King Kong: South Africa's first all-black musical
In 1959, Todd Matshikiza composed the score for King Kong, it was South Africa’s first musical with an all-black cast and it opened to critical acclaim. About the rise and fall of the heavyweight boxe...
11 Mars 202510min
The invention of GPS
There are few inventions that we rely on as much as the Global Positioning System, also known as GPS. But, when it was created in the late 1970s, nobody wanted it.Prof Brad Parkinson and his team at t...
10 Mars 20259min
How bloodshed in Selma led to the US Voting Rights Act 1965
In March 1965, hundreds of peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma were brutally beaten by Alabama state troops.They had been marching to demonstrate against the denial of voting rights to Black Ame...
7 Mars 20259min
The Great Toyota War
In 1987, a decades-long war in Chad reached a dramatic turning point in what would come to be known as the Great Toyota War. Named after the rugged pick-up trucks that transformed modern desert warfar...
6 Mars 202510min
The US invasion of Panama
In December 1989, more than 20,000 US soldiers descended on the tiny Central American country of Panama. The Americans sought to remove the country’s leader, General Manuel Noriega, who sought refuge...
5 Mars 202510min
The invention of the shopping trolley
In 1937, American supermarket owner Sylvan Goldman came up with a way to get his customers to spend more.He introduced his 'folding basket carriers' in his Humpty Dumpty chain in Oklahoma, hiring mode...
4 Mars 202510min
The Calais 'Jungle' migrant camp
In 2015, Europe was in the grip of a migrant crisis, as more than one million people fled regions including the Middle East. Many set their sights on a new life in the UK. But, in order to get there, ...
3 Mars 20259min
Africa’s stolen Metis children
In 1953, in what was then the Belgian Congo, four-year-old Marie-José Loshi was forcibly removed from her family’s village and taken more than 600km away to live in a Catholic institute. The cause of...
28 Feb 202510min
