History of Mozambique

Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, overseas province and later a member state of Portugal. It gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
Pre-colonial history.
Stone age Mozambique.
In 2007 Julio Mercader, of the University of Calgary, recovered dozens of 100,000-year-old stone tools from a deep limestone cave (Ngalue) near Lake Niassa in Mozambique showing that wild sorghum, the ancestor of the chief cereal consumed today in sub-Saharan Africa for flours, bread, porridges, and alcoholic beverages, was being consumed by "Homo sapiens" along with African wine palm, the false banana, pigeon peas, wild oranges, and the African "potato." This is the earliest direct evidence of humans using pre-domesticated cereals anywhere in the world.
Ancient history.
The first inhabitants of what is now Mozambique were the San hunters and gatherers, ancestors of the Khoisani peoples. Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from the north through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and coastal areas. The Bantu were farmers and ironworkers.
Intercultural contact.
When Vasco da Gama, exploring for Portugal, reached the coast of Mozambique in 1498, Arab trading settlements had existed along the coast and outlying islands for several centuries, and political control of the coast was in the hands of a string of local sultans. Muslims had actually lived in the region for quite some time; the famous Arab historian and geographer, Al-Masudi, reported Muslims amongst Africans in the land of Sofa in 947 (modern day Mozambique, itself a derivative of the name of the Arab Sheikh who ruled the area at the time when the Portuguese arrived, Mussa Bin Bique). Most of the local people had embraced Islam. The region lay at the southernmost end of a traditional trading world that encompassed the Red Sea, the Hadhramaut coast of Arabia and the Indian coast, described in the 1st-century coasting guide that is called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Portuguese Mozambique (1498–1975).
From about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east.
The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, and society of the region. The Portuguese gained control of the Island of Mozambique and the port city of Sofala in the early 16th century, and by the 1530s, small groups of Portuguese traders and prospectors seeking gold penetrated the interior regions, where they set up garrisons and trading posts at Sena and Tete on the River Zambezi and tried to gain exclusive control over the gold trade.
The Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of "prazos" (land grants) tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. While "prazos" were originally developed to be held by Portuguese, through intermarriage they became African Portuguese or African Indian centres defended by large African slave armies known as "Chikunda". Historically within Mozambique there was slavery. Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab Muslim traders and Portuguese and other European traders as well. Many Mozambican slaves were supplied by tribal chiefs who raided warring tribes and sold their captives to the "prazeiros".
Although Portuguese influence gradually expanded, its power was limited and exercised through individual settlers and officials who were granted extensive autonomy. The Portuguese were able to wrest much of the coastal trade from Arab Muslims between 1500 and 1700, but, with the Arab Muslim seizure of Portugal's key foothold at Fort Jesus on Mombasa Island (now in Kenya) in 1698, the pendulum began to swing in the other direction. As a result, investment lagged while Lisbon devoted itself to the more lucrative trade with India and the Far East and to the colonisation of Brazil.
During these wars, the Mazrui and Omani Arabs reclaimed much of the Indian Ocean trade, forcing the Portuguese to retreat south. Many "prazos" had declined by the mid-19th century, but several of them survived. During the 19th century other European powers, particularly the British (British South Africa Company) and the French (Madagascar), became increasingly involved in the trade and politics of the region around the Portuguese East African territories.
