A Smart Afrikan History Timeline In Evolution: A RBG Community Project

RBG Afrikan- Centered Cultural Development and Education

This timeline is an on-going community project. It is an exercise in working together, as that is what a Wiki is all about. As you continue to visit the site we intend for it to become "hotter and hotter". That is to say, as you read through these benchmarks we would like for you to hyperlink key works and/or phrases so others that come behind you will be able to follow said links for further study and research. I have started us out as to provide an example of how things will look and develop as we continue to build it together. Our recommended approach is as follows:
When you come to this asset click edit in the upper right > then open a new tab. Copy and paste the key word or phrase you would like to add in the search engine of this new tab (google recommended). Check out the hits you get for quality and specificity. Once you have a target site copy the url> come back here by cliking on this tab > highlight the key word /phrase and click the hiperlink icon in this editor and paste the url. Save and test the link. If things work out you're all done. Your name will be recorded as a contributor.

1518 -- The first enslaved Africans arrived in South America, the Caribbean, and North America.
1529 -- Muslim state of Adal declares a jihad against Christian Ethiopia, conquers most of Ethiopia.
1538 -- The first recorded importation of Africans into Brazil.
1541 -- Ethiopia defeats of the Muslims.
1549 --The zenith of the Songhai Empire under Askia Daud (1549-1582).
1569 -- The Great Mosque of Timbuktu is restored by Cadi El Aquib.
1593 -- Moroccans defeat the Songahai with the help of firearms; rape of men & women is common.
1593 -- University of Sankoré, in Timbuktu is destroyed by Arabs & the faculty is exiled to Morocco.
1593 -- The great Sudanese scholar Ahmed Baba loses 1,600 books during forced exile by Arabs.
1596 -- Askia Nuh does not accept Arab domination and organizes national resistance. 1606 -- Enslaved Africans in Brazil establish a maroon settlement known as Palmares.
1623 -- Queen Nzingha becomes Monarch of Ndanga (Angola) and declares war on the Portuguese.
1655 -- 1,500 enslaved Africans go to Jamaican mountains, establishing free Maroon communities.
1663 -- Slave rebellion takes place on September 13th in Gloucester County, Virginia
*1666-1776: Slaves imported only by the English for the English, French and Spanish colonies: 3 million (250,000 died on the voyage).
1672 -- Charles the II of England charters the Royal African Company for the purpose of slave trading.
*1680-1786: Slaves imported for the English colonies in America: 2,130,000 (Jamaica alone absorbed 610,000).
1695 -- King Zumbi of Palmares is killed by the Portuguese; Palmares is destroyed (November 20th).
1712 -- A slave insurrection occurred April 7th in New York City.
*1716-1756: Average annual number of slaves imported for the American colonies: 70,000, with a total of 3.5 million.
1739 -- The Maroons of Jamaica and the British sign a peace treaty on March 1st.
1739 -- Led by Cato on September 9th, slaves rebel and kill more than 25 enslavers.
*1752-1762: Jamaica alone imported 71,115 slaves.
*1759-1762: Guadeloupe alone imported 40,000 slaves.
1770 -- Crispus Attucks is one of the first to die for America at the Boston Massacre on March 5th.
1772 -- Lord Mansfield declares exportation of slaves from Britain illegal.
1772 -- James Somerset becomes de facto spokesman for Blacks in Britain.
1773 -- Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral were published by Phillis Wheatley.
1774 -- Henry Smeathmen proposes to the British government to set up a colony in Sierra Leone.
1776 -- During American Revolution many Blacks fight for British promised freedom (ends 1783).
*1776-1800: A yearly average of 74,000 slaves were imported for the American colonies, or a total of 1,850,000; this yearly average was divided up as follows: by the English, 38,000; French, 20,000; Portuguese, 10,000; Dutch, 4,000; Danes, 2,000.
1777 -- The Republic of Vermont passes the 1st constitution in the U.S. prohibiting slavery.
1777 -- 5,000 Africans participate in the U.S. Revolutionary War.
1783 -- Blacks establish settlements in Nova Scotia separately from Whites & legally unrecognized.
1786 -- Quakers in Pennsylvania begin to organize the Underground Railroad.
1786 -- Blacks in London sign up for colony at Sierra Leone; disembark in Feb ‘87.
1787 -- King Naimbana of Temnes permits colony to settle in a treaty with a local British governor.
