African Postmark

30/07/2024

If you haven’t read it, already, you should enjoy this long read: *The Strange Fate Of The Black Loyalists* -

Thousands of them sided with Great Britain, only to become the wandering children of the American Revolution

19/07/2024

The Archives in have a lot of stuff 'in-store' that you can make an appointment to go and view. They include hundreds of these

18/07/2024

Nelson Mandela International Day: 18 July "It is easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build."

Looking back at the struggle against apartheid and the campaign for Mandela's release in which the United Nations played an important role — special programme for the first commemorative Mandela Day in 2010.

17/07/2024

Group of armed railway volunteers, 1898. Full catalogue description states Group of European and African men holding rifles and swords, posing for photograph.Caption reads: Railway Volunteers. It is notable that this, and similar photos, were taken during the Credit: British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, Bristol Archives.

17/07/2024

Catalogue entry reads (i.e. NOT MY WORDS) – “View of Hastings Brook with several white Europeans standing at the waterside. Caption reads: Hastings brook from Freetown side”. C.1897. Credit: British Empire & Commonwealth Collection. Bristol Archives

17/07/2024

View showing troops on board a stationary train with station buldings in the background. Caption reads: Troops leaving for Kuala. 1898 (during the Hut Tax War). British Empire & Commonwealth Collection. Bristol Archives.

17/07/2024

View showing troops onboard a stationary train, surrounded by a crowd of people. There are buildings and a church in the background. Caption reads - Departure of Troops for Waterloo, April 1898. As this was during The Hut Tax War, which started in February 1898, it could be the troops were being deployed for that mission. Credit: British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, Bristol Archives.

16/07/2024

Signalman at Sierra Leone railway, c.1961. Credit: British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, Bristol Archives

16/07/2024

I have seen many old photos of Water Street Station under construction, but not this one, with the station on the extreme left of the photo. "View of Water Street Station under construction. Caption reads: S.L.G.Ry. Water St. Station West Elevation, July 3rd 1898. Credit: British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, Bristol Archives.

16/07/2024

Shot of ballast wagon which has been set up to take passengers. There are 3 figures, and the wagon has Sierra Leone Railway painted on side. Caption reads: Ballast Wagon fitted up experimentally. 1897. Credit: British Empire & Commonwealth Collection, Bristol Archives.

15/07/2024

The discussions prompted by my posting of the SLTV building and potted history, has now prompted me to post this once again

The original tapes, from Morecambe and Wise’s 1968 series – the first after the BBC poached them from ITV – have long been wiped by the corporation as executives recycled the tape for new recordings.

13/07/2024

The Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service (SLBS) was established on 1 October 1958; the radio station (which had been launched in 1934) was housed in an old war-time Colonial Administrative building in New England, Freetown.
Television was brought to the country by a consortium of private owners, including Thompson Television (International) Limited (TTI) (who designed, and oversaw construction and installation of equipment), RCA, and Television International Enterprises Ltd and the NBC network in the United States, who provided programming. The Sierra Leone government owned only a 40% share. SLTV and the SLBS operated entirely independently of one another.
Sierra Leone Television (SLTV) was inaugurated on 27 April 1963, and operated (broadcasting on Channel 2) out of a purpose-built studio, known as Broadcasting House. (According to some online sources, this was situated on Aberdeen Hill, whereas others locate it on the far more likely spot of Leicester Peak, which is in the centre of Freetown.) Broadcasts were limited to a 15 mile radius within the capital. In 1964, there were only 390 privately owned television sets in Freetown.

By 1967, RCA and NBC had withdrawn their interests, leaving TTI as the sole manager of SLTV.
By the end of 1971, SLBS and SLTV had merged into a single government-owned enterprise, both operating as SLBS. (Thompson Television withdrew its involvement shortly after, giving the SLBS full administrative control.) With combined radio and TV services continuing to expand, a brand new purpose-built TV facility was needed. Construction of a new Broadcasting House in New England Ville commenced in 1974, but ongoing work was beset by financial problems and lengthy delays, resulting in the structure remaining half-completed for nearly ten years.
(Source: BroadDWcast – a site dedicated to ‘Doctor Who’, hence the ‘DW’ in the site name)

05/07/2024

A (5 July) to my many friends from Here are some of my fave spots in

13/06/2024

Today, 13 June is this year’s theme is: “10 years of IAAD: A decade of collective progress.”

