The Algerian-born French writer and thinker Albert Camus remains one of the most important French authors of the 20th century. Often associated with existentialism (although he did not fully identify with this philosophical movement), he was also a courageous activist and social critic, speaking out against totalitarianism in all its forms and fighting for justice and equality for all. In...
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Apartheid was a system of racial segregation which was maintained in South Africa between 1948 and 1991. It aimed to regulate relationships between whites and non-whites and ensure the domination of the country's white minority. Particularly infamous for the extreme cruelty that black South Africans were made to suffer, the apartheid regime was probably one of the most significant events of the...
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Nelson Mandela was the leading figure in the fight against the apartheid regime in South Africa. He swiftly rose to become one of the most influential members of the African National Congress (ANC), but his activism saw him arrested in 1962 and sentenced to life imprisonment two years later. Much of his sentence was served at the notoriously tough Robben Island...
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The Battle of Algiers unfolded over nine months in 1957 and was a particularly painful and brutal period in the Algerian War, which saw the citizens of this French colony fight for their independence. The French authorities responded to a campaign of guerrilla warfare by the National Liberation Front (FLN) with forced disappearances, torture and summary executions, which tarnished their reputation later on. In...
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Thanks to the discovery of his opulent tomb by the Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922 and the alleged curse that was unleashed as a result, Tutankhamun holds a prominent place in the popular imagination. “King Tut”, as he is colloquially known, ruled Egypt during the 18th Dynasty and oversaw far-reaching religious reform and a series of conflicts with Egypt’s enemies...
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