Dinner on the terrace of the Tanganyika hotel in Usumbura, the town now called Bujumbura, and a gunman shot Louis Rwagasore where he sat. He was twenty-nine. He had been prime minister for a fortnight; his party had won the September elections of 1961 by a wide margin, and the country he was to lead was still ten months from independence. Men connected to his political rivals were tried for the killing.
Burundi keeps the day as Rwagasore Day. There's a stamp from the Kingdom of Burundi, ochre and dark brown, his portrait at the right and a memorial with arches at the left, the dates 1932-1961 beneath, a circular cancellation mark sitting across one side of it.
Burundi keeps the day as a public holiday, so the shops are shut and there are wreaths at the memorial — remembrance built into the ordinary working year rather than left to those who happened to recall it.
Twenty-nine, and the margin was 58 of the 64 seats — three weeks before that dinner. He never got to see the country he'd been voted in to lead.