On this day: March 26 in African history

Press, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in Washington, D.C.

Sources: BBC (On This Day) ; U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian

The African Regroupment Party, a pan-African political movement in French West Africa, was launched in 1958 and held its constitutive congress at Cotonou, Dahomey, in the last days of July that year.

Sources: Le Monde diplomatique ; AfricaBib (African Studies Centre Leiden)

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

About fifteen men with axes and knives killed the inhabitants of Oued Bouaïcha, south of Algiers near Djelfa, and took three young women away. Counts give 47 dead including 27 children, or 52 including 32 under the age of two. Eleven more people were killed the same day at Youb, on the other side of the country. As with the rest of that year's massacres, nobody was identified as responsible.

Source: Human Rights Watch

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Ahmed Sékou Touré, the first President of Guinea, died.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; The New York Times (UPI dispatch)

Alexander Bassano, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Cecil Rhodes, British-South African mining magnate and colonial politician whose land seizures shaped southern Africa, died.

Sources: South African History Online ; Encyclopaedia Africana ; Rhodes Trust (Rhodes House, Oxford)

At Benin City, the British vice-consul Henry Gallwey obtained a protection treaty from the court of Oba Ovonramwen. The Oba would not touch the pen, and his chiefs touched it after his name had been written for him. The treaty bound him to accept British advice on his government and opened the kingdom to traders and missionaries.

Sources: Internet Archive ; Internet Archive

Read the full articles: The Kingdom of Benin, the Edo State Ruled From Benin City · 1897 and the Benin Bronzes