King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo as a personal possession; its forced-labour rubber regime caused mass deaths until Belgium annexed the territory in 1908.
European powers met in Berlin to set rules for colonial claims in Africa, accelerating the "Scramble for Africa" without any African representation.
Boers of the Transvaal rose against British annexation and regained self-government after their victory at Majuba Hill.
In the Anglo-Zulu War, a Zulu army defeated a British column at Isandlwana, one of the worst defeats of the British army by an indigenous force.
Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menelik II defeated an invading Italian army at Adwa, preserving Ethiopia's independence during the Scramble for Africa.
The British Empire fought the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State; the war ended with the Treaty of Vereeniging, after tens of thousands of civilians died in concentration camps.
In German South West Africa (present-day Namibia), German forces suppressed uprisings in a campaign that killed most of the Herero and about half of the Nama people.