Ceiling of Debre Birhan Selassie church, Gondar, Ethiopia. Photo: Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence · Source
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
This page was corrected in October 2026 · see what changed
The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeated the Mamluk Sultanate at the Battle of Ridaniya, bringing Egypt under Ottoman rule for the next four centuries.
Sources: TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi (Turkiye Diyanet Vakfi) ; Encyclopaedia Britannica (via Internet Archive)
History
Charles Edwin Fripp, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1879 Zulu forces overran the British camp at Isandlwana. Laband's two counts of the British dead are 1,250 (52 officers, 727 white and 471 black troops) and 1,329 (52 officers, 739 white troops, 67 white NCOs of the Natal Native Contingent and 471 black troops), a 75 per cent casualty rate he described as 'an utter rout which was the rarest of rare occurrences in a colonial campaign'.
Sources: Britannica ; Internet Archive ; Yale University Press
History
Painting by Alphonse de Neuville, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1879 Hours after Isandlwana, a small British garrison successfully defended the mission station at Rorke's Drift against a much larger Zulu force through the night.
Sources: Britannica ; National Army Museum
History
RuthAS, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 1973 A Boeing 707 chartered from Alia Royal Jordanian and flying for Nigeria Airways crashed on landing at Kano in harmattan dust and high winds, killing 176 of the 202 aboard. Most were Nigerian pilgrims returning from the Hajj. It remains the deadliest air disaster in Nigeria.
Sources: Aviation Safety Network ; TIME
TragedyGeorge Foreman knocked down champion Joe Frazier six times in two rounds to win the world heavyweight boxing title in Kingston, Jamaica.
Sources: World Boxing Council ; Reuters, as printed in The Michigan Daily, 23 January 1973, p. 7 (Bentley Historical Library digital archive, University of Michigan) ; Same page, image view
Sports