1.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
2.
Cape Colony
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The Cape of Good Hope, also known as the Cape Colony, was a British colony in present-day South Africa and Namibia, named after the Cape of Good Hope. The British colony was preceded by an earlier Dutch colony of the same name, the Dutch lost the colony to Britain following the 1795 Battle of Muizenberg, but had it returned following the 1802 Peace of Amiens. It was re-occupied by the British following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806, the Cape of Good Hope then remained in the British Empire, becoming self-governing in 1872, and uniting with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa in 1910. It then was renamed the Cape of Good Hope Province, South Africa became fully independent in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster. In the north, the Orange River, also known as the Gariep River, served as the boundary for some time, from 1878, the colony also included the enclave of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands, both in what is now Namibia. An expedition of the Dutch East India Company led by Jan van Riebeeck established a trading post, van Riebeecks objective was to secure a harbour of refuge for Dutch ships during the long voyages between Europe and Asia. Reflecting the multi-national nature of the trading companies, the Dutch also granted vrijburger status to a number of former Scandinavian and German employees as well. In 1688 they also sponsored the immigration of two hundred French Huguenot refugees who had fled to the Netherlands upon the Edict of Fontainebleau. There was a degree of assimilation due to intermarriage. Many of the colonists who settled directly on the frontier became increasingly independent, known as Boers, they migrated westwards beyond the Cape Colonys initial borders and had soon penetrated almost a thousand kilometres inland. Some Boers even adopted a nomadic lifestyle permanently and were denoted as trekboers, Dutch traders imported thousands of slaves to the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch East Indies and other parts of Africa. By the end of the century the Capes population swelled to about 26,000 people of European descent and 30,000 slaves. In 1795, France occupied the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands and this prompted Great Britain to occupy the territory in 1795 as a way to better control the seas in order stop any potential French attempt to reach India. The British sent a fleet of nine warships which anchored at Simons Town and, following the defeat of the Dutch militia at the Battle of Muizenberg, the Dutch East India Company transferred its territories and claims to the Batavian Republic in 1798, and ceased to exist in 1799. In 1806, the Cape, now controlled by the Batavian Republic, was occupied again by the British after their victory in the Battle of Blaauwberg. The temporary peace between Britain and Napoleonic France had crumbled into open hostilities, whilst Napoleon had been strengthening his influence on the Batavian Republic. The British, who set up a colony on 8 January 1806, hoped to keep Napoleon out of the Cape, in 1814 the Dutch government formally ceded sovereignty over the Cape to the British, under the terms of the Convention of London. The British started to settle the border of the colony
3.
Paul Kruger
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Stephanus Johannes Paulus Paul Kruger was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1900. Born near the edge of the Cape Colony, Kruger took part in the Great Trek as a child during the late 1830s. He had almost no education apart from the Bible and, through his interpretations of scripture, in 1863 he was elected Commandant-General, a post he held for a decade before he resigned soon after the election of President Thomas François Burgers. Kruger was appointed Vice-President in 1877, shortly before the South African Republic was annexed by Britain as the Transvaal, Kruger served until 1883 as a member of an executive triumvirate, then was elected President. In 1884 he headed a deputation that brokered the London Convention. Kruger left for Europe as the war turned against the Boers in 1900 and spent the rest of his life in exile, refusing to return home following the British victory. After he died in Switzerland at the age of 78 in 1904, his body was returned to South Africa for a state funeral, the family was of Dutch-speaking Afrikaner or Boer background, of German, French Huguenot and Dutch stock. His paternal ancestors had been in South Africa since 1713, when Jacob Krüger, from Berlin and his mothers family, the Steyns, had lived in South Africa since 1668 and were relatively affluent and cultured by Cape standards. Krugers great-great-uncle Hermanus Steyn had been President of the self-declared Republic of Swellendam that revolted against Company rule in 1795, Bulhoek, Krugers birthplace, was the Steyn family farm and had been Elsies home since early childhood, her father Douw Gerbrand Steyn had settled there in 1809. The Krugers and Steyns were acquainted and Casper occasionally visited Bulhoek as a young man and he and Elsie married in Cradock in 1820, when he was 18 and she was 14. A girl, Sophia, and a boy, Douw Gerbrand, were born before Pauls arrival in 1825 and his mother died when he was eight, Casper soon remarried and had more children with his second wife, Heiletje. Beyond reading and writing, which he learned from relatives, Krugers only education was three months under a tutor, Tielman Roos, and Calvinist religious instruction from his father. In adulthood Kruger would claim to have never read any book apart from the Bible, in 1835 Casper Kruger, his father and his brothers Gert and Theuns moved their families east and set up farms near the Caledon River, on the Cape Colonys far north-eastern frontier. The Cape had been under British sovereignty since 1814, when the Netherlands ceded it to Britain with the Convention of London and they had given little thought to the idea of leaving the Cape. A group of emigrants under Hendrik Potgieter passed through the Krugers Caledon encampments in early 1836, Potgieter envisioned a Boer republic with himself in a prominent role, he sufficiently impressed the Krugers that they joined his party of Voortrekkers. Krugers father continued to give the religious education in the Boer fashion during the trek, having them recite or write down biblical passages from memory each day after lunch. At stops along the journey classrooms were improvised from reeds and grass, the Voortrekkers faced competition for the area they were entering from Mzilikazi and his Ndebele people, a recent offshoot from the Zulu Kingdom to the south-east. Kruger and the small children assisted in tasks such as bullet-casting while the women and larger boys helped the fighting men
4.
