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Featured Evangelists

Olatunrinle, Christianah c. 1855 –  1941, b. Ondo, Eastern Yorubaland (Nigeria)

Kivebulaya, Apolo c.1864– 1933, b. Kiwanda (Uganda)

Harris, William Wade c. 1865 –  1929, b. Cape Palmas, Liberia

Charlotte Manye 1872 –  1939, b. Fort Beaufort, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Orimolade, Moses 1879 –  1933, b. Ikare, Western Nigeria

Akinyele, Isaac 1880– 1965, b. Ibadan, Western Nigeria

Kimbangu, Simon c. 1887 –  1951, b. Nkamba, Congo Free State (now Democratic Republic of Congo)

Nsibambi, Simeon 1897 –  1978, b. Buloba, county of Busiro, Uganda

Kiwanuka, Joseph Nakabaale 1899 – 1966, b. Nakirebe, Mawokota county, Uganda

Oshitelu, Josiah Olunowo 1902 –  1962, b. Ogere, Ijebuland (Nigeria)

Crowther, Samuel Ajayi 1808 –  1891, b. Osogun, Yorubaland (Nigeria)

Johnson, James “HoIy" c. 1836 –  1917, b. near Waterloo, Sierra Leone

Mokone, Mangena Maake 1851 –  1931, b. Sekhukhuneland, Northern Province, South Africa

Choramo, Mahay early 1920s, b. Kucha, southern Ethiopia

Christian Events/Movements

1799 Church Missionary Society founded.

1804 British and Foreign Bible Society founded.

1840s Roman Catholic missionary societies The Congregation of the Holy Ghost and the White Fathers founded.

1886–1887 Ugandan Christians martyred for their faith by chief Mwanga.

1890s Western missionary control of the Nigerian and South African churches provokes African leaders to form the independent “Ethiopian” movement.

1903 Afrikaner P. L. Le Roux joins a group dependent on John Alexander Dowie’s church in Zion, Illinois, U.S.A Le Roux passed on Zionism to the church in South Africa, now called the Zionist Apostolic Church.

1920s Prayer groups within Nigerian churches birth the Aladura “praying people” movement.

1930s Revival sweeps Uganda and Rwanda, marked by conversion experiences associated with visions and public confession.

1968 Vatican Council II ends, accelerating the development of African clergy and leading to an African Catholicism dominated by African clerical and lay leadership.

1975 The WCC’s choice of Nairobi for their General Assembly amounts to a Western declaration of the African church’s coming-of-age.

1994 Pope John Paul II convenes an African Synod to indigenize Christianity in the areas of liturgy, marriage, and ancestor reverence.

Colonial Events

1787 Britain establishes the colony of Sierra Leone, where freed slaves are settled.

1807 Britain declares the African slave trade illegal.

1827 Fourah Bay College is founded and draws English-speaking Africans across West Africa.

1871 H. M. Stanley tracks down David Livingstone and goes on to explore Uganda and the Congo for Britain.

1876–1912 Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany scramble for African possessions.

1896 Invading Italian army defeated by Menelik Il’s Ethiopian army at Adowa, thereby protecting Ethiopia from foreign control.

1899 Boers invade Cape Colony in South Africa, sparking war with Britain.

1914–18 Britain and Germany clash in Tanzania, where Britain deploys over 50,000 African soldiers.

1920s Britain establishes a system of indirect rule through African chieftains, a system that survives for 30 years.

1939–45 Africans across the continent are recruited to fight in World War II.

1957 Britain gives the Gold Coast (Ghana) its independence, the first in sub-Saharan Africa.

1960 Seventeen African nations gain their independence.

1980 The former Southern Rhodesia gains its independence as the Republic of Zimbabwe.

1990 Namibia (formerly Southwest Africa) gains its independence.

By the Editors

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