Christiaan Barnard performs the first human-to-human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.
War followed the secession of south-eastern Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra; the fighting and blockade-induced famine killed an estimated one to two million people.
Leaders of 32 independent African states founded the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa to promote unity and end colonialism on the continent.
Kenya became independent from Britain following the Mau Mau uprising, with Jomo Kenyatta as its first prime minister and later president.
Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo, was deposed, captured and executed in Katanga, with the involvement of Katangan secessionist authorities and Belgian officials.
In 1960, seventeen African countries gained independence, most of them former French colonies along with Nigeria, Somalia and the Congo.
South African police opened fire on a crowd protesting pass laws at Sharpeville, killing 69 people; the ANC and PAC were subsequently banned.