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.
Slavery was formally abolished in Mauritius, freeing 66,343 people. They were then required to work on for their former owners as apprentices, a system that ran until 1839, while the British Crown paid Mauritian slaveholders more than £2.1 million in compensation. Mauritius keeps 1 February as a public holiday.
Sources: UNESCO Memory of the World ; Le Matinal
Abolition
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1906 Adetokunbo Ademola, Nigerian jurist who became the 2nd Chief Justice of Nigeria, was born.
Sources: National Judicial Council of Nigeria ; The Independent
Birth
Roman Deckert, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1932 Hassan al-Turabi, influential Sudanese Islamist politician and scholar, was born.
Sources: The Guardian ; Al Jazeera
Birth
CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 1972 Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading a women's movement to end the Second Liberian Civil War, was born.
Sources: Nobel Prize (Nobel Foundation) ; BBC News
Birth
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1998 Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne became the first African American woman promoted to rear admiral in the U.S. Navy.
Sources: United States Navy ; Military.com
AchievementSeventy-four people were killed and more than 500 injured at Port Said Stadium in Egypt after a league match between Al Masry and Al Ahly. Many died crushed against a locked exit gate while trying to escape. Eleven people were later sentenced to death over the disaster.
Sources: Atlantic Council ; France 24 ; Al Jazeera
Tragedy