| Week
starting Saturday 19 March |
|
| Date |
Year |
Event |
|
| 19 |
1923 |
Lord Carnarvon, who sponsored Howard Carter's excavation
of the tomb of Tutankhamen, is seriously ill in Egypt after an insect bite. |
| 19 |
1977 |
Congolese president Major Marien Ngouabi is assassinated
by a suicide commando during a failed military coup. Ex-president Alphonse
Massemba-Débat is implicated in the coup and executed without trial one
week later. |
|
|
For more on 19 March |
|
| 20 |
1943 |
World War II: North Africa
Montgomery's forces begin an attack on Rommel's Afrika Korps on the Marath
Line. |
| 20 |
1956 |
Tunisia achieves independence. |
|
|
For more on 20 March |
|
| 21 |
1960 |
South African police kill 69 and injure at least 186
when they opened fire on approximately 300 anti-pass campaign protesters at
the black township of Sharpeville. |
| 21 |
1975 |
The monarchy in Ethiopia is abolished. Emperor Haile
Selassie has been under house arrest since September 1974. |
|
|
For more on 21 March |
|
| 22 |
1913 |
In the Moroccan outpost of Oued Zem, French forces are
attacked by the Tadlas. |
| 22 |
1953 |
2,500 Tribesmen are arrested in Kenya as part of the
continuing crackdown by British authorities against the Mau Mau. |
|
|
For more on 22 March |
|
| 23 |
1909 |
Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kirmit
depart New York on a 'scientific' expedition to Africa sponsored by the
Smithsonian. (Over the course of a single year the Roosevelts shoot over
1,100 specimens.) |
| 23 |
1943 |
World War II: North Africa
General Patton's First Armored division defeats the German 10th Panzer
division at El Guettar, Tunisia. |
|
|
For more on 23 March |
|
| 24 |
1941 |
World War II: North Africa
Rommel's Afrika Korps drive the British out of El Agheila, Libya. |
| 24 |
1969 |
Death of Joseph Kasavubu, first president of the Congo
(now Democratic Republic of Congo). |
|
|
For more on 24 March |
|
| 25 |
1960 |
All black political parties are banned in South Africa. |
| 25 |
1993 |
President FW de Klerk admits that six South Africa built
six nuclear bombs and states that they have since been dismantled. |
|
|
For more on 25 March |
|
