On this day: April 7 in African history

Fanny Schertzer, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Rwandan government soldiers killed Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and the ten Belgian peacekeepers assigned to protect her, and systematic massacres of Tutsi began. The United Nations estimates that more than a million people were killed before the Rwandan Patriotic Front took military control on 4 July, and that between 150,000 and 250,000 women were raped.

Source: United Nations

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Booker T. Washington became the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

Sources: National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution ; Politico

Francoist Spain agreed to surrender its protectorate in Morocco, completing the process of Moroccan independence begun weeks earlier with France.

Sources: Library and Archives Canada / Trent University (Eduardo-Mateo Carrasco, MA thesis) ; Encyclopaedia Britannica

Dutch National Archives (ANeFo), CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Abeid Karume, the first President of Zanzibar and a key architect of the union that formed Tanzania, was assassinated in Zanzibar City.

Sources: President's Office and Revolutionary Council, Zanzibar ; U.S. Department of State ; Encyclopaedia Britannica

Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian-American drummer and educator whose album 'Drums of Passion' introduced African percussion to a global audience, was born in Ajido, Nigeria.

Sources: AllMusic (Netaktion LLC) ; The Independent ; The New York Times