By the early 20th century the Portuguese had shifted the administration of much of Mozambique to large private companies, like the Mozambique Company, the Zambezia Company and the Niassa Company, controlled and financed mostly by the British, which established railroad lines to their neighbouring colonies (South Africa and Rhodesia). Although slavery had been legally abolished in Mozambique, at the end of the 19th century the Chartered companies enacted a forced labor policy and supplied cheap—often forced—African labour to the mines and plantations of the nearby British colonies and South Africa. The Zambezia Company, the most profitable chartered company, took over a number of smaller "prazeiro" holdings, and established military outposts to protect its property. The chartered companies built roads and ports to bring their goods to market including a railroad linking present day Zimbabwe with the Mozambican port of Beira.
Due to their unsatisfactory performance and the shift, under the corporatist Estado Novo regime of Oliveira Salazar, towards a stronger Portuguese control of Portuguese Empire's economy, the companies' concessions were not renewed when they ran out. This was what happened in 1942 with the Mozambique Company, which however continued to operate in the agricultural and commercial sectors as a corporation, and had already happened in 1929 with the termination of the Niassa Company's concession. In 1951, the Portuguese overseas colonies in Africa were rebranded as Overseas Provinces of Portugal.
Mozambican War of Independence (1964–1974).
As communist and anti-colonial ideologies spread out across Africa, many clandestine political movements were established in support of Mozambican independence. These movements claimed that since policies and development plans were primarily designed by the ruling authorities for the benefit of Mozambique's Portuguese population, little attention was paid to Mozambique's tribal integration and the development of its native communities.
This affected a majority of the indigenous population who suffered both state-sponsored discrimination and enormous social pressure.
The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) initiated a guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule in September 1964. This conflict—along with the two others already initiated in the other Portuguese colonies of Angola and Portuguese Guinea—became part of the so-called Portuguese Colonial War (1961–1974). From a military standpoint, the Portuguese regular army maintained control of the population centres while the guerrilla forces sought to undermine their influence in rural and tribal areas in the north and west. As part of their response to FRELIMO, the Portuguese government began to pay more attention to creating favourable conditions for social development and economic growth.
Independence (1975).
After 10 years of sporadic warfare and Portugal's return to democracy through a leftist military coup in Lisbon, which replaced Portugal's Estado Novo regime with a military junta (the Carnation Revolution of April 1974), FRELIMO took control of the territory. Within a year, most of the 250,000 Portuguese in Mozambique had left—some expelled by the government of the nearly independent territory, some fleeing in fear—and Mozambique became independent from Portugal on 25 June 1975. A law had been passed on the initiative of the then relatively unknown Armando Guebuza of the FRELIMO party ordering the Portuguese to leave the country in 24 hours with only 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of luggage. Unable to salvage any of their assets, most of them returned to Portugal penniless.
Civil War (1977–1992).
Formed in 1975, Mozambican National Resistance, an anti-communist group sponsored by the Rhodesian Intelligence Service, and the apartheid government in South Africa, launched a series of attacks on transport routes, schools and health clinics, and the country descended into civil war. In the United States, the CIA and conservatives lobbied for support to RENAMO, which was strongly resisted by the State Department, which would "not recognize or negotiate with RENAMO".
In 1984, Mozambique negotiated the Nkomati Accord with P. W. Botha and the South African government, in which Mozambique was to expel the African National Congress in exchange for South Africa stopping support of Renamo. At first both sides complied but it soon became evident that infringements were taking place on both sides and the war continued. In 1986, Mozambican President Samora Machel died in an air crash in South African territory. Although unproven, many suspect the South African government of responsibility for his death. Machel was replaced by Joaquim Chissano as president. The war was marked by huge human rights violations by both RENAMO and FRELIMO.
