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1805

The head of the influential Busnach clan is assassinated in Algiers, an Ottoman Empire province. The killing is blamed on Jews. Tomorrow (30 May), the Janissary infantry unit of Ottomans will sack Algiers in search of Jews, killing between 200 and 500 people and causing chaos in the city.

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1805

1820

The U.S. Navy ship Dallas, enforcing an 1808 law prohibiting the importation of enslaved Africans, captures the heavily armed slave ship General Ramirez off St. Augustine, Florida. The captured ship is found to be carrying 280 enslaved Africans.

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1820

1825

Samuel Ajayi Crowther is ordained the first African Bishop of the Anglican Church. Kidnapped along with his family at age 12 in Osogun, Oyo Empire (Nigeria) by Fulani slave raiders, he was sold to Portuguese traders, but rescued from a slave ship by a British Navy anti-slavery patrol. Resettled in Sierra Leone, he impressed Anglican missionaries with his scholastic brilliance, and was sent to London to further his studies. He will be ordained a priest in 1843 after doing missionary work himself. While translating the Bible into Yoruba, he will earn the degree of Doctor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, and will be invited to meet England's Queen Victoria. He will read the Lord’s Prayer to her in Yoruba, a language she finds “melodious.”

 

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1825

1893

The Sultan of Morocco Hassan I leaves Fes for a six-month overland journey to Western Sahara, for the purpose of meeting with the heads of tribes and factions to unify the country. In 1892, he bought the very first automobile produced by Germany’s Daimler Morten Gesellschaft (later named Mercedes-Benz).

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1893

1904

The first piano to be played along the Zambezi River in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) is brought on the first excursion train of tourists from Cape Town to arrive at Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfall (Victoria Falls).

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1904

1927

Restoration of the Groot Constantia Manor House, one of South Africa’s oldest homes on South Africa’s oldest commercial wine estate, is finished, reports the Cape Times. Entirely gutted by fire two years ago, it will open to the public as a museum.

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1927

1956

In Belgian Congo, vocalist Vicky Longomba and musicians Jean Essous and Franco Luambo have formed the band OK Jazz, and are playing clubs on weekdays and weddings on weekends. As they recruit members – there will be 50 in all as the groups “multiplies” so that some can go on tour while others remain in Leopoldville (Kinshasa) – they will grow into a legendary musical institution (called TPOK Jazz from 1962) that will dominate the musical scene in the Democratic Republic of Congo from the 1960s to the 1980s.

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1956

1976

As the flag of Great Britain is taken down at midnight and the new national flag is raised at daybreak, Seychelles begins a new life as an independent country. The capital is Victoria. The national population is 60,504.

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1976

1992

As the Algerian Civil War begins, interim President Mohamed Boudaif, an independence fighter brought back from exile to head the government, is assassinated by his bodyguard. The killer will be tried in a secret military court, but never punished. Tens of thousands of supporters of the Islamic Salvation Front, which the military government bans, are held at a tented prison in the desert. Those who escape arrest will head to the hills to begin a ten-year guerilla war.

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1992

2010

Hinduism is Ghana’s fastest-growing religion, according to the national census. Converts keep their Christian names and Ghanaian surnames, but they give their children Hindu names like Rama and Krishna.

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2010

Births

1911
Dennis Osadebay

Nigerian poet, journalist and politician, in Asaba, Delta State, British Nigeria. One of the first Nigerian poets to compose in English, he was the first Premier of the Mid-Western Region (Edo State and Delta State) upon national Independence in 1960.

1917
Fulbert Youlou

The first President of the Republic of Congo, in Madibou, Moyen-Congo. An ordained priest, his enthusiasm for politics led him to become mayor of Brazzaville – the first African to be elected a mayor in French Equatorial Guinea. Riding his popularity to his election as Prime Minister in the run-up to Independence, he positioned himself to become the country’s first president. A ruthless leader, he sought to eliminate his political rivals, but was himself forced to resign by a popular uprising led by labour unions.

1958
Najla Bouden Romdhan

Tunisia's first female prime minister and the Arab world's first female prime minister, in Kairouan, Tunisia. An engineer by profession, she excelled in geology. Before she assumed political office on 11 October 2021, she was a professor of higher education at the National Engineering School of Tunis at Tunis El Manar University.