1787 -- The Free African Society is founded in Philadelphia by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones.
1790 -- Sierra Leone, disastrous failure most dies from disease; town is destroyed by local peoples.
1790 -- Discontented Blacks arrive from Nova Scotia and are met by Granville Town survivors.
1793 -- Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Act on February 12th.
1794 -- Sierra Leone attacked by French privateers; colony liberated in two months.
1795 -- Jean Baptist Pointe DuSable establishes a trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River.
1798 -- Egypt conquered by Napoleon of France.
1800 -- Discontent Blacks rebel after demand for Black judges denied; rebellion crushed in a week.
1801 -- War in Sierre Leone (ends 1807).
1803 -- Sierra Leone Co. petitions British Parliament for loans; they are rejected over four years.
1807 -- Colony become under rule directly from London and Sierra Leone Co. is legally dissolved.
1801 -- Africans led by Toussaint L'Ouverture revolt and seize complete power in Haiti from France.
1807 -- The British Parliament bans the slave trade.
1808 -- The importation of enslaved Africans is forbidden by the U.S.; law is ignored.
1810 -- The Afro-American Insurance Company is established by three black men.
1811 -- Paul Cuffe, a black nationalist begins transporting blacks from North America back to Africa.
1815 -- Fulani Emirs declared a jihad against the Hausa state of Gobir
1818 -- Frederick Douglass is born on Maryland's Eastern Shore in Talbot County in February.
1820 -- Mohammad Ali of Egypt captures Sudan.
1822 -- African Americans settlers found Monrovia, capital of Liberia.
1822 -- George Wilson (a black slave) tells white slavers of Denmark Vesey's plan to lead a revolt.
1823 -- Alexander Lucius Twilight graduates from Middlebury College.
1827 -- The first African American newspaper is published, Freedom's Journal.
1831 -- The Honorable Nat Turner begins his fight for freedom in Virginia, 60 slavers killed.
1832 -- The anti-slavery Abolitionist Party is founded in Boston.
1833 -- Enslaved people are freed in all British possessions.
1834 -- Henry Blair is the first African American to be granted a U.S. patent (for a seed planter).
1837 -- Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (novelist), a Russian of African descent, is killed in a duel.
1838 -- The first African American magazine is published, The Mirror of Liberty.
1839 -- Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery.
1839 -- Slaves revolt on Spanish ship, Amistad and secure freedom via Supreme Court.
1841 -- William A. Liedesdorff from the Virgin Islands becomes the 1st African American millionaire.
1843 -- U.S. Patent Office issues Norbert Rillieux a patent for a revolutionary system of refining sugar.
1844 -- Macon B. Allen is admitted to the bar in Maine to practice law as a licensed attorney.
1845 -- Frederick Douglass's autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is published.
1847 -- Liberia becomes an independent republic on July 26th.
1847 -- Frederick Douglass begins publishing The North Star, an anti-slavery journal.
1849 -- Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery; returns to the South over twenty times to free others.
1850 -- Slave trade is forbidden in the District of Columbia.
1850 -- Emperor Tewodros II led campaigns against Egyptian intruders.
1852 -- Martin R. Delany publishes The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny....
1853 -- William Wells Brown's novel The President's Daughter is published.
1854 -- The first modern college for Blacks established at Ashmun Institute (Lincoln University).
1855 -- The founder of modern Ethiopia, Emperor Tewodros II unifies Ethiopia and teaches Menelik.
1857 -- The Supreme Court denies blacks U.S. citizenship; Dred Scott loses his case.
1859 -- Militant anti-slaver, John Brown is hung for treason after raiding a federal arsenal in Virginia.
1859 -- Harriet Wilson's novel Our Nig is published.
1860 -- Isaac Myers begins organizing the Colored National Labor Union.
1861 -- Yoruba, under pressure from black muslims, draws closer to Britain, which annexes Lagos.
1862 -- Ida B. Wells is born on July 16th.
1862 -- 186,000 Africans serve during the Civil War; 38,000 die in service.
1863 -- The first school for freed enslaved people is founded in Frogmore, South Carolina.
1863-- Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.
1863 -- William Brown published The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, & His Achievements.
1864 -- The Ku Klux Klan is organized in Pulaski, Tennessee.
