Invading Portuguese soldiers burn and destroy Kilwa Kisiwani, one of the great Swahili cities of East Africa, on an island off the coast of what will become Tanzania. In 1981, the entire island, rich with archeological discoveries, will be declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The first theatre in South Africa built solely for the purpose of showing motion pictures is opened in Durban. It is named The Electric Theatre.
Africa’s greatest maritime mystery occurs when the SS Waratah, with 211 passengers and crew aboard, fails to arrive on schedule in Cape Town. The ship has vanished without a trace. After more than a century of searching with increasingly sophisticated apparatus, no wreckage will ever be found.
The coronation is held of Egyptian King Farouk I, age 17, who succeeded his father King Fuad I in 1936.
Morocco’s Ethnographic Museum of Tetouan is opened in a palace-like fortress built by the Alawite Sultan in 1830.
At a meeting of South Africa’s liberation organisation the African National Congress and the Indian National Congress, the apartheid government is given until 29 February 1952 to revoke discriminatory laws. A massive Defiance Campaign to oppose apartheid policies is proposed for 1952. (pic: lawyer and ANC official Nelson Mandela)
Equatorial Guineans dare not oppose the country’s dictator Francisco Macías Nguema, whose bloody reign of terror will eventually kill 80,000 of them, and so they pass a national plebiscite that legalises his absolute power as President for Life. School children must recite his self-given titles - “Unique Miracle" and "Grand Master of Education, Science, and Culture" – and churches are required to display his photo with captions indicating that it is God who does the bidding of Nguema: “God created Equatorial Guinea thanks to Macías.”
The Monrovia Church Massacre becomes the single worst atrocity committed during the Liberian Civil War. 600 people are killed by soldiers loyal to President Samuel Doe. The soldiers and Doe were of the Krahn ethnic group, and the massacre victims are Gio and Mano peoples who support the rebels. Only a small number of children survive, by hiding under the bodies of slain adults. The massacre will push countries of the Economic Community of West African states to send in an intervention force.
Zambia wins its first medal at an Olympics when Samuel Matete takes silver in the Men’s 400 metre hurdles at the Summer Olympic Games.
Botswana’s largest shopping mall, Game City Mall, opens in Gaborone, covering 50,000 square metres.
Angola’s Luanda-Bengo Special Economic Zone is created by cabinet to encourage industry, ICT and start-up companies. The project will fail to significantly diversify Angola’s economy away from oil, and in 2021 the development, located outside Angola’s capital, will be transformed into an international free trade zone.
Ghanaian botanist, in Accra, Gold Coast. The pioneer of the botanical science in West Africa, he published more than 250 papers, particularly in plant pathology, which influenced African governments’ agricultural, conservation and forestry policies. His study of fungi that attack cocoa beans significantly assisted West African cocoa growers.
Prime Minister of Cabo Verde (2000-2001), in Mindelo, Cabo Verde. Although he specialised in finance – as Cabo Verde’s Minister of Economic Coordination and as Minister of Finance before becoming premier - his passion for writing was lifelong. After leaving office, he published a novel in 2002, and another in 2004.
South African scientist and public health specialist, in Durban, South Africa. His work as an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist became of critical importance during the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the 1990s onward and the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. In addition to advising the South African government, he was Chairperson of the UNAIDS Scientific Expert Panel and Chairperson of the World Health Organisation's HIV and Hepatitis Scientific and Technical Advisory Group.
