On this day — August 3 in African history

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Jesse Owens won the first of his four Berlin Olympics gold medals, taking the 100-meter sprint title.

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Niger gained independence from France, with Hamani Diori becoming its first president.

Italian forces invaded British Somaliland from Italian East Africa, beginning a monthlong campaign that briefly brought the territory under Italian control.

An Anglo-Egyptian army decisively defeated a Mahdist Sudanese force at the Battle of Toski, checking the Mahdist State's northward advance toward Egypt.

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Habib Bourguiba, who would lead Tunisia to independence from France and serve as its first president for three decades, was born in Monastir.

Jonas Savimbi, the Angolan guerrilla leader who founded UNITA and fought a decades-long civil war after independence, was born in Munhango.

Portuguese colonial police opened fire on striking dockworkers in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, killing more than 50 in the Pidjiguiti massacre, a catalyst for the region's independence movement.

Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was overthrown in a bloodless military coup while attending a funeral in Saudi Arabia.