With support for RENAMO from South Africa drying up, in 1990 the first direct talks between the FRELIMO government and Renamo were held. In November 1990 a new constitution was adopted. Mozambique was now a multiparty state, with periodic elections, and guaranteed democratic rights. On 4 October 1992, the Rome General Peace Accords, negotiated by the Community of Sant'Egidio with the support of the United Nations, were signed in Rome between President Chissano and RENAMO leader Afonso Dhlakama, which formally took effect on the October 15, 1992. A UN Peacekeeping Force (ONUMOZ) oversaw a two-year transition to democracy. The last ONUMOZ contingents departed in early 1995.
Democratic era (1994–).
Mozambique held elections in 1994, which were accepted by most parties as free and fair while still contested by many nationals and observers alike. FRELIMO won, under Joaquim Chissano, while RENAMO, led by Afonso Dhlakama, ran as the official opposition.
In 1995, Mozambique joined the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming, at the time, the only member nation that had never been part of the British Empire.
By mid-1995, over 1.7 million refugees who had sought asylum in neighboring countries had returned to Mozambique, part of the largest repatriation witnessed in sub-Saharan Africa. An additional four million internally displaced persons had returned to their homes.
In December 1999, Mozambique held elections for a second time since the civil war, which were again won by FRELIMO. RENAMO accused FRELIMO of fraud, and threatened to return to civil war, but backed down after taking the matter to the Supreme Court and losing.
In early 2000 a cyclone caused widespread flooding in the country, killing hundreds and devastating the already precarious infrastructure. There were widespread suspicions that foreign aid resources have been diverted by powerful leaders of FRELIMO. Carlos Cardoso, a journalist investigating these allegations, was murdered but his death was not satisfactorily explained.
Indicating in 2001 that he would not run for a third term, Chissano criticized leaders who stayed on longer than he had, which was generally seen as a reference to Zambian president Frederick Chiluba, who at the time was considering a third term, and Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, then in his fourth term. Presidential and National Assembly elections took place on December 1–2, 2004. FRELIMO candidate Armando Guebuza won with 64% of the popular vote. His opponent, Afonso Dhlakama of RENAMO, received 32% of the popular vote. FRELIMO won 160 seats in Parliament. A coalition of RENAMO and several small parties won the 90 remaining seats. Armando Guebuza was inaugurated as the President of Mozambique on February 2, 2005.
Much of the economic recovery which has followed the end of the Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992) is being led by investors and tourists from neighbour South Africa and from East Asia. A number of returning Portuguese nationals have also invested in the country as well as some Italian organizations. Coal and gas have grown to become large sectors. The income per capita tripled over twenty years since the civil war.
Mozambique was declared to be free of land mines in 2015, following a 22-year effort to remove explosive devices planted during the War of Independence and Civil War.
The candidate of the ruling Mozambican Liberation Front's (Frelimo) Filipe Nyusi has been the President of Mozambique since January 2015 after winning the election in October 2014.
In October 2019, President Filipe Nyusi was re-elected after a landslide victory in general election. Frelimo won 184 seats, Renamo got 60 seats and the MDM party received the remaining six in the National Assembly. Opposition did not accept the results because of allegations of fraud and irregularities. Frelimo secured two-thirds majority in parliament which allowed Frelimo to re-adjust the constitution without needing the agreement of the opposition. But a two-thirds majority in parliament would allow Frelimo to re-adjust the constitution without needing the agreement of the opposition.


