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.
We are adding a source to every entry in this archive. 4 of 5 on this page carry one so far. The rest were written before per-entry citations were recorded, so if you intend to rely on one, check it independently until its source appears here. See our sourcing methodology.
Illustration from "The Great War" (ed. H.W. Wilson, 1917), Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1916 The Battle of Delville Wood began during the Somme offensive, in which the South African Infantry Brigade suffered devastating casualties.
Sources: South African History Online ; Delville Wood Memorial and Museum
HistoryThe first troops of the United Nations Operation in the Congo, from Ghana and Tunisia, reached Léopoldville, a day after the Security Council authorised the mission. It was the UN's first large-scale peacekeeping operation, grew to about 20,000 troops, ended the Katanga secession in 1963 and withdrew the following year.
Sources: United Nations Office at Geneva ; UN News
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Politics
Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1799 The Rosetta Stone was discovered in the Egyptian town of Rosetta by French soldiers during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, later becoming the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Sources: History.com ; Encyclopedia.com
Science
CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1930 Jacques Derrida, the influential Algerian-French philosopher who founded deconstruction, was born in El Biar, French Algeria.
Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ; Encyclopedia.com
BirthEskender, who ruled as Emperor of Ethiopia during a turbulent minority reign, was born.
Birth