Ceiling of Debre Birhan Selassie church, Gondar, Ethiopia. Photo: Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence · Source
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
Bernard Gotfryd Collection, Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1963 James Meredith became the first African-American student to graduate from the University of Mississippi, a milestone of the civil rights movement.
Sources: Civil Rights Digital Library (University of Georgia Libraries) ; Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery ; University of Mississippi Libraries (eGrove)
HistoryAnti-apartheid activist Steve Biko was arrested at a police roadblock near Grahamstown, South Africa; he died in police custody less than a month later.
Sources: National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa ; South African Department of Justice (Truth and Reconciliation Commission media archive, SAPA)
History
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, died at age 80.
Sources: UN News ; Nobel Prize (NobelPrize.org)
DeathHifikepunye Pohamba, who served as the second president of Namibia from 2005 to 2015, was born.
Sources: Parliament of Namibia ; BBC News
BirthTaher Elgamal, the Egyptian-American cryptographer whose ElGamal encryption scheme underpins modern digital signature standards, was born in Cairo.
Sources: The Marconi Society ; NNDB ; Network World
BirthSouth Africa was banned from the Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee over its apartheid policies, a suspension that lasted until 1992.
Sources: BBC News ; Olympics.com (International Olympic Committee)
Sports