On this day: April 27 in African history

Paul Weinberg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

South Africa's interim constitution came into force as the country held its first democratic general election, with citizens of all races able to vote for the first time.

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union ; South African History Online

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Mike Freer, GFDL, Wikimedia Commons

Nearly the entire Zambia national football team was killed when their military transport plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Libreville, Gabon, en route to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal.

Sources: CNN ; The Independent

Sierra Leone gained independence from the United Kingdom, a date the country still celebrates as its Independence Day.

Sources: BBC ; The Guardian

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Togo gained independence from France, becoming one of the first sub-Saharan French colonies to achieve sovereignty.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian (Foreign Relations of the United States) ; Royal Museum for Central Africa (AfricaMuseum)

Herman Hiller, Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Coretta Scott King, African-American civil rights leader and author who continued her husband Martin Luther King Jr.'s work after his assassination, was born in Marion, Alabama.

Sources: Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University ; U.S. Government Publishing Office, Congressional Record (109th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. 152)

The National Archives UK, Open Government Licence, Wikimedia Commons

Kwame Nkrumah died of cancer in Bucharest, six years after the army deposed him. He had led the Gold Coast to independence as Ghana in 1957, served as its first prime minister and then its first president, and was among the leading figures of pan-Africanism.

Sources: Graphic Online ; Ghana Studies

Read the full article: Kwame Nkrumah's Death in Exile and His Return to Ghana

Col. Charles Waterhouse, USMC Art Collection, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

In the First Barbary War, a mercenary force led by U.S. Marines under William Eaton captured the city of Derna in present-day Libya, later commemorated in the Marines' Hymn's 'shores of Tripoli.'

Sources: HISTORY (A&E Networks) ; National Museum of the Marine Corps

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Photograph by E. E. Caney, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Dinuzulu and his uncles Ndabuko and Shingana were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment on St Helena after being found guilty of high treason.

Sources: South African Historical Journal ; Jonathan Ball Publishers