On this day — September 16 in African history

Miriam Benjamin, who became the second African American woman to receive a U.S. patent for her Gong and Signal Chair for hotels, was born.

Cape Verde, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe were admitted to the United Nations, months after gaining independence from Portugal.

Public Domain (Italian colonial administration of Libya), Wikimedia Commons

Omar Mukhtar, the Libyan resistance leader known as the 'Lion of the Desert' who led guerrilla warfare against Italian colonization for two decades, was captured and publicly executed by Italian forces.

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Jamshid bin Abdullah, who became the last sultan of Zanzibar before being deposed in the 1964 revolution, was born.

Photo by Fotopersbureau De Boer — CC0, Wikimedia Commons

Breyten Breytenbach, the South African poet and painter whose imprisonment for anti-apartheid activities made him an internationally known symbol of resistance to the regime, was born in Bonnievale.