Independence in Africa

Wow. Are we now expected to remember the independence dates of every former African colony?

What next? "Which US state joined the Union on 15 June 1836?" (It was Arkansas, in case you were wondering.)

No fewer than eighteen African nations became independent in 1960. To be fair, the majority of them were French colonies and only two were British (the other being British Somaliland, on 26 June, which was joined on 1 July by the Trust Territory of Somaliland – a UN Trust Territory under Italian administration – to form Somalia.) But even "Name one of the two British colonies that gained independence in 1960" would have been a guessing game for me.

The first African country to go it alone having been under British colonial rule was South Africa, whose four colonies became one independent country (a Dominion within the British Empire, if I'm not mistaken) in 1909. The next was the British Military Administration of Libya, on Christmas Eve 1951. This was followed by Sudan (previously Anglo–Egyptian Sudan) on 1 January 1956, and Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) in 1957. Then came the great wave of independence for former French colonies, beginning with Guinea (formerly French West Africa) on 2 October 1958.

Most British colonies gained independence between 1962 and 1968 – starting with Uganda on 9 October 1962 and ending with Swaziland on 6 September 1968. Last of all (among the British colonies) was the Seychelles on 29 June 1976, after which Djibouti became the last African colony (to date) to gain independence from its European colonisers on 27 June 1977. This left only the Spanish Sahara, which is still to gain full independence.

The good news in all of this is that it's prompted me to take a closer look at the sequence of African independence than I've ever done before; and these brief notes are the result. I just hope it's not the precursor to a genre of questions along similar lines – such as "Which African country gained independence from France on 6 July 1975?" (The answer, again in case you were wondering, is Comoros.)