The movie Zulu was more than just the breakout vehicle for Michael Caine – it was an account, albeit the movie version, of a war that defined the British Scramble for Africa and yet was hidden behind the complete and overwhelming shadows of the two World Wars. Even the movie Zulu itself still obscures the …
Cetshwayo’s name is not as well known as that of his uncle Shaka. Shaka had managed to turn the small Zulu tribe into the powerful Zulu nation before being assassinated by his brothers. Cetshwayo, who officially ruled from 1873 to 1879, was confronted with the might of the British Empire and history records him as …
On 27 July 1948, Dorothea Bleek died. Dorothea had followed in her father’s footsteps, documenting the culture, language, and thousands-of-years-old rock art of Southern Africa. And although Dorothea continued to demur to her father’s expertise throughout her life, it was her books that brought the San to the attention of more academics. Her book, A …
The San people of Southern Africa first really came to the world’s attention in the 1950s with a miniseries and a book by Laurens van der Post titled The Lost World of the Kalahari. Of course, Africans weren’t unknown in the world – not only had the trans-Atlantic slave trade forcefully and violently moved people …
“Natives must be taught from an early age that equality with Europeans is not for them,” Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, author of the Bantu Education Act. In 1971, sociologist Dr Melville Edelstein, who devoted 18 years of his life to working in Soweto to improve conditions, wrote a book called “What Young Africans Think,” about the …
Apartheid in South Africa began its long, slow fall on 16 June 1976 when students in Soweto took to the street to protest being forced to study school subjects in Afrikaans. June 16 is now celebrated as Youth Day in South Africa, a day when the courage of students resulted in the horrible deaths …
Again and again during the Anglo Boer Wars in South Africa, the British troops were able to quickly and effectively turn hard fought tactical victory into strategic defeat. A perfect example was the Battle of Elandslaagte, fought on 21 October 1899, during the Second Boer War. For context, an eland is a massive antelope, standing …
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