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.
Ahmad I ibn Mustafa, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1846 The Bey of Tunis issued a decree abolishing slavery in Tunisia, making it the first country in the Muslim world to formally end the practice.
Sources: UNESCO Memory of the World ; American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR)
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
History
Sanadalahlafi, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1943 Troops of the British Eighth Army captured Tripoli, Libya from the German-Italian Panzer Army during World War II's North African campaign.
Sources: Commonwealth War Graves Commission ; South African History Online
History
ASC Leiden, Coutinho Collection, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1963 PAIGC guerrilla fighters attacked Portuguese Army forces stationed in Tite, officially beginning the Guinea-Bissau War of Independence.
Sources: Deutsche Welle ; Jornal No Pintcha (Guinea-Bissau)
IndependenceGeneral Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, Siad Barre's son-in-law and his military governor in the north, sent the president a secret memorandum setting out measures against the Isaaq: economic strangulation, military assault, and a reorganisation of institutions to push Isaaq people out of them. It became known as the death letter. The campaign that followed between 1987 and 1989 killed an estimated 200,000 Isaaq civilians and levelled much of Hargeisa and Burao.
Sources: Isaaq Genocide Documentation Project ; The Nation / Pulitzer Center
TragedyMutinying Burkinabè soldiers led by Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba deposed and detained President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré amid widespread anti-government protests.
Sources: Al Jazeera ; BBC News ; Reuters
Politics
WOMEX, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 2018 Hugh Masekela, South African jazz trumpeter and outspoken anti-apartheid voice through music, died at age 78.
Source: Britannica
Death
Jshecket, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 2019 Oliver Mtukudzi died at a clinic in Harare at 66, after years of treatment for diabetes. Zimbabwe declared him a national hero.
Sources: NPR ; Al Jazeera
DeathKing Henrique II of Kongo died. His death opened a fight over the succession between his eldest son, Álvaro, and his nephew Pedro Elelo, the heir by Kongo custom, who was crowned as Pedro V in 1859.
Source: Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro
Read the full article: Kongo, Central Africa's Christian Kingdom
Death