Author: Msomi Bora

VIDEOS OF CHIEF MIRAMBO OF NYAMWEZI Mtyela Kasanda (1840-1884), better known as Mirambo (which means “corpses”), was a Nyamwezi warlord, from 1860 to 1884. He created the largest state by area in 19th-century east Africa. Mirambo started out as a trader and the son of a minor chief. He owned trade caravans traveling from the Great Lakes region in western Tanzania to the coast, mostly dealing in ivory and slaves. Through trade with Europeans he acquired firearms and money, and organised armies consisting mostly of teenage orphans. With his newly gained power, he toppled the traditional monarchy of the kingdom of Urambo, and installed himself as ntemi (king). The Nyamwezi aristocracy was appalled…

VIDEOS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr. January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Christian minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he then led…

VIDEOS OF MALCOLM X El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), better known as Malcolm X, was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his staunch and controversial black racial advocacy, and for his time spent as the vocal spokesperson of the Nation of Islam. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm X spent his teenage years living in a series of foster homes after his father’s death and his mother’s hospitalization. He engaged in several illicit activities there, eventually…

VIDEOS OF BENITO MUSSOLINI Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who was the leader of the National Fascist Party. He ruled as the Prime Minister of Italy from the fascist coup d’état in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, and Duce (“Leader”) of Italian Fascism from the establishment of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919 to his execution in 1945 during the Italian civil war. As dictator of Italy and founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired far-right totalitarian rulers such as Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, António de Oliveira Salazar,…

VIDEOS OF MAHATMA GANDHI Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India’s independence from British Rule, and in turn inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: “great-souled”, “venerable”), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world. Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi was trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and called to the bar at age…

VIDEOS OF FIDEL CASTRO Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban communist revolutionary politician, a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist. Castro governed the Republic of Cuba as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011, Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers from 1976 to 2008. Castro also served as the Commander-in-chief of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state, while industry and business were nationalized and state socialist policies were…

VIDEOS OF COLD WAR The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and their respective allies, the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, after World War II. The period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman Doctrine to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. The term “cold” is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by the two powers, following…

VIDEOS OF CHE GUEVARA Ernesto “Che” Guevara (14 June 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture. Che Guevara was born to a well-off family in Argentina. Although suffering from asthma, he excelled as an athlete and a scholar, completing his medical studies in 1953. As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed.…

VIDEOS OF JONAS SAVIMBI Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (3 August 1934 – 22 February 2002) was an Angolan revolutionary politician and military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–1974, then confronted the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War until Savimbi’s death in a clash with government troops in 2002. Savimbi’s biography describes him as “an incredible linguist. He spoke four European languages, including English although he had never lived in an English-speaking country. He was…

VIDEOS OF JOMO KENYATTA Jomo Kenyatta (1897 – 22 August 1978) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country’s first indigenous head of government and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and conservative, he led the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party from 1961 until his death. Kenyatta was born to Kikuyu farmers in Kiambu,…