Browse the year
March
31 days, 31 stories. Pick a date — or jump straight to one:
- 1 1896 The Battle of Adwa
On March 1, 1896, Emperor Menelik II's Ethiopian army crushed Italy's invading force near the town of Adwa, ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War. It was a…
- 2 2009 Guinea-Bissau's President Assassinated
On March 2, 2009, Guinea-Bissau's President João Bernardo Vieira was killed when soldiers stormed his home in Bissau. His death came just hours after his rival,…
- 3 1959 Malawi's Martyrs' Day
In the early hours of March 3, 1959, colonial police fanned out across Nyasaland, today's Malawi, arresting Hastings Kamuzu Banda and hundreds of freedom leaders in…
- 4 1932 Miriam Makeba, Mama Afrika, Is Born
On March 4, 1932, Zensi Miriam Makeba was born in Prospect Township near Johannesburg. The world would come to know her as Mama Afrika. Her voice…
- 5 1955 South Africa's Non-Racial Trade Union Is Born
On March 5, 1955, the South African Congress of Trade Unions held its founding conference in Johannesburg. For the first time, African, Indian, coloured, and white…
- 6 1957 Ghana Wins Independence
On March 6, 1957, the Gold Coast became Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African colony to win independence. At Accra's Old Polo Grounds, Kwame Nkrumah declared Ghana…
- 7 2005 Africa Demands a Veto: The Ezulwini Consensus
On March 7 and 8, 2005, the African Union's Executive Council met in Addis Ababa and adopted the Ezulwini Consensus, Africa's common position on United Nations…
- 8 1957 Ghana Joins the United Nations
On March 8, 1957, just two days after independence, Ghana was admitted to the United Nations as its eighty-first member state. A nation only two days…
- 9 1841 The Amistad Africans Win Their Freedom
On March 9, 1841, the United States Supreme Court ruled seven to one that the Mende Africans of the slave ship Amistad had been illegally enslaved…
- 10 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302
On March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 bound for Nairobi, crashed six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all…
- 11 1978 Didier Drogba Is Born
On March 11, 1978, Didier Drogba was born in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, the striker who became Africa's greatest football export. At Chelsea he turned into the…
- 12 1968 Mauritius Gains Independence
On March 12, 1968, at the Champ de Mars Racecourse in Port Louis, Mauritius became a free nation after centuries under Dutch, French, and British rule.…
- 13 1935 Kofi Awoonor, Ghana's Ewe Poet, Is Born
On March 13, 1935, Kofi Awoonor was born in Wheta, in Ghana's Volta Region, the eldest of ten, raised on his grandmother's Ewe dirge songs. He…
- 14 1878 Alexander du Toit, Champion of Continental Drift
On March 14, 1878, Alexander du Toit was born in Newlands, Cape Town, the geologist who gave science the map that proved continents move. When the…
- 15 1959 Ben Okri, Booker-Winning Novelist, Is Born
On March 15, 1959, Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria, the boy behind one of African literature's most celebrated novels. His childhood stretched from Peckham…
- 16 1978 Ghana's Third AFCON Crown
On March 16, 1978, Ghana's Black Stars beat Uganda two-nil in the African Cup of Nations final at a packed Accra Sports Stadium, lifting the continental…
- 17 1992 White South Africans Vote to End Apartheid
On March 17, 1992, white South Africans voted overwhelmingly, 68.7 percent to 31.2 percent, to end apartheid, in the final election ever restricted to white voters.…
- 18 1977 The Assassination of Marien Ngouabi
On March 18, 1977, President Marien Ngouabi of the Republic of Congo was shot dead in Brazzaville. He was thirty-eight. Ngouabi had seized power in a…
- 19 2002 Zimbabwe Suspended from the Commonwealth
On March 19, 2002, the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe for a year, the first public rebuke of Robert Mugabe by a body that included influential African nations.…
- 20 1956 Tunisia Gains Independence
On March 20, 1956, at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, French foreign minister Christian Pineau declared that France solemnly recognized the independence of Tunisia, ending the…
- 21 1960 The Sharpeville Massacre
On March 21, 1960, about five thousand people gathered at the police station in Sharpeville, South Africa, leaving their passbooks at home in a protest organized…
- 22 1945 The Arab League Is Founded in Cairo
On March 22, 1945, the Arab League was formed in Cairo, Egypt, as an outgrowth of Pan-Arabism. Its founding member states were Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq,…
- 23 1988 The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale Ends
On March 23, 1988, the last major attack on Cuito Cuanavale, in southern Angola, was brought to a halt, ending the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. Fought…
- 24 2013 Seleka Rebels Take Bangui
On March 24, 2013, the Seleka rebel alliance seized Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, and took power in a coup. President François Bozizé fled…
- 25 1807 Britain Abolishes the Slave Trade
On March 25, 1807, Britain's Slave Trade Act received royal assent, prohibiting the Atlantic slave trade throughout the British Empire. The House of Commons had passed…
- 26 1898 Kruger National Park Is Born
On March 26, 1898, Paul Kruger signed the proclamation creating the Sabie Game Reserve between the Crocodile and Sabie rivers, one of Africa's first protected areas.…
- 27 1977 Shirley Graham Du Bois Dies
On March 27, 1977, Shirley Graham Du Bois died in Beijing at the age of eighty, an author, composer, and Pan-Africanist who had made her home…
- 28 1658 Slavery Begins at the Cape
On March 28, 1658, the Dutch East India Company's Amersfoort dropped anchor in Table Bay carrying one hundred and seventy-four enslaved Africans seized from a Portuguese…
- 29 1959 Boganda Day
On March 29, 1959, Barthélemy Boganda, the founding father of the Central African Republic, died when his plane exploded over the forest west of Bangui. Just…
- 30 1912 Treaty of Fez
On March 30, 1912, Sultan Abd al-Hafid of Morocco signed the Treaty of Fez under duress, ending Morocco's independence and making it a French protectorate. France…
- 31 1905 The Kaiser's Tangier Visit
On March 31, 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II rode through Tangier on a white horse and declared his support for Morocco's sovereignty, a direct challenge to France's…