1864 -- During the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 European countries plot the complete colonialization of Africa
1865 -- General Lee surrenders to General Grant at Appomotax, ending the U.S. Civil War
1865 -- The Thirteenth Amendment, which outlaws slavery in the U.S., is ratified
1866 -- Fisk University is established in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1867 -- Negro League Baseball begins in early Spring until late Fall then the Winter season
1867 -- Sarah Breedlove (Madam C.J. Walker) is born on a Mississippi River plantation in Delta, LA to former slaves, Owens and Minerva Breedlove
1868 -- The Fourteenth Amendment, validating citizenship rights for all persons born in the U.S.
1869 -- The British and other Ethiopians encircled Emperor Tewrodos II; he commits suicide.
1870 -- The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment secures voting rights for all male U.S. citizens.
1870 -- Thomas M. Peterson is the first African American to vote.
1874 -- Blanche Kelso Bruce becomes the first African American senator to serve a full term.
1876 -- Edward Alexander Bouchet receives a Ph.D. in physics from Yale University.
1879 -- The Zulus defeat the British for the last time in The Battle of Isandlwana.
1879 -- A European, Dr. Felkin witnesses a caesarean operation by Banyoro surgeons in Uganda.
1881 -- British and Ottoman troops seize control of Egypt and Sudan.
1881 -- Booker T. Washington establishes the Tuskegee Institute, an industrial school for blacks.
1883 -- Spelman College is founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
1884 -- Granville T. Woods secures his first patent was in 1884 for a steam boiler furnace.
1884 -- British control of Nigeria expanded, set up under treaties with Yoruba rulers.
1885 -- Mohammed-Ahmed, a Sudanese defeats the Anglo-Arab army recapturing much land.
1885 -- Belgium colonizes Zaire as Congo Free State.
1885 -- A patent is awarded to Sarah Goode for a folding cabinet bed.
1886 -- Menelik moves the Ethiopian capital to the Intoto valley (Addis Ababa).
1886 -- Frederick Douglass travels to Africa and climbs one of the pyramids.
1887 -- Ethiopians defeat a small contingent of Italians near Dogali.
1887 -- The Honorable Marcus Garvey is born in Jamaica, August 17th (32 Market St., St. Ann's Bay).
1887 -- Granville T. Woods patents the rail telegraph system.
1889 -- Ida B. Wells becomes editor of the Free Press and the Highlight.
1889 -- Menelik II is crowned the new Emperor and he makes a treaty with Italy.
1891 -- Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois becomes the 1st African American Hospital.
1892 -- Ida B. Wells is the first writer to document the lynching of African Americans.
1892 -- Sarah Boone receives a patent for an ironing board.
1895 -- Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry collection Majors and Minors is published.
1895 -- Frederick Douglass dies.
1896 -- Near Adwa, a small Tigrayen city, Ethiopia defeats the Italian colonial army and kills 12,000.
1896 -- Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry collection Lyrics of Lowly Life is published.
1896 -- U.S. Supreme Court decides that separate but equal does not violate the Constitution.
1898 -- Paul Robeson is born in Princeton, New Jersey on 4/9, son of an escaped enslaved person.
1899 -- Dr. George F. Grant patented the wooden golf tee (Patent #638,920).
1900 -- Britain controls Nigeria.
1900 -- The first Pan-African Congress convenes in London.
1901 -- James and J. Rosamond Johnson write "Lift Every Voice and Sing".
1901 -- Booker T. Washington's autobiography Up from Slavery is published.
1903 -- W.E.B. DuBois's collection The Souls of Black Folks: Essays & Sketches is published.
1903 -- The Future Heavyweight Champ Jack Johnson plays 1st base for the Philadelphia Giants.
1903 -- Maggie Lena Walker becomes Bank President of St. Luke Bank & Trust Company.
1903 -- Williams and Walker open "In Dahomey" the first all black musical on a major Broadway stage.
1904 -- Madam C.J. Walker works as an agent for Annie (Pope Turnbo) Malone, founder of the Poro Company, an early manufacturer of hair care products for black women.
1904 -- The Atlanta debate between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington occurs. 1904 -- Philip Payton founds the Afro-American Realty Company in New York City.
1905 -- Madam C.J. Walker moves to Denver where she establishes her own hair care products company.
1905 -- The Niagara Movement is established; among its leaders is W.E.B. DuBois.
