# Namibia > A chronological documentary of 3,634 moments spanning -1000–2026. > Source: https://loreline.live/loreline/namibia · Loreline (loreline.live) A country assembled from the oldest desert on earth, the people who have lived along it, and three occupations. Rock engravings at Twyfelfontein, Ovaherero cattle and Ovambo kingdoms, Nama polities and San hunter-gatherer societies. Then German South West Africa, the mission stations, and the war of extermination waged against the Ovaherero and Nama between 1904 and 1908. South African rule from 1915, apartheid extended northward, the contract labour system and the strike that broke it. SWAPO, the liberation war, and independence on 21 March 1990. The diamonds at Kolmanskop and the uranium after them, the fishing fleet, the conservancies, and Windhoek. The archive is built from what is freely licensed, and that record is uneven in a way worth naming: the occupying forces are extensively photographed and the liberation movement is barely present. Where a claim is contested it is attributed to whoever made it. _Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-09-20._ ## Eras - **Rock Art**, Engravings and paintings across the escarpment, including Twyfelfontein, inscribed by UNESCO in 2007, and the Apollo 11 Cave stones, among the oldest figurative art known from Africa. - **Namib**, The desert the country is named for, reckoned among the oldest on earth, and the fog coast, dunes and gravel plains that run from the Orange River to Angola. - **Towns**, Swakopmund, Lüderitz, Walvis Bay, Keetmanshoop, Oshakati, Rundu and the settlements between. - **Windhoek**, The capital: the Alte Feste and the Christuskirche, Katutura, the Independence Memorial Museum, and the monuments the city has argued over. - **Kingdoms**, Ovambo kingdoms, Nama and Oorlam polities, and the trade routes that crossed them before the colony. The free photographic record of precolonial authority is very thin. - **Fishing**, The Benguela current, the fleet at Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, and the processing that grew around them. - **Colony**, German South West Africa from 1884: Windhoek, Swakopmund and Lüderitz, the farms and the Schutztruppe posts, and the colonial memory later built around them. Several monuments here commemorate the German colonial dead and are captioned as such. - **Missions**, Rhenish, Finnish and Catholic mission stations, among them Olukonda in Ovamboland where Martin Rautanen worked, and the churches that still stand at Lüderitz, Karibib and Okahandja. - **Constitution**, The constitution of 1990, the state it created, and the presidencies since: Sam Nujoma, Hifikepunye Pohamba, Hage Geingob who died in office in February 2024, Nangolo Mbumba, and Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, inaugurated in March 2025 as Namibia's first woman president. - **Schutztruppe**, The German colonial force, its garrisons, patrols and camel corps, and the officers who commanded it. - **Peoples**, Ovambo, Kavango, Ovaherero and Ovahimba, Damara, Nama, San, Rehoboth Basters, Tswana and the peoples of the Zambezi Region, alongside Afrikaner and German communities. Names here are the ones peoples use for themselves. - **Mandate**, South African rule from 1915 under a League of Nations mandate and after it, the long dispute at the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, and the South African Defence Force material that documents the occupying army. - **Dress**, Ovaherero dress adapted from Victorian mourning clothes, Ovahimba otjize and hairstyle, beadwork, and what dress records about history. - **Genocide**, The war of extermination against the Ovaherero and Nama, 1904 to 1908. Lothar von Trotha issued the Vernichtungsbefehl on 2 October 1904; survivors were driven into the Omaheke and held in camps. Casualty estimates are commonly given as roughly eighty per cent of the Ovaherero and half the Nama, and are cited here to their sources rather than settled. Germany formally recognised the events as genocide in 2015 and again in the 2021 joint declaration, which offered 1.1 billion euros over thirty years as development aid and ex gratia payments while rejecting legal responsibility. Ovaherero and Nama representatives have disputed both the sum and whether they were consulted. - **Conservancies**, Community conservancies, the wildlife held on communal land, and the arrangements that let residents manage and profit from it. - **Shark Island**, The camp at Lüderitz where Ovaherero and Nama prisoners were held and worked. No photograph of the camp survives in freely licensed sources; what exists is the site as it is now. - **Diamonds**, The 1908 find in the Sperrgebiet, the closed diamond area, and the industry that followed. - **Apartheid**, Apartheid extended north: the Odendaal plan and the homelands, the removal from the Old Location in 1959, and Katutura. The Commons record of the homelands is flag graphics and a map, with no photographs. - **SWAPO**, The South West Africa People's Organisation as a movement and later a governing party, its exile diplomacy and its leaders. - **Documentation**, Films, lectures, reporting and oral history about Namibia and its past. - **War**, The liberation war from 1966 and the United Nations transition that ended it. Freely licensed photography of this war is scarce in a way the archive cannot correct: the category for the People's Liberation Army of Namibia holds three files, all scanned from a declassified American intelligence report. No category exists for the 1978 raid on Cassinga, and the only genuine result is a depiction displayed at the Namibian Independence Museum. Omugulugwombashe, where the armed struggle began on 26 August 1966, has none at all. Freedom Park in Pretoria alone carries 217. Both events are extensively documented in written history and testimony; what is missing is openly licensed photography. - **Independence**, Resolution 435, the 1989 elections under UNTAG, and independence on 21 March 1990. - **Cattle**, Herding as economy and as standing, the Ovaherero cattle complex, and the grazing that shaped where people could live. - **Language**, Oshiwambo, Otjiherero, Khoekhoegowab and its clicks, Afrikaans, German and English, and the signage that shows which is used where. - **Mining**, Uranium at Rössing and Husab, base metals, and the mines that carry much of the economy. - **Etosha**, The pan and the park around it, the waterholes and the game that concentrates on them. - **Land**, Land reform, resettlement, the Flexible Land Tenure System, and the questions independence left open. - **Kolmanskop**, The diamond town in the dunes, built fast and abandoned, its German-era houses now filling with sand. - **Music**, Oshiwambo and Damara traditions, church music, kwaito and the present scene. - **Labour**, The contract labour system that moved men south to the mines and farms, and the general strike of 1971 and 1972 that broke it. ## Archive parts This archive is served in 3 chronological parts so each stays quick to fetch. - [-1000–2016](https://loreline.live/loreline-text/namibia/1000-2016.md), 1,339 moments - [2017–2023](https://loreline.live/loreline-text/namibia/2017-2023.md), 1,518 moments - [2024–2026](https://loreline.live/loreline-text/namibia/2024-2026.md), 777 moments --- 3,634 moments · Attribution: Loreline (loreline.live) · Public contributions welcome.