A Newspaper History of South Africa

This book takes a lively and penetrating look at events which have hit the headlines in South Africa during the past century, from the Sand River Convention of 1852 - which saw the birth of the Transvaal Republic - to the Pretoria bomb blast of May 1983. The scope of the book is vast, embracing war, murder, politics, trials, sport and disasters. It includes accounts of human endeavour and failing, of courage and bravery, and of vicious deeds of death and destruction. Vic Alhadeff has reproduced first-hand accounts of the events, either as a result of interviews which he conducted himself or from exhaustive research into newspaper reports published at the time of the particular event. The account of the Battle of Delville Wood in 1916, in which 750 soldiers of the South African Brigade in France survived out of a total of 3 143, is augmented by an interview with an 86-year-old survivor. The episode of the hijack of the South African Airways Boeing in 1972 includes an account by Captain Blake Flemington, pilot of the hijacked aircraft, while Eschel Rhoodie describes his part in the events which exploded into the "Info Scandal" in 1978, and John Harris recalls his feelings before planting the bomb on the Johannesburg Station concourse in 1964. The author presents forty-nine events, among them the Seychelles coup attempt, South Africa's entry into World War II, the Rand Revolt, the sensational discovery of the coelacanth off the coast of East London, the Laingsburg flood disaster and the Windhoek Air Disaster. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the newspapers' handling of each event and on the individuals who made history First published in 1976, now extensively revised, enlarged and updated, A NEWSPAPER HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA presents a unique and compelling view of history.