1905 -- In Negro Baseball League good teams in major cities make money; white league does not.
1907 -- Alain Locke is the first African American Rhodes Scholar.
1908 -- Jack Johnson wins the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship.
1908 -- Madam Walker moves to Pittsburgh and opens Lelia College to train Walker "hair culturists".
1909 -- The NAACP is founded in New York; almost all the signers of the charter are white.
1909 -- Kwame Nkrumah is born on September 18th in the village of Nkroful, Ghana.
1909 -- Matthew Henson reaches the North Pole.
1910 -- The Hilldale Club of Negro Baseball and their stadium is owned by a Black man. 1910 -- Madame C.J. Walker establishes a manufacturing plant in Indianapolis.
1910 -- Granville T. Woods, master inventor (over 60 patents in his name) dies.
1911 -- National Urban League is founded in New York City.
1911 -- Madam Walker pledges $1,000 to the building fund of Indianapolis's new black YMCA.
1912 -- W. C. Handy published the first blues song, Memphis Blues on September 27th. 1912 -- James Weldon Johnson's novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man is published.
1912 -- Madam Walker speaks at the National Negro Business League convention.
1913 -- Menelik II dies and is succeeded by his grandson Lej Isayu.
1913 -- Madam Walker divorces C.J. Walker, but retains his name. A'Lelia persuades her mother to purchase a townhouse at 108-110 West 136th Street in Harlem.
1914 -- The Universal Negro Improvement & Conservation Association & African Communities League is launched by the Honorable Marcus Garvey.
1914 -- Nigerian Council of six African and 30 European members was set up to advice the governor.
1915 -- The great migration of southern blacks to the North begins; industry needs labor.
1916 -- Belgium takes over rule of Burundi and Rwanda.
1916 -- Madam Walker purchases property in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, the wealthiest residential community in America.
1916 -- 350,000 African Americans serve during World War I.
1917 -- Race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois.
1917 -- Silent Protest Parade in New York City on July 27th.
1918 -- The Honorable Marcus Garvey incorporates the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the USA.
1918 -- Manuel Raimundo Querino publishes The African Contribution to Brazilian Civilization.
1918 -- The French award the Croix de Guerre to the 369th Regiment and named it "Harlem Hell Fighters".
1919 -- Oscar Micheaux finishes his first film, The Homesteader.
1919 -- Paul Robeson graduates Valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa, All-American Football from Rutgers.
1919 -- Madam Walker hosts a meeting of the International League of Darker People with Marcus Garvey.
1919 -- On May 25th Madam Walker dies at Villa Lewaro of kidney failure caused by hypertension.
1919 -- W.E.B. DuBois organizes the first Pan-African Congress in Paris.
1921 -- Bessie Coleman earns an International Pilot's license.
1921 -- Henry Pace forms the Pace Phonographic Corporation, which owned the Black Swan label.
1922 -- Legislative Council (ten Africans, four of them elected and 36 Europeans) in Nigeria.
1922 -- Jack Johnson, the first Black Boxing Champion patents a theft-prevention device for vehicles.
1922 -- Claude McKay's poetry collection Harlem Shadows is published.
1923 -- Harlem Renaissance Basketball club founded.
1923 -- Ethiopia becomes a member of the League of Nations.
1923 -- Garrett A. Morgan receives a patent for the first automatic traffic light.
1923 -- Paul Robeson graduates from Columbia Law School.
1923 -- Marcus Garvey's The Philosophy & Opinion of Marcus Garvey, two volumes set is published.
1923 -- Jean Toomer's prose collection Cane is published.
1924 -- Paul Robeson stars in the lead of The Emperor Jones in the Provincetown Theatre in NYC.
1924 -- Paul Robeson stars in his first film, Body and Soul by Oscar Micheaux.
1925 -- The Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints (Schomburg Center) opens.
1925 -- The New Negro: An Interpretation is published, formally recognizing Harlem Renaissance.
1925 -- The Honorable Marcus Garvey is betrayed by his own people and is sent to prison.
1926 -- Carter G. Woodson head of Ass. for Study of Negro Life & History, creates Negro History Week.
1926 -- John William Coltrane is born in Hamlet, North Caroline on September 23, 1926.
1927 -- Langston Hughes's poetry collection Fine Clothes to the Jew is published.
1927 -- James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse is published.
