2012 — The Marikana Massacre

On August 16, 2012, South African police opened fire on striking platinum miners at Marikana, killing 34 men in a single afternoon. The miners had walked off the Lonmin mine demanding a living wage of 12,500 rand a month. Ten others had already died that violent week, bringing the toll to 44.

A later commission called the police operation defective. Marikana became post-apartheid South Africa's Sharpeville — the day the democratic state turned its guns on the workers it was built to protect. The name still stands for a broken promise: that freedom would also mean safety and a living wage.