On this day: January 3 in African history

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Joseph Jenkins Roberts was sworn in as the first President of Liberia, becoming the first African American to lead an independent African republic.

Sources: BlackPast ; House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College ; Encyclopaedia Britannica

Simon Butler, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashed into the Red Sea shortly after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing all 148 people on board.

Sources: Aviation Safety Network ; Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation, hosted by the Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses pour la securite de l'aviation civile (BEA, France) ; Mulemba (Faculdade de Ciencias Sociais, Universidade Agostinho Neto), via OpenEdition Journals ; Cadernos do Tempo Presente (Universidade Federal de Sergipe) ; Assembleia Nacional de Angola, Lei n. 10/11 de 16 de Fevereiro (Lei dos Feriados Nacionais e Locais e Datas de Celebracao Nacional), via lex.ao

Boko Haram militants began several days of attacks on the town of Baga in northeastern Nigeria, among the deadliest episodes of the insurgency. The death toll is disputed: Nigeria's defence ministry put it at no more than 150, while other accounts placed it above 2,000, and Amnesty International said the true figure could be far higher than the official one.

Sources: Amnesty International ; Human Rights Watch

Joy Adamson, Austrian-born Kenyan naturalist and author of Born Free, was found dead at Shaba National Reserve in Kenya. Her death was first reported as a lion attack; she had in fact been stabbed, and a former employee was later convicted of her murder.

Sources: South African History Online ; The Washington Post

U.S. Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Edward Brooke, the first African American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, died at age 95.

Sources: The Washington Post ; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (U.S. Senate Historical Office / House Office of the Historian)

A general strike and popular uprising in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) forced President Maurice Yaméogo to resign, and the military under Lieutenant Colonel Sangoulé Lamizana took power.

Sources: University of South Florida (scholar commons) ; Central Intelligence Agency, FOIA Electronic Reading Room (document CIA-RDP79T00975A008700150001-9, mirrored on the Internet Archive) ; Center for Systemic Peace ; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (U.S. Senate Historical Office / House Office of the Historian)