1.
Zambia
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The capital city is Lusaka, in the south-central part of Zambia. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the northwest, originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. After visits by European explorers in the century, Zambia became the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia towards the end of the nineteenth century. For most of the period, Zambia was governed by an administration appointed from London with the advice of the British South Africa Company. On 24 October 1964, Zambia became independent of the United Kingdom, Kaundas socialist United National Independence Party maintained power from 1964 until 1991. Kaunda played a key role in diplomacy, cooperating closely with the United States in search of solutions to conflicts in Rhodesia, Angola. From 1972 to 1991 Zambia was a one-party state with the UNIP as the legal political party under the motto One Zambia. Kaunda was succeeded by Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in 1991, beginning a period of social-economic growth, after Mwanawasas death, Rupiah Banda presided as Acting President before being elected President in 2008. Holding office for three years, Banda stepped down after his defeat in the 2011 elections by Patriotic Front party leader Michael Sata. Sata died on 28 October 2014, the second Zambian president to die in office, Guy Scott served briefly as interim president until new elections were held on 20 January 2015, in which Edgar Lungu was elected as the sixth President. In 2010, the World Bank named Zambia one of the worlds fastest economically reformed countries, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is headquartered in Lusaka. The territory of what is now Zambia was known as Northern Rhodesia from 1911 and it was renamed Zambia at independence in 1964. The new name of Zambia was derived from the Zambezi river, the area of modern Zambia is known to have been inhabited by the Khoisan until around AD300, when migrating Bantu began to settle around these areas. These early hunter-gatherer groups were either annihilated or absorbed by subsequent more organised Bantu groups. Archaeological excavation work on the Zambezi Valley and Kalambo Falls show a succession of human cultures, in particular, ancient camping site tools near the Kalambo Falls have been radiocarbon dated to more than 36,000 year ago. The fossil skull remains of Broken Hill Man, dated between 300,000 and 125,000 years BC, further shows that the area was inhabited by pre-historic man. The early history of tribes of modern-day Zambia can only be gleaned from knowledge passed down by successive generations through word of mouth, in the 12th century, major waves of Bantu-speaking immigrants arrived during the Bantu expansion. Among them, the Tonga people were the first to settle in Zambia and are believed to have come from the east near the big sea, by the late 12th century, more advanced kingdoms and empires had been established in most regions of modern-day Zambia
2.
Zimbabwe
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Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in southern Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the west and southwest, Zambia to the northwest, although it does not border Namibia, less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates it from that country. The capital and largest city is Harare, a country of roughly 13 million people, Zimbabwe has 16 official languages, with English, Shona, and Ndebele the most commonly used. Since the 11th century, present-day Zimbabwe has been the site of several organised states and kingdoms as well as a route for migration. The British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes first demarcated the present territory during the 1890s, in 1965, the conservative white minority government unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia. Zimbabwe then rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations—which it withdrew from in 2003 and it is a member of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. Robert Mugabe became Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980, when his ZANU-PF party won the following the end of white minority rule. Under Mugabes authoritarian regime, the security apparatus has dominated the country. Mugabe has maintained the revolutionary socialist rhetoric from the Cold War era, the name Zimbabwe stems from a Shona term for Great Zimbabwe, an ancient ruined city in the countrys south-east whose remains are now a protected site. Two different theories address the origin of the word, many sources hold that Zimbabwe derives from dzimba-dza-mabwe, translated from the Karanga dialect of Shona as large houses of stone. The Karanga-speaking Shona people live around Great Zimbabwe in the province of Masvingo. Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia, Rhodesia, and Zimbabwe Rhodesia, a further alternative, put forward by nationalists in Matabeleland, had been Matopos, referring to the Matopos Hills to the south of Bulawayo. In a 2001 interview, black nationalist Edson Zvobgo recalled that Mawema mentioned the name during a rally, and it caught hold. The black nationalist factions subsequently used the name the during the Second Chimurenga campaigns against the Rhodesian government during the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964-1979, major factions in this camp included the Zimbabwe African National Union, and the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union. Proto-Shona-speaking societies first emerged in the middle Limpopo valley in the 9th century before moving on to the Zimbabwean highlands, the Zimbabwean plateau eventually became the centre of subsequent Shona states, beginning around the 10th century. Around the early 10th century, trade developed with Arab merchants on the Indian Ocean coast, the main archaeological site uses a unique dry stone architecture. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe was the first in a series of sophisticated trade states developed in Zimbabwe by the time of the first European explorers from Portugal and they traded in gold, ivory, and copper for cloth and glass. From about 1300 until 1600, Mapungubwe was eclipsed by the Kingdom of Zimbabwe and this Shona state further refined and expanded upon Mapungubwes stone architecture, which survives to this day at the ruins of the kingdoms capital of Great Zimbabwe
3.
