A carved wooden Zulu milk vessel, an ithunga
Ithunga (milk vessel), 19th century
Marked KwaBulawayo

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Zulu kingdom

Under Shaka, from 1816, the Zulu grew from a small chiefdom into a powerful kingdom in southern Africa. In 1879 a Zulu army destroyed a British force at Isandlwana, before Britain conquered the kingdom.

Place
KwaBulawayo · Ulundi · Isandlwana · Rorke’s DriftAfrica
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
7 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IShaka
  2. IIA new kind of army
  3. IIIThe Mfecane: what really happened?
  4. IVDingane and the Voortrekkers
  5. VCetshwayo
  6. VIIsandlwana
  7. VIIAfter 1879

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Shaka
  • Nandi
  • Dingane
  • Cetshwayo

Objects

  • Zulu shields and spears
  • Beadwork

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

1816 to 1879. 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?