1927 -- A'Lelia Walker (Madam's daughter) open Dark Tower, a salon for Harlem Renaissance writers, artists, and musicians, at her 136th Street townhouse.
1928 -- The Mme.C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company opens a $1,000,000 factory, office building and movie theater in Indianapolis.
1929 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia.
1929 -- The U.S. stock market crash sends Mme.C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company into a financial crisis.
1930 -- Ras Tafari Mekonen was crowned the new Emperor Haile Selasie after the death of Empress.
1930 -- The first Temple of Islam is founded in Detroit, Michigan.
1930 -- The Kansas City Monarchs have the first portable light system in Negro Baseball.
1930 -- Paul Robeson stars in the London production of Shakespeare's Othello.
1931 -- Ida B. Wells joins her ancestors on March 25th.
1933 -- H. Naylor Fitzhugh is the first African American to graduate from the Harvard Business School.
1933 -- The publication of the journal Létudiant noir marks the offical birth of the negritude movement.
1934 -- Paul and Essie Robeson travel to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Russian film director.
1935 -- Negro Baseball League is stable; all clubs at breakeven; biggest black business, $2 MM/yr.
1935 -- Mary McLeod Bethune founds the National Council of Negro Women
1935 -- Harlem Race Riot occurs.
1935 -- Kwame Nkrumah is introduced to The Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey.
1936 -- Jesse Owens wins 4 gold medals at the Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
1936 -- Josh Gibson, a catcher for the Negro League's Pittsburgh Crawfords hits 84 homers.
1937 -- Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is published.
1937 -- W.E.B. DuBois & Paul Robeson are co-founders & co-chairmen of Council on African Affairs.
1939 -- Aimé F. Césaire, The Father of Negritude uses the word in Cahier d'un retour au pays natal.
1940 -- The Honorable Marcus Garvey dies with a broken heart on June 10th (God bless his soul).
1940 -- American Negro Theater founded.
1940 -- Richard Wright publishes the novel Native Son.
1942 -- John H. Johnson publishes Negro Digest in November with a $500 loan on mother's furniture.
1943 -- Poor people in Ethiopia revolt in Tigray.
1943 -- With Paul Robeson, Othello breaks all Broadway records for Shakespearean productions.
1944 -- The U.S. Supreme Court rules that no American can be denied the right to vote.
1944 -- The United Negro College Fund is founded on April 24th.
1945 -- Dr. Lloyd A. Quarterman receives an award of appreciation for his work on the Atomic Bomb.
1945 -- The Negro Leagues reach a plateau of stability and efficiency.
1945 -- Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry collection A Street in Bronzeville is published.
1945 -- John Coltrane has his first professional jazz appearance, playing alto sax with the Jimmy Johnson Big Band.
1945 -- Richard Wright's autobiography Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth is published.
1946 -- Takala Walda-Hawaryat opposes the return of the exiled Emperor Selasie is detained.
1946 -- Jackie Robinson integrates into the White Baseball League.
1946 -- The Street, published by Ann Petry sells more than one million copies.
1947 -- Every team in the Negro Leagues loses money; black fans more interested in integration.
1947 -- John Coltrane has a jam session with Charlie Parker.
1947 -- Présence Africaine, a leading literary journal is founded by Senghor, Césaire, and Demas.
1947 -- John Hope Franklin publishes From Slavery to Freedom.
1947 -- The new Nigeria Council had 28 African (four elected) and 17 European members.
1948 -- Apartheid is instituted in South Africa; it calls for the supremacy of whites.
1948 -- U.S. President Harry Truman bans segregation in the armed forces.
1949 -- Singer Juanita Hall is the first African American to receive a Tony award.
1950 -- John Coltrane (on alto) has a recording session with Dizzy Gillespie and his Orchestra.
1950 -- The U.S. government takes Paul Robeson's passport and attempts to silence him.
1950 -- Kwame Nkrumah is arrested and imprisoned by the British.
1950 -- Ralph Bunche receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a mediator in Palestine.
1950 -- Gwendolyn Brooks is awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her collection of poems, Annie Allen.
1952 -- John Coltrane plays with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.
1952 -- Africans rebel against British rule in the Mau-Mau uprisings in Kenya (until 1956).
1952 -- On March 5th Kwame Nkrumah is named the Prime Minister of Ghana.
1953 -- James Baldwin publishes Go Tell It on the Mountain.
