1978 — Didier Drogba Is Born

On March 11, 1978, Didier Drogba was born in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, the striker who became Africa's greatest football export. At Chelsea he turned into the ultimate big-game player, scoring the late equalizer and the winning penalty in the 2012 Champions League final, on the biggest club stage of all.

For the Elephants he remains the all-time top scorer with sixty-five goals. And when his country stood at the edge of civil war, his live-television plea to lay down arms gave the fragile peace process new momentum. Drogba's gift reached beyond football: a scorer of famous goals who also spoke, at a dangerous hour, for peace.

One of 366 days. Every entry is researched and checked against the historical record before it is filmed or printed; where the record is uncertain, the entry says so. About the method.