German missionaries Carl Hugo Hahn and Franz Heinrich Kleinschmidt arrive at a place on the Swakop River in southwestern Africa in what will one day become Namibia, which they choose to build a church with the goal of evangelising the Herero people. The mission will fail after the Herero flee the area when attacked by the forces of Jonker Afrikaner, the founder of Windhoek, the future capital of Namibia. However, Hahn and Kleinschmidt are expert linguists, and they produce important studies on the indigenous languages – Hahn documenting the Herero and Kleinschmidt doing the Nama.

The Expositional Universelle closes, bringing to an end the Paris International Exhibition featuring the Eiffel Tower. Representing Africa were the national exhibits of Egypt, Morocco (pic) and South Africa.

As the anti-colonial Mau Mau Rebellion continues in British Kenya, 1,077,500 Kenyans have now been forcibly removed from their homes by British forces, and relocated into 854 “villages.” People have been forced to burn their old homes to prevent their use by Mau Mau rebels.

Africa provides the U.S. with the opportunity to show it is the world’s preeminent power when U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower (pic: left, with Egypt’s President Gamal Nasser) tells Britain and France not to invade Egypt after Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal. By obeying Washington, Britain and France are now seen as colonial-era has-beens. Eisenhower also tells Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev to stop threatening to bomb Western Europe with nuclear weapons if France and Britain invade Egypt. Moscow ends its threats.

Television comes to Nigeria as Western Nigeria Television goes on the air, in Ibadan. This is the first television service in sub-Saharan Africa.

A ceasefire ends the Yom Kippur War, The conflict began with an Egyptian attack on Israel on 6 October, the Yom Kippur religious holiday in Israel.

In the Uganda-Tanzania War, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere and his generals are surprised by the invasion of the army of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Radio Tanzania admits to listeners that Uganda now occupies the country’s northwest, and reports that a counter-attack is being planned.

A Provisional Government comes into force in Madagascar, stripping President Didier Ratsiraka of much of his power after widespread discontent with his rule. The end of the Cold War also ends one-party rule in Madagascar as well as in many African states whose non-democratic leaders have benefitted from Soviet Union patronage.

South Africa’s National Assembly passes a bill permitting abortion within the first 12 weeks of a woman’s pregnancy.

At the G20 Investment Summit now in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (in pic between Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa) urges German investors to forget about Asia and seek opportunities in Africa's "huge" emerging markets.

More evidence of Climate Change impact on Africa: Morocco's Abdelmoumen Dam, the essential water source for the Souss-Massa region, has virtually dried up. Now at 1% of capacity, the dam was built when rains were regular and streams feeding the reservoir ran dependably.