Black schoolchildren in Soweto protested against compulsory instruction in Afrikaans; police opened fire, and the ensuing crackdown left hundreds dead.
Following Portugal's Carnation Revolution, Mozambique and Angola became independent, ending over four centuries of Portuguese presence; both soon fell into long civil wars.
After a guerrilla war and the Lancaster House Agreement, Rhodesia became the internationally recognised independent state of Zimbabwe, with Robert Mugabe as prime minister.
Drought combined with civil war and government policies caused a major famine in Ethiopia that killed several hundred thousand to a million people and prompted the Live Aid relief effort.
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.
Christiaan Barnard performs the first human-to-human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.
Leaders of 32 independent African states founded the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa to promote unity and end colonialism on the continent.