This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past. 9th July 969 – The Fatimid general Jawhar leads the Friday prayer

The job of a historian is to discern links between seemingly unrelated events. Some would argue that the decision by the Americans to support Islamist

The media and social media have been alive with pictures that convey a sense of the sheer normality of looting and destruction in South Africa.

The spate of rioting and looting that began at the weekend has to be a turning point. Never before in our post-1994 history has there

After a 24-hour orgy of violence, I sit alone in my whale-watching room and reflect as I read the many messages that have been sent

‘Very high levels of economic exclusion, failing schools, unchecked corruption, racial nationalist rhetoric from the government, inept and poorly motivated security forces led by people

Amid the chaos that has descended upon the country in the wake of Jacob Zuma’s incarceration, South Africa’s leaders have a lot to answer for.

Dear Editor Everyone is saying that Mr Zuma will be eligible for parole after serving a quarter of the fifteen month sentence imposed on him

After the British and their many allies had defeated Erwin Rommel at the second Battle of Alamein in October and November 1942, Winston Churchill famously

Where is the evidence that the ANC’s goals have changed? To party elders, Zuma’s unforgivable sin was his electoral toxicity. Echoing past injustices, systemic patronage