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1814

The Treaty of Paris that settles territorial claims arising from the Neopoleonic Wars awards Seychelles to Britain, which chooses to administer the islands as a dependency of its Crown Colony of Mauritius.

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1814

1896

Construction begins on the Uganda Railway, which will run the length of Kenya from Mombasa’s port and inland to Uganda. The line will be completed in 1901.

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1896

1903

The British parliament passes a resolution on the atrocities and human rights abuses carried out by Belgium’s King Leopold II through his personal colonial businesses in the Belgian Congo. (Pic: Children who fail to meet the daily rubber harvesting quota have their hands cut off.) The resolution asks that “measures may be adopted to abate the evils prevalent in that State (Belgian Congo).”

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1903

1908

The opening of the Municipal Art Museum of Algiers, French Algeria. What will one day develop into the National Museum of Fine Arts of Algiers is housed in a former army barracks that is poorly lit and situated in a dilapidated part of town, discouraging visitors. It will be replaced in 1930.

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1908

1919

Belgium and Britain sign the Anglo-Belgium agreement where Britain gives Belgium Ruanda-Urundi (Rwanda and Burundi) in exchange for control of German East Africa (Tanzania). No Africans are consulted about the change of ownership over their lands.

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1919

1924

In Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), the Legislative Assembly is founded as a unicameral parliament (no Upper House of Senate is ever created despite being mentioned in the constitution). Two MPs are elected from 15 districts. “Natives” are technically allowed to vote, but a required literacy test and a property and financial requirement effectively disenfranchises Africans.

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1924

1933

In British Nigeria, the Sultan of Sokoto in Kaduna and the Emir of Gwandu inform the British colonial Lieutenant-Governor they wish to donate part of their government salaries to pay for the salaries of European school teachers, in order to support the education of Nigerian children. The global depression has hit hard colonial government revenue (which dropped from £8,268,928 in 1926 to £4,857,612 in 1931) and Governor Cameron has slashed the education budget by a third between 1920 and 1934, requiring the dismissal of European teachers.

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1933

1956

U.S. jazz legend Louis Armstrong (pic: fourth from left) arrives in Accra, Gold Coast (Ghana) on a goodwill visit, and leads his band and local trumpeters on the airport tarmac in a rousing When the Saints Go Marching In. Armstrong will both influence local Highlife music, a fusion of African rhythm and American jazz, and be influenced himself by the style. Four years ago, English activist against South Africa's apartheid system, Father Trevor Huddleston, told Armstrong about a talented South African boy who wished to be a musician, and Armstrong gifted one of his trumpets to teenage Hugh Masekela, who will become South Africa’s foremost jazz trumpeter.

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1956

1963

Although politically and economically a puppet of South Africa’s apartheid government, the “independent homeland” of Transkei commences “self-government.” The scheme is part of the Grand Apartheid plan to strip black South Africans of their citizenships and make them “citizens” of fictional “countries,” leaving ownership of South Africa to the white minority.

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1963

1967

After negotiations fail in Ghana to prevent civil war in Nigeira, Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu declares that the Eastern Nigeria state is now the sovereign state of Biafara.

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1967

2021

The Basketball Africa League, the new top-tier continental professional basketball league, begins its first season with 12 teams playing. The first champion will be Egypt’s Zamalek, after playing Tunisia’s US Monastir in the season finals held at Kigali Arena in Rwanda.

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2021

Births

1921
Jamie Uys

South African film director and actor, in Boksburg, Transvaal, Union of South Africa. He directed 24 films primarily in the Afrikaans language, including the 1980 global comedy hit The Gods Must Be Crazy. His personal favourites were is popular wildlife films shot in the Kalahari Desert.

1964
Fantani Touré

Malian singer, in Bamako, Mali. Born into nobility and forbidden by Islam to sing in public, she defied convention at the urging of fellow musician Toumani Diabaté, the great kora player who persuaded her to join his concert orchestra. Her first CD N’tin Naari, released in 1997, was a hit produced by Salif Keïta, who is considered perhaps Mali’s greatest singer.

1974
Andry Rajoelina

President of Madagascar, in Antsirabe, Madagascar. A DJ by profession, following a 2009 coup d’état by the military, he was installed by the junta to head government, and served until 2014. In 2019, he was legitimately elected President in a democratic election.