MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · October 1 · 1960
ON THIS DAY · 1 OCTOBER 1960
Lagos — Nigeria at midnight
1 Oct 1960 — The most populous nation in Africa — a federation of three regions and 250 peoples — lowers the Union Jack. Its scale makes it the continent’s great federal experiment, and its deepest fault line.
THE MOMENT IN CONTEXT
Now do something with this map: put the playhead in 1959 and drag it slowly through 1960. Watch the continent catch fire. In a single year seventeen states become independent — most of French Africa in one great cascade, plus the vast Belgian Congo, British Nigeria and Italian Somaliland. Cameroon in January, Togo in April, Madagascar in June, the Congo at the end of June, Somalia on 1 July, then in August a fortnight in which Dahomey, Niger, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Chad, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Senegal all raise flags in turn, Mali in September, Nigeria — the giant, some forty-five million people — on 1 October, Mauritania in November. This is the single most spectacular moment on the timeline: seventeen colours flipping to red at once. No year in modern history redrew so much of the political map so fast.
From Chapter 5 — The Year of Africa of The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994 (JUL 1960).
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TEACH THIS IN 5 MINUTES
- Why it happened — The loi-cadre alumni. France’s 1956 framework law devolved real power to elected territorial assemblies and African executives — men like Houphouët-Boigny and Senghor who…
- The turn — Lagos, 1 October 1960 — the giant rises. Nigeria — the most populous nation in Africa, a federation of three regions and some 250 peoples — lowers the Union Jack. Its sheer scale makes it…
- What it changed — A new majority at the UN. The class of 1960 transformed the United Nations, giving the Afro-Asian bloc a permanent majority in the General Assembly and making decolonization…
Then ask the room: Why did seventeen countries become independent in the single year 1960 — and was the speed a triumph or a problem? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
THE ATLAS THAT SHOWS IT
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