Ceiling of Debre Birhan Selassie church, Gondar, Ethiopia. Photo: Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence · Source
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Obote as its first prime minister.
Sources: legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives) ; Encyclopedia.com (Gale) ; Encyclopaedia Britannica
Read the full article: Uganda's Independence, October 9, 1962
Independence
CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1906 Léopold Sédar Senghor, poet and statesman who became the first President of Senegal, was born in Joal.
Sources: Academie francaise ; Editions Larousse
Birth
U.S. Air Force / French military, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1895 Eugene Bullard, the first African-American military pilot, who flew for France in World War I, was born in Columbus, Georgia.
Sources: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum ; New Georgia Encyclopedia ; San Diego Air & Space Museum
BirthMary Ann Shadd, abolitionist and the first Black woman newspaper publisher in North America, was born in Wilmington, Delaware.
Sources: Dictionary of Canadian Biography ; National Women's History Museum ; National Park Service
BirthAn earthquake destroyed most of the Spanish-held city of Oran, killing at least 2,000 people, with contemporary accounts putting the figure as high as 3,000, and producing a tsunami along the Mediterranean coast.
Sources: Fisica de la Tierra (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) ; NAGET (ICTP)
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Disaster
Unknown author, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1898 Tawfiq al-Hakim, Egyptian playwright and novelist regarded as a pioneer of modern Arabic drama, was born.
Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica ; Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism
Birth
Photo by Tore Sætre, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1934 Abdullah Ibrahim, South African jazz pianist and composer whose piece 'Mannenberg' became an anti-apartheid anthem, was born in Cape Town.
Sources: South African History Online ; The Wire
Birth
Photo by Auto-épreuve, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 2004 Jacques Derrida, Algerian-born French philosopher who founded the school of deconstruction, died in Paris.
Sources: University of California (Academic Senate In Memoriam) ; Voice of America
DeathSolomon Lar, Nigerian politician who served as governor of Plateau State and became founding chairman of the People's Democratic Party, died.
Sources: Vanguard ; Channels Television
Death