| Week
starting Saturday 23 July |
|
| Date |
Year |
Event |
|
| 23 |
1921 |
Abd el-Krim Khattabi and his rebel forces defeat the
Spanish colonial army at Anoual, Morocco. The Spanish Mellila garrison,
approximately 2,000 soldiers, was wiped out, with the Commander-in-Chief,
General Fernandez Silvestre, committing suicide rather than face surrender. |
| 23 |
1994 |
The Zaire-Rwanda border is closed by Zaire's government,
preventing thousands of Rwandan refugees from returning home. |
|
|
For more on 23 July |
|
| 24 |
1922 |
League of Nations gives Egyptian mandate to Britain.
Egypt remains a British Protectorate until the Anglo-Egyptian treaty is
signed on 26 August 1936. |
| 24 |
1986 |
President Kenneth David Kaunda accuses the British
government of "kissing Apartheid". |
|
|
For more on 24 July |
|
| 25 |
1942 |
World War II: North Africa
American president, Franklin Roosevelt, convinced that an invasion of
Europe ('Operation Round-Up') was not feasible in the near future, ignores
the advice of his Chief-of-Staff, General Marshall, and insists that
'Operation Torch' be implemented by 30 October rather than by the start of
December. |
| 25 |
1971 |
Dr Christiaan Neethling Barnard carries out the first
combined heart and lung transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.
Dr Barnard had carried out the first heart transplant back on 3 December
1967. |
|
|
For more on 25 July |
|
| 26 |
1847 |
Liberia, where the American Colonization Society
established the first settlement, Monrovia, in 1822 on land 'granted' by
local rulers, becomes an independent republic with a constitution based on
that of the US. Unfortunately the ex-slave colonists applied the US
template too well, and set about enslaving Africans from the interior, and
neighbouring countries. |
| 26 |
1956 |
Gamal Abd al-Nasir, President Nasser of Egypt, announces
that he has nationalised the previously Anglo-French controlled Suez Canal.
(See Timeline:
Suez Crisis for more.) |
|
|
For more on 26 July |
|
| 27 |
1942 |
World War II: North Africa
In General Sir Claude Auchinleck's final offensive of the First Battle of
El Alamein, the 9th Australian Division of the XXX Corps attacks the
Miteirya Ridge. Both sides are now short of supplies and are effectively at
a stand-still. |
| 27 |
1954 |
The British military presence in Egypt which began in
1881, to suppress a revolution by Egyptian army Colonel Ahmed Ali, is
finally at an end. 65,000 British troops and airmen are to leave the Suez
Canal region under an agreement reached between the British government and
Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Nasser. British troops should be out of Egypt
by the end of 1956. |
|
|
For more on 27 July |
|
| 28 |
1959 |
The British Colonial Secretary, Alan Lennox-Boyd, has
publically stated that Britain will not abdicate its responsibilities in
Africa following parliamentary opposition attacks on the governments
conduct. It follows the revelation that 51 Africans were killed by security
forces during unrest in Nyasaland and that 11 Mau Mau prisoners had died in
the Hola Detention Camp in Kenya. |
| 28 |
1985 |
President Apolo Milton Obote of Uganda is ousted in a
military coup. Basilio Olara Okello takes power as the Chairman of the
Military Council. |
|
|
For more on 28 July |
|
| 29 |
1966 |
Major-General Johnson Thomas Umurakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi,
head of the Nigerian National Military Government is ousted when his own
troops mutiny. He is replaced as leader by Yakubu Gowon. |
| 29 |
1975 |
Exactly nine years after he had taken power from
Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon is removed by a bloodless
military coup and repaced as head of the National Military government by
Murtala Ramat Mohammed. |
|
|
For more on 29 July |
|
