Cape Town History , South Africa

History
The Cape Peninsula has a long and eventful history. Prehistoric people first left their mark here more than 600,000 years ago and traces of the tools of these Early Stone Age hunter-gatherers have been found in a wind-scoured depression near the Cape of Good Hope. The Middle Stone Age inhabitants (dating from 200,000 to 40,000 years ago) also left evidence of their life on the Peninsula. There are about six sites where artefacts, including scrapers and fragments of worked stone, dating from this period have been found and more than a 100 sites where signs of Late Stone Age habitation (from about 21,000 years ago) is evident. The San (or Bushmen) hunter-gatherers relied on the seashore for most of their food and are known colloquially as the strandlopers or beachwalkers.
Middens (prehistoric refuse heaps) created by the strandlopers are found in a number of caves in the park and reveal a great deal about their lifestyle. About 2000 years ago the Khoikhoi migrated from the north, displacing the San, bringing with them their herds of cattle and sheep. It was the Khoikhoi who were the dominant tribe when the Europeans sailed into Table Bay.


Early Explorers
In 1487 the explorer Bartolomeu Dias set sail from Portugal to find a sea route to the riches of the East. With a fleet of three ships he sailed down the west coast of Africa, but before reaching the Cape he was caught in a storm and driven from the shore. When the storm abated they sailed east believing they would again sight the west coast. However after sailing for several days and not sighting land they turned north and made landfall at the Gouritz river mouth on the east coast on February 3, 1488. They had unwittingly rounded the Cape of Good Hope - the first Europeans on record to do so. On his return he landed at Hout Bay. Some historians claim it was Dias who named the Cape Cabo Tormentosa or "Cape of Storms" alluding to the tempest he had endured, but changed it to Cabo de Boa Esperanca, the "Cape of Good Hope", to please the king of Portugal, as rounding the Cape provided hope of a sea route to the East.
It was a full 10 years later that Vasco da Gama set sail from Portugal, rounded the Cape and reached India, making him the first person to open the sea route from Europe to the East and proving that rounding the Cape of Good Hope did indeed provide hope of reaching the riches of the East.


Commemorative crosses have been erected to honour Dias and Da Gama at Bordjiesrif and near Platboom, respectively, in the Cape of Good Hope.Ever since, the Cape of Good Hope has been an important landmark for mariners and Table Bay at the foot of the majestic Table Mountain became, and still is, a haven where seafarers could seek shelter and take aboard fresh supplies of water and meat bartered from the Khoikhoi.


Settlers
On April 6, 1652, the Dutchman, Jan van Riebeeck, stepped ashore at Table Bay tasked with establishing a refreshment station for the Dutch East India Company and their ships that sailed the route to the Dutch East Indies.
A fort (the castle) and gardens were established at the foot of Table Mountain. A viticulture industry was initiated and land was granted to settlers to grow crops. And so began European settlement at the Cape.

Johannesburg History , South Africa

Geography


South Africa, on the continent's southern tip, is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and by the Indian Ocean on the south and east. Its neighbors are Namibia in the northwest, Zimbabwe and Botswana in the north, and Mozambique and Swaziland in the northeast. The kingdom of Lesotho forms an enclave within the southeast part of South Africa, which occupies an area nearly three times that of California.


The southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, located in the Western Cape Province about 100 mi (161 km) southeast of the Cape of Good Hope.


History


The San people were the first settlers; the Khoikhoi and Bantu-speaking tribes followed. The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, launching a colony that by the end of the 18th century numbered only about 15,000. Known as Boers or Afrikaners, and speaking a Dutch dialect known as Afrikaans, the settlers as early as 1795 tried to establish an independent republic.


After occupying the Cape Colony in that year, Britain took permanent possession in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, bringing in 5,000 settlers. Anglicization of government and the freeing of slaves in 1833 drove about 12,000 Afrikaners to make the “great trek” north and east into African tribal territory, where they established the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.


The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold nine years later brought an influx of “outlanders” into the republics and spurred Cape Colony prime minister Cecil Rhodes to plot annexation. Rhodes's scheme of sparking an “outlander” rebellion, to which an armed party under Leander Starr Jameson would ride to the rescue, misfired in 1895, forcing Rhodes to resign. What British expansionists called the “inevitable” war with the Boers broke out on Oct. 11, 1899. The defeat of the Boers in 1902 led in 1910 to the Union of South Africa, composed of four provinces, the two former republics, and the old Cape and Natal colonies. Louis Botha, a Boer, became the first prime minister. Organized political activity among Africans started with the establishment of the African National Congress in 1912.

History of Sun City , South Africa

South Africa History :
Sun City lies on the territory of the former homeland of Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana was classified as an independent state by South Africa's apartheid regime.


South African hotel and real estate magnate Sol Kerzner saw nothing but opportunity in apartheid South Africa's zoning structures, so he built Sun City in Bophuthatswana, only a 90 minute drive from Johannesburg.


Thus, Sun City could legally provide otherwise banned and "immoral" entertainment such as gambling and topless revue shows.


The independent state of Bophuthatswana, headed by the corrupt Lucas Mangope, was a law unto itself; millions of people began frequenting what was rapidly nicknamed "Sin City".


Sun City became synonymous with gambling. The result was an empire that has seen Sol Kerzner (known locally as the Sun King) become involved in various international hotel and gambling resorts, one of which is the multi-million dollar Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.


Rebirth of a Lost City
Twelve years after Sun City opened, the Palace of the Lost City was built.This completely decadent five star hotel is said to be the most luxurious in Africa. The hotel was merely the tip of the ivory tower though. 


At the foot of the Palace, surrounded by an artfully created indigenous jungle, Kerzner built the Valley of the Waves. This massive waterpark includes a long curving artificial beach and lagoon, various waterslides, and a man-made river that meanders around the park. A mechanised wave machine pumps out the waves, sending body-surfers crashing onto the beach.


Bophutatswana was re-incorporated into South Africa in 1994. Consequently gambling has been legalised, and although some think that this has affected Sun City's long standing position as king of the casinos, the resort is still fully booked over every holiday period.

South Africa , Travel News

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation asking for an increase in direct flights connecting to Africa, according to a report by Parul Chhaparia in Financial Chronicle. Airlines including Air India and Kingfisher, with which the Ministry had held discussions, are not keen to fly to Africa, citing commercial reasons, a Ministry official said.