Namaqualand
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Namaqualand is an arid region of Namibia and South Africa, extending along the west coast over 1,000 kilometres and covering a total area of 440,000 square kilometres. It is divided by the course of the Orange River into two portions – Little Namaqualand to the south and Great Namaqualand to the north. Little Namaqualand is within the Namakwa District Municipality and forms part of Northern Cape Province, a typical municipality is Kamiesberg Local Municipality. Great Namaqualand is in the Karas Region of Namibia, Great Namaqualand is sparsely populated by the Namaqua, a Khoikhoi people who traditionally inhabited the Namaqualand region. Some of the prominent towns in this area are Springbok, being the capital of this region, as well as Kleinzee and Koiingnaas. This area is rich in alluvial diamonds deposited along the coast by the Orange River. Oranjemund is another mining town along this coast, situated in Namibia, as the name suggests, it is at the mouth of the Orange River which forms the border between South Africa and Namibia. The town of Alexander Bay is located 5 kilometres away opposite the river on the South African side and is linked to Oranjemund by the Ernest Oppenheimer Bridge. This is known throughout South Africa as the Namaqualand daisy season, as a region, it has one of the highest percentages of Afrikaans speakers in the world, with over 95% of the population speaking the Afrikaans language. The original Khoekhoe language of the Nama people, with its system of click sounds. Letterklip Namaqualand Railway Peace in Africa Namakwa Region – Northern Cape Tourism Namakwa District Municipality
5.
Jan Smuts
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Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts OM, CH, ED, PC, KC, FRS was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924. Smuts subsequently lost the 1948 election to hard-line Afrikaners who created apartheid and he continued to work for reconciliation and emphasised the British Commonwealth’s positive role until his death in 1950. He led a Boer Commando in the Second Boer War for the Transvaal, during the First World War, he led the armies of South Africa against Germany, capturing German South-West Africa and commanding the British Army in East Africa. From 1917 to 1919, he was one of the members of the British Imperial War Cabinet. He became a marshal in the British Army in 1941. He was the man to sign both of the peace treaties ending the First and Second World Wars. A statue of him stands in Parliament Square and he was born on 24 May 1870, at the family farm, Bovenplaats, near Malmesbury, in the Cape Colony. His parents, Jacobus Smuts and his wife Catharina, were prosperous, traditional Afrikaner farmers, long established, Jan was quiet and delicate as a child, strongly inclined towards solitary pursuits. During his childhood, he went out alone, exploring the surrounding countryside, this awakened a passion for nature. As the second son of the family, rural custom dictated that he would remain working on the farm, however, in 1882, when Jan was twelve, his elder brother died, and Jan was sent to school in his brothers place. Jan attended the school in nearby Riebeek West and he made excellent progress here, despite his late start, and caught up with his contemporaries within four years. He moved on to Victoria College, Stellenbosch, in 1886, at Stellenbosch, he learned High Dutch, German, and Ancient Greek, and immersed himself further in literature, the classics, and Bible studies. His deeply traditional upbringing and serious outlook led to isolation from his peers. However, he made outstanding academic progress, graduating in 1891 with double First-class honours in Literature and Science. During his last years at Stellenbosch, Smuts began to cast off some of his shyness and reserve, and it was at time that he met Isie Krige. On graduation from Victoria College, Smuts won the Ebden scholarship for overseas study and he decided to travel to the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom to read law at Christs College, Cambridge. Smuts found it difficult to settle at Cambridge, he felt homesick and isolated by his age, worries over money also contributed to his unhappiness, as his scholarship was insufficient to cover his university expenses
6.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe
7.
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
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His term as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General, in 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. Kitchener died on 5 June 1916 when HMS Hampshire sank west of the Orkney Islands and he was making his way to Russia in order to attend negotiations when the ship struck a German mine. He was one of more than 600 killed on board the ship, Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier. His father had recently bought land in Ireland under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after selling his commission. They then moved to Switzerland where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux, then at the Royal Military Academy, pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War. His father took him back to England after he caught pneumonia after ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871, his service in France had violated British neutrality, and he was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief. He served in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, Sir Walter Kitchener, had also entered the army, and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912. In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria. Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was confined to the area west of the Jordan River. The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora, the results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes. This survey has had an effect on the Middle East for several reasons, The ordnance survey serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel. The collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists, the survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped. In 1878 having completed the survey of Western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of newly acquired British protectorate. Then in 1879 he became vice-consul in Anatolia, in 1883 Kitchener became a Freemason. On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain, given the Turkish rank bimbashi, Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive and his nominal overlord the Sultan of Turkey
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