List of heads of government of British Cameroons

This is a list of Heads of Government of British Cameroons


Kimbugwe of Buganda

Kimbugwe Kamegere was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda between 1634 and 1644. He was the thirteenth Kabaka of Buganda.
Claim to the throne.
He was born at Kongojje, the youngest son of Suuna I Kisolo, Kabaka of Buganda between 1584 and 1614. His mother was Naluggwa of the Ndiga clan, the second wife of his father. He ascended to the throne after the death of his cousin, Kabaka Sekamaanya Kisolo. He established his capital at Bugwaanya.
Married life.
He had three wives:
Issue.
He fathered two sons:
The final years.
He was killed, allegedly by witchcraft by his stepson, Prince Kateregga, who succeeded him to the throne, circa 1644. He is buried at Bugwaanya, Busiro.


State Attorney of the Transvaal

The State Attorney of the Transvaal was the principal legal officer of the Transvaal, or, as it was also known, the South African Republic.


Buzimba

Buzimba was a kingdom in what is today Uganda. It was incorporated into the British Ankole protectorate in 1901. It was ruled by an Omukama.


Mwezi III of Burundi

Mwami Mwezi III Ndagushimiye was the king of Burundi from 1709 to 1739.


Akech (queen)

Akech was a ruler in East Africa who flourished from 1760 until 1787.
Akech was the second wife of Rwoth Nyabongo, ruler of the chiefdom of Paroketu. The royal line of succession had up until this point been patrilineal, and in due course Nyabongo would have been succeeded by Jobi, the eldest son of Akura, his senior wife. Akech, however, enjoyed a position in religious leadership, which augmented her royal standing, and she used this to consolidate her own power; consequently, by 1760 she had risen to get political prominence not only as the wife of the chief and as a ritual leader, but as mother of the successor to the throne. Her son Roketu later came to power; his people then came to be known as the Pa-Akech, or "people of Akech", recognizing the fact that she had founded a ruling dynasty. Little else is recorded of Akech, save that she was a member of a clan of the Bunyoro.


Lalibela (Emperor of Ethiopia)

Lalibela (); regnal name: Gebre Meskel (Ge'ez: ገብረ መስቀል ; 1162 – 1221) was Emperor of Ethiopia of the Zagwe dynasty, reigning from 1181 to 1221. According to Taddesse Tamrat, he was the son of Jan Seyum and brother of Kedus Harbe. Perhaps the most well-known of the Zagwe monarchs, the namesake monolithic churches of Lalibela are attributed to his reign. He is venerated as a saint by the Orthodox Tewahedo churches.
Biography.
King Lalibela was born at either Adefa or Roha (it was later named Lalibela after him) in Bugna in 1162 AD. He was given the name "Lalibela", meaning "the bees recognise his sovereignty" in Old Agaw, due to a swarm of bees said to have surrounded him at his birth, which his mother took as a sign of his future reign as Emperor of Ethiopia. Tradition states that he went into exile due to the hostility of his uncle Tatadim and his brother king Kedus Harbe, and was almost poisoned to death by his half-sister. Because Lalibela came to power during his brother's lifetime, Taddesse Tamrat suspects that he came to power by force of arms.
Lalibela is said to have seen Jerusalem in a vision and then attempted to build a new Jerusalem as his capital in response to the capture of old Jerusalem by Muslims in 1187. As such, many features of the town of Lalibela have Biblical names including the town's river, known as the River Jordan (). The city remained the capital of Ethiopia from the late 12th century and into the 13th century.
Details about the construction of his 11 monolithic churches at Lalibela have been lost. The later "Gadla Lalibela", a hagiography of the king, states that he carved these churches out of stone with only the help of angels.
According to the narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Ethiopia in 1520-6, written down by Father Francisco Álvares and published 1540, the Lalibelian priests claimed that the churches took 24 years to construct. They said that King Lalibela ordered this to be done.
His chief queen was Masqal Kibra, about whom a few traditions have survived. She induced Abuna Mikael to make her brother Hirun bishop, and a few years later the Abuna left Ethiopia for Egypt, complaining that Hirun had usurped his authority. Another tradition states that she convinced king Lalibela to abdicate in favor of his nephew Na'akueto La'ab, but after 18 months of his nephew's misrule she convinced Lalibela to resume the throne. Taddesse Tamrat suspects that the end of Lalibela's rule was not actually this amiable, and argues that this tradition masks a brief usurpation of Na'akueto La'ab, whose reign was ended by Lalibela's son, Yetbarak. Getachew Mekonnen credits her with having one of the rock-hewn churches, Bet Abba Libanos, built as a memorial for Lalibela after his death.
Although little written material concerning the other Zagwe kings survives, a sizeable quantity concerning Lalibela's reign remains, besides the "Gadla Lalibela". An embassy from the Patriarch of Alexandria visited Lalibela's court around 1210, and have left an account of him, and Na'akueto La'ab and Yetbarak. The Italian scholar Carlo Conti Rossini has also edited and published the several land grants that survive from his reign.


