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What was the Great Trek?

The Great Trek was a perilous exodus of pioneers into the heart of South Africa, looking for a place to call home.

When the British took control of Cape Town and the Cape Colony in the early 1800s, tensions grew between the new colonizers of British stock, and the old colonizers, the Boers, descendants of the original Dutch settlers. From 1835, the Boers would lead numerous expeditions out of the Cape Colony, traversing towards the interior of South Africa. Escaping British rule would come with a host of deadly challenges, and the Boers, seeking their own lands, would find themselves in direct conflict with the people who resided in the interior, most notably the Ndebele and the Zulu.

The “Great Trek” is a story of resentment, displacement, murder, war, and hope, and it forms one of the bloodiest chapters of South Africa’s notoriously violent history.

Origins of the Great Trek

The Cape was first colonized by the Dutch , when they landed there in 1652, and Cape Town quickly grew into a vital refueling station between Europe and the East Indies. The colony prospered and grew, with Dutch settlers taking up both urban and rural posts. In 1795, Britain invaded and took control of the Cape Colony, as it was Dutch possession, and Holland was under the control of the French Revolutionary government . After the war, the colony was handed back to Holland (the Batavian Republic) which in 1806, fell under French rule again. The British responded by annexing the Cape completely.

Under British rule, the colony underwent major administrative changes. The language of administration became English, and liberal changes were made which designated non-white servants as citizens. Britain, at the time, was adamantly anti-slavery, and was enacting laws to end it.

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Tensions grew between the British and the Boers (farmers). In 1815, a Boer was arrested for assaulting one of his servants. Many other Boers rose up in rebellion in solidarity, culminating in five being hanged for insurrection. In 1834, legislation passed that all slaves were to be freed. The vast majority of Boer farmers owned slaves, and although they were offered compensation, travel to Britain was required to receive it which was impossible for many. Eventually, the Boers had had enough of British rule and decided to leave the Cape Colony in search of self-governance and new lands to farm. The Great Trek was about to begin.

The Trek Begins

Not all Afrikaners endorsed the Great Trek. In fact, only a fifth of the Cape’s Dutch-speaking people decided to take part. Most of the urbanized Dutch were actually content with British rule. Nevertheless, many Boers decided to leave. Thousands of Boers loaded up their wagons and proceeded to venture into the interior and towards peril.

The first wave of voortrekkers (pioneers) met with disaster. After setting out in September 1835, they crossed the Vaal River in January, 1836, and decided to split up, following differences between their leaders. Hans van Rensburg led a party of 49 settlers who trekked north into what is now Mozambique. His party was slain by an impi (force of warriors) of Soshangane. For van Rensburg and his party, the Great Trek was over. Only two children survived who were saved by a Zulu warrior. The other party of settlers, led by Louis Tregardt, settled near Delagoa Bay in southern Mozambique, where most of them perished from fever.

A third group led by Hendrik Potgieter, consisting of about 200 people, also ran into serious trouble. In August 1836, a Matabele patrol attacked Potgieter’s group, killing six men, two women, and six children. King Mzilikazi of the Matabele in what is now Zimbabwe decided to attack the Voortrekkers again, this time sending out an impi of 5,000 men. Local bushmen warned the Voortrekkers of the impi , and Potgieter had two days to prepare. He decided to prepare for battle, although doing so would leave all the Voortrekker’s cattle vulnerable.

The Voortrekkers arranged the wagons into a laager (defensive circle) and placed thorn branches underneath the wagons and in the gaps. Another defensive square of four wagons was placed inside the laager and covered with animal skins. Here, the women and children would be safe from spears thrown into the camp. The defenders numbered just 33 men and seven boys, each armed with two muzzle-loader rifles. They were outnumbered 150 to one.

As the battle commenced, the Voortrekkers rode out on horseback to harry the impi . This proved largely ineffective, and they withdrew to the laager. The attack on the laager only lasted for about half an hour, in which time, two Voortrekkers lost their lives, and about 400 Matabele warriors were killed or wounded. The Matabele were far more interested in taking the cattle and eventually made off with 50,000 sheep and goats and 5,000 cattle. Despite surviving through the day, the Battle of Vegkop was not a happy victory for the Voortrekkers. Three months later, with the help of the Tswana people, a Voortrekker-led raid managed to take back 6,500 cattle, which included some of the cattle plundered at Vegkop.

The following months saw revenge attacks led by the Voortrekkers. About 15 Matabele settlements were destroyed, and 1,000 warriors lost their lives. The Matabele abandoned the region. The Great Trek would continue with several other parties pioneering the way into the South African hinterland.

The Battle of Blood River

In February 1838, the Voortrekkers led by Piet Retief met with absolute disaster. Retief and his delegation were invited to the Zulu King Dingane ’s kraal (village) to negotiate a land treaty; however, Dingane betrayed the Voortrekkers. He had them all taken out to a hill outside the village and clubbed to death. Piet Retief was killed last so that he could watch his delegation being killed. In total, about 100 were murdered, and their bodies were left for the vultures and other scavengers.

Following this betrayal, King Dingane directed further attacks on unsuspecting Voortrekker settlements. This included the Weenen Massacre, in which 534 men, women, and children were slaughtered. This number includes KhoiKhoi and Basuto tribe members who accompanied them. Against a hostile Zulu nation, the Great Trek was doomed to fail.

