In what will become Morocco, early humans shape rocks for use as tools. Offering evidence that human ancestors lived in North Africa at this time, the tools will be discovered today (28 July) in the year AD 2021, outside Casablanca. Archeologists will find the discovery significant because there is little data from this prehistoric era.
During the annual flooding of the Nile River, Egypt’s ruler Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah hires one of history’s greatest scientific minds, Ibn al-Haytham, to find a way to harness the river. Al-Haytham will be remembered as “the father of modern optics,” whose groundbreaking work in the field led to the development of optical instruments and whose work in mathematics, astronomy and physics made him a celebrated leader of Islam’s Golden Age. After careful study, he will determine that the Nile can be controlled by a dam built upriver at Aswan, but he realises the technology of this time is inadequate for the task. Unwilling to give bad news to Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, a cruel despot who murders people on a whim, Al-Haytham will convincingly fake insanity. In 1970, the Aswan High Dam will be completed at the site he specifies.
Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, a high-ranking Fulani Muslim prince of West Africa, returns to his home in Gambia four years after he was captured and sold into slavery. He was a slaver himself, and was transporting two enslaved Africans owned by his father to market when he was kidnaped in 1730. He was sold first to America, and then to England, where his background was discovered. With the help of writer Thomas Bluett, his story will be made into an influential, early account by an African about his captivity: Some Memories of the Life of Job, the Son of the Solomon High Priest of Boonda in Africa; Who was enslaved about two Years in Maryland; and afterwards being brought to England, was set free, and sent to his native Land in the Year 1734. (pic: Portrait of Diallo painted in London in 1733 by William Hoare)
International telegraph service arrives on the West African mainland with a submarine cable laid by the West African Telegraph Company connecting Dakar, Senegal to Bathurst, Gambia; Boloma, Portuguese Guinea-Bissau; Conakry, French Guinea; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire; Accra, Gold Coast; Cotonou, Dahomey; Libreville, Gabon; St. Thomas, Principé, and Luanda, Angola. (pic: "The Cable Office" at Marina, Lagos, Nigeria)
The first motion picture studio in Southern Africa, the Killarney Film Company facilities, opens in Killarney outside Johannesburg, South Africa. Local actors and non-professional talent are used in South African stories shot on location in the Natal beaches of Durban and the Drakensberg Mountains.
The Serena Mansion Conference Centre is opened in Kampala by Uganda dictator Idi Amin for the 13th Summit of the Organisation of African Unity. During the summit, Nigeria’s president General Yakubu Gowan is informed that he has been removed from power by a coup d’état. The basement of the Serena Mansion Conference Centre houses torture chambers that are used by Amin and will later be used by Milton Obote against their political opponents real or imagined.
The home of Nelson Mandela, South Africa liberation leader who has been imprisoned for 25 years, is burned and gutted in the Johannesburg black township Soweto. Local high school boys attack a controversial teen gang inside the house who are associated with Mandela’s wife Winnie, and the house is burned. After the community rebuilds it, the home will be declared a Public Heritage Site in 1999.
Thirty years after television was introduced to Benin, only 4.5% of the population has access to a TV. There are three TV stations – a state-run public broadcaster and two private TV stations, reaching a combined total of 272,000 people. However, the digital TV revolution is coming, and by 2020, a government push to expand TV viewership will find 98% of Benin’s people able to watch TV.
U.S. President Barack Obama concludes his three-day trip to Ethiopia, the first U.S. president to visit the country, with an address to the African Union. He meets with Ethiopian government leaders to discuss East African economic and security issues.
World's tallest minaret is now in Africa, as finishing touches are put on Africa's largest mosque, the Great Mosque in Algiers. A dream since Algerian independence in 1962, the project has cost US$2 billion. 120,000 people can pray inside.
Mauritian civil rights activist, in Bombay, India. In Mauritius, the British-Indian doctor fought for the legal rights of the Indio-Mauritius community that was discriminated against in the British colony. He also published a newspaper in Mauritius. He then practiced law in Somalia, again championing minority rights.
Nigerian carpenter, in Enugu, Nigeria. Although he holds a master’s degree in architecture and an MBA in entrepreneurship, his lifelong passion for carpentry and African handicrafts led him to found Dazzle Carpentry Training Ltd. in 2006 to teach new generations of carpenters and interior designers.