Katera of Toro

Rukirabasaija Katera was Omukama of the Kingdom of Toro, from 1876 until 1877. He was the ninth (9th) Omukama of Toro.
Claim to the throne.
He was the sixth (6th) son of Kasunga Kyebambe Nyaika, Omukama of Toro, from 1866 until 1871 and from 1871 until 1872. No mention is made of his mother. He was raised to the throne by the people of Toro, when his elder brother Kakende Nyamuyonjo failed to return from Buganda in 1876.
Married life.
No mention of his married life is made in the available literature.
Offspring.
It is not known how many children were fathered by Omukama Isingoma Rukidi II, or who those children were.
His reign.
Omukama Katera ruled until 1877 when his elder brother, Rububi Kyebambe II returned to Toro and deposed him in 1877.
The final years.
It is not known where and how Omukama Rukidi II died or what the cause of death was.


Sudanese Regroupment Party

The Sudanese Regroupment Party (, PRS) was a political party in French Sudan led by Fily Dabo Sissoko. Politically it represented a conservative traditionalist position, and drew support from traditional chiefs and the colonial administration. It was founded in December 1945 by Sissoko, son of a canton chief, and Hamadoun Dicko, a former canton chief. The party sought gradual independence from France, seeking to preserve the influence of traditional elites.
History.
The party was established in 1946 as the Sudanese Progressive Party ("Parti Progressiste Soudanais"). In the French elections that year the party won two of three Sudanese seats in the French National Assembly. Sissoko and Jean Silvandre were elected. In total list of the party obtained 60,759 votes (64%). After the elections, the PSP parliamentarians joined the SFIO parliamentary group. In the 1951 French elections, the party won all three seats in French Sudan. Sissoko, Dicko and Silvandre were elected. The list of the party got 201 866 votes (59.7%).
However, after January 1956 PSP lost its role as a major actor in French Sudanese politics. The party received 161,911 votes in the January 1956 French elections, coming second to the Sudanese Union – African Democratic Rally (US-RDA). In July the same year a by-election was held after the death of Mamadou Konaté. The PSP again finished second, with 88,719 votes.
In 1957 the party became the French Sudanese section of the African Socialist Movement. It won six seats in the 1957 Territorial Assembly elections, with the US-RDA winning 57. After the defeat Sissoko changed the name of the party to PRS.
The party faced increasingly difficulties, with the US-RDA government blocking its ability to function normally. The French colonial authorities had withdrawn their support for the party, as they had begun considering good relations with the US-RDA as more useful. The party lost all six seats in the March 1959 elections, which saw the US-RDA win all 80 seats. On 31 March 1959, Sissoko declared, on behalf of the PRS politburo, that the party was merging into US-RDA. his decision was the result of a three-day party conference.


Governor of Mauritius

Mauritius has been administered by various colonial head since it was discovered until it became an independent state;