Namibia
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Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south, although it does not border Zimbabwe, a part of less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek, and it is a state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union. The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by the San, Damara, since about the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. Since then the Bantu groups in total, known as the Ovambo people, have dominated the population of the country, in the late 19th century during European colonization, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory as a protectorate in 1884. It began to develop infrastructure and farming, and maintained this German colony until 1915, after the end of World War I, in 1920 the League of Nations mandated the country to the United Kingdom, under administration by South Africa. It imposed its laws, including racial classifications and rules, from 1948, with the National Party elected to power, South Africa applied apartheid also to what was known as South West Africa. In 1878 the Cape of Good Hope had annexed the port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands, following continued guerrilla warfare, South Africa installed an interim administration in Namibia in 1985. Namibia obtained full independence from South Africa in 1990, but Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994. Namibia has a population of 2.1 million people and a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy, Agriculture, herding, tourism and the mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, uranium, gold, silver, and base metals – form the basis of its economy. The large, arid Namib Desert has resulted in Namibia being overall one of the least densely populated countries in the world, Namibia enjoys high political, economic and social stability. The name of the country is derived from the Namib Desert, before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa, then as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the South Africans. The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by San, Damara, from about the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived during the Bantu expansion from central Africa. From the late 18th century onwards, Oorlam people from Cape Colony crossed the Orange River and their encounters with the nomadic Nama tribes were largely peaceful. The missionaries accompanying the Oorlam were well received by them, the right to use waterholes, on their way further northwards, however, the Oorlam encountered clans of the Herero at Windhoek, Gobabis, and Okahandja, who resisted their encroachment. The Nama-Herero War broke out in 1880, with hostilities ebbing only after the German Empire deployed troops to the places and cemented the status quo among the Nama, Oorlam. The first Europeans to disembark and explore the region were the Portuguese navigators Diogo Cão in 1485 and Bartolomeu Dias in 1486, like most of interior Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century
4.
Botswana
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Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens refer to themselves as Batswana, formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. Since then, it has maintained a tradition of stable representative democracy. Botswana is topographically flat, with up to 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahari Desert and it is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its border with Zambia to the north near Kazungula is poorly defined, a mid-sized country of just over 2 million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated nations in the world. Around 10 percent of the lives in the capital and largest city. The economy is dominated by mining, cattle, and tourism, Botswana boasts a GDP per capita of about $18,825 per year as of 2015, which is one of the highest in Africa. Its high gross national income gives the country a modest standard of living, Botswana is a member of the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the United Nations. The country has been among the hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the death rate due to AIDS or AIDS-related causes has fallen sharply from 2005 to 2013, and the number of new infections in children has also fallen. As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, the history of Botswana starts more than 100,000 years ago, when the first humans inhabited the region. The original inhabitants of southern Africa were the Bushmen and Khoi peoples, both speak Khoisan languages and lived as hunter-gatherers. About a thousand years ago, large chiefdoms emerged that were later eclipsed by the Great Zimbabwe empire, around 1300 CE, peoples in present-day Transvaal began to coalesce into three main linguistic and political groups, including the Batswana. The Batswana, a term used also to all citizens of Botswana. Prior to European contact, the Batswana lived as herders and farmers under tribal rule, as groups broke off and moved to new land, new tribes were created. Some human development occurred before the colonial period, during the 1700s, the slave and ivory trades were expanding. To resist these pressures, Shaka, the king of the Zulu Empire, conquered tribes began to move northwest into Botswana, destroying everything in their path. In their efforts to re-establish themselves at the end of period, tribes began to exchange ivory and skins for guns with European traders. Christian missionaries sent from Europe also spread to the interior, often at the invitation of tribal chiefs who wanted guns, by 1880 every major village had a resident missionary, and their influence became permanent
5.
