A black-and-white view of a train crossing a steel railway bridge over a wide river.

Moa River Bridge, Sierra Leone, 1910s. Photo: Lisk-Carew Brothers, Freetown, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (African Studies Centre Leiden). Licence · Source

1880 – 1949

The Colonial Era & the Scramble for Africa

The Berlin Conference, the partition of Africa among European powers, colonial administration, resistance movements, and the world wars' impact on the continent.

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On This Day

Winifred Brunton, English-South African painter known for her portraits of ancient Egyptian pharaohs, was b… (1880)
Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama. (1881)
Zaccheus Mahabane, a clergyman who twice served as President-General of the African National Congress in th… (1881)
Cleopatra's Needle, the ancient Egyptian obelisk, was formally presented to the City of New York at the Met… (1881)
The Battle of Majuba Hill took place during the First Boer War, resulting in a decisive Boer victory over B… (1881)
Tunisia became a French protectorate under the Treaty of Bardo. (1881)
Muhammad Ahmad declared himself the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam, in Sudan, launching the Mahdis… (1881)
The British Mediterranean Fleet began the bombardment of Alexandria, Egypt, opening the Anglo-Egyptian War. (1882)
The Boer Republic of Stellaland was founded in Southern Africa, in what is now the North West province of S… (1882)
Cetshwayo, in England to plead for his restoration, met Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wigh… (1882)
Garnet Wolseley's army crossed the desert at night and overran the Egyptian entrenchments at Tel el-Kebir a… (1882)
Edwin Barclay, President of Liberia from 1930 to 1944, was born in Brewerville, Montserrado County. (1882)
Shewan forces under the future Ethiopian emperor Menelik II defeated the army of Gojjam at the Battle of Em… (1882)
Nationalist riots against foreign domination broke out in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Urabi revolt, killi… (1882)
The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 marked out the colonial-era territorial boundary between Guinea and Sie… (1882)
Herbert Bankole-Bright, a physician and political activist who headed the National Council of Sierra Leone,… (1883)
Cetshwayo was installed as ruler of the central district of Zululand at Mthonjaneni, restored to part of hi… (1883)
Zibhebhu's Mandlakazi routed the uSuthu army at Msebe in the Zulu civil war. Laband records more than a tho… (1883)
Emir Abd al-Qadir (Abdelkader El Djezairi), the Algerian resistance leader who fought French colonization,… (1883)
Germany took possession of Togo, establishing a colonial protectorate in West Africa, after commissioner Gu… (1884)
Dinuzulu's proclamation at Hlobane granted the Boers 1,355,000 morgen of north-western Zululand, on which t… (1884)
The Berlin Conference opened, where European powers negotiated the partition of Africa among themselves wit… (1884)
St. Elmo Brady, the first African American to earn a PhD in chemistry, was born. (1884)
Cetshwayo died at Eshowe, where he had placed himself under British protection. The medical officer who exa… (1884)
The Boers proclaimed the sixteen-year-old Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo king of the Zulu. (1884)
uSuthu forces with Boer volunteers defeated Zibhebhu's Mandlakazi at Tshaneni, avenging their rout at Msebe… (1884)
King Leopold II of Belgium took personal possession of the Congo Free State, a private colony held in his o… (1885)
Marthinus de Villiers, composer of the melody later used in South Africa's national anthem 'Die Stem', was… (1885)
Alain Locke, philosopher and the first Black Rhodes Scholar, who became known as the intellectual architect… (1885)
A British column marching to relieve Gordon at Khartoum was attacked at Abu Klea by Mahdist forces, who bro… (1885)
Malak Hifni Nasif, pioneering Egyptian feminist writer and early advocate for women's education, was born. (1886)
Charles Lwanga and companions, a group of Christian converts executed on the orders of the Buganda king for… (1886)
Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born Pan-Africanist who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and… (1887)
Sir Arthur Havelock told the uSuthu leaders at Eshowe that 'the rule of the House of Chaka is a thing of th… (1887)
The Kaapse Klopse (Cape Minstrel) carnival is generally dated to 1887, when the first organised troupe is t… (1887)
Kojo Tovalou Houénou, Beninese lawyer and early pan-Africanist intellectual who prominently criticized Fren… (1887)
King Lobengula of Matabeleland granted the Rudd Concession, exclusive mining rights in his kingdom, to agen… (1888)
Brazil's 'Golden Law' abolished slavery, making it the last country in the Western Hemisphere to do so. (1888)
An Anglo-Egyptian force under Francis Grenfell destroyed a Mahdist army of about 6,000 men that had crossed… (1889)
Claude McKay, the Jamaican-born poet and novelist whose work helped define the Harlem Renaissance, was born… (1889)
Emperor Yohannes IV of Ethiopia was fatally wounded at the Battle of Matamma on the Sudanese border, fighti… (1889)
Dinuzulu and his uncles Ndabuko and Shingana were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment on St Helena afte… (1889)
Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia signed the Treaty of Wuchale with Italy, a pact whose disputed translation l… (1889)
Bangui, now the capital of the Central African Republic, was founded on the Ubangi River by French colonial… (1889)
The city that became Salisbury, later renamed Harare, was founded by the Pioneer Column in Mashonaland, goi… (1890)
Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first African Anglican bishop and a pioneer of written Yoruba, died. (1891)
Mahmoud Mokhtar, regarded as the father of modern Egyptian sculpture, was born. (1891)
Haile Selassie, who became Ethiopia's emperor and a symbol of African independence, was born. (1892)
At Benin City, the British vice-consul Henry Gallwey obtained a protection treaty from the court of Oba Ovo… (1892)
Vernon Johns, African-American minister and early civil rights pioneer who preceded Martin Luther King Jr.… (1892)
The Ibadan area of present-day Nigeria became a British protectorate under a treaty signed by Fijabi, the B… (1893)
Fewer than 700 British South Africa Company troops with Maxim guns broke repeated Ndebele charges at Bembez… (1893)
British South Africa Company forces occupied Bulawayo after King Lobengula burned his capital rather than l… (1893)
A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Ndebel… (1893)
Mohandas Gandhi was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, after refusing to move from a fir… (1893)
Bevil Rudd, South African runner who won Olympic 400m gold in 1920 and later became a sports journalist, wa… (1894)
Bessie Smith, African-American blues singer known as the 'Empress of the Blues' and one of the most influen… (1894)
Eugene Bullard, the first African-American military pilot, who flew for France in World War I, was born in… (1895)
William V. S. Tubman, who became Liberia's longest-serving president and is remembered as the "father of mo… (1895)
Fountains Valley in Pretoria, the first game sanctuary in Africa, was proclaimed by President Paul Kruger. (1895)