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.
Udo Haafke, GFDL, Wikimedia Commons 1970 A Royal Air Maroc Caravelle crashed on approach to Casablanca, Morocco, killing 61 people and injuring 21 others.
Sources: Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives ; PlaneCrashInfo.com
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Disaster
Amir Bernat, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1933 Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Algerian-born French physicist who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on laser cooling, was born in Constantine, Algeria.
Sources: Nobel Prize (Nobel Foundation) ; Optica (formerly the Optical Society)
Birth
Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 1940 Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and founder of the Green Belt Movement who became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, was born in Nyeri, Kenya.
Sources: Nobel Prize (Nobel Foundation) ; Green Belt Movement ; Wangari Maathai Foundation
Birth
Gilles Caron, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1943 Titina Silá, a leading commander of the PAIGC independence movement in Guinea-Bissau, was born; she was killed in action in 1973 shortly before independence was won.
Sources: City of Boston ; Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE)
BirthMoses Blah, who served as the 23rd President of Liberia in 2003 following the resignation of Charles Taylor, died in Monrovia.
Sources: Embassy of the Republic of Liberia in the United States ; Front Page Africa
Death