On this day: August 11 in African history

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Chad gained independence from France, with François Tombalbaye becoming its first president.

Sources: Embassy of Chad in the United States (official) ; Britannica

The arrest of Marquette Frye, a young Black motorist stopped on suspicion of drink-driving, set off six days of unrest in Watts, Los Angeles. Thirty-four people were killed, more than a thousand injured and property damage ran past $40 million. The McCone Commission, appointed by the governor, put the causes at unemployment, poor public transport, bad housing and racial discrimination.

Sources: Charles R. Drew University ; Civil Rights Digital Library

Liberian President Charles Taylor resigned and went into exile in Nigeria amid civil war and international pressure, handing power to his vice president.

Sources: Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone ; ReliefWeb (Reuters)

James Mancham, who became the first president of Seychelles upon its independence in 1976, was born.

Sources: Seychelles Nation ; Club de Madrid

Max Theiler, the South African-American virologist who won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing a vaccine against yellow fever, died.

Sources: Nobel Prize (Nobel Foundation) ; Singapore Medical Journal

Hamid Mir, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

A meeting of Osama bin Laden, Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaders and other militants in 1988 culminated in the formal founding of al-Qaeda.

Sources: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States ; CTC Sentinel (U.S. Military Academy at West Point)

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed