February 18: The African Xhosa famine

In 1857, Nongaqawuse, a teenaged Christian millennialist prophet of the Xhosa people, predicted that if the Xhosa would first kill all of their own cattle, spirits would arrive on this date and sweep the British occupation into the sea. Nearly 75% of the Xhosa population of 100,000 would go on to die in the resulting famine, with many of the survivors resorting to cannibalism.