- wöchentlichErscheinungsrhythmus
- 22 mintypische Länge
- 1. Nov.letzte Folge
A series that seeks to tell the story of the South Africa in some depth. Presented by experienced broadcaster/podcaster Des Latham and updated weekly, the episodes will take a listener through the various epochs that have made up the story of South Africa.
Folgen
Episode 299 - Tariff skirmishes, a Goa Warlord menaces and the Pioneer Column goes Maxim
The economic policies of the states and colonies in South Africa conflicted in many ways, partly because of their varying political policies. The Transvaal desired economic and political independence while the Cape Colony advocated unificat
Episode 298 - Lights, Camera, Capital! How Scottish Lensmen Saved Joburg’s Gold
Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. This is episode 298 - Lights, Camera, Capital! How Scottish Lensmen Saved Joburg’s Gold. I was contacted recently by a listener who’s built an app - it’s cal
Episode 297 - Dinuzulu’s horse riding tours of St Helena and Lobengula loses it
297 dear listener, is what’s known as a Kaprekar Number - if you square 297 the resulting digits can be split into two parts - right side and left side. If you add up those two parts you get the original number 297 squared is 88, 209. Left
Episode 296 - kwaCeza Prayers and 20-something Dinizulu kaCetshwayo leads his men into battle
Last episode we had joined Dinuzulu on his tour of the Boer New Republic as it was known in 1888, the area around modern day Utrecht. Piet Meyer the Republic leader thought it best to step back, wary of the fact that the Zulu chief had cros
Episode 295 - Dabulamanzi’s Murder roils northern Zululand and Dinuzulu Rebels
On 27 April 1994, South Africa inaugurated a new constitutional democracy which embraced the freedom and equality of all sectors of the South African society. The Preamble of the Constitution states one of its aims was to “heal divisions of
Episode 294 - Ndebele Envoys in England and Selous Translates
The Ndebele chief said the Rudd concession document did not reflect his verbal agreements. His induna’s who’d negotiated the concession disputed the terms as well, along with missionary Charles Helms who’d translated for Lobengula. Neverthe
Episode 293 - The Rudd Concession: Paper, Powder, and Grand Theft Zambesia
We’re in Bulawayo, just over the border from the Limpopo, and very much part of South Africa’s story — the Ndebele Chief Lobengula ruled what was known generally as Matabeleland, in a territory that the British colonial office called Zambes
Episode 292 - Irish Nationalists, the Grobler Affair and Manifest Destiny
If you have access to Google Maps, or preferably, an original wall map of Africa, stand back for a moment to savour the grand vista which is southern Africa. Living on the tip looking upwards creates a culture of outwardness, a mental and p
Episode 291 - The Miracle of South Africa’s Railways: Navvies, Gangers and Granny Mavis
Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. This is episode 291, The miracle of South Africa’s railway engineering and a little bit of commentary thrown into the mix. This episode is part history, part
Episode 290 - Africanders, Afrikaners and the Sprigg/Hofmeyr/Rhodes Voter Disenfranchisement of 1887-1892
In 1883 Joseph Moss, regarded as the wealthiest black man in Kimberley, stood before the newly formed Africander League in the diamond mining city. Africander spelled A F R I C A N D E R. It which was not what you’d imagine, the Africander
Episode 289 - Black Velvet Opskop, De Beers’ Trojan Horse, an Historic Trick and a Multi-Racial Miner Protest
It could be said that Cecil Rhodes quest for hegemony over the diamond industry of South Africa was quickened by rumours of significant gold discoveries in the Transvaal. Others say not, because no-one was aware in these heady days of just
Episode 288 - Squabbling Europeans Dissect Africa and the Sultan of Zanzibar gets Shafted
In the last few episodes we have tracked the miraculous discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand — the importance of which cannot really be overstated. While diamonds placed South Africa on the map, gold was going to convert the struggling re
Episode 287 - "Not Worth Hell Room" — JB Robinson, Widow Oosthuizen, and the Witwatersrand Gold Grab
Onwards! Or more accurately - downwards! Because we’re continuing the saga of early gold digging around the farm Langlaagte, and the other farms like Turfontein, it is 1886, hundreds of treasure hunters have descended on the empty veld just
Episode 286 - German Mercenary von Brandis formally Proclaims Johannesburg
Welcome back to the history of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. This is episode 286 - Johannesburg is proclaimed but the flow of water and cash provs challenging. We’ll start however, with the Orange Free State. Its presi
Episode 285 - The Three Georges Gold Saga and a Bottle of Mampoer Vignette
