His Onyichinaz

 HIS: 1997 – Fela Kuti, Nigerian singer-songwriter and activist died of AIDS in Lagos. Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti; 15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997), also known as Abami Eda, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, composer, political activist, and Pan-Africanist. He is regarded as the pioneer of Afrobeat, an African music genre that combines West African music with American funk and jazz. At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most "challenging and charismatic music performers". AllMusic described him as a musical and sociopolitical voice of international significance. Kuti was the son of Nigerian women's rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. After early experiences abroad, he and his band Africa 70 (featuring drummer and musical director Tony Allen) shot to stardom in Nigeria during the 1970s, during which he was an outspoken critic and target of Nigeria's military juntas. In 1970,...

 HIS: Orompoto the first and only female Alaafin of Oyo Empire. Orompoto was the first and only female Alaafin of Oyo. She was the sister of her predecessor, Eguguojo. She assumed the throne in 1554 because there was no male successor to her elder brother at the time. Legend has it that she cut off her breasts (mastectomy) and put on men's clothing to look like a man and for the Oyo Mesi to accept her as Alaafin. In 1557, Alaafin Orompoto (the custodian of the vagina that kills evil plots, the king with the great gift, the king with the flabbergasting gift) strengthened Oyo's military might. She imported horses from as far as Timbuktu in Mali and had over 1000 horsemen. She did tie leaves on the horses' tails so that when they went a fighting, the leaves swept the ground after them to cover trails of the horses' prints. Alaafin Orompoto was a skilful commander and a tactical leader. She was brave and won many battles. During her reign, Oyo regained its military prestig...

 HIS: 1967 – Nigerian Civil War: Nigerian forces invade Biafra, beginning the war. The first shot was fired at Ogoja in Cross River State. The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970; also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War or the Biafran War) was a civil war fought between the government of Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967. Nigeria was led by General Yakubu Gowon, while Biafra was led by Lt. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu. Biafra represented the nationalist aspirations of the Igbo ethnic group, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the federal government dominated by the interests of the Muslim Hausa-Fulanis of northern Nigeria. The conflict resulted from political, economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions which preceded Britain's formal decolonization of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963. Immediate causes of the war in 1966 included ethno-religious violence and anti-Igbo pogroms ...

 HIS: 1977 – France grants independence to Djibouti. Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Somalia in the south, Ethiopia in the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in the east. Across the Gulf of Aden is Yemen. The country has a total area of 23,200 km2 (8,958 sq mi). In antiquity, the territory together with Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somaliland was part of the Land of Punt. Nearby Zeila, now in Somaliland, was the seat of the medieval Adal and Ifat Sultanates. In the late 19th century, the colony of French Somaliland was established following treaties signed by the ruling Dir Somali sultans with the French and its railroad to Dire Dawa (and later Addis Ababa) allowed it to quickly supersede Zeila as the port for southern Ethiopia and the Ogaden. It was subsequently renamed to the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas in 1967. A decade later, the Djiboutian people voted...

 HIS:  1945 – The United Nations Charter is signed by 50 Allied nations in San Francisco, California. The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council. The UN Charter mandates the UN and its member states to maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve "higher standards of living" for their citizens, address "economic, social, health, and related problems", and promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion". As a charter and constituent treaty, its rules and obligations are b...

 HIS: 1960 – Madagascar gains its independence from France. The Republic of Madagascar or Madagascar (and previously known as the Malagasy Republic), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately 400 kilometres (250 miles) off the coast of East Africa across the Mozambique Channel. At 592,800 square kilometres (228,900 sq mi) Madagascar is the world's second-largest country that consists primarily of islands, after Indonesia. The nation consists of the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world) and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from the Indian subcontinent around 88 million years ago, allowing native plants and animals to evolve in relative isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot; over 90% of its wildlife is endemic. Human settlement of Madagascar occurred during or before the mid first millennium AD by Austronesian peoples, presumably a...

