The Mali Federation, uniting French Sudan and Senegal, gained independence from France; it dissolved months later into the separate states of Mali and Senegal.
IndependenceOn this day — June 20 in African history
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
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Skilla1st — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1991 Eritrea's 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia ended in victory for the Eritrean People's Liberation Front; June 20 is now observed annually as Martyrs' Day, honoring those who died in the struggle.
CultureBarbary corsairs from North Africa raided the Irish village of Baltimore, capturing most of its inhabitants to be sold into slavery — one of the most notorious slave raids on the British Isles.
History
Librairie Mollat — CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 1990 Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, the Senegalese novelist who later became the first sub-Saharan African writer to win France's Prix Goncourt, was born.
Birth
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1975 Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, Haiti's first trained anthropologist and a pioneering scholar of Haitian folklore, died in Nigeria.
Death
Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (photographer Hilscher), Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1915 South African forces began an outflanking advance during the World War I campaign to seize German South-West Africa.
Sources: South African Military History Society ; Scientia Militaria (SciELO)
History