Thursday, April 29, 2010

Britain tried to defeat Somali nationalist leader


Hi guys, due to circumstances beyond my control, I couldn’t post yesterday, so I hope include what i intended to post, to today's posting and I hope you guys will forgive me for that. I will try not to let such a thing happen again in future.

28th April

1902, the 20 year old war between Nationalist leader Mohammed Abd’Allah Hassan and Britain over the control of Somalia rages on as Britain sends reinforcements against him.

1912, France appoint the first Resident-General , Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey to occupy morocco, at a time of great security fears for foreign citizens due to the recent murders of French Citizens. Lyautey will later command French forces in the Spanish/French war against guerrilla leader Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi (Abd el-Krim), before losing his place to Henri Philippe Petain in 1925.

1936, King Farouk ascends to the throne of Egypt and the Sudan after the death of his Father Fuad I, however,16 year old Farouk will effectively be the last king to be crowned in Egypt. In 1952, he abdicated the throne in favour of his one year old son Fuad II, but the monarchy was abolished a year later, Fuad II, unable to be crowned as he was still an infant.


29TH April


1899, Duke Ellington (Edward Kennady Ellington), the African-American composer and band leader, was born on this day.



1958, after the 1956-1957 Suez crisis, Egypt agrees to pay approximately 81 million dollars, in order to take control of the Canal.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Dr Vincent Porter became the first African-American to be a certified plastic surgeon

1910,The nationalist United South African party was formed by PW Botha and other south Africans who favoured British imperialism, even though they advocated for freedom for the Africakaner people. The SAP ruled the country until they were replaced by the National Party in 1924. The national party was formed by right wing Afrikaners.

1945, African American Playwright August Wilson was born on this day.

1955, During the height of the Suez crisis, Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser vows to nationalize a lot of companies and also made announcement of its intention of establishing trade links with communist China by selling cotton to them.

1958, after quelling a military campaign by pro independent armed group in Morocco with the help of France, Spain cedes the western Saharan territory of Tarfarya to Morocco under the leadership of King Mohammed V.

1960, The Republic of Togo is granted independence by France. Togo was made a German colony in 1854 at the treaty signed between Germany and King Mlapa. However it was divided between Britain and France, after German defeat in WWII. The British part of Togoland voted in a plebiscite to join newly independent Ghana whiles the French part fought for its independence from France.


After being a British colony since 1787, Sierra Leone became independent in 1961.

1968, Dr Vincent Porter became the first African-American to be a certified plastic surgeon.


1972, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first president of Ghana and the first Black African to lead a free nation, died whiles in exile in Guinea Conakry at the age of 63. Nkrumah was earlier deposed in an alleged CIA backed coup by members of the military and police.

1984, 30 Libyan diplomats had their diplomatic immunity withdrawn and were expelled from Britain, after more than a week since the shooting to death of police woman Yvonne Fletcher in front of the Libyan embassy building in London.

1991, the wife of imprisoned freedom fighter Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, Mrs. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela tried unsuccessfully to win the seat for the president of the ANC women’s wing.

1993, In a UN backed referendum, Eritreans voted massively to gain independence from Ethiopia. Before WWII the country was an Italian colony, but was allowed to be annexed by Ethiopia, however decades of political unrests prompted the UN to organized the referendum, which gave power to the People’s Frond for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) to power.

1994, Elections are held all over South Africa, and for the first time all ethnicities were allowed to take part.

Monday, April 26, 2010

26th April Sarah Boone patents an improvement to the Ironing board


African-American blues singer Gertrude Pidgett (Ma" Rainey) was born on this day in 1886. She was one of the earliest recorded artistes in the blues category.

1892 - Sarah Boone patents an improvement to the ironing board for which she received US patent number 473,653.


1941Dessie, a fortress city which was founded by Emperor Yohannes IV in 1882 and which came under Italian forces during WWII is captured by British General Alan Cunningham and his South African division..

1941,Having defeated the Allied forces at the Halfaya Pass the previous day, General Rommel orders three columns of his Deutsches Afrika Korps (German Africa Corps) to move to Egypt, in a bit to contain reinforcement to the Allied forces.

1943,In the Tunisia Campaign during WWII, Allied forces win a major advantage after they captured “Lonstop Hill”, a strategic point which gave them access to the Tunisian plains. This in turn enabled them to attack the axis forces from the rear.

1961,French Army rebels’ attempted coup d’état led by four army general, are defeated after few people supported their intention. The four generals; Maurice Challes(former Commander-in-Chief of the French Army in Algeria) Edmond Jouhaud (inspector General of the air force) Andre Zeller(Chief of Staff of the French ground forces) and Raoul Salan(also a former Commander-In-Chief) in Algeria.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

25th April



1917, American Jazz musician and popular vocalist Ella Jane Fitzgerald, was born on this day.

1945, during the latter part of WWII, General Erwin Eugen Rommel, who was known as the desert fox, for his high level of skill in desert war fare, mounted an attack on British soldiers, which forced them to retreat from the Halfaya pass in Egypt. Rommel was later made to commit suicide, when he was implicated in a conspiracy to overthrown Hitler's government. The decision was a face saving one for Rommel, due to his extraordinary service he performed as soldier,instead of being tried and executed for treason.



