Portal:Military history of Africa/Selected anniversaries/February

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Selected anniversaries in February

1 February

• No military event recorded.

2 February

• 1542 - Portuguese under Christovão da Gama capture a Moslem-occupied hillfort in northern Ethiopia in the Battle of Baçente.
• 1971 - After a coup in Uganda, Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader.
• 1990 - Apartheid: In South Africa President F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to set Nelson Mandela free.

3 February

• No military event recorded.

4 February

• No military event recorded.

5 February

• 1885 - King Léopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal possession.
• 1962 - French President Charles De Gaulle calls for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation.

6 February

• 46 BC - Julius Caesar defeats the combined army of Pompeian followers and Numidians under Metellus Scipio and Juba at Thapsus.

7 February

• 1842 - Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien.

8 February

• 1900 - British troops are defeated by Boers at Ladysmith, South Africa.
• 1974 - Military coup in Upper Volta.
• 1979 - Denis Sassou-Nguesso became the President of the Republic of the Congo for the first time.

9 February

• No military event recorded.

10 February

• No military event recorded.

11 February

• 1990 - Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is freed from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.

12 February

• No military event recorded.

Portal:Military history of Africa/Selected anniversaries/February13

14 February

• 1831 - Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
• 1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, 20,000 British troops invade the Orange Free State.
• 1943 - World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass - German General Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps launch an offensive against Allied defenses in Tunisia.

15 February

• No military event recorded.

16 February

• 1838 - Weenen Massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal were killed by Zulus.

17 February

• No military event recorded.

18 February

• 1332 (or 1329) - Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia begins his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces.
• 1965 - The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

19 February

• 1937 - During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two Eritrean nationalists attempt to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades.
• 1941 - World War II: The Afrika Korps, the corps-level headquarters controlling the German Panzer divisions in North Africa, was formed.
• 1943 - World War II: Battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia begins.
• 1968 - Egyptian commando forces attempt to intervene in a hijacking situation at Larnaca International Airport, without authorisation from the Republic of Cyprus authorities. The Cypriot National Guard and Police forces kill 15 Egyptian commandos and destroy the Egyptian C-130 transport plane in open combat.

20 February

• No military event recorded.

21 February

• 1543 - Battle of Wayna Daga - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Ahmed Gragn.
• 1973 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108.
• 1974 - The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal in carrying out a truce with Egypt.
• 1995 - Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria; 4 guards and 96 prisoners killed in a day and a half.

22 February

• 2002 - Angolan political and rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush.

23 February

• 1854 - The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.
• 1900 - In South Africa the Boers and British troops fight in the Battle of Hart's Hill.

24 February

• 1945 - Egyptian Premier Ahmed Maher Pasha is killed in Parliament after reading a decree.

25 February

• 1954 - Gamal Abdul Nasser is made premier of Egypt.
• 2007 - The strike against Lansana Conté in Guinea ends.

26 February

• 2004 - The United States lifts a ban on travel to Libya, ending travel restrictions to the nation that had lasted for 23 years.

27 February

• 1900 - Second Boer War: In South Africa, British military leaders receive an unconditional notice of surrender from Boer General Piet Cronje at the Battle of Paardeberg.
• 1976 - The formerly Spanish territory of Western Sahara, under the auspices of the Polisario Front declares independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
• 1999 - Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983.

28 February

• 1897 - Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch in Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force.
• 1900 - The Second Boer War: The 118-day "Siege of Ladysmith" is lifted.
• 1922 - The United Kingdom accepts the independence of Egypt.
• 1974 - After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-establish diplomatic relations.

29 February

• 1988 - South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.