,. The people of the Natal Province town have been suffering from starvation and disease.
The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is proclaimed by the Polisario Front, which represents the Saharawi people of Western Sahara. The declaration is made after Morocco claims the territory for itself in defiance of an International Court of Justice ruling. The Saharawi group sets up a government in exile, and begins a guerrilla war against Morocco.
16 days after the end of his 27-year imprisonment for opposing apartheid, South African liberation leader Nelson Mandela meets officials of his political party, the African National Congress, in Lusaka, Zambia. The ANC moved its headquarters to Lusaka after the party was banned by South Africa's apartheid government.
The opening of the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange in Accra, Ghana. The cloverleaf-shaped interchange replaced the Akuafo Circle, Ghana’s largest roundabout. Ghana’s only motorway, the Tema Motorway, passes through the interchange.
The government of an increasingly autocratic Tanzanian President John Magufuli suspends publication of the widely read independent newspaper The Citizen, declaring that an article critical of Magufuli is “seditious.” He has shut down four newspapers since 2017.
Kenyan-born Somali fashion model Halim Aden tops the list of the Most Influential Africans in the Diaspora, compiled by the money transfer service WorldRemit.
President of Botswana (2008-2018), in Chertsey, U.K. He retired from military duty as Commander of the Botswana Defense Force to enter politics, becoming Vice President (1998-2008). Botswana was hailed as “an African success story” at the start of his administration, and he used the country’s status as a stable democracy to condemn such African autocrats as Sudan’s Omar Bashir and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
Kenyan long-distance runner, in Marakwet, Kenya. She is a two-time world champion, winning the 2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championships and the 2010 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships. Her 2010 half-marathon world record time went unchallenged for seven years.