The Voortrekkers decided to lead a punitive expedition, and under the guidance of Andries Pretorius, 464 men, along with 200 servants and two small cannons, prepared to engage the Zulu. After several weeks of trekking, Pretorius set up his laager along the Ncome River, purposefully avoiding geographic traps that would have led to a disaster in battle. His site offered protection on two sides by the Ncome River to the rear and a deep ditch on the left flank. The approach was treeless and offered no protection from any advancing attackers. On the morning of December 16, the Voortrekkers were greeted by the sight of six regiments of Zulu impis , numbering approximately 20,000 men.

For two hours, the Zulus attacked the laager in four waves, and each time they were repulsed with great casualties. The Voortrekkers used grapeshot in their muskets and their two cannons in order to maximize damage to the Zulus. After two hours, Pretorius ordered his men to ride out and attempt to break up the Zulu formations. The Zulus held for a while, but high casualties eventually forced them to scatter. With their army breaking, the Voortrekkers chased down and killed the fleeing Zulus for three hours. By the end of the battle, 3,000 Zulu lay dead (although historians dispute this number). By contrast, the Voortrekkers suffered only three injuries, including Andries Pretorius taking an assegai (Zulu spear) to the hand.

December 16 has been observed as a public holiday in the Boer Republics and South Africa ever since. It was known as The Day of the Covenant, The Day of the Vow, or Dingane’s Day. In 1995, after the fall of apartheid , the day was rebranded as “Day of Reconciliation.” Today the site on the west side of the Ncome River is home to the Blood River Monument and Museum Complex, while on the east side of the river stands the Ncome River Monument and Museum Complex dedicated to the Zulu people. The former has gone through many variations, with the latest version of the monument being 64 wagons cast in bronze. When it was unveiled in 1998, The then Minister of Home Affairs and Zulu tribal leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi , apologized on behalf of the Zulu people for the murder of Piet Retief and his party during the Great Trek, while he also stressed the suffering of Zulus during apartheid.

The Zulu defeat added to further divisions in the Zulu Kingdom, which was plunged into a civil war between Dingane and his brother Mpande. Mpande, supported by the Voortrekkers, won the civil war in January 1840. This led to a significant decrease in threats to the Voortrekkers. Andries Pretorius and his Voortrekkers were able to recover Piet Retief’s body, along with his retinue, and give them burials. On Retief’s body was found the original treaty offering the trekkers land, and Pretorius was able to successfully negotiate with the Zulu over the establishment of a territory for the Voortrekkers. The Republic of Natalia was established in 1839, south of the Zulu Kingdom. However, the new republic was short-lived and was annexed by the British in 1843.

Nevertheless, the Great Trek could continue, and thus the waves of Voortrekkers continued. In the 1850s, two substantial Boer republics were established: The Republic of the Transvaal and the Republic of the Orange Free State . These republics would later come into conflict with the expanding British Empire.

The Great Trek as a Cultural Symbol

In the 1940s, Afrikaner nationalists used the Great Trek as a symbol to unite the Afrikaans people and promote cultural unity among them. This move was primarily responsible for the National Party winning the 1948 election and, later on, imposing apartheid on the country.

South Africa is a highly diverse country, and while the Great Trek remains a symbol of Afrikaner culture and history, it is also seen as an important part of South African history with lessons to learn from for all South Africans.

6 Crazy Facts about Cape Town

By Greg Beyer BA History & Linguistics, Journalism Diploma Greg specializes in African History. He holds a BA in History & Linguistics and a Journalism Diploma from the University of Cape Town. A former English teacher, he now excels in academic writing and pursues his passion for art through drawing and painting in his free time.

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Great Trek 1835-1846

The Great Trek was a movement of Dutch-speaking colonists up into the interior of southern Africa in search of land where they could establish their own homeland, independent of British rule. The determination and courage of these pioneers has become the single most important element in the folk memory of Afrikaner Nationalism. However, far from being the peaceful and God-fearing process which many would like to believe it was, the Great Trek caused a tremendous upheaval in the interior for at least half a century.

The Voortrekkers

The Great Trek was a landmark in an era of expansionism and bloodshed, of land seizure and labour coercion. Taking the form of a mass migration into the interior of southern Africa, this was a search by dissatisfied Dutch-speaking colonists for a promised land where they would be 'free and independent people' in a 'free and independent state'.

The men, women and children who set out from the eastern frontier towns of Grahamstown, Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet represented only a fraction of the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the colony, and yet their determination and courage has become the single most important element in the folk memory of Afrikaner nationalism. However, far from being the peaceful and God-fearing process which many would like to believe it was, the Great Trek caused a tremendous social upheaval in the interior of southern Africa, rupturing the lives of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people. But this time the reports that reached the chiefs of the Sotho clans on the northern bank were more alarming: the white men were coming in their hundreds.

Threatened by the 'liberalism' of the new colonial administration, insecure about conflict on the eastern frontier and 'squeezed out' by their own burgeoning population, the Voortrekkers hoped to restore economic, cultural and political unity independent of British power. The only way they saw open to them was to leave the colony. In the decade following 1835, thousands migrated into the interior, organised in a number of trek parties under various leaders. Many of the Voortrekkers were trekboers (semi-nomadic pastoral farmers) and their mode of life made it relatively easy for them to pack their worldly possessions in ox-wagons and leave the colony forever.

After crossing the Orange River the trekkers were still not totally out of reach of the Cape judiciary - in terms of the Cape of Good Hope Punishment Act (1836), they were liable for all crimes committed south of 25 deg latitude (which falls just below the present-day Warmbaths in northern Transvaal).

