On this day — August 3 in African history

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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

Sources: U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum ; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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

Sources: South African History Online ; HistoryWorld

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

Sources: Saxafi Media ; Omniatlas

An Anglo-Egyptian force under Francis Grenfell destroyed a Mahdist army of about 6,000 men that had crossed into Egypt under the emir Wad al-Nujumi, who was killed trying to rally his troops. It ended the Mahdist state's attempt to carry the war north.

Sources: The Spectator (archive) ; History of the 14th/20th King's Hussars

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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

Sources: Encyclopedia.com ; Deseret News (AP)

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

Sources: South African History Online ; Encyclopedia.com

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.

Sources: Africa Is a Country ; Bibliomonde ; Afriques en Lutte

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

Sources: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy ; Council on Foreign Relations