1953 -- Ralph Ellison receives the National Book Award for fiction for his novel Invisible Man.
1954 -- A further constitution declared Nigeria a federation.
1954 -- U.S. Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
1954 -- George and Joan Johnson found the Johnson Product Company.
1955 -- Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop publishes Nations Nègres et Culture.
1955 -- Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.
1956 -- U.S. Supreme Court outlaws segregated seating on buses.
1956 -- The First Congress of African Writers is held in Paris.
1957 -- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is formed on February 14th.
1957 -- Kwame Nkrumah leads Ghana to independence on March 5th.
1957 -- U.S. Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1957.
1957 -- John W. Coltrane experiences his spiritual rebirth in 1957; no more drugs.
1957 -- Internal self-government was gained by the Eastern and Western regions of Nigeria.
1957 -- Black Orpheus, a journal of African writing is established in Nigeria.
1957 -- John Coltrane works with Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot in New York.
1958 -- The U.S government returns Paul Robeson's passport, his health is poor.
1958 -- Addis Abeba became the registered office for the Economic Commission for Africa.
1958 -- Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart is published.
1958 -- Paul Robeson's autobiography Here I Stand is published.
1958 -- The Book of Negro Folklore, edited by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes is published.
1959 -- Internal self-government was gained by Northern Nigeria.
1959 -- Berry Gordy establishes Motown Records in Detroit, Michigan.
1959 -- Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun is produced and published.
1959 -- Ruth Bowen establishes the Queen Booking Company, a talent agency in New York City.
1960 -- Nigeria is free.
1960 -- Ghana is declared a republic and Nkrumah becomes its first President on July 1st.
1960 -- Congo becomes an independent nation.
1960 -- South African police fire on demonstrators at Sharpeville; murdering 67.
1960 -- Marion Barry founds the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
1960 -- John Coltrane wins both the general and critics polls of Down Beat magazine for tenor sax; wins critics poll for
combo and miscellaneous instrument (soprano sax).
1960 -- Poor people in Ethiopia revolt in Sidamo.
1960 -- A coup by General Mengistu Naway and his brother Garwane Naway fails in Ethiopia.
1961 -- Led by Julius Nyerere, Tanganyika achieves independence from Britain.
1961 -- A. Phillip Randolph march in Washington D.C.
1961 -- Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a single game to create an unbreakable record.
1961 -- Bob Marley, Bunny Livingston, and Peter Tosh form a group called the Rudeboys.
1961 -- Ossie Davis's play Purlie Victorious is produced and published.
1962 -- Rwanda and Burundi gain independence.
1962 -- John Coltrane has a recording Session with Duke Ellington.
1963 -- Under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya achieves independence from Britain.
1963 -- Frantz Fanon publishes The Wretched of the Earth.
1963 -- Medgar Evers murdered by Klansman in Mississippi (6/12).
1963 -- Poor people in Ethiopia revolt in Bale (until 1970).
1963 -- Nigeria became a Republic with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe its first President (October 1st).
1963 -- A black church is bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls (9/15).
1963 -- W.E.B. DuBois passes away.
1963 -- March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom draws 250,000 demonstrators.
1963 -- The Organization for African Unity is founded in the Ethiopian capital.
1963 -- Queen Mother Moore forms the Reparations Committee of Descendants of U.S. Slaves.
1963 -- Gordon Parks' novel The Learning Tree is published.
1963 -- Wole Soyinka's plays The Lion & the Jewel and A Dance in the Forest are published.
1964 -- Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
1964 -- John Coltrane records A Love Supreme, Part I, II, III, and IV.
1964 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
1964 -- The Civil Rights Act abolishes segregation in public accommodations in the South.
1964 -- Eight South African leaders, including Nelson Mandela are sentenced to life imprisonment.
1964 -- Amiri Baraka's play Dutchman is produced and published.
1965 -- Many student demonstrations in the streets of Addis Ababa.
1965 -- Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz is murdered by his own people in front of family (2/21 @ 3:10pm).
1965 -- The Autobiography of Malcolm X is published.
1965 -- Elijah Muhammad publishes Message to the Blackman in America.
1965 -- Race riots in the Watts district of Los Angeles; over $225 million in property damage.
1965 -- A white minority regime declares Rhodesia independent, civil war begins (until 1979).
1965 -- The Voting Rights Act provides guarantees for black voting in the South.
