NASA — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1960 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser detonated ten tons of dynamite to begin construction of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile.
Sources: Deseret News ; Agence France-Presse, via The Jakarta Post
ScienceOn this day — January 9 in African history
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
NASA — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1960 
Lokal_Profil — CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons 2005 The Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Government of Sudan signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, ending the Second Sudanese Civil War and paving the way for South Sudan's eventual independence.
Sources: United Nations Peacemaker ; Peace Accords Matrix, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Politics
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1957 British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned, officially on grounds of ill health, two months after the failure of the Anglo-French intervention to retake the Suez Canal from Egypt.
Sources: Britannica ; Clinical Liver Disease (Hoboken), a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases
Politics
USAF, A1C William Firaneck — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1922 Ahmed Sékou Touré, who led Guinea to independence in 1958 and became its first president, was born (died 1984).
Sources: BlackPast ; Encyclopedia.com (Gale, reproducing Encyclopedia of World Biography / Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations entries)
Birth
jimincairns — CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 1933 Wilbur Smith, Zambian-born novelist known for his best-selling adventure novels set in Africa, was born (died 2021).
Sources: Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation ; The National (Abu Dhabi) ; Voice of America
Birth
Roosewelt Pinheiro — CC BY 3.0 BR, Wikimedia Commons 2012 Malam Bacai Sanhá, President of Guinea-Bissau, died in office at age 64.
Sources: The Washington Post ; VOA News (Voice of America)
DeathA funeral in Mozambique's Tete province turned deadly when locally brewed beer contaminated with bacterial toxins sickened 234 people. Early reports put the dead at 56; a peer-reviewed investigation later found the final toll was 75.
Sources: Al Jazeera ; Clinical Infectious Diseases (Oxford University Press / Infectious Diseases Society of America)
Tragedy