stars in the 1950s and 1960s. The Dutch-sounding title De Huisgenoot was changed to the more Afrikaans-sounding Die Huisgenoot and in 1977 the name was further simplified to simply Huisgenoot. By the late 1970s the culture and mores of the Afrikaner population had begun to diverge from earlier generations, leading to a drastic decline in the magazine's readership and finances. By 1978 the magazine was in serious trouble and a new editor, Niel Hammann, was appointed. He took Huisgenoot in a more populist and profit-driven direction and the popularity and sales of the magazine subsequently surged – from 140,000 to 500,000 magazines per week. The popularity of Huisgenoot has continued almost unabated since then, making the magazine and its English sister publication YOU the two most successful magazines in South Africa. Milestones This entire section sourced from In the first issues, page numbers overflowed from one issue to the next and only started with one again in May 1917. The words of a proposed new Afrikaans national anthem appeared in the issue of March 1919 – the magazine mentioned that it was not clear who wrote the song, "Uit die Blou van Onse Hemel", and requested the author to contact the magazine. Today it is known that the author was Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven. The first female on the cover was H.S.J Joubert, who died on 8 September 1916. The women's pages in the magazine were also heavily criticised. Readers described women being dressed in modern outfits as looking like devils – "nes duiwels gelijk". The editor had an easy solution: “Neither of us has seen a devil before, and we request that readers who has had this experience before please give us their input.” In April 1918 the magazine announces that Afrikaans is now one of the country’s official languages. The first poster is published in February 1922, a black and white copy of an oil painting by Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef. Huisgenoot became a weekly magazine in November 1923, until then it was a monthly. On 11 December 1923 the magazine boasted a print run of 30 000. Today Huisgenoot sells more than 200 000 copies weekly. Colour was used for the first time in the issue of 2 January 1931 – black, blue and red. In the magazine of 2 September 1927 the editor wrote that it is not a political magazine. In the issue of 29 May 1936,