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.
Tanganyika and Zanzibar united to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which was renamed Tanzania later that year.
Sources: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs ; Encyclopaedia Britannica
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Read the full article: Tanganyika's Independence, December 9, 1961
Independence
Paul Weinberg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 1994 South Africa began its first multiracial general election, a four-day vote won decisively by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress and marking the formal end of apartheid.
Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) ; South African History Online
Politics
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 2005 Elisabeth Domitien, who served as the first and only female Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, died.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; SBS News ; CNN
Death