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.
IDF Spokesperson's Unit, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons 1976 Palestinian and German hijackers commandeered Air France Flight 139 and forced it to land at Entebbe, Uganda, setting the stage for a dramatic Israeli hostage-rescue raid days later.
Sources: Keesing's Contemporary Archives (copy hosted by Stanford University) ; BBC World Service
History
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1977 Djibouti gained independence from France, becoming the last French colony in mainland Africa to do so.
Source: South African History Online
Independence
Government of Zimbabwe, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 2008 Zimbabwe held a presidential run-off election which Robert Mugabe contested as the only remaining candidate after Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, citing violence against his supporters; Mugabe won 85 per cent of the vote.
Sources: US Government Publishing Office ; NPR
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Politics
YellowMonkey/Blnguyen, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1983 Dale Steyn, one of the fastest and most successful fast bowlers in South African cricket history, was born.
Sources: ESPNcricinfo ; BBC Sport
Birth
CC0, Wikimedia Commons 1948 Dorothea Bleek, the South African linguist and anthropologist known for her studies of San (Bushman) languages and folklore, died.
Sources: University of Cape Town Libraries (AtoM archival catalogue) ; UNESCO Memory of the World
Death