September Blog: History in the news and what makes a hero?

History in the news

Death of Steve Biko, 1977

A news story that caught our eye for this month is that of a new inquest into the death of Steve Biko, the anti-apartheid activist, who died in police custody in South Africa 48 years ago in 1977. He became a martyr and symbol of Black resistance to the oppressive apartheid regime.

This will be of interest to students studying Paper One, PS4, Rights and Protest (beyond the time frame of this topic, but very good context for them), and also Paper 3, Africa, Topic 15.

The following article from 'The Conversation' will give students a good overview of Steve Biko's life and his actions in South Africa. In its conclusion the article notes how little attention  has been given to Biko in comparison to other apartheid activists such as Mandela and Tutu; in spite of this ‘Biko remains a model and hero in the struggle for autonomy and self-determination for people around the world. His writings, work, and tragic murder were all historically crucial to the momentum and success of the South African anti-apartheid movement.’

Bloody Sunday, 1972

Another ‘momentous’ event linked to previous state violence is taking place in Northern Ireland at the moment. In the first trial of its kind, an ex-British soldier is being charged for killings that took place on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. This will be of interest to any students covering Ireland for Independence Movements (Paper 2).

New term and Student Access!

We hope that the new term is going well.

Don't forget that you can give your students access to the History InThinking site as part of your subscription. This allows you to:

• Give students direct access to some - but not all - pages on the site.

• Create various types of tasks for your classes or for individual students.

• Give online feedback, monitor student progress, and view grades in the online grade book.

Details on how to set this up is on the left-hand side of the home page under the heading Student Access.

New History Curriculum

New Extended Essay Guidelines

A reminder that the IB have released a new Extended Essay (EE) guide for first teaching in 2025 and assessment in 2027.

For an overview of what has changed and what has remained the same in the new guidelines please see this page:

Site update

This last week we have added a new source paper for Paper 1, PS3 focusing on the changing relations between Hitler and Mussolini, 1934 to 1938:

History podcasts: In Our Time

A great source of information for historical events/people/concepts has been the BBC Radio 4 programme, In Our Time hosted by journalist Melvyn Bragg. Sadly Melvyn Bragg is now stepping down from this role. However he leaves behind a treasure trove of history based podcasts. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the format of In Our Time, this is a description of the programme from an article in the UK newspaper, The Guardian:   Each week, the programme simply takes a person, a movement, an idea, a theory or an area of study that has shaped the world – and explains its importance. A group of three experts, mostly from universities, recount the main facts and tease out the significant arguments over the course of 45 minutes, with Lord Bragg holding the reins. What they deliver is consistently among the most listened to speech programmes and podcasts on the radio.

We have highlighted many of the In Our Time programmes over the years on this site, but to see the full list, go here. Many would also be useful for TOK discussions.

Heroes…

Two of the articles above on Steve Biko refer to the fact that he was a ‘hero’ 

The politician, writer and podcaster, Rory Stewart is currently hosting a programme  (also on BBC Radio 4) called Heroism, and debating such questions as: What makes a hero? How does our understanding of a hero change over time? What does it mean for our moral life? And how should we perceive and pursue human excellence?

This could also be an interesting topic to debate in TOK History lessons!