The trekkers had a strong Calvinist faith. But when the time came for them to leave they found that no Dutch Reformed Church minister from the Cape was prepared to accompany the expedition, for the church synod opposed the emigration, saying it would lead to 'godlessness and a decline of civilisation'. So the trekkers were forced to rely on the ministrations of the American Daniel Lindley, the Wesleyan missionary James Archbell, and a non-ordained minister, Erasmus Smit.

The trekkers, dressed in traditional dopper coats (short coats buttoned from top to bottom), kappies (bonnets) and hand-made riempieskoene (leather thong shoes), set out in wagons which they called kakebeenwoens (literally, jawbone wagons, because the shape and sides of a typical trek wagon resembled the jawbone of an animal).

These wagons could carry a startling weight of household goods, clothes, bedding, furniture, agricultural implements, fruit trees and weapons. They were ingeniously designed and surprisingly light, so as not to strain the oxen, and to make it easier to negotiate the veld, narrow ravines and steep precipices which lay ahead. Travelling down the 3500 metre slope of the Drakensberg, no brake shoe or changing of wheels could have saved a wagon from hurtling down the mountain were it not for a simple and creative solution: the hindwheels of wagons were removed and heavy branches were tied securely underneath. So the axles were protected, and a new form of brake was invented.

The interior represented for the trekkers a foreboding enigma. The barren Kalahari Desert to the west of the highveld, and the tsetse fly belt which stretched from the Limpopo River south-eastwards, could not have been a very inviting prospect. Little did they realise that neither man nor animal would escape the fatal malarial mosquito. Yet the Voortrekkers ploughed on through treacherous terrain, eliminating all obstacles in their path, and intent on gaining access to ports beyond the sphere of British control, such as Delagoa Bay, Inhambane and Sofala. In order for their new settlement to be viable, it was crucial that they make independent links with the economies of Europe.

Trek and the 'empty lands'

The Empty Land Myth The Empty or Vacant Land Theory is a theory was propagated by European settlers in nineteenth century South Africa to support their claims to land. Today this theory is described as a myth, the Empty Land Myth, because there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support this theory. Despite evidence to the contrary a number of parties in South Africa, particularly right-wing nationalists of European descent, maintain that the theory still holds true in order to support their claims to land-ownership in the country.  Read article

Reconnaissance expeditions in 1834 and 1835 reported that Natal south of the Thukela and the central highveld on either side of the Vaal River, were fertile and largely uninhabited, much of the interior having been unsettled by the ravages of the Mfecane (or Difaqane as it is called in Sotho). The truth of these reports - many of them from missionaries - has long been a source of argument among historians, and recent research indicates that the so-called 'depopulation theory' is unreliable - the devastation and carnage by African warriors is exaggerated with every account, the number of Mfecane casualties ranging between half a million and 5-million.

This kind of historical inaccuracy strengthens the trekkers' claim that the land which they occupied was 'uninhabited and belonged to no-one', that the survivors of the Mfecane were conveniently spread out in a horseshoe shape around empty land. Probably in an attempt to justify their land seizure, the trekkers also claimed to have actually saved the smaller clans in the interior from annihilation, and defeated the 'barbarous' Ndebele and Zulu warriors.

Africans did indeed move temporarily into other areas, but were soon to reoccupy their land, only to find themselves ousted by Boer intruders. For example, in Natal the African population, estimated at 11000 in 1838, was increased by 'several thousand refugees' after Dingane's defeat at the hands of his half-brother Mpande two years later. In 1843, when the Republic of Natalia was annexed by the British, the official African population was put at 'between 80 000 and 10 0000 people'. But even this may have been an underestimation.

Trekker communities and technology

Military prowess was of paramount importance to the trekker expedition. It had to be, for they were invading and conquering lands to which African societies themselves lay claim. Bound by a common purpose, the trekkers were a people's army in the true sense of the word, with the whole family being drawn into military defence and attack. For instance, the loading of the sanna (the name they gave to the muzzle-loading rifles they used) was a complicated procedure and so the Boers used more than one gun at a time - while aiming and firing at the enemy with one, their wives and children would be loading another.

Armed with rifles on their backs and a kruithoring (powder horn) and bandolier (a bullet container made of hartebeest, kudu or ox-hide) strapped to their belts, formidable groups of trekkers would ride into battle. Bullets were often sawn nearly through to make them split and fly in different directions, and buckshot was prepared by casting lead into reeds and then chopping it up. Part of every man's gear was his knife, with a blade about 20 centimetres in length. When approaching the battlefield, the wagons would be drawn into a circle and the openings between the wheels filled with branches to fire through and hide behind. When they eventually settled down, the structure of many of the houses they built - square, with thick walls and tiny windows - resembled small fortresses.

The distinction between hunting and raiding parties was often blurred in trekker society. Killing and looting were their business, land and labour their spoils. When the trekkers arrived in the Transvaal they experienced an acute labour shortage. They did not work their own fields themselves and instead used Pedi who sold their labour mainly to buy arms and ammunition.

During commando onslaughts, particularly in the eastern Transvaal, thousands of young children were captured to become inboekselings ('indentured people'). These children were indentured to their masters until adulthood (the age of 21 in the case of women and 25 in the case of men), but many remained bound to their masters for much longer. This system was akin to child slavery, and a more vicious application of the apprenticeship laws promulgated at the Cape in 1775 and 1812.

Child slavery was even more prevalent in the northern Soutpansberg area of the Transvaal. It has been suggested that when these northern Boers could no longer secure white ivory for trade at Delagoa Bay, 'black ivory' (a euphemism widely used for African children) began to replace it as a lucrative item of trade. Children were more amenable to new ways of life, and it was hoped that the inboekselings would assimilate Boer cultural patterns and create a 'buffer class' against increasing African resistance.

Dispossession and land seizure

The trekkers' first major confrontation was with Mzilikazi, founder and king of the Ndebele. After leaving the Cape, the trekkers made their first base near Thaba Nchu, the great place of Moroka, the Rolong chief. In 1836 the Ndebele were in the path of a trekker expedition heading northwards and led by Andries Hendrik Potgieter. The Ndebele were attacked by a Boer commando led by Potgieter, but Mzilikazi retaliated and the Boers retreated to their main laager at Vegkop. There in October, in a short and fierce battle which lasted half an hour, 40 trekkers succeeded in beating off an attack by 6000 Ndebele warriors. Both sides suffered heavy losses - 430 Ndebele were killed, and the trekkers lost thousands of sheep and cattle as well as their trek oxen. But a few days later, Moroka and the missionary Archbell rescued them with food and oxen.

Gert Maritz and his party joined these trekkers in Transorangia (later the Orange Free State) and in January 1837, with the help of a small force of Griqua, Kora, Rolong and Tlokwa, they captured Mzilikazi 's stronghold at Mosega and drove the Ndebele further north. The trekkers then concluded treaties of friendship with Moroka and Sekonyela (chief of the Tlokwa).

When Piet Retief and his followers split away and moved eastwards to Natal, both Potgieter and Piet Uys remained determined to break the Ndebele. At the end of 1837, 135 trekkers besieged Mzilikazi 's forces in the Marico valley, and Mzilikazi fled across the Limpopo River to present-day Zimbabwe. He died there, to be succeeded by Lobengula, who led a rather precarious life in the area until he was eventually defeated by the forces of the British South Africa Company in the 1890s.

Meanwhile, Retief and his followers continued marching towards Port Natal (later Durban). After Retief's fateful encounter with Dingane, chief of the Zulu, and the ensuing Battle of Blood River, the trekkers declared the short-lived Republic of Natalia (1838). They formed a simple system of goveming, with Pretorius as President, assisted by a volksraad (people's assembly) of 24 members, and local government officials based on the traditional landdrost and heemraden system. In 1841, an adjunct council was established at Potchefstroom, with Potgieter as Chief-Commandant. The trekkers believed that at last they had found a place in the sun....

But the British would not recognise their independence. In December 1838, the Governor, Sir George Napier, a determined military man who had not allowed the loss of his right arm in battle to ruin his career, sent his military secretary, Major Samuel Charters, to occupy Port Natal, which effectively controlled Voortrekker use of the harbour. Three years later, when the Natal Volksraad resolved to drive all Africans not working for the whites southwards beyond the Mtamvuna River (later the border between Natal and the Transkei), Napier again intervened. He was concerned that this would threaten the eastern frontier of the Cape, and so instructed Captain Thomas Charlton Smith to march to Port Natal with 250 men. Smith, who had joined the Royal Navy at the age of nine and was a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo, tried to negotiate with Pretorius, but to no avail.

On the moonlit night of 23 May 1842, Smith attacked the Boer camp at Congella but Pretorius, who had been alerted, fought back. The trekkers proceeded to besiege the British camp. One of their number, Dick King. who became known as the 'saviour of Natal', evaded the siege and rode some 1000 kilometres on horseback to seek reinforcements in Grahamstown. In June a British relief force under Lieutenant-Colonel Abraham Cloete arrived on the scene and Boer resistance was crushed. On 15 July the volksraad at Pietermaritzburg signed the conditions of submission.

Although most trekkers had travelled into Natal or into the far north with the main expeditions, some had remained on the fertile land above the junction of the Caledon and Orange rivers, and gradually began to move north-eastward.

The trekkers' pioneer in this area was Jan de Winnaar, who settled in the Matlakeng area in May-June 1838. As more farmers were moving into the area they tried to colonise the land between the two rivers, even north of the Caledon, claiming that it had been abandoned by the Sotho people. But although some of the independent communities who had lived there had been scattered, others remained in the kloofs and on the hillsides. Moshoeshoe, paramount chief of the Sotho, when hearing of the trekker settlement above the junction, stated that '... the ground on which they were belonged to me, but I had no objections to their flocks grazing there until such time as they were able to proceed further; on condition, however, that they remained in peace with my people and recognised my authority'.

The trekkers proceeded to build huts of clay (instead of reed), and began planting their own food crops (no longer trading with the Sotho). This indicated their resolve to settle down permanently. A French missionary, Eugene Casalis, later remarked that the trekkers had humbly asked for temporary rights while they were still few in number, but that when they felt 'strong enough to throw off the mask' they went back on their initial intention.

In October 1842 Jan Mocke, a fiery republican, and his followers erected a beacon at Alleman's drift on the banks of the Orange River and proclaimed a republic. Officials were appointed to preside over the whole area between the Caledon and Vaal rivers. Riding back from the drift, they informed Chief Lephoi, an independent chief at Bethulie, that the land was now Boer property and that he and his people were subject to Boer laws. They further decided that the crops which had been sown for the season would be reaped by the Boers, and they even uprooted one of the peach trees in the garden of a mission station as indication of their ownership. In the north-east, they began to drive Moshoeshoe's people away from the springs, their only source of water. Moshoeshoe appealed for protection to the Queen of England, but he soon discovered that he would have to organise his own resistance.

