Born 1934·Nigeria·politician, military personnel, huma...
1930s
Why they matter
Yakubu Gowon became Nigeria's military head of state after the 1966 counter-coup and led the federal government through the Biafran War.
He took power on 1 August 1966, days after the July counter-coup, and led the federal side in the civil war from 1967 to 1970. After the war he promoted national reconciliation before being overthrown in 1975.
Dos Santos co-founded the movement that fought Portugal out of Mozambique, then wrote its economy as its first planning minister.
A founding member and deputy president of FRELIMO, he ran the guerrilla movement's foreign relations during the war against Portuguese rule. When Mozambique won independence in 1975, he became planning minister and later speaker of parliament, steering the young state's economy. He wrote anti-colonial poetry throughout, and died in 2020 at age 90 or 91.
