Izz al-Din Aybak, the first Sultan of the Mamluks - the former slave warriors who have worked as mercenaries for Arab powers but have chosen Egypt as their own country to control - begins his reign. It will last until 1257. Other Mamluk rulers will follow, and the Mamluk dynasty will rule Egypt until 1517.
Estevanico (Mustafa Azemmouri), enslaved in North Africa when he was 22 and possibly of Sub-Saharan African origin, reaches Mexico City (pic) with four survivors of a group of 300 that departed Florida to establish Spanish settlements in America. After walking 3,000 miles, and escaping the Coahuiltecan people who enslaved him a second time (in what will become Texas), he is the first African and, with his companions, is the first non-Native American to see much of the American Southwest, including the American bison. In his 1542 book about their journey, another survivor will recall how Estevancio (called “the Black”) is the only one who can communicate with the Native American peoples they met.
The Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Congo (CCFC) is founded in the Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) to build a railway line from Mtadi to Léopoldville. The line’s completion in 1898 will be celebrated by colonial dignitaries on a First Class couch (pic), but with no acknowledgement of the 1,800 Congolese and 132 migrant workers who lost their lives during construction.
The Transvaal-Portuguese Commission begins its work on a boundary between South Africa and Portuguese Mozambique, with significant implications for Swazieland (Eswatini), which has seen its territory reduced by encroachments from both colonial powers.
The German colonial administration’s policy of using East Africans as forced labour to grow cotton for export revenue results in the Maji Maji Rebellion. The uprising unites both Islamic and animist peoples. Today, Matumbi men destroy a cotton crop and trading post in the protest. Their leader, Kinjikitile Ngwale (pic: right), will be executed on the nonsensical charge of treason (no African is a German citizen and they are fighting for their own nation). As he dies, he warns Europeans that they have planted the seeds of revolution.
Britain’s Secretary of State for the Colonies reports to the British parliament that the value of spices exported from Britain’s West African colonies has grown five-fold in six years, to £50,000 (equal to £6,4 million in 2022), almost all of it ginger, as the world recognises West Africa as a source of spices to rival Asia. (pic: Lagos, British Nigeria)
The German cruiser SMS Königsberg sets sail from Dar-es-Salaam during World War I to attack British commercial ships off the East African coast. By chance, the ship narrowly misses being spotted by naval cruisers from the Cape Squadron that have sailed up from British ally South Africa to sink her.
Radio comes to Gold Coat (Ghana) at 17:00 GMT as the Radio “ZOY” Service goes on the air. ZOY broadcasts in four languages – Fanti, Twi, Ga and Eweout – out of a small bungalow in Accra, with a staff of eight technicians. (pic: Radio ZOY in the 1950s)
Thirty years after radio broadcasting began in Gold Coast, television begins today in Ghana. The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation begins airing programmes in black and white. Colour broadcasting will start in 1985.
As the Eritrean War of Independence continues against Ethiopia, the Eritrean Liberation Front, having damaged two Ethiopian Airlines planes on the ground this year as demonstrations, warns passengers against flying Ethiopian Airlines.
To prevent genocide from occurring in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, the African Union and the U.N. partner in a joint peacekeeping mission, the U.N.–AU Mission in Darfur. This is the U.N.’s first joint peacekeeping mission, and its largest, at one point comprising nearly 20,000 military personnel, 3,772 police and 19 other police units of 140 personnel each, as well as 175 military observers, 786 international civilian personnel, 1,405 local civilian staff, and 266 U.N. volunteers. The mission will be extended in 2010, and will finally withdraw from Sudan in 2021.
2017 – Doctors in Damanhour, Egypt, worried that local restaurants are unhealthy and don’t follow hygienic regulations, open their own fast-food restaurant, D.Kebda, named after the popular kebda sandwich that if not properly made causes food poisoning. Employees dress in surgical gear, the kitchen is an “operating room,” and customers learn healthy eating.
Namibia is Africa's second largest trader with other African countries, doing 6% of all inter-African trade, reports the World Bank. Nigeria is #3, with 4.5%. Giant South Africa is first, with 26% of inter-African trade. Namibia’s role in intra-African trade is most impressive given its much smaller economy.
A new lab in Kampala, Uganda opens to produce genetically-modified mosquitoes. When released, the insects will breed with and sterlise malaria-bearing mosquitoes. Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali have joined US$25 million project.
Cabo Verdean author and publisher, in Boa Vista, Portuguese Cape Verde. The founder of two literary magazines and a publishing house, he has written histories and novels that have been adapted into films. He was awarded the Portuguese Order of Merit.
Burkinabe author and investigative journalist killed by the Blaise Compaoré regime, in Koudougou region, French Upper Volta. After being expelled from both secondary school and university for his political writings, he took up journalism. He reaped acclaim and controversy with his first novel, Le Parachutage, a criticism of Togo’s autocrat Gnassingbé Eyadema, for which he was arrested and tortured. He founded the Movement for Human and Peoples' Rights and the newspaper L'Indépendant. The newspaper embarrassed Compaoré with its exposures of his regime’s corruption and political machinations, and Zongo paid with his life in 1998 when presidential bodyguards killed him, his brother, his driver and an associate in a roadside ambush.