Land seizure and dispossession were also prevalent in the eastern Transvaal where Potgieter had founded the towns of Andries-Ohrigstad in 1845 and Soutpansberg (which was later renamed Schoemansdal) in 1848. A power struggle erupted between Potgieter and Pretorius, who had arrived with a new trekker party from Natal and seemed to have a better understanding of the political dynamics of southern Africa. Potgieter, still anxious to legitimise his settlement, concluded a vredenstraktaat (peace treaty) in 1845 with Sekwati, chief of the Pedi, who he claimed had ceded all rights to an undefined stretch of land. The precise terms of the treaty are unknown, but it seems certain that Sekwati never actually sold land to the Boers.

Often in order to ensure their own safety, chiefs would sign arbitrary treaties giving away sections of land to which they in fact had no right. Such was the case with Mswati, chief of the Swazi, who, intent on seeking support against the Zulu, in July 1846 granted all the land bounded by the Oliphants, Crocodile and Elands rivers to the Boers. This angered the Pedi, who pointed out that the land had not even been his to hand over.

There was no uniform legal system or concept of ownership to which all parties interested in the land subscribed. Private land ownership did not exist in these African societies, and for the most part the land which chiefs ceded to the Boers was communally owned. Any document 'signed' by the chiefs, and its implications, could not have been fully understood by them. Misunderstandings worked in the favour of the Boers.

Large tracts of land were purchased for next to nothing. For example, the northern half of Transorangia went to Andries Potgieter in early 1836 for a few cattle and a promise to protect the Taung chief, Makwana, from the Ndebele. The area between the Vet and Vaal rivers extended about 60 000 square kilometres. This means that Potgieter got 2000 square kilometres per head of livestock! Also the 'right of conquest' was extended over areas much larger than those that chiefs actually had authority over. After Mzilikazi 's flight north in November 1837, the trekkers immediately took over all the land between the Vet and Limpopo rivers - although Mzilikazi's area of control covered only the western Transvaal.

But it was only after the Sand River Convention (1852) and the Bloemfontein Convention (1854) that independent Boer republics were formally established north of the Vaal and Orange rivers respectively.

Reader’s Digest. (1988). Illustrated History of South Africa: the real story, New York: Reader’s Digest Association. p. 114-120.

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The great trek

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Welcome to my crazy idea that is slowly turning into a crazy reality.  For nearly 20 years I've had one big dream to reduce what I own to what can fit in a car and set out on an open-end adventure to explore, meet new people, and find ways to grow.  Trust me, I fully expect a wild ride of both good and bad.  Luckily, I have Ginger now to keep me from being too adventurous.

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Star Trek's George Takei pens children's book detailing childhood in World War II internment camps

"My Lost Freedom," is an autobiographical account of his experience as a child.

George Takei, who portrayed Hikaru Sulu in the "Star Trek" series, details his experience growing up in Japanese-American internment camps during World War II in his new book.

Takei's children's book, "My Lost Freedom," is an autobiographical account of his experience as a 5-year-old in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. The book aims to reach children and their parents.

The book recounts Takei's time as a child in a Japanese internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, a dark chapter in American history.

"I remember the terror, the confusion, the chaos of being moved constantly from one place to another, one strange part of the country to another," Takei told ABC News Live. "And so that's my real memory that I have. But I didn't understand what that was all about."

ABC News Live interviewed Takei about his new book, which pays tribute to his parents.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Many of you know him best as Hikaru Sulu from the Star Trek series, but his journey extends far beyond the stars. His new book, "My Lost Freedom," details his experience growing up in Japanese-American internment camps during World War II.

Joining us now is a true legend, actor, activist, social justice icon George Takei. Sir, thanks so much for joining us.

GEORGE TAKEI: Good to be here, appreciate it.

ABC NEWS LIVE: You're teaching us things already, not just in this book. This book details a really, you know, a dark chapter, in this country's history and in your own personal history. Why did you want to tackle it in a children's book?

TAKEI: Well, I was a child then. I was 5 years old, and I wanted to share, share this story, as an autobiography that was published in 1994. I did also a graphic memoir because I wanted to reach teenagers and, as a teenager, I loved comic books. So I told the same story as, from the vantage point of a teenager, to reach them. But with this one book, "My Lost Freedom," I'm reaching for two generations. The parents and their kiddies.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Absolutely. Because it's not just the kids reading it, it's the adults reading it to the children and having a conversation.

TAKEI: Exactly.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Opening up a conversation. I'm wondering, I know you wrote about it. You know, in the book that came out in 1994. And this is a different way of talking about it. Is it painful to relive this period or is it cathartic? Therapeutic in a way.

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TAKEI: I think for my parents, the greatest pain was felt. I was 5 years old. Four years, five, six, seven, eight, four years of my life, in imprisonment. My brother was a year younger than me. And our baby sister went in as an infant. And so the first four years of her life was behind those barbed wire fences.

ABC NEWS LIVE: How did your family keep hope going?

TAKEI: So I remember the terror, the confusion, the chaos of being moved constantly from one place to another, one strange part of the country to another. And so that's my real memory that I have. But I didn't understand what that was all about. And as a teenager, out of camp and a few years having elapsed, I was very curious about my childhood imprisonment, and I went to libraries to look for books on it. Couldn't find a thing.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Do you think it had anything to do with you growing up, you know, having the career you had, but being the activist that you have turned into. Do you think it shaped you in that way?