Farming dominated the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek economy in the 1880s, even after gold was discovered in the eastern Transvaal but that was about to change. Last episode we heard about the early gold finds around Rustenburg which was part of
Episode 284 - Australians and the Struben Brothers Hunt Gold on the Ridge of White Waters
Gold sends a shiver through the spine of the adventurer, the merest hint drives men to acts of extreme bravery, or stupidity. Moderate men and women throw off their cloaks of social anonymity and travel thousands of kilometers in arduous co
Episode 283 - Warren’s Great North Road Balloon and Telegraph Escapade
Welcome back to the History of South Africa podcast with me your host, Des Latham. Episode 283 and it’s 1885. And boy! Do we have a plethora of happenings to report. This is a year before the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, and global e
Episode 282 - The Scramble for Africa Berlin Conference of 1884/5 and Lüderitz becomes German
There are many correlations and connections in this episode, so hang on tight as we toboggan down the slippery slopes of history bumping into all manner of bizarre and simultaneously heinous characters. Keeping in mind that we’re dealing wi
Episode 281 - The Boers anoint Dinizulu King of the Zulus
Cetshwayo had sought refuge in Nkandla as his arch enemy, Zibhebhu, turned his attention to the royalists living along the Zululand Coastal plain. Soon Somkhele of the Mphukunyoni and the emaNgweni people were hiding in the swamps and reed-
Episode 280 - Zibhebhu’s Mandlakazi shatter Cetshwayo’s uSuthu setting off a Zulu Civil War
On the afternoon of 10th January 1883, King Cetshwayo kaMpande climbed off a skiff and onto the beach at Port Dunford, surviving the heavy and powerful surf. The British had been using this stretch of desolate sand as their transport hub in
Episode 279 - Dean Williams and Bishop Merriman compete for Anglican Souls as De Villiers Graaff Ponders
We’re up to the early 1880s where world events are intersecting in various ways with southern African events. The mere ratification of the Pretoria Convention in 1881 failed to bring peace and prosperity to South Africa. The frenzied specul
Episode 278 - The South African Suez Canal, Stellaland and Goshen and James Honey's Murder Most Foul
In 1882, the German mathematician Ferdinand von Lindemann proved that π was transcendental: it cannot be reduced to a tidy equation, never captured inside the comfortable boundaries expected by mathematicians. For centuries mathematicians t
Episode 277 - Cetshwayo visits Queen Victoria and the Victorian link between Afghanistan and Zululand
When Cetshwayo kaMpande was captured after the Anglo-Zulu War, he was ferried to Cape Town and on to Robben Island. His countenance was one of dignity but that is difficult to maintain in the face of terrible sea-sickness. The Zulu king had
Episode 276 — Okavango Khwebe Wind and a Dorsland Trekker Angolan Odyssey
Die Dorsland — the Thirstland — is part of the Kalahari that has an interesting history when it comes to pastoralists. The San didn’t call it the Thirstland, for them it wasn’t a barrier but part of a network of seasonal resource nodes. The
Episode 275 — Pilgrims Rest, French Bob’s Gold and Barberton’s Champagne Foot Baths
Thousands of miners were streaming into the Transvaal by the third quarter of the 19th Century, a horde of avuncular independent-minded treasure hunters. In volume Two of the Cambridge History of South Africa, Stanley Trapido calls them the
Episode 274 - The Pretoria Convention ends the First Anglo-Boer War, Suzerainty Unresolved
The hill of Doves — in isiZulu amaJuba means the place of many doves or pigeons. It became a place of violence and blood, and yet the catastrophic defeat of the British at Majuba was indeed to lead to peace. The doves would fly again albeit
Episode 273 - The Mountain of Destiny: Majuba and the Birth of a Nation
It is not a stretch to say that the defeat by the British at Majuba was also the political birth of the Afrikaner people. While the Great Trek provided the origin story, Majuba provided the validation—the sense that their culture was not on
Episode 272 - The Boers wring Major General Colley’s Column at Laing’s Nek
Weather, some say, is fickle. Of course nature is just nature but when you’re on high ground, the mountains, and the weather moves in, the temperature drops in minutes and wind shifts. It is a dangerous place and that’s during mid-summer. P
Episode 271 - Basutoland Gun War, Gold Coast and Ottoman Empire
The British had instigated a war in the Transvaal which fired off in early 1881, but they had already ignited another flashpoint - in Basutoland. This was a fascinating conflict, and it has modern overtones. For the new British government o
Episode 270 - Kruger vs Black Michael and Courageous Women at the Battle of Bronkhorstspruit
The approach by the English political parties of the time to the young Boer Republics was confused, and even contradictory. William Gladstone, a liberal, had succeeded in ousting the Tory’s under Benjamin Disraeli in his famous Midlothian C
