Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia as Haile Selassie I; he reigned until 1974 and became a symbol of African independence.
Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid leader and South Africa's first Black president, was born in the village of Mvezo.
The South African Native National Congress, forerunner of the ANC, was founded in Bloemfontein to defend the rights of Black Africans.
The National Party won South Africa's general election and began enacting apartheid, a legally enforced system of racial segregation that lasted until the early 1990s.
The Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange River colonies united as the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire.
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.
The British Gold Coast became independent Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah, the first sub-Saharan African colony to gain independence after World War II.