On this day — October 1 in African history

Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom, becoming Africa's most populous nation.

Sources: UK National Archives (legislation.gov.uk) ; Brooklyn Museum ; Vanguard (Nigeria)

FaridhaSL — CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Nigeria became a republic within the Commonwealth on the third anniversary of its independence, with Nnamdi Azikiwe as its first president.

Sources: UK Parliament (Hansard) ; Egypt State Information Service

Photo by John Healey, U.S. Embassy Monrovia — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

George Weah, future professional footballer and later President of Liberia, was born in Monrovia.

Sources: BBC News ; Encyclopedia.com (Gale, Contemporary Black Biography)

Photo by Fabbio — CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Youssou N'Dour, Senegalese singer who helped popularize mbalax music worldwide, was born in Dakar.

Sources: medici.tv ; Encyclopedia.com (Gale, Contemporary Musicians) ; Universal Music France

Smithsonian Institution Archives — Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Louis Leakey, British-Kenyan paleoanthropologist whose fossil discoveries in East Africa transformed understanding of human origins, died.

Sources: The Leakey Foundation ; University of Cambridge, Department of Archaeology ; Europeans in East Africa

The Marikana Commission of Inquiry, chaired by the retired appeal court judge Ian Farlam, held its first sitting. It sat for two years, found the police operation badly planned and badly led, and recommended a criminal investigation of the police. By the fourteenth anniversary of the shootings nobody had been prosecuted over 16 August.

Sources: South African Department of Justice ; Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa