On this day — August 13 in African history

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The Central African Republic gained independence from France, with David Dacko becoming its first president.

UK Government photo — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa that would launch later that year.

Morocco and Libya signed the Oujda Treaty establishing the short-lived Arab-African Union between the two North African states.

The Universal Negro Improvement Association, meeting in New York under Marcus Garvey, adopted the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, a landmark statement of Black rights and Pan-African solidarity.

EC Audiovisual Service, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Hissène Habré, who ruled Chad as president from 1982 to 1990 and was later convicted of crimes against humanity by an internationalized tribunal in Senegal, was born.

Gunmen massacred 156 Congolese Tutsi refugees at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi, one of the deadliest attacks of the Great Lakes region's conflicts.