On this day: October 25 in African history

Photo by Jack de Nijs, Nationaal Archief, CC0, Wikimedia Commons

Abebe Bikila died at 41 of a brain haemorrhage, four years after a car crash left him paralysed. He had won the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome running barefoot in a world best of 2:15:16.2, the first Black African to take an Olympic marathon title, and defended it in Tokyo in 1964 by more than four minutes, forty days after an appendectomy.

Sources: World Athletics ; Olympedia (Olympic results database compiled by the OlyMADMen Olympic historians) ; Olympedia ; Encyclopedia of World Biography (Gale), reprinted at Encyclopedia.com

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Nigerian educator, suffragist and women's rights activist known as "the Lioness of Lisabi," was born in Abeokuta.

Sources: African Studies Centre Leiden ; Nordic Journal of African Studies

U.S. Army, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was promoted to brigadier general, the first Black officer to reach general rank in the United States Army. His son, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., later became the first Black general in the United States Air Force.

Sources: Army Heritage Center Foundation ; National Museum of the United States Army

Paul Mwazha, Zimbabwean clergyman who founded the African Apostolic Church, was born.

Sources: International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) ; Zimbabwe Now

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 340, which called for an immediate and complete ceasefire in the Yom Kippur War, a return to the positions held at 1650 GMT on 22 October, and UN observers to monitor the truce; Israel accepted it.

Sources: United Nations ; U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian

Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed

Photo by www.photosbyalys, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Gregory Isaacs, Jamaican reggae singer known as 'the Cool Ruler' for his smooth vocal style, died.

Sources: Variety ; CBS News ; The Sydney Morning Herald