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.
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1943 German General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army launched a counter-attack against Allied positions in the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid during the Tunisia Campaign.
Sources: The London Gazette ; U.S. Army Center of Military History (George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West, ch. XXI)
BattleTwo tanker trains carrying fuel collided and derailed beside the oil depot at Nsam on the edge of Yaoundé. People came to collect the spilled fuel, and a dropped cigarette set off a fireball that ran back to the wrecked tankers. Early reports counted about 100 dead and state radio later gave 120, with more than 150 badly burned. Later accounts put the toll at 200 or more.
Sources: The Irish Times ; Deseret News
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Tragedy
CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 2018 Jacob Zuma resigned as President of South Africa under pressure from his own party.
Sources: South African Government ; BBC News
PoliticsCameroonian soldiers and armed ethnic Fulani raided the village of Ngarbuh in the North-West Region, killing at least 21 civilians including 13 children and a pregnant woman, and burning homes. The government first said five had died and called the reports fake, before an inquiry acknowledged that its troops were involved.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Tragedy
CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 1978 Danai Gurira, American-Zimbabwean actress and playwright, was born.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; The Whiting Foundation
Birth
CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 2018 Morgan Tsvangirai, 2nd Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and longtime opposition leader, died.
Sources: BBC News ; The Guardian ; South African History Online
Death
CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 2021 Sixty people drowned and hundreds went missing after an overloaded boat sank on the Congo River near Longola Ekoti in Mai-Ndombe province on the night of 14 February 2021.
Sources: BBC News ; Al Jazeera
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Tragedy