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
6.
Writing system
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A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a form of information storage. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script, the general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have attributes of more than one category, in the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora, in a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Other categories include abjads, which differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Systems will also enable the stringing together of these groupings in order to enable a full expression of the language. The reading step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a range of thoughts. Soon after, writing provided a form of long distance communication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for a form of mass communication. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersand, are not directly linked to any specific language, every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven, once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no current in the spoken language. One of the benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines, thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field
7.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General
8.
Katanga Province
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Katanga was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces. Between 1971 and 1997, its name was Shaba Province. Farming and ranching are carried out on the Katanga Plateau, the eastern part of the province is considered a rich mining region, which supplies cobalt, copper, tin, radium, uranium, and diamonds. The regions former capital, Lubumbashi, is the second largest city in the Congo, copper mining in Katanga dates back over 1,000 years and mines in the region were producing standard sized ingots of copper for international transport by the end of the 1st Millennium AD. In the 1890s the province was beleaguered by Cecil Rhodes from the South, msiri, the King of Katanga, held out against both but eventually Katanga was subsumed by the Belgian Congo. From 1900, the Societe Generale de Belgique practically controlled all of the mining in the province through Union Miniere du Haut Katanga and this included uranium, radium, copper, cobalt, zinc, cadmium, germanium, manganese, silver, gold, and tin. By the start of WWII, the mining companies constituted a state within the Belgian Congo, in 1960, after the Democratic Republic of the Congo had received independence from Belgium, Katanga attempted to secede from the country. This was supported by Belgium but opposed by the Congolese Prime Minister Lumumba and it led to the Katanga Crisis which lasted from 1960 to 1965. The breakaway State of Katanga existed from 1960 to 1963, militias such as Mai Mai Kata Katanga led by Gédéon Kyungu Mutanga fought for Katanga to secede and his group briefly took over the provincial capital Lubumbashi in 2013. Following the implementation of the countrys 2005 constitution, in 2015 Katanga Province was split into the provinces of Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba, copper mining is an important part of the economy of Katanga province. Cobalt mining by individual contractors is also prevalent, there are a number of reasons cited for the discrepancy between the vast mineral wealth of the province and the failure of the wealth to increase the overall standard of living. The local provincial budget was $440 million in 2011, Lubumbashi, the mining capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a hub for many of the countrys biggest mining companies. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces more than 3 percent of the copper and half its cobalt. Major mining concessions include Tilwezembe, Kalukundi, Gécamines, La Générale des Carrières et des Mines, is the state-owned copper-cobalt mining company which had monopoly concessions in the province. Katanga Mining Ltd is majority-owned by Swiss commodity trader Glencore DCC A joint venture of Katanga Mining and Gécamines began mining Tilwezembe, the province formed the Congolese border with Angola and Zambia. The province also bordered Tanzania - although Katanga province and Tanzania did not share a land border -, Katanga has a wet and dry season. The University of Lubumbashi, located in the part of Lubumbashi city, is the largest university in the province. Université Méthodiste au Katanga, the oldest private institution in the province, is located at Mulungwishi
9.