TAKEI: Well, as I said, those after-dinner conversations that I had with my father, he said, and he loved quoting from the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln's historic speech: "Ours is a government of the people, by the people and for the people." He said, "those are noble words. That's what makes American democracy so singular." But those words are also the weakness of American democracy because it's a people's democracy and people are fallible human beings, and they get swept up by the hysteria of the time and by racism and the president is also a human being. His other were tens of thousands of people that look just like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. Living on the West Coast.

ABC NEWS LIVE: That weren't those people.

TAKEI: And he signed an executive order ordering all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be rounded up with no charge, no trial, no due process, in the most un-American way to be. Rounded up and imprisoned in barbed wire prison camps in some of the most hellish places and most desolate places in the country.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Yeah, it was a, it was a hugely dark time in this country's history. And to be able to put it in a book like this, to not only teach children, but the adults who are reading it to them, is really spectacular thing.

TAKEI: Well, I had to simplify it.

ABC NEWS LIVE: Absolutely

TAKEI: We don't deal with the loyalty question.

ABC NEWS LIVE: George, thank you so much; we so appreciate you coming in. You can purchase "My Lost Freedom" wherever books are sold

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‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Renewed As ‘Lower Decks’ Sets Ending After 5 Seasons

By Rosy Cordero

Rosy Cordero

Associate Editor, TV

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fourth season ahead of the show’s Season 3 premiere which is slated for 2025 and currently in production. Additionally, the previously announced fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks will serve as its final. New episodes of the final season, currently in production, will arrive this fall.

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“Our incredible cast, crew and artists have given you everything they have because they love the characters they play, they love the world we’ve built, and more than anything we all love love love Star Trek. We’re excited for the world to see our hilarious fifth season which we’re working on right now, and the good news is that all previous episodes will remain on Paramount+ so there is still so much to look forward to as we celebrate the Cerritos crew with a big send-off,” they added.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is an animated comedy series following the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos. The crew residing in the “lower decks” of the U.S.S. Cerritos includes the voices of Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells and Eugene Cordero; the bridge crew is voiced by Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O’Connell, Fred Tatasciore and Gillian Vigman.

The series is produced by CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Studios’ animation arm; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Executive producers include Alex Kurtzman, Mike McMahan, Aaron Baiers, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth. Titmouse serves as the animation studio for the series which streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and Latin America and is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

It stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Jess Bush, Christina Chong, Celia Rose Gooding, Melissa Navia and Babs Olusanmokun, along with special guest stars Paul Wesley and Carol Kane. The series is produced by CBS Studios, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Jenny Lumet, Henry Alonso Myers, Aaron Baiers, Dana Horgan, Davy Perez, Frank Siracusa, John Weber, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers.

“On behalf of the cast and crew of Strange New Worlds, we are thrilled and grateful to continue our voyages together. We can’t wait for you to join us and the crew of the Enterprise on another season of exploration and adventure,” said Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers and Alex Kurtzman in a statement.

The expanded world of Star Trek on Paramount+ also includes the fifth and final season of Star Trek : Discovery, currently airing; the original film Star Trek : Section 31 starring Michelle Yeoh, which recently wrapped production; and the new original series Star Trek : Starfleet Academy, slated to begin production later this year.

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Retro games galore on this $70 licensed atari console with 200+ built-in games.

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Discover startups, services, products and more from our partner  StackSocial . New York Post may be compensated and/or receive an affiliate commission if you buy through our links.

TL;DR:  If you want a blast from the past, pull up a joystick and play 200+ built-in games on the officially licensed  My Arcade Atari Game Station Pro , on sale from $99 to $69.99 for a limited time.

The My Arcade Atari Game Station Pro  video game console  gives all the nostalgic feels, and you can plug it into a TV. Whether you’re reliving the golden age of gaming yourself or you’re finally showing the games of your childhood to the next generation, this compact console is a fun option with endless replayability.

Plus, it’s only $69.99 instead of $99 because it’s an open-box return. That just means the packaging might show signs of being opened, and the console itself could have minor cosmetic signs of wear, but it still works great. 

My Arcade Atari Game Station Pro: Video Game Console

Play like the good old days on this compact console you could take practically anywhere. This Atari Game Station Pro is the real deal with built-in iconic  games like Asteroids® , Centipede®, PONG®, Breakout®, Missile Command®, and Warlords®, among so many more. Beat your old high score or game with your buddies using the two included wireless joysticks. 

Those old games might be unforgiving, but this console has some modern quality of life improvements. That includes save options because you might not be able to marathon games like you did as a kid. Just connect this little console to your tv with an HDMI cable and finally see those classic games on a modern screen. 

Bring back the glory days of gaming. 

For a limited time, save 30% and get the  My Arcade Atari Game Station Pro  on sale for $69.99. 

StackSocial prices subject to change. 

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Aerial video shows mass coral bleaching on Great Barrier Reef amid global heat stress event – video

Scientists have recorded widespread bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef as global heating creates a fourth planet-wide bleaching event. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch, 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have been experiencing heat stress high enough to cause bleaching

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Global heating pushes coral reefs towards worst planet-wide mass bleaching on record

Source: Australian Institute of Marine Science

Tue 16 Apr 2024 05.30 BST Last modified on Thu 18 Apr 2024 22.35 BST

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Six Flags Great America in Gurnee opens for 2024 season

A new ride called "sky striker" will debut at the six flags great america later this spring, by nbc chicago staff • published april 19, 2024 • updated on april 19, 2024 at 6:31 am.

