TODAY IN HISTORY – 1st Dec, 2025 – Africa World News

Valentine Ndukwu 1 day ago 2 min read

By Valentine Uchechukwu Ndukwu.

History is an endless pathway that ensures you travel peacefully to what future there may be. All it requires is committed diligence to follow the principles it lays. (V. John Simeon)

Take a look at some historical events that have been archived on this day in the past.

On this day in 1834, slavery was abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

Still on this day in 1865, Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.

According to Today in History, in 1941 on this day, World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gave his tacit approval to the decision of the imperial council to initiate war against the United States.

It was on this day in 1955 that the American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city’s bus boycott.

It was still on this day in 1958 that the Central African Republic attained self-rule within the French Union.

Sadly in 1960 on this day, Patrice Lumumba was arrested by Mobutu Sese Seko’s men on the banks of the Sankuru River, for inciting the army to rebellion.

Interestingly on this day in 1973, Papua New Guinea gains self-government from Australia.

Remarkably on this day in 1988, World AIDS Day is proclaimed worldwide by the UN member states.

Amazingly on this day in 1988, Benazir Bhutto, is named as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first female leader to lead a Muslim nation.

In 2006 on this day, the law on same-sex marriage comes into force in South Africa, legalizing same-sex marriage for the first time on the African continent.

Still on this day in 2019, Arsenal Women 11–1 Bristol City Women broke the record for most goals scored in a FA Women’s Super League match, with Vivianne Miedema involved in ten of the eleven Arsenal goals.