On this day — August 29 in African history

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Michael Jackson, who would become one of the best-selling music artists in history and one of the most influential entertainers of the 20th century, was born in Gary, Indiana.

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Dinah Washington, the influential jazz and blues vocalist known as the "Queen of the Blues," was born Ruth Lee Jones in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Mohamed Amin, the Kenyan photojournalist whose harrowing footage of the 1984 Ethiopian famine helped spur the Live Aid relief effort, was born in Nairobi.

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Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian Islamist theorist whose writings influenced later militant movements, was executed by the Nasser government.

Islamist militants killed at least 98 villagers in the Rais massacre south of Algiers, one of the bloodiest episodes of Algeria's civil war.