Independence of Ghana
First in sub-Saharan Africa to end colonial rule
The British colony of the Gold Coast, led by Kwame Nkrumah, became independent Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to throw off colonial rule. Its example inspired the decolonisation of the continent.
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Did you know
1957: Ghana became one of the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to throw off colonial rule, and the USSR launched the first satellite.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1939–1945 World War II — 18 years earlier
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 10 years earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 9 years earlier
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 8 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 23 years later
Europe
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 24 years earlier
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 21 years earlier
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — 16 years earlier
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 4 years earlier
- 1957 Treaty of Rome — same year
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 16 years earlier
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 15 years earlier
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 12 years earlier
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — same year
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 4 years later
Middle East
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — 25 years earlier
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — 9 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 22 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 23 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 12 years earlier
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 4 years earlier
- 1955–1975 Vietnam War — 2 years earlier
- 1958–1962 Great Leap Forward — 1 year later
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 18 years later
Americas
- 1955 Salk polio vaccine declared safe — 2 years earlier
- 1959 Cuban Revolution — 2 years later
- 1960 Great Chilean earthquake — 3 years later
- 1969 Moon landing — 12 years later
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 13 years later
Oceania
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 21 years earlier
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 16 years earlier
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 15 years earlier
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 3 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 2 years later
Alive at the time
- Winston Churchill (aged 83)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 76)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 68)
- Mao Zedong (aged 64)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 39)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (aged 28)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 27)
- Yuri Gagarin (aged 23)
- Harry S. Truman (aged 73)
- Anna Akhmatova (aged 68)