1966 -- The first of seven coups in Nigeria occurred in January (many leaders murdered).
1966 -- While away visiting China, Kwame Nkrumah is overthrown on February 24th.
1966 -- Bobby Seale & Huey Newton found the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California.
1967 -- Eastern Nigeria claims independence as the Republic of Biafra; this leads to a civil war.
1967 -- Black Power Conference in Newark, NJ.
1967 -- John Coltrane opens The Olatunji Center of African Culture, 43 East 125th Street, Harlem on March 27th.
1967 -- John William Coltrane dies in Huntington, Long Island on July 17, 1967.
1968 -- Black Power Conference in Philadelphia, PA.
1968 -- Poor people in Ethiopia revolt in Gojam.
1968 -- Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee; riots occur in 125 U.S. areas.
1969 -- Fred Hampton is murdered in Chicago, IL.
1969 -- Black Power Conference in Bermuda, W.I.
1969 -- U.S. Supreme Court rules that school districts must end racial segregation at once.
1969 -- Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye is published.
1970 -- Poor people in Ethiopia revolt in Wolo.
1970 -- Biafra was defeated in January 1970; the war takes one million Nigerian lives.
1970 -- Congress on African People in Atlanta, GA.
1970 -- Maya Angelou published I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
1971 -- Ernest J. Gaines's novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is published.
1971 -- Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan publishes Africa Mother of Western Civilization.
1971 -- George Jackson murdered (8/21).
1972 -- Frank Wills, an African American security guard discovers the Watergate Break-in.
1972 -- Wole Soyinka's autobiography The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka is published.
1972 -- On April 27th Kwame Nhrumah dies in Burcharest.
1973 -- Ayi Kwei Armah published Two Thousand Seasons.
1973 -- Emperor Haile Selasie is overthrown by a military coup on September 12th.
1974 -- Ethiopian peasants revolt against their feudal exploiters.
1975 -- Arthur Ashe wins the Wimbledon singles title.
1975 -- Emperor Haile Selasie is killed in August and buried under one of his former palaces.
1975 -- Another Nigerian coup, new leader Brigadier Murtala Muhammed.
1976 -- Paul Robeson passes on January 23rd.
1976 -- Negro History Week becomes Black History Month.
1976 -- Abortive Nigerian coup, Brigadier Murtala Muhammed is assassinated.
1976 -- Police fire on demonstrating students and school children in the Soweto, South Africa.
1976 -- Alex Haley's novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family is published.
1976 -- Ntozake Shange's play for colored girls who have considered suicide is produced.
1978 -- National Black Consciousness Day (Zumbi Day) is established in Brazil on November 20th.
1978 -- Muhammad Ali wins the world heavyweight boxing championship for a record third time.
1978 -- James Alan McPherson receives a Pulitzer Prize for his short story collection Elbow Room.
1979 -- Multi-party elections are held in Nigeria and Alhaji Shehu Shagari becomes President.
1980 -- Freedom fighters destroy Rhodesia; The Republic of Zimbabwe is reestablished.
1980 -- Robert Johnson establishes Black Entertainment Television with a $15,000 loan.
1983 -- Guion S. Bluford, Jr. is the first African American astronaut in space.
1983 -- Gloria Naylor wins an American Book Award for The Women of Brewster Place.
1983 -- Alice Walker wins both an American Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple.
1983 -- President Shagari re-elected in Nigeria.
1983 -- Another Nigerian military coup, Major-General Mohammadu Buhari becomes Head of State.
1984 -- Oprah Winfrey accepts a job as host of A.M. Chicago, a morning show in the Windy City.
1984 -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
1984 -- Amiri Baraka's The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones is published
1984 -- Rev. Jesse Jackson is the 1st African American to make a serious run for U.S. presidency.
1985 -- Another Nigerian coup, new leader Major-General Ibrahim Babangida.
1985 -- Sonia Sanchez receives an American Book Award for homegirls & handgrenades.
1986 -- Wole Soyinka is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
1986 -- Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop passes on February 7th.
1987 -- Dr. Benjamin S. Carson is the first to successfully separate Siamese twins joined at the head.
1987 -- Ivan Van Sertima pubishes They Came Before Columbus.
1987 -- Frederick D. Gregory is the first person of African ancestry to command a space shuttle.
1987 -- Rita Dove receives a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection Thomas and Beulah.
