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.
This page was corrected in October 2026 · see what changed
Photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran, U.S. News & World Report / Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1908 Thurgood Marshall, who became the first African-American justice of the US Supreme Court, was born in Baltimore.
Sources: U.S. National Park Service ; U.S. Department of Justice
Birth
Photographer unknown, Anefo / Nationaal Archief, CC0 1.0, Wikimedia Commons 1925 Patrice Lumumba, future first prime minister of the independent Democratic Republic of the Congo, was born in Onalua, Belgian Congo.
Sources: South African History Online ; New York Public Library
Birth
Unknown photographer (AP press photo, c. 1963), Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1925 Medgar Evers, civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, was born in Decatur, Mississippi.
Sources: U.S. National Park Service ; Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University
Birth
United Nations Development Programme (Flickr), CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 1948 Mutula Kilonzo, Kenyan lawyer and politician who later served as justice minister, was born.
Sources: ChimpReports ; Monitor (Kenya) ; Parliament of Kenya, National Assembly
Birth
Photo by Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, outlawing racial discrimination.
Sources: National Archives (U.S.) ; Miller Center, University of Virginia
PoliticsDona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, the Kongo prophetess who led the Antonian movement, was burned at Evululu, King Pedro IV's camp, after he had her tried for witchcraft and heresy. Thornton and Balandier date the burning to July 2; the historian Adrian Hastings gives July 1.
Sources: Cambridge University Press ; Internet Archive ; Journal of Religion in Africa
Read the full article: Kongo, Central Africa's Christian Kingdom
Death