The German general Lothar von Trotha drives 8000 Herrero people to slow death in the Kalahari desert

Transvaal politician Louis Botha forms Het Volk ('The People'), a party committed to Afrikaner self-government

Kaiser Wilhelm II visits Tangier in support of Moroccan independence, causing a diplomatic crisis with the colonial powers France and Britain

The largest diamond yet known is found in a South African mine belonging to Thomas Cullinan

The Maji-Maji rising results in alarming outbreaks of violence in German East Africa

The German commander in east Africa uses famine as a means of ending the Maji-Maji rising

An international conference at Algeciras effectively gives France informal control of Morocco

Mahatma Gandhi, confronted by racial discrimination in South Africa, launches a programme of passive resistance (satyagraha)

Transvaal is given the self-governing status promised in the treaty ending the Boer War

The Transvaal government presents to Edward VII the Cullinan diamond, now part of the British crown jewels

National delegates from the four provincial parliaments draw up a draft constitution for a South African union

Mineral discoveries on the border of Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo give the first hint of the riches of the Copper Belt

The Union of South Africa becomes an independent dominion within the British empire

Three French colonies south of the Sahara are consolidated as French Equatorial Africa

Louis Botha is prime minister of the newly formed Union of South Africa, with Jan Smuts as his minister of interior and defence

Italy finds a reason to invade Libya, a province of the Turkish empire.

Germany causes international alarm by sending a warship to Agadir, a port in French-controlled Morocco

Copper mining begins in Katanga, soon to be followed by the extraction of even more profitable diamonds

Turkey, beset by troubles elsewhere, cedes to Italy her north African province of Libya

By the treaty of Fès a French protectorate is formally established in Morocco

France and Spain agree that Spain shall become the colonial power in the north of Morocco and France in the south

The South African National Native Congress (subsequently the ANC, African National Congress) is set up in Cape Province

Albert Schweitzer and his wife become missionaries at Lambaréné in west Africa

J.B.M. Hertzog founds the National Party in South Africa to represent Afrikaner interests

British rule is consolidated in Nigeria by the merging of north and south as a single colony