Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
We are adding a source to every entry in this archive. 4 of 5 on this page carry one so far. The rest were written before per-entry citations were recorded, so if you intend to rely on one, check it independently until its source appears here. See our sourcing methodology.
Fidodog14 — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1879 British forces invaded the Zulu Kingdom, beginning the Anglo-Zulu War, one of the defining conflicts of southern Africa's colonial era.
Sources: National Army Museum (London) ; HISTORY.com (A&E Television Networks)
PoliticsThe founding congress of the African Convention (Convention Africaine) opened in Dakar, joining Léopold Sédar Senghor's Senegalese Popular Bloc with parties from Upper Volta and Niger. It was an attempt to build a bloc in French West Africa outside Félix Houphouët-Boigny's African Democratic Rally, whose own congress that year met in Bamako in September.
PoliticsGunmen killed at least 100 people at Sidi Hamed, 30 kilometres south of Algiers, in one of the deadliest massacres of Algeria's civil war. The interior ministry put the toll at 103 dead and 70 wounded, the highest it had acknowledged for a single attack; the newspapers El Watan and Liberté, citing survivors, reported about 400 killed, which the ministry denied.
Sources: Human Rights Watch ; Reuters, via Deseret News
TragedyA French special forces raid to free Denis Allex, an intelligence agent held by al-Shabaab since 2009, failed at Bulo Marer in southern Somalia. Two French commandos were killed, along with at least 17 militants and at least eight civilians. Paris said the hostage was executed by his captors; al-Shabaab claimed he had survived.
Sources: CNN ; Gulf News (AFP wire)
Politics
Wikimedia Commons (GFDL) 1903 Alan Paton, South African author of Cry, the Beloved Country and anti-apartheid activist, was born (died 1988).
Sources: South African History Online ; Encyclopedia.com (reproducing Gale's Encyclopedia of World Biography)
Birth