Menu
✦ Contribute to SAHO

The yearly Human Rights Day public holiday in South Africa in late March commemorates the Sharpeville Massacre, when police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed black protesters outside the Sharpeville police station on 21 March 1960. An estimated 69 people were killed and 180 injured, many shot in the back as they fled the scene.

The protest, led by the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, was against the hated identification document, known as a “dompas” (dumb pass), that the apartheid regime forced black people to carry, and which controlled their movements.

Published March 22, 2021Updated July 8, 2022
Patensie is a Town in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Patensie lies along the R331 road just South of Noorshoek. The Antoniesberg Pass is not a lazy Sunday afternoon drive. This Pass is a remote, sheer gravel pass that links the Groot River with the Northern side of the Baviaanskloof Mountains. The Pass itself is not long, only 5 km, but there are several access roads that combine to make it something of an adventure, depending on how you drive it.
Published March 15, 2021Updated March 15, 2021

Personal Information

Cheryl Ellen Gillwald
Born: December 13, 1956 in Welkom, Orange Free State (now Free State Province)
Died: July 27, 2010

Cheryl Ellen Gillwald was born in Welkom in the Orange Free State (now Free State Province) on 13 December 1956. She matriculated in 1974 at Roedean in Johannesburg, Transvaal (now Gauteng). Thereafter she attended Washington High School in Wisconsin, United States of America (USA) as an American Field Service exchange student, for one year.

Published March 15, 2021Updated March 16, 2021
The Somerset Hospital in Green Point opened in 1864 and has been declared a National Monument. The Hospital replaced one of the same name in Cape Town which had been founded by Dr Samuel Bailey in 1818 as the first civilian Hospital in the City. It was named after Lord Charles Somerset the Governor of the Cape Colony who gave land for the construction. The cornerstone for the new Hospital was laid on 18 August 1859 by the Cape Governor Sir George Grey.

On December 3, 2018, Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu celebrates 47 years since his coronation as Isilo (King) of the Zulus of South Africa. Zwelithini (literally, “What does the world have to say?”) was born on July 14, 1948, the eldest son of Paramount Chief Cyprian Bhekuzulu and his second wife, Thomozile Jezangani kaNdwandwe. Groomed to become king from a young age, Zwelithini was enrolled at Bhekuzulu College, the training institution for the sons of chiefs and headmen in Nongoma, and tutored in Zulu customs privately at the Khethomthandayo royal residence.

Subscribe to