Congo River
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The Congo River is a river in Africa. It is the second largest river in the world by discharge, the Congo-Chambeshi river has an overall length of 4,700 km, which makes it the ninth-longest river. Measured along the Lualaba, the Congo River has a length of 4,370 km. The Congo Basin has an area of about 4 million km2. The name River Congo originated from the Kingdom of Kongo which was located on the bank of the river. The kingdom in turn is named for the Bantu population, in the 17th century reported as Esikongo, South of the Kongo kingdom proper lay the similarly named Kakongo kingdom, mentioned in 1535. Abraham Ortelius in his map of 1564 labels as Manicongo the city at the mouth of the river. The tribal names in kongo possibly derive from a word for a gathering or tribal assembly. Little is known about the peoples of the inner Congo, but It is probable that the word Kongo itself implies a public gathering, the usual interpretations, admittedly unsatisfactory, make the mistake of being too concrete, for example, they may claim that Kongo comes from nkongo. The modern name of the Kongo people or Bakongo was introduced in the early 20th century, the name Zaire is from a Portuguese adaptation of a Kikongo word nzere, a truncation of nzadi o nzere. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo are named after it, the state of Zaire during 1971–1997 was also named after the river, after its name in French and Portuguese. The Congos drainage basin covers 4,014,500 square kilometres, the Congos discharge at its mouth ranges from 23,000 to 75,000 cubic metres per second, with an average of 41,000 cubic metres per second. The river and its tributaries flow through the Congo Rainforest, the second largest rain forest area in the world, second only to the Amazon Rainforest in South America. Because its drainage basin includes both north and south of the equator, its flow is stable, as there is always at least one part of the river experiencing a rainy season. The Chambeshi River in Zambia is generally taken as the source of the Congo in line with the accepted practice worldwide of using the longest tributary, as with the Nile River. The Congo River Basin is one of the distinct physiographic sections of the larger Mid-African province, sorted in order from the mouth heading upstream. Lower Congo Downstream of Kinshasa, there are no important tributaries, luvua Luapula Chambeshi Although the Livingstone Falls prevent access from the sea, nearly the entire Congo above them is readily navigable in sections, especially between Kinshasa and Kisangani. Large river steamers worked the river until quite recently, the Congo River still is a lifeline in a land with few roads or railways
10.
Zambezi
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The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is 1,390,000 square kilometres, the Zambezis most noted feature is Victoria Falls. Other notable falls include the Chavuma Falls at the border between Zambia and Angola, and Ngonye Falls, near Sioma in Western Zambia, there is also a smaller power station at Victoria Falls. The area around the source is a monument, forest reserve. Eastward of the source, the watershed between the Congo and Zambezi basins is a belt of high ground, running nearly east-west. This distinctly cuts off the basin of the Lualaba from that of the Zambezi, in the neighborhood of the source the watershed is not as clearly defined, but the two river systems do not connect. The region drained by the Zambezi is a vast broken-edged plateau 900–1200 m high, composed in the interior of metamorphic beds. Coal is also found in the district just below Victoria Falls, gold-bearing rocks occur in several places. The river flows to the south-west into Angola for about 240 kilometres, then is joined by tributaries such as the Luena. It turns south and develops a floodplain, with extreme variation between the dry and rainy seasons. It enters dense evergreen Cryptosepalum dry forest, though on its western side, where it re-enters Zambia it is nearly 400 metres wide in the rainy season and flows rapidly, with rapids ending in the Chavuma Falls, where the river flows through a rocky fissure. The river drops about 400 metres in elevation from its source at 1,500 metres to the Chavuma Falls at 1,100 metres, in a distance of about 400 kilometres. From this point to the Victoria Falls, the level of the basin is very uniform, the first of its large tributaries to enter the Zambezi is the Kabompo River in the north-western province of Zambia. A major advantage of the Kabompo River was irrigation, civilization was built on farming, and the surplus of crops. The savanna through which the river has flowed gives way to a wide floodplain, a little farther south is the confluence with the Lungwebungu River. This is the beginning of the Barotse Floodplain, the most notable feature of the upper Zambezi, for more than 200 km downstream the annual flood cycle dominates the natural environment and human life, society and culture. Eighty kilometres further down, the Luanginga, which with its tributaries drains an area to the west. A few kilometres higher up on the east the main stream is joined in the season by overflow of the Luampa/Luena system
11.
