Africa Today/Yesterday Logo

1844

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.

#
1844

1889

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.

#
1889

1955

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.

#
1955

1956

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.

#
1956

1959

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

#
1959

1973

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.

#
1973

1978

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.

#
1978

1991

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.

#
1991

1996

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

#
1996

2018

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.

#
2018

2020

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.

#
2020

Births

1825
Charles Lavigerie

Archbishop of Carthage (Libya) and Algiers (1867-1884) and Carthage (Libya, 1884-1892) and Catholic Primate of Africa, in Bayonne, France. Determined to convert North and Central Africans to Catholicism, he founded the Société des missionnaires d’Afrique (known as the White Fathers because of the white robes they wore). He was a fierce anti-slavery activist, and on a lecture tour of Europe he drew attention to the Central African Arab slave trade.

1920
Dedan Kimathi

Kenyan anti-colonial revolutionary, in Nyeri District, Central Province, British Kenya. The spiritual but also military leader of the Mau Mau Rebellion that sought to drive British colonialists from his country in the 1950s, he was captured and hung by British authorities. An inspiration to African independence fighters like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, he and his fellow militants were specifically recognised in Kenya’s 2010 constitution as national heroes.

1939
Ali Farka Touré

Malian musician and one of Africa’s all-time best instrumentalists, in Timbuktu, Mali. The trailblazer of the Desert Blues musical genre, he combined elements of North African folk music with contemporary styles, and became one of Africa’s most internationally-renowned musicians.