Pasha Muhammad Ali and his descendants are awarded hereditary rule over Egypt and Sudan within the Ottoman Empire, under the Convention of Alexandria signed today. In exchange, Ali renounces his claims over Crete and Syria, agrees to stay within the Ottoman Empire, and downsizes Egypt’s large fleet. Although he has been defeated by Austrian-British-Turkish forces, Britain fears that Egypt will fall into chaos without Ali’s leadership. The treaty secures his rule.
At Christianborg, Gold Coast (Ghana), the Salem School, a boys’ boarding middle school, is opened, and will become the oldest continuously operating school in the world established by the Basel Evangelical Mission of Switzerland. Pioneering Liberian educator George Thompson teaches at the school. Instruction is in English and the Ga language. A comprehensive curriculum includes arithmetic, geography, history, religious knowledge, nature study, hygiene, handwriting and music.
The two largest cities of Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), Lourenço Marques (Maputo) and Beira, are connected by a submarine telegraph cable. (pic: office to write, send and receive telegraph messages)
Competing over control of Morocco, France and Spain sign a treaty that turns a portion of northern Morocco into a Spanish protectorate. No Moroccans were consulted during the negotiations. (pic: French troops in Morocco, 30 March 1912)
French architect Le Corbusier previews his plan to destroy historic Algiers, Algeria and replace it with a modernistic “vertical garden city,” at a meeting of architects in Chicago. Algiers’ legendary Casbah and centuries of traditional architecture would be bulldozed to make way for the skyscrapers of a new city devoted to industry, where 180,000 people would live under a giant highway and Europeans would be segregated from Algerians. The world will be spared a cultural calamity when French colonial authorities never approve the city planning scheme. One of his proposed octagonal skyscrapers is built in New York as the MetLife Building.
Ethiopia is liberated from Italian control by the British and its allied forces from Africa and India (pic), who travel in camel caravans. Italians surrender the northern city Gondar, ending the Battle of Gondar. The battle has seen 32 British soldiers killed verses 4,000 Italian and African soldiers fighting for Italy who are killed. The country of Italian Ethiopia, “the Pearl of the Fascist Regime,” lasted only five years. Its fall ends the Allied Forces' East African Campaign, and it is their first major victory of World War II.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda gets underway in Arusha, Tanzania. The tribunal will prosecute those responsible for the 1994 Rwanda genocide against the Tutsi people, and those who carried out murderous acts and crimes against humanity.
Taiwan loses its second to last African diplomatic ally, as South Africa announces it will sever ties and establish full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. Now only Swaziland (Eswatini) recognises Taiwan. (pic: Taiwan embassy in Eswatini)
Guinea-Bissau’s National People’s Assembly votes unanimously that President João Vieira must resign, so that civil war may end. Vieira refuses. Fighting will continue until the military removes him from power in May 1999.
The C.H. Mitchell Bridge, a vital transportation link connecting South Africa’s Eastern Cape and KwaZulu/Natal Provinces, is bombed by a white separatist terror group that calls itself the Boeremag. The quick repair of one of South Africa’s longest truss arch bridges will be hailed as an engineering accomplishment.
Ghana marks “The Year of the Return,” a year-long observation of the 400th anniversary of the arrival for the first shipment of enslaved West Africans to America, in 1619. Members of the global African Diaspora are encouraged to visit the land of their ancestors. To encourage back-to-Africa migration, Ghana today grants citizenship to 125 African-Americans.
Leader of the Boers (Afrikaners) and a founder of the Republic of South Africa, in Graaff-Reinet, Dutch Cape Colony. South Africa’s administrative capital Pretoria is named after him.
Ghanaian Catholic Archbishop, in Elmina, Cape Coast, Gold Coast. From his 1949 thesis at St. Peter’s College in Rome comparing and reconciling Catholic marriage law and the marriage customs of his people in Ghana, to his study on the ceremonial pouring of libations by Ghanaians in remembrance of their ancestors, he believed that an understanding of people’s ways was necessary to spread the Gospel.
President of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1997 until his assassination in 2001, in Jadotville, Belgian Congo. He proved Che Guevara's opinion of him correct, that he had leadership qualities but did not possess "revolutionary seriousness," when he spent the 1960s smuggling gold and timber and running a brothel in Tanzania. Tanzania President Julius Nyerere and future presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda also urged him to take politics seriously. The rebel army he commanded to oust dictator Mobutu Sese Seko achieved its objective in 1997. He named himself President, tore up the constitution, and changed the country’s name from Mobutu’s Zaire back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was killed by his bodyguard in an attempted coup d’état. His son, Joseph Kabila, assumed power.
President of Djibouti (1990 to present), in Dire Dawa, British Ogaden. Known to most Djiboutians by his initials IOG, he rules in a dictatorial fashion, giving family members high government positions. His human rights violations have been documented by international groups. His rule has also been characterised by national stability in an unstable Horn of Africa/Middle East.