1987 -- Dr. Molefi Kete Asante publish The Afrocentric Idea.
1987 -- Reginald Lewis buys Beatrice International Foods for just under $1 billion on August 6th.
1988 -- Terry McMillan wins an American Book Award for her novel Mama.
1988 -- Toni Morrison receives a Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved.
1989 -- Bill White becomes the president of Major League Basaball's National League.
1989 -- Ronald H. Brown named Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
1990 -- South African F.W. de Klerk pledges to eliminate apartheid & releases Nelson Mandela.
1990 -- Namibia becomes independent following a long struggle to end South African occupation.
1990 -- Charles Johnson receives a National Book Award for his novel Middle Passage. 1990 -- August Wilson wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play The Piano Lesson.
1990 -- George Washington Carver & Percy Julian are admitted into National Inventor's Hall of Fame.
1990 -- L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia becomes the first African American elected governor in U.S. 1990 -- "In Living Color" wins an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series.
1991 -- Dr. Frances Cress Welsing publishes The Isis Papers, The Keys to the Colors.
1992 -- Dr. Mae Jemison travels into space on the space shuttle Endeavor.
1992 -- A race riot sweeps across Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict.
1992 -- Derek Walcott is awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
1992 -- Anthony T. Browder publishes Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization.
1993 -- Madam Walker's mansion is purchased by a black family (Harold and Helena Doley).
1993 -- Multi-party elections in Nigeria were annulled by Babangida, who shortly after resigned.
1993 -- In Nigeria's seventh coup, General Sani Abacha assumes power.
1993 -- Toni Morrison wins the Nobel Prize for literature.
1993 -- Arthur Ashe's autobiography Days of Grace: A Memoir is published.
1994 -- Llaila O. Afrika publishes Nutricide -- The Nutritional Destruction of the Black Race.
1994 -- Nelson Mandela takes office as South Africa's first black president.
1994 -- Plane crash kills leaders of both Burundi and Rwanda, unleashing ethnic killing. 1995 -- Over one million men of African ancestry gather in Washington D.C. for the Million Man March.
1996 -- Nigeria wins the Gold Medal in 1996 Olympic Football (Soccer).
1997 -- In January Kofi Annan of Ghana becomes the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations.
1997 -- Tiger Woods wins The Masters; breaking several golf records in the process.
1997 -- In May Laurent Kabila is declared president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire).
1997 -- The first made-in-Nigeria saloon car known as Z-600 launched in the eastern city of Owerri.
1997 -- Over one million women of African ancestry gather in Philadelphia for Million Woman March.
1997 -- Multi-party elections begin in Nigeria.
1997 -- Ivorian Freedom Neruda & Nigerian Christine Anyanwu win International Press Freedom Prize.
1997 -- Uganda becomes Africa's major coffee producer with exports exceeding 4.2 million bags.
1998 -- Madam Walker becomes the subject of the United States Postal Service commemorative stamps.
1998 -- Five African nations compete in the World Cup (Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia).
1998 -- Nigeria's leader, General Sani Abacha dies of a heart attack.
1998 -- Thousands of Africans are killed in Kenya and Tanzania from a bomb attack.
1999 -- Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz becomes the subject of the United States Postal Service commemorative stamps.
2??? -- The Black man returns home to build a new nation with his partner the Black woman.

Reference Resource: A Chronological History of Africans in America,
in Africa, and in the Diaspora, 1600 BCE to AD 1980
by Your History Online

Two Companion Reference Resources by PBS on African Enslavement:

Africans in America

The Africans in America Web site is a companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series. The Web site chronicles the history of racial slavery in the United States -- from the start of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century to the end of the American Civil War in 1865 -- and explores the central paradox that is at the heart of the American story: a democracy that declared all men equal but enslaved and oppressed one people to provide independence and prosperity to another. Africans in America examines the economic and intellectual foundations of slavery in America and the global economy that prospered from it. And it reveals how the presence of African people and their struggle for freedom transformed America.

Slavery and the Making of America PBS

SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA is four-part series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies to its end in the Southern states and the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction. Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship, it looks at slavery as an integral part of a developing nation, challenging the long held notion that slavery was exclusively a Southern enterprise. At the same time, by focusing on the remarkable stories of individual slaves, it offers new perspectives on the slave experience and testifies to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives.