History of Africa Egypt and Ethiopia were already independent. Many countries followed in the 1950s and 1960s, with a peak in 1960 with the Year of Africa, which saw 17 African nations declare independence, including a large part of French West Africa. Most of the remaining countries gained independence throughout the 1960s, although some colonizers (Portugal in particular) were reluctant to relinquish sovereignty, resulting in bitter wars of independence which lasted for a decade or more. The last African countries to gain formal independence were Guinea-Bissau (1974), Mozambique (1975) and Angola (1975) from Portugal; Djibouti from France in 1977; Zimbabwe from the United
Postage stamps and postal history of Mozambique 1975, many existing stamps, some going back as far as 1953, were issued with an overprint marking independence. Issues of independent Mozambique have been relatively restrained and focus on local subjects. Philatelic issues are frequently released in sets of four-to-six stamps. For instance, in 1985 there were 10 issues, of which three were single commemoratives, five were sets of four, and the remaining two were sets of six. The Kionga Triangle was a tiny territory on the border between German East Africa (present-day Tanzania) and Portuguese Mozambique occupied by the Portuguese forces in 1916. On May 29, 1916, stamps from