Marked Sharpeville

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Apartheid and its end

From 1948 South Africa’s government imposed apartheid, a system of laws separating people by race. It was resisted for decades, at home and abroad, until the first free election of 1994 made Nelson Mandela president.

Place
Sharpeville · Robben Island · Soweto · PretoriaAfrica
Laid out as
A revolutionHow things were before, the moment it turned, and how things were after.
Lessons
7 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

BeforeA state built on laws separating people by race.

  1. IThe laws of apartheid
  2. IIThe Freedom Charter
  3. IIISharpeville
  4. IVRobben Island
  5. VSoweto, 1976
  6. VIBoycotts abroad
  7. VII1994

AfterA democracy with votes for all.

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Nelson Mandela
  • Albertina Sisulu
  • Steve Biko
  • Desmond Tutu
  • Hector Pieterson
  • F. W. de Klerk

Objects

  • Pass books
  • The photo of Hector Pieterson

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1948 to 1994. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?