Construction is underway in Dar es Salaam for a royal guest house (pic: left) next to the palace of Zanzibar Sultan Majid bin Said. The sultan controls the coastal area of what will be Tanganyika. The palace will eventually be demolished, but the house will remain to become Old Boma, one of Tanzania’s oldest buildings.
The parliament of Britain’s Cape Colony in South Africa passes the Griqualand West Annexation Act, which allows the seizure of the area of Kimberley. Competition among European colonists of South Africa is heated over the area, where significant diamond deposits have been found. The Orange Free State, a Boer Republic, also claims Kimberly. The territorial rivalry that will be a factor in the lead-up to the First Anglo-Boer War.
An armistice ends the Korean conflict. The South African Air Force, in Korea to assist the U.N. mission, has lost 34 pilots killed in action, while eight have been taken prisoner. The highest U.S. military honour awarded to foreigners, the Silver Star, is given to two South African pilots. When the South Africans fly away from the U.S. air bases where they are stationed, the South African national anthem is played, and the order is given, “All personnel will render the honour to this anthem as our own."
Release of the film drama Cairo Station, by Egyptian director Youssef Chahine. The film’s subjects, Egypt’s urban working class, gender-based violence and sexual repression, would have been impossible before the 1952 national revolution freed directors to explore sensitive, relevant themes, and will again be impossible after Egypt’s film industry is nationalised in 1966.
Although Democratic Republic of Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba (pic: centre, left) wishes to free his country of ties with the West, he is not a communist as his critics claim, and arrives today in Washington to seek U.S. military support against secessionist rebels who have begun civil war in DRC. He is told that the U.S. will only provide aid through the U.N. He will receive the same response from the Canadian government when he travels to Ottawa on 29 July.
Ethiopian runner Miruts Yifter wins his first gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games in the 10,000 metres. He will earn his second gold medal by winning the 5,000 metres.
Uganda President Milton Obote is overthrown for the second time by a military coup d’état (the first was led by Idi Amin in 1971). Amnesty International estimates that the Obote regime has been responsible for 300,000 civilian deaths throughout Uganda.
Dr. Beko Kuti, Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Society and member of the British Commonwealth Human Rights Committee, is arrested by Nigeria’s military dictator Sani Abacha. A dedicated activist against Nigeria’s succession of military governments, he will be tried in a kangaroo court, and spend three years in solitary confinement for committing “treason.”
At Virunga Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a gorilla mother gives birth to twins. The park’s 605 gorillas make up 60% of Africa's 1,000 remaining gorillas, and with nine gorilla babies born here thus far in 2018, the gorilla population shows signs of making a comeback against determined human predators.
Today's Croquet World Championship in Sussex, England will have more Egyptian than English competitors. Egyptian men have won nine of the last 12 world championships, and Egyptian women have won three of the last six world championships.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama, an avid basketball player, joins the new Basketball Africa Association, the continental top-tier professional basketball league that just concluded its first season. He is a strategic partner and minority stakeholder. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was Kenyan.
Nigerian women’s rights activist and politician, in Creek Town, British Nigeria. Attending political meetings in the 1940s in place of her husband, who as a British civil servant was barred from attending, she became an organiser against colonial racial discrimination. She also organised a trade union for Aba market women. Through her efforts, female voters outnumbered male voters in Aba by 1955. As Nigeria moved toward Independence under male leadership, she asserted the rights of Nigerian women so they would not be sidelined.
South African nurse who played a crucial role in the 1952 Defiance Campaign against racist apartheid laws, in Hlobane, South Africa. For her activism, her family was constantly harassed by security forces.
Zambian runner and Zambia's first track and field world champion, in Chingola, Zambia. His win in 1991 at the Tokyo World Championship was the first time an African became a World Champion in the 400 metres hurdles, his specialty race. His personal best of 47.10 seconds, recorded at Weltklass Zurich also in 1991, remains the African record for the 400 metres hurdles in 2022.
Zambian champion athlete, in Chingola, Zambia. He was Zambia’s first Olympic Games medalist when he took silver in the Men’s 400 metres hurdles at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. When he earned gold at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo in the 400 metres hurdles, he became the first African athlete to become world champion in that event and Zambia’s first track and field world champion.
