Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Have fun and be historical!

This week’s discussion question: Facts that changed your worldview. If you’ve studied history at all, whether as a history buff, a serious researcher or even someone with marginal interest in the subject, you’ve surely encountered some bit of information that completely blew your mind, maybe even changed the way you look at the world in general. Maybe it was some minor quote or anecdote that led to explore a topic you didn’t know anything about. Maybe it was a fact or event that you’d never heard about, which led you to reconsider how you perceived the world. Maybe it was a specific article, book or documentary.

Today’s picture: On March 6th, 1957, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) became the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence from Great Britain. The country had been agitating for independence for nearly a decade, and the leader of the independence movement, Kwame Nkrumah, became Ghana’s first president. Nkrumah instituted a regime blending elements of Third World nationalism and democratic socialism, with mixed success. In 1966 he was overthrown by a military coup which plunged the country into economic chaos and intermittent political repression. Nonetheless, Nkrumah remained an honorary Co-President of his home country and one  of the leading advocates of Pan-Africanism.