On this day — September 11 in African history

South African Republic President Paul Kruger crossed into Mozambique to begin his exile during the Second Boer War, never to return to South Africa.

Sources: Anglo-Boer War Museum (War Museum of the Boer Republics) ; South African History Online ; Martin Marix Evans, Encyclopedia of the Boer War, 1899-1902

Militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Sources: U.S. Department of State (Accountability Review Board for Benghazi) ; The New York Times ; U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Storm Daniel burst the Abu Mansour and Derna dams above Derna in eastern Libya, sending about 30 million cubic metres of water down the Wadi Derna and through the middle of the city. Libyan authorities counted 4,540 dead and 3,297 missing; other counts that week gave 5,300 dead and 10,000 missing, and estimates since run higher still. Both dams were known to be damaged and had gone years without maintenance, and residents protested afterwards that they had been given no warning.

Sources: Science Advances ; Norwegian Refugee Council

Photo by John Mathew Smith — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the Little Rock Nine students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Sources: Encyclopedia of Arkansas (Butler Center for Arkansas Studies) ; Smithsonian Institution

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Jan Smuts, the South African field marshal and statesman who twice served as prime minister and helped found the League of Nations and United Nations, died at his farm near Pretoria.

Sources: South African History Online ; Encyclopaedia Britannica ; Journal of Contemporary History (SAGE)