1961,France tests a nuclear bomb for the fourth time in the Sahara. At the time of the testing, France was desperate in its efforts at playing the leadership role in Europe and to establish it super power credentials, however events such the formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) and the loss of Algeria as a colony, weakened her pursuit.

1994, The final day of Apartheid in South Africa. However a series of car bombs by suspected members of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging(Afrikaner Resistance Movement)(AWB), threaten to throw the country into chaos. The AWB and its members led by Eugene Terr'Blanche were very outspoken in their opposition to the end of Apartheid, they advocated for separation of people according to skin colour and also preached white supremacy.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Oliver Tambo's death

1944 The United Negro College Fund(UNCF) a fund that was set up up to helped needy but brilliant African-American students to be able to attend college was incorporated.
The fund has grown since then, to its current stage where it supports more than 65,000 students who are attending about 900 universities, with a sum of more than 113 million dollars.

1979 Abel Tendekayi Muzorowa wins the majority of votes to become the first and only prime minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia.Muzorowa, a Methodist preacher, won 51 of the 72 seats that was reserved for blacks, however the government collapse the same year he took office in favour a new general election which the ZANU(Zimbabwe African National Union) led by Robert Mugabe came into power. His government was not recognized internationally and severe sanctions which was still in place due to Ian Smith's near apartheid rule, forced him to accept a mediation by Britain which resulted in the calling of the 1980 elections.



1993, Death of freedom fighter and co founder of the ANC youth wing Oliver Reginald Tambo.He had just returned from a 30 year exile in Britain to become the national chairperson of the ANC in 1991.His death at 75, was as a result complications due t
to stroke. Tambo, Mandela, Anton Lembede and Walter Sisulu were the co founders of the ANC youth wing.

Friday, April 23, 2010

23rd April, Granville T. Woods

1856, Granville Woods was born on this day. Wood s was an inventor who held about 60 patents during his life time. Most of his inventions were related to the locomotive industry. He also invented the multiplex telegraph, which enabled a moving train to communicate with the nearest station.



1895, Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus, an African-American of Cuba origins, patents the photographic print wash. This was an improvement on the method of creating photographic negatives for printing.

1903, Somali nationalist leader Sayyid Muhammad Abd’Allah Hassan who engaged in over 20 year old struggle against British imperialist forces, suffers one of his greatest losses at the hands of British forces and their Ethiopian supporters.
Abd’Allah Hassan is widely considered as a national hero of modern Somalia, as he rallied all Somalis irrespective of their beliefs under his command with the sole aim of pushing back the advances of imperialist Britain, Italy and their Ethiopian supporters.

22nd April

1922, African-American Jazz musician and composer Charles Mingus was born on this day.



1834, Britain decides to take control of St. Helena, from the British East India Company, making the Island a British crown colony. Today, St. Helena is the second oldest British colony after Bermuda.

1960, after a series of violence rocked many cities around South Africa, the government declares a state of emergency, which resulted in over 1,500 people being detained, including ANC leader Nelson Mandela being detained.

1984,Britain severs diplomatic links with Libya, following the shooting to death of a British police woman Yvonne Fletcher, in front of the Libyan embassy in London. She was part of a group of Police officers who were dispatched to maintain order during a protest by Libyan dissidents against the Libyan government in front of the Libyan embassy. It took fifteen years before Al Ghaddafi finally accepted responsibility and agreed to pay compensation to Fletcher’s family.

1990, a group of military officers led by Major Gideon Orkah lead a brief coup against General Ibrahim Babangida who was head of state at that time. Babangida however managed to regain control of the nation later.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

21st April,

On this day April 21, 2010 in;

1619, the man considered as the founding father of the Afrikaner nation in South Africa, Jan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck, was born in the Netherland’s city of Culemborg. Van Riebeeck built the first fort in South Africa, and later died in Batavia near modern day Jakarta in 1677.



1859, Scottish explorer, adventurer and missionary, David Livingstone lands in Cape Town, in his bid to find the source of the Niger river, and also to win converts to the Christian religion. He later died of malaria and some complications due to dysentery in 1873 near Lake Bangweulu in modern day Zambia.

1906, Ms Mary Thelma Washington was born in Vicksburg, Miss. She would later become the first black woman to be certified as a public accountant in the US.

1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson awards the presidential medal of honor posthumously to private first class Milton Lee Olive III, for the sacrificing his life in other to save his colleagues when a hand grenade was thrown at them by rebels in the Vietnam war. The award was received by Olive’s father and step mother at the step of the White house, making him the first African American service man to be given such an award.

1994, 10 Belgian soldiers are massacred by Hutu militias in Rwanda, thus bringing to the international front, news of the ongoing genocide of the minority Tutsis which had started a few weeks earlier. In the three months that the genocide took place-April to July- approximately 800,000-1000000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians lost their lives, many of the leading conspirators of this crime have been jailed by the International Court of Justice.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

welcome

Hi
welcome to afrohistorytoday, on this page, i will be presenting you with the historical events which occurred on or was concerned with the continent of Africa. Events will be brought to you in chronological order so as to make it easier for us to know and to remember our history as a people, and as the saying goes "a people who do not know their history are a lost herd of animals" i am not sure where i saw this, but i didn't mean to steal it so i hope its author will bear with me.

I hope you enjoy what is here but if you have any comments, criticism or grievances i hope you don;t hesitate to air it out, after all, we are in a free world. Catch you later ok?