GP – History

The history of Gauteng can be traced back to the early 1800s, when settlers from the Cape defeated Chief Mzilikazi and established villages in what is today Gauteng, South Africa. But it was really the 1886 discovery of gold in Johannesburg that sparked the...

Cullinan Diamond. In 1905 at Cullinan, a town just outside Pretoria, the huge Cullinan Diamond was found. It is by far the biggest diamond ever discovered. In 1907 the government of the Transvaal Colony (Transvaal was under British control at the time) bought the...

Gauteng was an important centre of the freedom struggle against apartheid. It is here that the Sharpeville massacre; the 1976 Soweto riots; as well as the Rivonia trial, in which many struggle leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were sent to jail for more than 20...

Sophiatown had been in the government's cross-hairs since before World War II. Until the '50s, however, it had been saved by the government's reluctance to build alternative housing for the African workers that South African industries and households so desperately...

Gauteng was an important centre of the freedom struggle against apartheid. It is here that the Sharpeville massacre; the 1976 Soweto riots; as well as the Rivonia trial, in which many struggle leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were sent to jail for more than 20...

Soweto may sound like an African name, but the word was originally an acronym for "South Western Townships". A cluster of townships sprawling across a vast area 20 kilometres south-west of Johannesburg, Soweto was, from the start, a product of segregationist planning....

Soweto's rich political history has guaranteed it a place on the world map. Those who know very little else about South Africa are often familiar with the word "Soweto" and the township's significance in the struggle against apartheid. Since it came into being, Soweto...

Soweto is a place of contrasts: rows of tin shanties abut luxurious mansions; piles of garbage and pitted roads offset green fields and rustic streams. Soweto has the same vibrant, racy feel of Johannesburg, of which it is an integral part. Despite the high...