On this day: August 16 in African history

Archives New Zealand, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Idi Amin died in exile in Jeddah, never having answered for his rule. The International Commission of Jurists put the dead under his government at not fewer than 80,000 and probably around 300,000; a count compiled by exile groups with Amnesty International gave 500,000. Uganda made no attempt to extradite or try him.

Sources: Human Rights Watch ; Daily Monitor

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

South African police shot and killed 34 striking miners at Lonmin's platinum mine near Marikana, the deadliest use of force by South African police since the Soweto uprising of 1976. At least 78 miners were wounded and about 250 arrested that day, on top of ten people killed earlier in the week, among them two police officers and two Lonmin security guards. Prosecutors then charged 270 of the arrested miners with the murders of the men the police had shot, using an apartheid-era common purpose doctrine, and withdrew the charges days later after a public outcry. By the fourteenth anniversary in 2026, no one had been prosecuted over the shootings of 16 August, and the nine officers charged over other deaths that week had all been acquitted.

Sources: South African Department of Justice ; France 24 ; Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Three African-born soldiers of the 1st West India Regiment, including the rebellion's leader Daaga, were executed in Trinidad for their role in the St. Joseph Mutiny.

Sources: Richard Gott, Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (Verso), chapter 38 ; J. N. Brierley, Trinidad: Then and Now (Franklin's Electric Printery, 1912), via Internet Archive

Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who served as president of Nigeria from 2007 until his death in office in 2010, was born in Katsina.

Sources: The Guardian (Nigeria) ; BBC News

Christian Lambiotte, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Morocco's air force fired on King Hassan II's plane in a failed coup attempt as he flew back to Rabat, the second attempt on his life in little more than a year.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian (FRUS 1969-1976, vol. E-5, part 2, doc. 126) ; La Vanguardia

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Photograph by E. E. Caney, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Dinuzulu's proclamation at Hlobane granted the Boers 1,355,000 morgen of north-western Zululand, on which they established the New Republic.

Sources: Jonathan Ball Publishers ; Internet Archive