Note: The video in the player above is from a previous report.

The "Thrill Capitol of the Midwest" will open for the 2024 season this weekend

Watch NBC Chicago local news and weather for free 24/7

Six Flags Great America , in suburban Gurnee, opens for the 2024 season at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 20, according to the park's website.

According to the park's website, hours of operation for the theme park are 10:30 a.m. - 8 p.m. on Saturdays, and 10:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. Sundays. It will open for some weekday hours beginning Friday May 10, with daily operations beginning the week of Memorial Day.

Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.

A full look at the early season calendar for Six Flags Great America can be found here.

This year, a new ride will debut at the park, with construction already underway .

The new attraction called "Sky Striker" will swing riders back and forth on a massive pendulum through the sky at speeds of 75 miles per hour -- while 172 feet off the ground.

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Chicago Forecast: Chilly, breezy conditions alongside increasing cloud cover

"As you swing through the clouds you will also spin, adding even another dimension to this maximum-thrills experience," according to the Six Flags Great America website. "This first-of-its-kind ride for the park creates a freefall sensation like no other."

The new attraction will be located in the park's "County Fair" section, located near the historic American Eagle roller coaster while replacing the land formerly occupied by "Dare Devil Dive," a skycoaster freefall attraction that required an additional fee to ride.

A spokesperson for Six Flags Great America told NBC Chicago the ride is scheduled to open later this spring.

On top of Sky Striker, Six Flags Great America boasts a whopping 15 roller coasters, the second-most of any park in the Midwest, only trailing Cedar Point.

The park, at 1 Great America Parkway in Gurnee, is approximately 45 miles north of Chicago.

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The Fallout TV series is more like a great sequel to the games than just an adaptation

Fallout is the rare adaptation that adds to its source material

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Fallout is a franchise that’s held together by tone just as much as any unifying story beats or canon. The series’ distinct post-apocalyptic vision of an America that never escaped the wide eyes, fake smiles, and faker optimism of the Cold War has become iconic, and its version of Americana shot through with radioactive black humor is more identifiable than any single character from the games will ever be (except Vault Boy, of course). It’s a series that revels in its ability to be funny, touching, sad, sweet, and disgusting all in a single moment. And that tone is what Amazon Prime Video’s new Fallout TV series captures best, and what makes it an excellent addition to the franchise, rather than just an adaptation.

The new show, created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, smartly adapts Fallout’s world and setting without attempting to retell any of the stories from the game series directly. There are Vaults, where cheery survivors of the nuclear blasts that destroyed most of America wait out the apocalypse. We’ve got the militaristic Brotherhood of Steel, along with irradiated surface-dwellers known as ghouls. And just about everything in the vast Wasteland and out is run by Vault-Tec. In other words, it’s a world that’s unmistakably rooted in Fallout’s canon. It’s a loving re-creation of the icons of the Fallout universe, but it’s also more than that, pushing the entire franchise forward into a new story and bigger world.

Fallout ’s story is mostly centered around Lucy (Ella Purnell), a Vault Dweller who leaves her home to find her father (Kyle MacLachlan). In her travels through the Wasteland, she meets Maximus (Aaron Moten), a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel; a bounty hunter simply known as The Ghoul (Walton Goggins); and plenty of other very strange denizens.

The show follows all of these characters as their paths cross and converge in the Wasteland of Los Angeles in search of a scientist who has escaped the Enclave with a dangerous technology that could change the balance of power in the Wasteland forever. In typical Fallout fashion, this story is mostly here to help push our heroes further into the world of the Wasteland to see all the strangeness it has to offer.

That world is one of the things Fallout nails from its earliest moments. The live-action Vaults have the same steel-caged Americana atmosphere that made them immediately effective in Fallout 3 ’s opening, with long, artificially bright hallways lined with cheerful mailboxes and blast-proof doors. But it’s on the surface where the show really starts to shine. Fallout was filmed on location and with gorgeous and grimy practical sets that make the Wasteland feel real and alive. Clothes are ripped and torn, walls are rough and patched, and everything from the guns to the technology feels cobbled together from the scrap of the world that used to be. All of this comes into sharp focus anytime the Brotherhood of Steel appears in its power-armored glory, looking terrifying in its completeness.

There are plenty of Easter eggs, as you might expect from a video game adaptation, but Fallout manages to make them seem like part of the world, too. It all feels real and believable as pieces of a whole existence that these people have scraped together, which goes a long way toward helping the show’s humor land. Even the Easter eggs feel carefully designed to fit into the world and the lives of the characters, rather than drawing focus away from them or sticking out as a glaring distraction. But as well-drawn as Fallout ’s world is, it’s the characters that really make the show stand both head and shoulders above other video game adaptations, and over most TV shows released so far this year.

