Ribeira Grande (which from the late 18th century will be known as Cidade Velha) has been established during the last few months by Portuguese settlers on Santiago, the largest of Cabo Verde’s islands. This is the first permanent European settlement to be built in the tropics anywhere in the world.
Stephen Allen Benson becomes Liberia’s second president after a career trajectory typical of the leaders of the new country, who all held multiple positions. He had been Liberia’s Vice President and Secretary of the Treasury, as well as a Methodist minister, successful merchant and judge.
The Potchefstroom High School for Boys opens in South Africa’s Northwest Province, on the site of a concentration camp where Afrikaner prisoners were brutally interred during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The school replaces one built to education boys who were held at the camp.
The South African pilots of the No. 26 Squadron RFC arrive in Mombasa to fight with the British against German East Africa during World War I.
The publication of The Weary Blues, the first collection of poems of 24 year-old African-American poet Langston Hughes, in New York. Establishing Hughes as the poetic spokesman for the emotions and experiences of the African Diaspora are such poems as Afraid:
We cry among the skyscrapers
As our ancestors
Cried among the palms in Africa
Because we are alone,
It is night,
And we’re afraid.
Colour photography is providing a complete visual record of African life and culture, revealing the continent as never before. As these pictures appear in magazines, an interest in Europe grows for African fabrics, like the Asante people’s boldly patterned kente cloth.
The Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement, signed in 1941 between Britain (pressured to do so by the U.S.) and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, goes into effect today. The treaty returns the country to Ethiopian sovereignty after Italy, which conquered Ethiopia in 1935, was removed by Britain during World War II.
A constitutional amendment advocated by Ghana President Kwame Nkrumah to make him president for life and to make his administration a legal dictatorship is passed with 99.91% of the vote by official tally. The results were condemned by independent observers as “obviously rigged.” (pic: 22 year-old World Heavyweight boxing champion Mohammed Ali, dressed in Ghanaian kente cloth, and Nkrumah in 1964)
During this month of January while he has been Viceroy of northern Somalia, General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, former bodyguard and now son-in-law to Somalia dictator Siad Barre, proposes a "final solution" to the "Isaaq problem, " setting in motion the genocide of the Isaaq people. Morgan will earn the name “Butcher of Hargeisa” as he and Barre murder up to 200,000 Isaaq civilians.
On the 60th anniversary of the first meetings of the U.N. General Assembly and U.N. Security Council, Ghana’s Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary-General, outlines extensive reforms for the world body.
For the first time, Angola hosts the Africa Cup of Nations (26th edition). The 16 participating national teams are reduced to 15 after terrorists attack the bus carrying Togo’s team traveling to their game in the Cabinda province. Egypt wins an unprecedented third consecutive title.
Military leader of Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), in Dianra, Upper Volta. Installed in a 1966 military coup d’état, he was overthrown in 1980 in another military coup d’état.
Benenise film director and historian, in Porto-Novo, French Dahomey. Moving to Senegal at age 10 he was mistaken by many as Senegalese because his work was done in that country, including his films (1954 through 1982) and four books documenting African cinema history. In 1969, he founded the Fédération panafricaine des cinéastes.
Kenyan photojournalist, in Nairobi, British Kenya. One of East Africa’s first international photojournalists and the first African photographer to be hired by Life and Time magazines, he was killed while covering the Nigerian Civil War in 1968.
South African Afrikaner nationalist and white supremacist, in Ventersdorp, Transvaal, Union of South Africa. The founder of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistence Movement), he advocated violence to preserve apartheid.
South African musician and record producer, in Tzaneen, South Africa. The trend-setting musician popularised “Bolobedu” dance. In collaboration with Burna Boy and Nomcebo Zikode in 2020, he created the international hit Jerusalema that inspired an on-line dance sensation.
