Africa Archives - reddit

Switch to the light mode that's kinder on your eyes at day time.

Switch to the dark mode that's kinder on your eyes at night time.

4 Comments

TIL about Ponte City, a 55 story circular apartment building in Johannesburg, South Africa. Built in 1975, in the 80s gang activity made the area very unsafe and garbage thrown into the open core reached 5 stories high. It has since been restored and is once again a desirable place to live.

by whatilearned February 4, 2023, 11:38 pm

5 Points
Upvote Downvote
2 Comments

TIL of Wouter Basson, aka ‘Dr Death’, former head of the South Africa Secret Services’ biological and chemical program ‘Project Coast’ from 1981 to 1995, that introduced drugs into SA to chemically suppress the black population. Charged but acquitted of human rights violations, including murder.

by whatilearned January 25, 2023, 9:32 pm

9 Points
Upvote Downvote
4 Comments

TIL In 1405, the Chinese admiral Zheng He explored Vietnam, Java, Sri Lanka, Mecca and East Africa with 62 ships and 30000 men. The knowledge, ideas, and exotic goods he took back home created an interest in foreign countries which contributed to China’s role in world trade in later centuries.

by whatilearned January 17, 2023, 9:36 pm

11 Points
Upvote Downvote
The idea of ‘precolonial Africa’ is vacuous and wrong | When ‘precolonial’ is used for describing African ideas, processes, institutions and practices, through time, it misrepresents them.

by HistoryBuff January 13, 2023, 11:08 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
6 Comments

TIL That 68% of world’s population (especially Asia & Africa) is lactose intolerant, which makes them incapable of digesting milk and its products

by whatilearned January 11, 2023, 6:33 am

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
3 Comments

TIL that – largely from 1400s onwards – parts of India have had centuries of African rulers. Mainly from East Africa, they rose from merchants, pirates, bodyguards and even slaves to Kings, Admirals, Generals and ruled some princely states well into the 1940s…

by whatilearned January 5, 2023, 5:00 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
TIL The largest diamond ever found was the Cullinan Diamond, which was discovered in South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats (over 1.2 pounds) and was cut into nine separate stones, including the Great Star of Africa, which is the largest clear-cut diamond in the world at 530.2 carats.

by whatilearned January 2, 2023, 3:01 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
6 Comments

TIL the is a “white only” town in South Africa called Orania. Intended to be an ethnostate for Afrikaners and seeks independence from the rest of the country.

by whatilearned December 28, 2022, 1:26 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
37 Comments

What does Africa have that the rest of the world does not?

by QuestionGuy December 25, 2022, 12:53 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
2 Comments

TIL English villagers were captured by pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa

by whatilearned December 19, 2022, 11:35 am

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
4 Comments

TIL There’s a board game called ‘The Campaign for North Africa’ which can take up to 1,500 hours to complete

by whatilearned December 17, 2022, 5:24 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote
Are there any significant examples of hydropower use in pre-colonial Western Africa?

by HistoryBuff December 15, 2022, 11:02 pm

12 Points
Upvote Downvote

Congratulations. You've reached the end of the internet.