Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
We are adding a source to every entry in this archive. 5 of 7 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.
C. Williams — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1824 Ashanti forces defeated a British-led column at the Battle of Nsamankow in the Gold Coast, killing British Governor Charles MacCarthy in the opening battle of the First Anglo-Ashanti War.
Source: History Today
History
Somerset Playne — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1960 A coal mine collapsed at Coalbrook near Sasolburg in the northern Free State, South Africa, when pillars across some 324 hectares of workings caved in about 137 metres underground. None of the bodies was recovered. The government inquiry counted 437 dead; contemporary reports put the toll at 435. It remains the worst mining disaster in South African history.
Sources: Minerals Council South Africa ; Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (refereed paper, vol. 106, December 2006, pp. 857-868) ; UK Parliament, House of Commons Hansard, 8 February 1960
TragedyMainza Chona was born near Monze in Northern Rhodesia. He chaired the commission Kenneth Kaunda appointed in 1972 to design Zambia's one-party state. Its more liberal recommendations, a two-term limit on the presidency and an end to detention without trial, were dropped from the constitution that followed. Chona was the first prime minister of the republic when the office was revived in 1973, serving to 1975 and again from 1977 to 1978.
Sources: National Assembly of Zambia ; Canadian Journal of African Studies
Birth
European Communities — CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1933 Habib Thiam, Senegalese politician who twice served as prime minister of Senegal, was born (died 2017).
Birth
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1963 Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigerian-American basketball Hall of Famer and two-time NBA champion with the Houston Rockets, was born.
Birth
Democratic Labour Party — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1920 Errol Barrow was born in Barbados. He flew as an RAF navigator in the Second World War, led the Democratic Labour Party, served as premier from 1961, took Barbados to independence in November 1966 and became its first prime minister. He held the office to 1976, returned to it in 1986 and died in it the following year.
Sources: LSE History ; Totally Barbados
Birth
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1872 Yohannes IV was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia at Aksum, reviving a coronation rite the Solomonic emperors had let lapse since Iyasu I in the 1690s.
Sources: Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies (Universitat Hamburg), vol. 16 (2013), pp. 74-101 ; Encyclopaedia Britannica
History