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History Classroom

This day in history

Find out who was born, who died and other significant events from this day in history

History in Images

One of the organisers of the 1956 Women's March, Lilian Ngoyi
A young victim of the atrocities committed by Belgium in the Congo stands next to a missionary. 
Image Source:
www.wikimedia.org
Riot police play a game of soccer with youths in Nyanga on 27 August 1976. Photo by John Paisley
Image Source:
www.lib.uct.ac.za
A certificate of slavery for an infant named Sophie, dated 1827 Cape of Good Hope. 
Image Source:
www.theculturetrip.com
Riot police attempt to block the way of workers leaving a May Day meeting at Khotso House in Johannesburg in May 1985. 
Image Source:
www.digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za
A family sits outside the front door of their District Six home in Cape Town in the 1970s, prior to their forced removal. Photograph by Jansje Wissema. 
Image Source:
www.digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za

Personal Information

Robert Mokwena
Born: April 4, 1952 in White City Jabavu, Soweto, Transvaal (now known as Gauteng)
Died: October 5, 1981

Robert Mokwena, also known by his guerrilla name as George Sello, was born on 4 April 1952 in White City Jabavu, Soweto in the Transvaal (now known as Gauteng Province). He attended school at Mohlakaneng in Pietersburg now Polokwane, dropping  in standard 5 (grade 7).

Personal Information

Nosipho Dastile
Born: 1938 in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape
Died: May 2009

Nosipho Dastile was born in 1938 in Uitenhage, a town in the Eastern Cape. After finishing school, she worked as a community activist as well as a volunteer teacher at a Roman Catholic Mission School. Later, she moved to the Little Flower Primary School where she was a full-time teacher.

A photograph of Betty Boom Image source
Additional Date: October 12, 2000

In December 1986, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres Joyce ‘Betty Boom’ Koekanyetswe, Nomasonto Mashiya and Tax Sejaname were abducted by members of the Orange Free State Security Branch in Lesotho. Betty Boom was a Commander and highly trained MK cadre as well as a committee member of the South African Communist Party (SACP). Nomasonto Mashiya was abducted with her one-year old baby but the police returned the baby to Mashiya’s parents in the Orange Free State (now the Free State Province). Not much is known about Tax Sejaname’s affiliations or abduction. Early in January 1987, Mbulelo ‘Khaya Kasibe (KK)’ Ngono was involved in a shoot-out with the security forces in Lesotho but he managed to escape only to be abducted in 1988 by the same security branch who abducted Betty Boom, Nomasonto Mashiya and Tax Sejaname. KK was abducted in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The four MK cadres were held at a farm in Ladybrand, Free State which is 18kms away from Maseru and came to be known as the Ladybrand Four. 

Three members of the Orange Free State Security Branch namely Anthony Jagga, Robert Shaw and Mike Jantjie and Daniel Thulo, an apartheid-era police informer and a member of the Ladybrand Security Branch police unit, applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for the abduction of the Ladybrand Four.

Their TRC hearing took place on 12 October 2000. They all admitted to abducting the four MK cadres from Lesotho in 1986 but claimed that they released them after they became askaris or police informers. However, the families of the victims did not believe their testimonies as none of the four MK cadres were seen after their abduction. 

Tryphina Mboxela Jokweni Tombstone Image source

Additional Date: August 29, 2012

Tryphina Mboxela Jokweni was a member of the African National Congress (ANC) and was part of the 1956 Union Buildings March which saw 20 000 women march to Pretoria on 9 August. The march inspired her to become an uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadre in 1962, working under the leadership of ANC veteran Billy Nair. She was arrested in 1966 for her political activities in her hometown, Umkhumbane, Durban and detained for six months.

Jokweni then moved to Umlazi, Durban where she  her home was used as a safe house for MK cadres. In April 1987 she was detained and tortured for this by the apartheid police based in Amanzimtoti, south of Durban. Jokweni passed away from illness in 2002 and left behind three children. She was 77 years-old at the time of her death.

On 29 August 2012, the ANC commemorated Jokweni and recognized her contributions to the liberation struggle by laying a new tombstone for her at the Wentworth Cemetery, Durban, where she is buried. 

The Seweweeks Poort is probably the most beautiful 18 km stretch of gravel road anywhere in South Africa. With easy gradients, multiple river crossings, mind-boggling geology, camping and self catering accommodation all packed into an almost perfect micro-climate, this road is an absolute joy to drive or ride, as it twists and turns through every angle of the compass, as it follows the contorted bends of the River and falls entirely under the control of Cape Nature Conservation and more specifically the Swartberg and Towerkop Nature Reserves.

The Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality is a Category B Municipality situated in the Chris Hani District in the Eastern Cape Province. It is approximately 240 km North of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality. It is one of six Municipalities in the District, making up a third of its Geographical Area. Cradock consists of the Suburb of Cradock, and the Lingelihle and Michausdal Communities, whilst Middelburg has the Suburb of Middelburg, with the Kwanonzame Lusaka and Midros Communities.
Across the M 4 the Forest rests on a 2 000 year-old sand dune. Sounds old enough but Hawaan, by contrast, stands sturdy on a sand Dune that is 18 000 years old. It’s mind-boggling to think that something that old still exists… Hawaan Forest, owned and managed by 'Tongaat Hulett', is 80 hectares of pristine Coastal Climax Forest. The ‘climax’ part of the description, we learn, means it has reached its full potential of growth.

The term “poor whites” was coined during the 19th century, as the mineral revolution and development of mines forced smaller farmers off their land.[1] This led to an increase in urbanization, poverty and unemployment as many farmers lacked formal education.

Durban is the Capital City of the South African Province of KwaZulu-Natal, on the East Coast of the Country. It is not only a popular tourist attraction and coastal hotspot, but it is also home to the continent’s biggest Container Terminal and one of the major Ports in Africa - the Durban Harbour. The modern Port of Durban was first established when a party of British men from the Cape Colony settled on the shores of the Bay of Natal in 1824 to establish a Trading Post.