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Sierra Leone becomes independent
Independence ceremony, Freetown · Freetown, Sierra Leone · 1961-04-27
A colony founded for freed slaves in 1787 became independent within the Commonwealth.
The record
| Date | 1961-04-27 |
|---|---|
| Place | Independence ceremony, Freetown, Freetown, Sierra Leone |
| Coordinates | 8.4657, -13.2317 (city-level precision) |
| Scope | Local interest |
| Sources | Wikipedia |
| Added | 2026-08-14 · source: editors |
Coordinates are given at city level. A landmark-level coordinate points at the structure; a city-level one points at the settlement, not at a parcel.
Finding photographs
Every one of these is a search, not a guess: the event is documented, so the pictures exist somewhere. Start here.
- Wikimedia Commons — freely licensed images, with the licence stated on every file. This is the only source we republish from.
- The reference article — its own illustrations, and its citations to archives.
- Image search filtered to reusable licences — useful for tracing which institution holds a picture.
- National and municipal archives of Sierra Leone, and the picture desks of newspapers published there at the time.
Check the licence before you reuse anything. A photograph being online, or being old, does not make it free; in most countries a 1960s press photograph is still in copyright.
Footage
Newsreel and archive film of events like this often survives. Search YouTube for this event If you find good footage, send us the link and we will attach it to this page.
Seeded by the editors. This entry was compiled by us from public reference works and is labelled as such, not presented as a reader’s contribution. Sources are listed on the entry. If you know more, or we have it wrong, tell us — corrections are published.
You can add to this page
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What readers have added
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Old photographs, what your family remembers being on the corner, a shop that is not on any map we have. Contributions are read by a person before anything is published, and we never publish the names of living people.
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