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.
Unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1934 Italian and Ethiopian forces clashed at Walwal in the Ogaden on 5 December 1934, an incident both sides blamed on the other and which Italy used as a pretext to invade Ethiopia the following year.
Sources: U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian (Foreign Relations of the United States 1935, Vol. I) ; University of Calgary (Scholars Portal thesis)
Corrected in September 2026 · see what changed
Politics
Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1935 Mary McLeod Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in New York City to advance the rights of Black women.
Sources: U.S. National Park Service ; Stanford University, Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute
Culture
Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons 2013 Nelson Mandela died at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, at 95, after a long respiratory illness. President Jacob Zuma announced it on television that night. South Africa held ten days of national mourning and buried him at Qunu on 15 December.
DeathRobert Sobukwe, South African Pan-Africanist leader who founded the Pan Africanist Congress, was born in Graaff-Reinet.
Sources: South African History Online ; Al Jazeera
Birth
Scipio Moorhead, Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1784 Phillis Wheatley, who was born in West Africa and enslaved as a child before becoming a celebrated American poet, died in Boston.
Sources: U.S. National Park Service ; Dartmouth College, Occom Circle Project
Death
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1977 Egypt broke diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen after President Anwar Sadat pursued separate negotiations with Israel.
Sources: TIME ; BBC News (On This Day)
Politics