 HIS: 1843 – Treaty of Nanking comes into effect, Hong Kong Island is ceded to the British "in perpetuity". In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Britain faced a growing trade deficit with China. Britain could offer nothing to China to match the growing importation of Chinese goods to Britain, such as tea and porcelain. In British India, opium was grown on plantations and auctioned to merchants, who then sold it to Chinese who smuggled it into China, although Chinese law forbade the importation and sale of opium. When Lin Zexu seized this privately owned opium and ordered the destruction of opium at Humen, Britain first demanded reparations, then declared what became known as the First Opium War. Britain's use of recently invented military technology produced a stunning victory and allowed it to impose a one-sided treaty with generous conditions. The first working draft for articles of a treaty was prepared at the Foreign Office in London in February 1840. The Foreig...

 HIS: 2009 – Michael Jackson, American singer-songwriter, producer, dancer, and actor died. Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres; through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated dance moves such as the moonwalk, to which he gave the name, as well as the robot. He is the most awarded individual music artist in history. The eighth child of the Jackson family, Jackson made his professional debut in 1964 with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 (later known as the Jacksons). Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown Reco...

WAS THE JANUARY 15, 1966 COUP AN IGBO COUP? Some argue that Major Kaduna Nzeogwu's involvement in the January 1966 coup was part of a grand Igbo plan to "dominate" the country. This argument ignores the fact that Nzeogwu was an Igbo only in name. Major Nzeogwu was born in Kaduna, the capital of the Northern Region, to Igbo immigrant parents from Okpanam, present-day Delta State, then in the Mid-West Region of Nigeria as of the time of the coup. His family and military colleagues referred to him as "Kaduna" because of their attachment to the city of Nzeogwu's birth. Kaduna Nzeogwu wore northern mufti when he wasn't in his army uniform and frequently referred to himself as "a northerner." Nzeogwu spoke Hausa, the lingua franca of the Northern Region, like a local. The major's command of the Hausa language was superior and better than his command of the Igbo language. Even though the coup had been largely termed an Igbo coup, it was foiled by ...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1960 – Japan and the United States sign the US–Japan Mutual Security Treaty. The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan , more commonly known as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in English and as the Anpo jōyaku (安保条約) or just Anpo (安保) in Japanese, is a treaty that permits the presence of U.S. military bases on Japanese soil, and commits the two nations to defend each other if one or the other is attacked. Over time, it has had the effect of establishing a military alliance between the United States and Japan. The current treaty, which took effect on June 23, 1960, revised and replaced an earlier version of the treaty, which had been signed in 1951 in conjunction with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty that terminated World War II in Asia as well as the U.S.-led Occupation of Japan (1945–1952). The revision of the treaty in 1960 was a highly contentious process in Japan, and widespread opposition to its pas...

HIS: This Day in History: 1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) , also known as the Tokyo Trial or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on April 29, 1946 to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for crimes against peace and other war crimes leading up to and during the Second World War. It was modeled after the International Military Tribunal (IMT) formed several months earlier in Nuremberg, Germany to prosecute senior officials of Nazi Germany.  Following Japan's defeat and occupation by the Allies, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, United States General Douglas MacArthur, issued a special proclamation establishing the IMTFE. A charter was drafted to establish the court's composition, jurisdiction, procedures; the crimes were defined based on the Nuremberg Charter. The Tokyo War Crimes T...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1915 – Japan issues the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia. The Twenty-One Demands  was a set of demands made during the First World War by the Empire of Japan under Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu to the government of the Republic of China on 18 January 1915. The secret demands would greatly extend Japanese control of China. It would keep the former German areas it had conquered at the start of World War I in 1914. It would be strong in Manchuria and South Mongolia. It would have an expanded role in railways. The most extreme demands (in section 5) would give Japan a decisive voice in finance, policing, and government affairs. The last part would make China in effect a protectorate of Japan, and thereby reduce Western influence. Japan was in a strong position, as the Western powers were in a stalemated world war with Germany. Britain and Japan had a military alliance since 1902, and in 1914 ...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1919 – World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France. The Paris Peace Conference was the formal meeting in 1919 and 1920 of the victorious Allies after the end of World War I to set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, it resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. Germany and the other losing nations had no voice in the Conference's deliberations; this gave rise to political resentments that lasted for decades. The conference involved diplomats from 32 countries and nationalities. Its major decisions were the creation of the League of Nations and the five peace treaties with the defeated states; the awarding of German and Ottoman overseas possessions as "mandates", chiefly to Britain and France; the imposition of reparations upon Ger...