Aliyu Babba

Aliyu Ibn Abdullahi-Maje Karofi was an Emir of Kano, a state in what is now Northern Nigeria. Also known as Babba and Mai Sango- "The Gun User". Emerging at the end of the Basasa, his reign was marked by a series of costly wars and fortification projects that heavily militarised the erstwhile commercial Emirate. His escapades as Emir of Kano were recorded in the official historical canon of the Kano Emirate ; the "Tarikh Al Kano". The ballad of Ali Zaki, commemorates his reign as the last Emir of Kano.
Early life.
The life of Aliyu unlike other sudanic princes at the time was one of a strict adherence to "Tasswuf", according to the "Tarikh al Kano", Aliyu was a strict adherent of the Qadariyyah Order and a gifted swordsman.
At a young age he wrote the "Rad al Jahla"; a sufist text for initiates. In 1893, shortly after the death of Emir Muhammad Bello, Sultan Abdurrahman appointed Tukur the new Emir of Kano. Almost immediately, Aliyu's brother and reported confident Yusuf, led the remaining children of Abdullahi Maje Karofi in rebellion. This split within the House of Dabo initiated the 3rd Kano Civil War; "The Basasa". The rebels left Kano for Takai and Aliyu assumed the unofficial role of Vazier, coordinating the various military formations of the Yusufawa
Basasa.
Aliyu reportedly distinguished himself at the field during the Basassa, the victories of his columns at Gogel and Utai placed him at an advantage when in 1894, during the Battle of Gaya; Yusuf was fatally wounded. The "Sarkin-Dawakin-Tsakar-Gida" Abbas and "Dan-Makwayo" Shehu also contenders to the throne, were forced to concede when at his death bed; Yusuf was informed of a plan by the then Caliph of Sokoto Abdurrahman "Danyen Kasko" to lead the Autumn Army on a punitive expedition against the Yusufawa, with Aliyu's mother being a sister to the Caliph; the coronation of Aliyu would presumably pacify Sokoto.
Emir of Kano.
On August 19, 1894, Aliyu Successfully led the Yusufawa in conquering the fort of Kano; Months later Mohammed Tukur was assassinated at Guri bringing an end to the "Basasa".The peace was however short. After the readmission of Kano into the Sokoto Caliphate in 1896, a reinvigorated Borno sensing turmoil in the east of the Caliphate launched a daring campaign on Kano on three fronts. The Sultanate of Damagaram- a vassal state of borno, Maradi and Ningi opened simultaneous fronts in an attempt to overwhelm kano. Aliyu's defense of Kano using Explosives, "Sango" Muskets and other Ottoman weaponry earned him the titles Mai Sango and Zaki. His battles during this period elevated him to the rank of Kano's other warrior Kings and Emirs. The ballad of Ali Zaki; "Wakar Ali Zaki", celebrating his escapades from "Tygian" Kano, immortalized his name and that of his courtiers like the Vazier- Ahmadu; Galadima-Mahmud, Madaki Kwairanga, Alkali-Suleman, Makama-Hamza and Sarkin-Bai- Abdussalam. Also during these campaigns, in an attempt to fortify the borders of the Emirate; Aliyu initiated a series of "Ribat" – Fort construction projects. Sumaila, Bunkure, Gezawa and many other stockades were elevated to the status of "Ribats". These wars were not to seize until the French conquests of 1899 and the later incursions by Rabeh and Fadallah that diverted Bornoan attention from the Sokoto Caliphate.
Defeat and Capture.
In 1903, While on a Homage visit to Sokoto, the British's Kano-Sokoto Expedition attacked Kano. It is still being debated as to whether Aliyu had been informed of the British attack before he left for Sokoto or Not. In February 1903, British forces captured Kano while Aliyu was away with the Emirate's large contingent elite cavalry. On receiving news of the Fall of Kano at Sokoto, Aliyu and the Kano cavalry embarked on a march to retake the Emirate. After three successful encounters with the British at Gusau and Zamfara, In March 1903, the Kano cavalry was ambushed at Kwatarkwashi. In the ensuing battle, Vazier Ahmadu was killed and at some point before or after that, Aliyu took to flight in a Mahadist Hijira. With the defeat of the Kano cavalry, The Wambai of Kano – Abbass surrendered to the British while the remnant of the Kano Cavalry that returned to Sokoto was integrated into the Caliphal force.
Months later, Aliyu was captured by the French in modern-day Niger Republic and handed over to the British.
Exile and Death.
On his capture, Aliyu was exiled to Yola and then after a rebellion there to Lokoja, the capital of the new Northern Nigeria where he returned to his "Tasswuff" studies. He died there in 1926.


Abubakar Ibn Umar Garba

Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai El-Kanemi of Borno (born 1957) is the Shehu, or traditional ruler, of the Borno Emirate in northeast Nigeria.
Career.
Shehu Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai El-Kanemi (son of Shehu Umar Ibn Abubakar Garbai of Borno) has been the Shehu of Borno since 2009. He was born in Damagum, Yobe State on 13 May 1957. He attended Government College Maiduguri for his secondary education, and in 1975 was admitted to the Staff Training Centre, Potiskum where he obtained the Intermediate Local Government Certificate. He joined the Borno State Government in 1976. Subsequently, he attended Kaduna Polytechnic (1978–1982) and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (1986) where he obtained an Advanced Diploma in Local Government Administration. He became Permanent Secretary in the Ministries of Finance (1993), Works and Housing and Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs (2008).
El-Kanemi is married with three wives and has 15 children.
Reign.
Borno State Governor, Ali Modu Sheriff officially appointed him Shehu on 2 March 2009. Two days later, on 4 March 2009, he received the Kanuri investiture ("bayatu" in Kanuri language).
After his accession, The Yoruba community pledged to fully support El-Kanemi to ensure the peaceful co-existence of the different ethnic and religious groups in Borno State.
In his first public speech after being appointed, El-Kanemi criticized the government for failing to tackle poverty, while urging the people of Borno to desist from begging as a lifestyle and to seek gainful employment.