People with albinism face multiple forms of discrimination worldwide. International Albinism Awareness Day seeks to dispel the erroneous beliefs and myths influenced by superstition, which foster their marginalization and social exclusion.

10/06/2024

Zone games 10 June 2024.

10/06/2024

From 2019: *Guy Says African Architecture Isn’t Showcased Compared To European And Asian, Posts 44 Of Its Gorgeous Examples*

The glories of African architecture are often shamefully overlooked. Sadly, this is a symptom of a larger problem overall, where the rich diversity and culture of the African continent is largely glossed over in international media. Most reporting from the continent focuses only on issues that reinf...

04/06/2024

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s “visit piece” is one of the intelligence community’s secret weapons. By revealing what foreign leaders want and analyzing their personality, the CIA delivers decision advantage when the U.S. president is meeting with an African counterpart. The CIA expertly assessed how African leaders sought to navigate geopolitical competition during the Cold War, and it succeeded in deciphering what underpinned specific attitudes toward engagement with U.S. presidents, judging from a review of declassified intelligence assessments, policy memos, public statements, and press reports from 1961–1987. Intelligence Advantage: Profiling African Leaders’ Meetings with U.S. Presidents

How does the CIA profile African leaders before their meetings with U.S. presidents? CSIS senior adviser Judd Devermont exposes the untold history of analyzing Africa's leaders, evaluates its impact on U.S. policy, and explores how AI could transform the art form.

03/06/2024

A survey in Nah, they must be mistaken ' football coach condemns 'racist' TV survey'

Julian Nagelsmann condemned the poll, which asked if people wanted more white players on the German team.

29/05/2024

a video worth checking outFolks, I hope you’ve all seen this *What can we learn from Tropical Modernist buildings? | BBC News* :

The late 1940s saw the rise of Tropical Modernism – it was a style of architecture that took the simple design of modernism and adapted it into cool building...

28/05/2024

founding treated was signed on this day 28th May, in 1975 in Lagos, by 7 military junta heads and a few one-party-state leaders. Article 64 makes interesting reading

25/05/2024

on this day 25 May, 1997

23/05/2024

cities

S*x workers, private investigators and women unlucky in love are some of the characters that drive these vivid urban portraits

21/05/2024

Reigning champions of the WAFU A Zone in the Girls U-15 division of the African Schools Football Championship, The Gambia are eager to emulate their Zonal success at the upcoming CAF African Schools Football Championship Continental Finals 2024.

17/05/2024

Today is World Telecommunication and Information Society Day and the theme is 'Digital innovation for Sustainable Development'. Read all about it

The purpose of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) is to help raise awareness of the possibilities that the use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICT) can bring to societies and economies, as well as of ways to bridge the digital divide.

15/05/2024

"More Witnesses Put Massaquoi in Monrovia When Under UN-Witness Protection in Sierra Leone"

More Witnesses Put Massaquoi in Monrovia When Under UN-Witness Protection in Sierra Leone Mae Azango FrontPage Africa Finnish judges in Monrovia hearing Massaquoi trial Leslie Lumeh/New Narratives MONROVIA, Liberia – The trial of Gibril Massaquoi has continued to focus on the central explosive que...

15/05/2024

The Federal Criminal Court’s Criminal Chamber has found Ousman SONKO guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to a prison term of 20 yrs. The court's press release attached.

11/05/2024

Not everyone got sick before class, apparently Teens surprise math world with Pythagorean Theorem trigonometry proof

A high school teacher didn’t expect a solution when she set a 2,000-year-old Pythagorean Theorem problem in front of her students. Then Calcea Johnson and Ne...

09/05/2024

A date for the diary. centenary. He was born 12 Sept 1924. Look him up, if you haven't already

25/04/2024

Can you 'steal back' that which was stolen? et al

Tired of colonial artefacts being hoarded, Chidi Nwaubani and Ahmed Abokor use tech to redistribute them from museums in audacious digital heists

30/03/2024

Several leaders who visited presented him with autographed photos. Not sure why but, here's a couple (literally, in one of the photos) of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny and the always-elegant (alive, and nnow 93 years old), Mrs.Marie-Thérèse Houphouët-Boigny. Credit: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, MA. Date presented: 22 May 1962.