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.
Mark Renders / European Communities, 1998, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1979 Junior officers of the Ghana Army overthrew General Fred Akuffo on 4 June 1979 and freed Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings from prison to lead the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.
Sources: Ghana News Agency ; The Guardian
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Politics
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1915 Modibo Keïta, who became Mali's first president after independence in 1960, was born in French Sudan.
Sources: Egypt State Information Service ; Encyclopedia.com (Gale) ; Présidence de la République du Mali (Koulouba), Les anciens Chefs d'Etat du Mali
Birth
U.S. Department of State, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1971 Joseph Kabila, who would later serve as President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born.
Sources: Al Jazeera ; Africa Confidential
BirthDambudzo Marechera, the acclaimed and unconventional Zimbabwean novelist and poet known for The House of Hunger, was born.
Sources: Journal of the University of Zimbabwe (via Michigan State University Libraries African Journals) ; BUALA
BirthCarmen Pereira, a leading figure in Guinea-Bissau's independence movement and the first woman to serve as the country's head of state, died.
Sources: University of Cambridge Library (Languages across Borders blog) ; Deutsche Welle ; Publico
Death