On this day — September 12 in African history

Public Domain (Cuba), Wikimedia Commons

Amílcar Cabral, the anti-colonial leader who founded the PAIGC and led the independence movements of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, was born in Bafatá, Portuguese Guinea.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; BlackPast.org

Public Domain (Ethiopia), Wikimedia Commons

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was deposed by a military junta known as the Derg, ending 44 years of imperial rule.

Sources: BBC ; Radio France Internationale (published via allAfrica.com) ; Encyclopaedia Britannica

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, founder of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, died from injuries sustained in police custody in Pretoria at age 30.

Sources: National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa ; BBC News ; South African History Online ; Encyclopaedia Britannica

A guesthouse at the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Ikotun, Lagos, collapsed, killing 115 people, 84 of them South Africans. Rescue workers said church officials obstructed them at the site. A coroner found in 2015 that the building had failed structurally and recommended prosecuting the church and two engineers; the church rejected the finding.

Sources: Associated Press ; CNN

Photo by NASA — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-47.

Sources: NASA ; Space.com ; Encyclopaedia Britannica

The city that became Salisbury, later renamed Harare, was founded by the Pioneer Column in Mashonaland, going on to serve as the capital of Rhodesia and then independent Zimbabwe.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; The Rhodesiana Society

The African and Malagasy Union, an early bloc of newly independent Francophone African states that cooperated on economic and diplomatic policy, was founded.

Sources: International Organization (Cambridge University Press) ; Union of International Associations (UIA Open Yearbook) ; Le Monde diplomatique