History of South Sudan

The history of South Sudan comprises the history of the territory of present-day South Sudan and the peoples inhabiting the region.
South Sudan seceded from the Republic of Sudan in 2011.
Geographically, South Sudan is not part of the Sudan region at all (the Sahel), forming as it does part of Sub-Saharan Africa. In modern terminology, it does, however, include parts of the East Sudanian Savanna.
Its inclusion in "Sudan" is due to the southward expansion of the Ottoman Khedivate of Egypt in the 19th century, and its consequent inclusion in Mahdist Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the Republic of Sudan during 1885 to 2011.
South Sudan is mostly inhabited by Nilo-Saharan speaking peoples, with Niger-Congo speaking minorities.
Historically, what is now South Sudan was dominated by Central Sudanic speaking peoples, but the presence of Nilotic peoples can be assumed from prehistoric times as well. Since about the 14th century, following the collapse of the Christian Nubian kingdoms of Makuria and Alodia, the Nilotic peoples gradually came to dominate the region.
Early history.
Roman Expedition.
For many years the Sudd Marsh, and especially its thicket of vegetation, proved an impenetrable barrier to navigation along the Nile. In 61 AD, a party of Roman soldiers sent by Emperor Nero proceeded up the White Nile but were not able to get beyond the Sudd, which marked the limit of Roman penetration into equatorial Africa. For the same reasons in later times the search for the source of the Nile was particularly difficult; it eventually involved overland expeditions from the central African coast, so as to avoid having to travel through the Sudd.
Nilotic expansion out of the Sudd.
Linguistic evidence shows that over time Nilotic speakers, such as the Dinka, Shilluk, and Luo, took over. These groups spread from the Sudd marshlands, where archaeological evidence shows that a culture based on transhumant cattle raising had been present since 3000 BCE, and the Nilotic culture in that area may thus be continuous to that date. Archaeological evidence, as well as the physical evidence in the livelihood of the Nilotes including their dome-shaped houses and tukuls, shows that they may have made an enormous contribution to the governance and wealth of the Nubia Kingdom before and during the 25th Dynasty.
The Nilotic expansion from the Sudd Marshes into the rest of South Sudan seems to have begun in the 14th century. This coincides with the collapse of the Christian Nubian kingdoms of Makuria and Alodia and the penetration of Arab traders into central Sudan. From the Arabs, the South Sudanese may have obtained new breeds of humpless cattle. Archaeologist Roland Oliver notes that the period also shows an Iron Age beginning among the Nilotics. These factors may explain how the Nilotic speakers expanded to dominate the region.
Central Sudanic Presence.
Until about 1500 vast parts of South Sudan were controlled by speakers of Central Sudanic languages. A few Central Sudanic groups remain such as the Madi and the Moru.
Shilluk.
By the sixteenth century, the most powerful group among the Nilotic speakers were Shilluk, who spread east to the banks of the white Nile under the legendary leadership of Nyikang, who is said to have ruled the Shilluk c.1490 to c.1517. The Shilluk gained control of the west bank of the river as far north as Kosti in Sudan. There they established an economy based on cereal farming and fishing, with permanent settlements located along the length of the river. The Shilluk developed an intensive system of agriculture, and the Shilluk lands in the 17th century had a population density similar to that of the Egyptian Nile lands.
One theory is that it was pressure from the Shilluk that drove the Funj people north, who would establish the Sultanate of Sennar.
The Dinka remained in the Sudd area, maintaining their transhumance economy.
While the Dinka were protected and isolated from their neighbors, the Shilluk were more involved in international affairs. The Shilluk controlled the west bank of the White Nile, but the other side was controlled by the Funj Sultanate, and there was a regular conflict between the two. The Shilluk had the ability to quickly raid outside areas by war canoe and had control of the waters of the Nile. The Funj had a standing army of armored cavalry, and this force allowed them to dominated the plains of the sahel.