In the show’s first few episodes, Lucy greets the Wasteland with nothing but fascination and kindness, giving us a window to experience the horrors of the surface by proxy. This too-innocent schtick is one that constantly threatens to wear thin but never does, thanks in large part to Purnell’s winning charm and laser-precise delivery of the show’s many punchlines. But even more impressive is the show’s commitment to giving her an arc. She constantly meets characters who tell her that the Wasteland changes people, sucks the humanity and goodness out of them until nothing is left but survival. A lesser show might use Lucy as a big-eyed, bumbling example of how goodness and kindness can win out in the end, but the Fallout creators strive to examine something more interesting: How can you keep your humanity when kindness is off the table? Her pluckiness and can-do attitude never die, but her values shift — sometimes subtly, as she realizes she can’t help everyone she sees in the Wasteland, and other times more abruptly, like when she meets a pair of cannibals on the road. It’s a literal and metaphorical journey, one that deepens a character that easily could have ended up as the boring and naïve archetype she seems like on paper.

This kind of impressive depth and creativity is all over Fallout ’s characters. Maximus gets a fascinating arc about coming to terms with the fact that the members of the Brotherhood of Steel might not be the paragons of virtue that he thought, and even Lucy’s little brother back in Vault 33 gets a fun mystery story about the nature of his Vault’s relationship to those around them. The show also excels in its brief, silly one-off stories about eccentric survivors that are nicer (or crazier) than our main characters originally assumed.

It’s no surprise that the characters are the strongest part of Fallout ; after all, it’s the shared middle ground between the game series and the medium of television. For all the qualities of their main stories, the real joy of Fallout games is exploring the Wasteland, finding its strangest inhabitants, and hearing their ridiculous stories and bizarre beliefs, or witnessing their comically absurd feats of violence and survival. Robertson-Dworet and Wagner’s Fallout captures this feeling perfectly, with characters in every episode stumbling into new situations that feel like they could easily be side quests taken straight from the games, like an organ-harvesting ring in an old supermarket or an open Vault where things are much stranger than they appear.

While all of this makes for an excellent and entertaining TV show — and a surprisingly effective adaptation of the series — Fallout ’s biggest coup is how much it effortlessly adds to the world of the games. Most of the series’ deeper lore implications come by way of flashbacks of The Ghoul’s life before the war. These snippets make up a very small part of the show’s run time, but they tell a compelling mystery story centered around Vault-Tec, giving us our best look yet at its origins and the political murkiness of Fallout ’s prewar period. It’s a thoughtful look at how Fallout’s world came to be so broken, all told through the lens of the kind of ’50s Hollywood noir film that would feel right at home as a reference in one of the games.

Fallout justifies its existence by bringing new things to the universe it’s set in, without setting itself apart from that universe. Unlike other recent video game adaptations, such as The Last of Us , which capably and elegantly retell the story of their source material, Fallout expands on it by building out the world of the games that fans already love. The Fallout series’ open-world design makes any adaptation complicated, considering how much content the games can pack into their massive settings that players could spend hundreds of hours on. But building on a preexisting world like this is difficult. Fans are fiercely protective of the worlds they love — which is why a show like Halo built a separate timeline for its adaptation , or why Twisted Metal totally changed the lore of its bygone franchise. But Fallout pulls off the high-wire act brilliantly. Robertson-Dworet and Wagner’s admiration for the video game series is obvious, but what’s more important here is their ability to make a good TV show with a well-told story and interesting characters, which just happens to be deeply rooted in Fallout’s world and signature so-dark-you-have-to-laugh tone.

In the press tour for the show, its creators have frequently said that they thought of the Prime Video series more like Fallout 5 than just an adaptation of the video game franchise. And perhaps the highest praise the show earns is that it absolutely feels like a game sequel that happens to be transposed into another medium. And after a fantastic first season, it’s hard to be anything but excited for the next chapter of Fallout, whether that’s a new season of TV or a return to video games .

Fallout season 1 drops on Prime Video on April 10.

Your guide to Fallout’s vaults and wastelands

• The dirty secret to making sci-fi believable
• Kyle MacLachlan’s subtle dread and kind smile made him perfect for Fallout
• All the Fallout season 2 news we’ve heard so far
• Fallout’s violence and gore are part of its charm
• Fallout’s first look has a Vault Dweller-Ghoul-Brotherhood showdown
• New Fallout trailer gives us our best look yet at Walton Goggins’ fascinating Ghoul
• Digging through the Fallout TV series’ trailer and everything else we know about the show
• Amazon’s Fallout TV series starts a new plot in the same universe as the games
• Amazon’s Fallout series gives us a look at power armor, ghouls, and a new vault
• Here’s a first look at Amazon’s Fallout TV series
• Fallout’s final scene hints at a more complicated universe
• Fallout’s Vaults have even crazier experiments in the games
• Everything Fallout has revealed about the NCR
• Every Fallout Easter egg in the Prime Video show
• Fallout fans spent years debating who dropped the bombs — then the show made a call
• Fallout’s glimpse of the Enclave is just the beginning
• The Fallout TV show gives the game’s mascot an origin story that matters
• The Fallout TV show reminds us: Vault-Tec really is that bad
• The Fallout timeline
• Bethesda and Microsoft: A tight relationship over two decades
• Bethesda sues Warner Bros, calls its Westworld game ‘blatant rip-off’ of Fallout Shelter
• A brief history of Bethesda’s many legal tangles
• Fallout: New Vegas endures because of big clunky story swings
• Fallout 76 will be free when the Fallout TV show debuts through Amazon Prime
• I spent 453 hours in Fallout 4 and all I got was this stinkin’ inner peace
• Fallout 76 still has a fan base that’s committed to the core
• How Fallout 76 handles the Brotherhood of Steel
• The Fallout series’ most authentic performances happen in the Wasteland
• Fallout’s NCR reveal hurt — even if it was inevitable

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