Shaka
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Shaka kaSenzangakhona, also known as Shaka Zulu, was one of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu Kingdom. He was born near present-day Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal Province, due to persecution as a result of his illegitimacy, Shaka spent his childhood in his mothers settlements where he was initiated into an ibutho lempi. In his early days, Shaka served as a warrior under the sway of Dingiswayo, the initial Zulu maneuvers were primarily defensive in nature, as Shaka preferred to apply pressure diplomatically, aided by an occasional strategic assassination. His changes to local society built on existing structures, although he preferred social and propagandistic political methods, he also engaged in a number of battles, as the Zulu sources make clear. In turn, he was assassinated by his own half brothers, Dingane. When Senzangakhona died in 1816 Shakas younger half-brother Sigujana assumed power as the heir to the Zulu chiefdom. Sigujanas reign was short however as Shaka, with the help of Dingiswayo and his half brother Ngwadi, had Sigujana assassinated in a coup that was relatively bloodless, when the Mthethwa forces were defeated and scattered temporarily, the power vacuum was filled by Shaka. He reformed the remnants of the Mthethwa and other regional tribes, when Dingiswayo was murdered by Zwide, Shaka sought to avenge his death. At some point Zwide barely escaped Shaka, though the details are not known. In that encounter Zwides mother Ntombazi, a Sangoma, was killed by Shaka. Shaka chose a particularly gruesome revenge on her, locking her in a house and placing jackals or hyenas inside, they devoured her and, in the morning, despite carrying out this revenge, Shaka continued his pursuit of Zwide. It was not until around 1825 that the two leaders met, near Phongola, in what would be their final meeting. Phongola is near the present day border of KwaZulu-Natal, a province in South Africa, Shaka was victorious in battle, although his forces sustained heavy casualties, which included his head military commander, Umgobhozi Ovela Entabeni. In Qwabe, Shaka may have intervened in a succession dispute to help his own choice, Nqetho, into power. As Shaka became more respected by his people, he was able to spread his ideas with greater ease, because of his background as a soldier, Shaka taught the Zulus that the most effective way of becoming powerful quickly was by conquering and controlling other tribes. His teachings greatly influenced the outlook of the Zulu people. The Zulu tribe soon developed a warrior mindset, which Shaka turned to his advantage, Shakas hegemony was primarily based on military might, smashing rivals and incorporating scattered remnants into his own army. He supplemented this with a mixture of diplomacy and patronage, incorporating friendly chieftains, including Zihlandlo of the Mkhize, Jobe of the Sithole and these peoples were never defeated in battle by the Zulu, they did not have to be
12.
Letter case
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Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger upper case and smaller lower case in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems that distinguish between the upper and lower case have two sets of letters, with each letter in one set usually having an equivalent in the other set. Basically, the two variants are alternative representations of the same letter, they have the same name and pronunciation. Letter case is generally applied in a fashion, with both upper- and lower-case letters appearing in a given piece of text. The choice of case is often prescribed by the grammar of a language or by the conventions of a particular discipline, in mathematics, letter case may indicate the relationship between objects, with upper-case letters often representing superior objects. In some contexts, it is conventional to use only one case, the terms upper case and lower case can be written as two consecutive words, connected with a hyphen, or as a single word. These terms originated from the layouts of the shallow drawers called type cases used to hold the movable type for letterpress printing. Traditionally, the letters were stored in a separate case that was located above the case that held the small letters. Majuscule, for palaeographers, is technically any script in which the letters have very few or very short ascenders and descenders, or none at all. By virtue of their impact, this made the term majuscule an apt descriptor for what much later came to be more commonly referred to as uppercase letters. The word is often spelled miniscule, by association with the word miniature. This has traditionally been regarded as a mistake, but is now so common that some dictionaries tend to accept it as a nonstandard or variant spelling. Miniscule is still less likely, however, to be used in reference to lower-case letters, the glyphs of lower-case letters can resemble smaller forms of the upper-case glyphs restricted to the base band or can look hardly related. There is more variation in the height of the minuscules, as some of them have higher or lower than the typical size. In Times New Roman, for instance, b, d, f, h, k, l, t are the letters with ascenders, and g, j, p, q, y are the ones with descenders. In addition, with old-style numerals still used by traditional or classical fonts,6 and 8 make up the ascender set. Writing systems using two separate cases are bicameral scripts, languages that use the Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Adlam, Varang Kshiti, Cherokee, and Osage scripts use letter cases in their written form as an aid to clarity. Other bicameral scripts, which are not used for any modern languages, are Old Hungarian, Glagolitic, the Georgian alphabet has several variants, and there were attempts to use them as different cases, but the modern written Georgian language does not distinguish case
