1959 — Boganda Day

On March 29, 1959, Barthélemy Boganda, the founding father of the Central African Republic, died when his plane exploded over the forest west of Bangui. Just four months after proclaiming the republic into being on December 1, 1958, he was flying home, poised to become its first president.

Investigators found traces of explosive, but no full report was ever published. Every March 29, the nation honors him with Boganda Day. A founder lost on the eve of the office he had created left his country a day of remembrance, and a question about his death that was never fully answered.

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.