Browse the year
February
29 days, 29 stories. Pick a date — or jump straight to one:
- 1 2022 Guinea-Bissau's Failed Coup Attempt
On February 1, 2022, gunmen stormed the government palace in Bissau during a cabinet meeting. A five-hour gun battle followed, and eleven people were killed. President…
- 2 1990 De Klerk Unbans the ANC
On February 2, 1990, President F. W. de Klerk stood before South Africa's all-white Parliament and unbanned the ANC, the Pan Africanist Congress, and the Communist…
- 3 1969 Eduardo Mondlane Assassinated by Letter Bomb
On February 3, 1969, Eduardo Mondlane, founder and president of FRELIMO, the movement fighting Portuguese rule in Mozambique, was killed by a parcel bomb in Dar…
- 4 1961 Angola's Armed Struggle Begins
On February 4, 1961, MPLA militants stormed police stations and the São Paulo prison in Luanda, trying to free political prisoners. Around forty militants died in…
- 5 2005 Eyadéma's Death and the Dynastic Succession
On February 5, 2005, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who had ruled Togo for thirty-eight years, died of a heart attack aboard a plane evacuating him for treatment abroad.…
- 6 2013 Tunisia's Chokri Belaid Assassinated
On February 6, 2013, Chokri Belaid, Tunisia's most prominent secular opposition leader, was assassinated outside his Tunis home. The killing of a leading voice against the…
- 7 2009 Madagascar's Black Saturday
On February 7, 2009, Madagascar's presidential guard opened fire on thousands of unarmed opposition protesters marching on the palace in Antananarivo. At least 31 people were…
- 8 2017 Somalia's Hangar Election
On February 8, 2017, Somalia's parliament elected Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed "Farmaajo" president inside a heavily fortified hangar at Mogadishu's airport. Al-Shabab attacks made a normal vote…
- 9 1992 Algeria's Black Decade Begins
On February 9, 1992, Algeria's military-backed rulers declared a state of emergency, the decree that opened the country's "Black Decade" of civil war. It followed annulled…
- 10 1947 Italy's African Empire Falls
On February 10, 1947, Italy signed the Paris Peace Treaty, and Article 23 forced it to renounce all claim to Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia. With one…
- 11 1990 Mandela Walks Free
On February 11, 1990, at 4:14 p.m., Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster prison near Cape Town, free after 27 years, six months and one…
- 12 1979 N'Djamena Erupts
On February 12, 1979, Chad's capital N'Djamena erupted when Prime Minister Hissene Habre's forces turned on President Felix Malloum's government troops. The fighting tore apart a…
- 13 1976 Murtala Muhammed Assassinated
On Friday, February 13, 1976, Nigeria's head of state, General Murtala Muhammed, was gunned down in Lagos traffic by soldiers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Bukar Dimka, just…
- 14 2016 Central African Republic Votes for Peace
On February 14, 2016, the Central African Republic held the runoff of its presidential election, a vote meant to end years of sectarian war that had…
- 15 2024 Senegal's Court Saves the Election
On February 15, 2024, Senegal's Constitutional Council struck down President Macky Sall's decree postponing the presidential election, ruling it had no legal basis. The court also…
- 16 1990 Sam Nujoma Becomes Namibia's First President
On February 16, 1990, Namibia's National Assembly unanimously elected Sam Nujoma as the country's first president, five weeks before independence. The SWAPO founder had led nearly…
- 17 2011 Libya's Day of Rage Against Gaddafi
On February 17, 2011, Libyans answered the call for a "Day of Rage" against Muammar Gaddafi's forty-two-year rule. Protests that had ignited two days earlier in…
- 18 2010 Niger's President Seized in a Palace Coup
On February 18, 2010, soldiers stormed Niger's presidential palace and seized President Mamadou Tandja during a cabinet meeting. Tandja had engineered a referendum to erase term…
- 19 2011 Djibouti's Arab Spring Uprising
On February 19, 2011, tiny Djibouti joined the Arab Spring, and its streets turned deadly. Thousands had rallied the day before, demanding President Ismail Omar Guelleh…
- 20 2011 Morocco's February 20 Day of Dignity
On February 20, 2011, tens of thousands of Moroccans marched in more than fifty cities, the country's biggest anti-establishment protests in decades. The leaderless youth coalition,…
- 21 1994 The Assassination That Lit Rwanda's Fuse
On February 21, 1994, Rwanda's Minister of Public Works Félicien Gatabazi, a moderate Hutu and opposition leader, was shot dead at the gate of his Kigali…
- 22 2002 The Bullet That Ended Angola's 27-Year War
On February 22, 2002, government troops ambushed UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi in Moxico Province. Fifteen bullets ended the man who had kept Angola at war for…
- 23 2019 Nigeria's Midnight Election Postponement
Nigerians finally voted in their presidential election on February 23, 2019, one week late. At 2:45 a.m. on February 16, INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu had announced…
- 24 1966 The Fall of the Osagyefo: Nkrumah Overthrown
On February 24, 1966, while Kwame Nkrumah was in Beijing on a Vietnam peace mission, Ghana's army and police struck in a coup codenamed "Operation Cold…
- 25 1986 The Mutiny That Humiliated Mubarak
On February 25, 1986, some 25,000 conscripts of Egypt's Central Security Forces, the regime's own riot police, mutinied in and around Cairo. A rumor sparked the…
- 26 2003 Darfur's Rebellion Erupts
On February 26, 2003, the Darfur Liberation Front claimed an attack on the town of Golo, the spark historians mark as the beginning of the Darfur…
- 27 1976 A Republic Born in the Desert Night
On February 27, 1976, the day after Spain abandoned Western Sahara, the Polisario Front proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic from the remote outpost of Bir…
- 28 2008 The Handshake That Stopped Kenya's Bleeding
On February 28, 2008, Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga signed the National Accord in Nairobi, ending two months of post-election violence that had killed over 1,200…
- 29 1960 The Agadir Earthquake
On February 29, 1960, at 11:40 p.m., an earthquake struck Agadir, on Morocco's Atlantic coast. It measured about 5.8 in magnitude, modest on paper, but its…