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The Union of South Africa came to an end after a referendum on 5 October 1960, in which a majority of white South Africans voted in favour of unilateral withdrawal from the British Commonwealth and the establishment of a Republic of South Africa.
The early 19th century saw a time of immense upheaval relating to the military expansion of the Zulu kingdom. Sotho-speakers know this period as the difaqane ("forced migration"); while Zulu-speakers call it the mfecane ("crushing"). The full causes of the difaqane remain in dispute, although certain factors stand out. The rise of a unified ...
At that time the colony extended to the line of mountains guarding the vast central plateau, then called Bushmansland (after a name for the San people), and had an area of about 120 000 sq km and a population of some 60 000, of whom 27 000 were whites, 17 000 free Khoikhoi and the rest enslaved people, mostly non-indigenous blacks and Malays.
The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when it was applied to what is now known as South America. [1] It is generally accepted that the name derives from Amerigo Vespucci , the Italian explorer, who explored the new continents in the following years on behalf of Spain and Portugal , with the name given by German ...
The Prehistory of South Africa (and, inseparably, the wider region of Southern Africa) lasts from the Middle Stone Age until the 17th century. Southern Africa was first reached by Homo sapiens before 130,000 years ago, possibly before 260,000 years ago. [1] The region remained in the Late Stone Age until the first traces of pastoralism were ...
The tensions between Europeans, indigenous peoples, and African slaves and their descendants shaped South America as a whole, starting in the sixteenth century. Most of Spanish America achieved its independence in the early nineteenth century through hard-fought wars , while Portuguese Brazil first became the seat of the Portuguese empire and ...
The newcomers drove the beleaguered Khoikhoi from their traditional lands and destroyed them with superior weapons when they fought back, which they did in a number of major wars and with guerrilla resistance movements which continued into the 19th century. Europeans also brought diseases which had devastating effects against people whose ...
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa.Its nine provinces are bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 miles) of coastline that stretches along the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean; [14] [15] [16] to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini ...