On this day — August 17 in African history

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Gabon gained independence from France, with Léon M'ba becoming its first president.

George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born Pan-Africanist who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and inspired generations of Black nationalist movements, was born in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

Ruth First, the South African anti-apartheid journalist and academic, was killed by a letter bomb sent by South African security agents to her office at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique.

Moses Majekodunmi, the Nigerian physician who served as the first federal administrator of the Western Region during a 1962 political crisis, was born.