Podcast
The Story of South Africa: Empire, Apartheid, and Transformation — Fexingo History
Episodes — page 4
The 1914 Rebellion: South Africa's Afrikaner Civil WarIn 1914, as Europe plunged into war, South Africa faced its own internal crisis. Boer generals who had fought the British just a dozen years earlier now rose against their own gove…
- Diamonds, De Beers, and the Mineral Revolution
In this milestone 200th episode, Lucas and Luna return to the story of South Africa after the discovery of diamonds near the Orange River in 1867. They explore how the diamond rush…
- The Cape Town Water Crisis: Apartheid's Aftermath and Climate
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the Cape Town water crisis of 2015–2018, placing it in the long shadow of apartheid's spatial planning and infrastructural neglect. They dis…
- The Cape Coloured Vote: From Token to Tool of Apartheid
In 1853, the Cape Colony granted a non-racial franchise open to all men who met property and wage qualifications, regardless of race. For the next eighty years, a small but signifi…
- The 1913 Natives Land Act: How South Africa's Racial Geography Was Drawn
In 1913, the Union of South Africa passed one of the most consequential laws in its history: the Natives Land Act. It reserved about seven percent of the country's land for the Afr…
- The Battle of Blood River's Forgotten Aftermath
In 1838, Voortrekkers and Zulu forces clashed at the Ncome River in what became known as the Battle of Blood River. But the violence didn't end with the Zulu defeat. This episode f…
- The Anglo-Zulu War: Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift
In 1879, the British Empire collided with the Zulu Kingdom in a war that would shock the world. This episode follows the Anglo-Zulu War from its origins in imperial ambition to its…
- Moses Kotane: The Communist Who Defied Apartheid
In this episode of The Story of South Africa, Lucas and Luna explore the extraordinary life of Moses Kotane, the general secretary of the South African Communist Party who navigate…
- The Black Sash: White Women Against Apartheid
In 1955, six white women in Johannesburg founded the Black Sash, a protest organization that would defy apartheid for four decades. This episode traces the Black Sash from its earl…
- The 1956 Treason Trial: South Africa's Showdown in the Old Synagogue
In 1956, 156 activists — including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Helen Joseph — were arrested and charged with high treason for daring to challenge apartheid. The trial would…
- The Boer War's Forgotten Front: The Siege of Mafeking
In this episode of The Story of South Africa, Lucas and Luna explore the Siege of Mafeking, a 217-day standoff that became a legend of the Anglo-Boer War. They unpack the strategic…
- Founding the African National Congress: Bloemfontein 1912
In early 1912, a group of African intellectuals, chiefs, and activists gathered in Bloemfontein to form a political organization that would become the African National Congress — t…
- Gandhi in South Africa The Making of a Mahatma
Before he led India to independence, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi spent 21 years in South Africa. This episode traces his transformation from a young lawyer in Durban to the leader o…
- The Soweto Uprising: Students Against Apartheid, 1976
In June 1976, thousands of black schoolchildren in Soweto took to the streets to protest the imposition of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction. The peaceful march turned into a…
- The Great Trek: Voortrekkers, Dingane, and the Battle of Blood River
In this episode of The Story of South Africa, Lucas and Luna explore the Great Trek—the mass migration of Dutch-speaking settlers out of the Cape Colony in the 1830s—and the violen…
- Boer War Concentration Camps: Emily Hobhouse's Exposure
In 1901, British forces in South Africa adopted a scorched-earth policy, destroying Boer farms and herding families into concentration camps. Conditions were appalling: overcrowdin…
- Shaka Zulu and the Mfecane: Cataclysm in Southern Africa
In this episode, we journey back to the early 19th century to explore the Mfecane — the crushing — a period of upheaval that reshaped Southern Africa. At its center is Shaka kaSenz…
- South Africa 1936 The End of the Cape Black Vote
In 1936, the South African government under Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog passed the Representation of Natives Act, effectively ending the Cape's historic non-racial qualified fran…
- The Xhosa Cattle-Killing: Nongqawuse and the Great Delusion
In 1856, a teenage Xhosa girl named Nongqawuse ignited a prophecy that led her people to destroy their own cattle and crops, hoping to drive the British from their lands. The resul…
- 1914 SANNC Delegation to Britain: Protesting the Land Act
In 1914, less than a year after the devastating Natives Land Act, the newly formed South African Native National Congress (SANNC) sent a delegation to London to petition the Britis…