 HIS: This Day in History: 2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over. The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, enveloped the country, and left over 50,000 dead. During the first year of the war, the RUF took control of large swathes of territory in eastern and southern Sierra Leone, which were rich in alluvial diamonds. The government's ineffective response to the RUF, and the disruption in government diamond production, precipitated a military coup d'état in April 1992 by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). By the end of 1993, the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) had succeeded in pushing the RUF rebels back...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1970 – Biafra capitulates, ending the Nigerian Civil War. Biafra , officially the Republic of Biafra, was a secessionist state in West Africa that separated from Nigeria and existed from May 1967 to January 1970. Its territory consisted of the southeastern region of Nigeria, which is predominantly populated by the Igbo people. Biafra was formed by Igbo nationalists who believed they could no longer coexist with Nigeria, leading to the Nigerian Civil War. Nigeria declared war on Biafra shortly after its declaration of independence, eventually resulting in the defeat of Biafra and the reunification of the two states. Biafra was formally recognized by Gabon, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia. Other nations, which did not give official recognition but provided support and assistance to Biafra, included France, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Rhodesia, South Africa, and Vatican City. Biafra received aid from non-state actors, including Joint Church Aid, H...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1918 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I. The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. However, his main Allied colleagues (Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism. The United States had joined the Triple Entente in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into the war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain and also the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram. However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standi...

HIS: This Day in History: 1454 – The papal bull Romanus Pontifex awards the Kingdom of Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador. Romanus Pontifex, Latin for "The Roman Pontiff", is a papal bull issued several times over the 15th century, first in 1436 by Pope Eugenius IV and again in 1455 by Pope Nicholas V to King Afonso V of Portugal. As a follow-up to the Dum Diversas, it confirmed to the Crown of Portugal dominion over all lands south of Cape Bojador in Africa. Along with encouraging the seizure of the lands of Saracen Turks and non-Christians. The bull's primary purpose was to forbid other Christian nations from infringing the King of Portugal's rights of trade and colonisation in these regions, particularly amid the Portuguese and Castilian competition for ascendancy over new lands discovered. This bull should not be confused with a September 21, 1451, bull by the same name, also written by Nicholas V, relieving th...

HIS: This Day in History: 2010 – The Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, officially opens in Dubai. The Burj Khalifa , known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration in 2010, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With a total height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (just over half a mile) and a roof height (excluding antenna, but including a 244 m spire) of 828 m (2,717 ft), the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest structure and building in the world since its topping out in 2009, supplanting Taipei 101, the previous holder of that status.  Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004, with the exterior completed five years later in 2009. The primary structure is reinforced concrete and some of the structural steel for the building originated from the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin, the former East German parliament. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. It was designed to be the centrepiece of large-sc...

 HIS: This Day in History: 1868 – Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power. The Meiji Restoration , referred to at the time as the Honorable Restoration, and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ruling emperors before the Meiji Restoration, the events restored practical abilities and consolidated the political system under the Emperor of Japan. The goals of the restored government were expressed by the new emperor in the Charter Oath. The Restoration led to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure and spanned both the late Edo period (often called the Bakumatsu) and the beginning of the Meiji era, during which time Japan rapidly industrialized and adopted Western ideas and production methods. The Japanese knew they were behind the Western powers whe...

HIS: This Day in History: 1995 – The World Trade Organization comes into being. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade between nations. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that govern international trade. It officially commenced operations on 1 January 1995, pursuant to the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, thus replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that had been established in 1948. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organization, with 164 member states representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.  The WTO facilitates trade in goods, services and intellectual property among participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements, which usually aim to reduce or eliminate tariffs, quotas, and other restrictions; these agreements are signed by representatives of member governments and rati...