Shilluk traditions tell of King Odak Ocollo who ruled c. 1630 and led them in a three-decade war with Sennar over control of the White Nile trade routes. The Shilluk allied with the Sultanate of Darfur and the Kingdom of Takali against the Funj, but the capitulation of Takali ended the war in the Funj's favor. In the later 17th century the Shilluk and Funj allied against the Jieng, a group of Dinka who rose to power in the border area between the Funj and Shilluk. The Shilluk political structure gradually centralized under a king or "reth". The most important is Reth Tugo who ruled c. 1690 to 1710 and established the Shilluk capital of Fashoda. The same period saw the gradual collapse of the Funj sultanate, leaving the Shilluk in complete control of the White Nile and its trade routes. The Shilluk military power was based on control of the river.
Azande.
The non-Nilotic Azande people, who entered southern Sudan in the 16th century, established the region's largest state. The Azande are the third largest nationality in Southern Sudan. They are found in Maridi, Iba, Yambio, Nzara, Ezon, Tambura and Nagere Counties in the tropical rain forest belt of western Equatoria and Bahr el Ghazal. In the 18th century, the Avongara people entered and quickly imposed their authority over the Azande. Avongara power remained largely unchallenged until the arrival of the British at the end of the 19th century.
The Azande developed kingdoms dominated by families of Avongara aristocrats that enacted assimilationist policies that were built on the strength of converting conquered peoples into subjects of the king and noble class. This was done through a system of conscription that allowed for the king's subjects to be conscripted as soldiers in regiments, or as cultivators that allowed for food surplus that enabled redistribution for those that needed it. The Zande kingdoms used trial by ordeal as a means of assessing guilt or innocence when administering justice and law through the use of a poison that was used as a oracle. Dynastic succession under the Zande was a complicated system in which the sons of kings would be given frontier provinces of the kingdom, which allowed for princes to expand their holdings and project authority outwards, creating their own kingdoms. These conquests would lead to the incorporation of Sudanic, Bantu, and Nilotic elements within their kingdoms that were further assimilated via adoption of the Zande language, these kingdoms would span from what is now known as the modern Central African republic, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to modern South Sudan.
Geographical barriers protected the southerners from Islam's advance, enabling them to retain their social and cultural heritage and their political and religious institutions. The Dinka people were especially secure in the Sudd marshlands, which protected them from outside interference, and allowed them to remain secure without a large armed forces. The Shilluk, Azande, and Bari people had more regular conflicts with neighbouring states.
19th century.
Turko-Egyptian conquest under the Muhammad Ali Dynasty.
In 1821 the Sennar Sultanate to the north collapsed in the face of an invasion by Egypt under the Ottoman Muhammad Ali Dynasty. The Turko-Egyptian forces then began to foray southward after consolidating their control over the northerly territories of Darfur, Kurdufan, and Funjistan. In 1827 Ali Khurshid Pasha led a force through the Dinka lands and in 1830 led an expedition to the junction of the White Nile and the Sobat. The most successful missions were led by Admiral Salim Qabudan who between 1839 and 1842 sailed the White Nile, reaching as far south as modern-day Juba.
The Turko-Egyptian forces attempted to set up forts and garrisons in the region, but disease and defection forced their quick abandonment. While claimed by the Ottoman Khedives of Egypt, they could not exert any real authority over the region. In 1851, under pressure from foreign powers, the government of Egypt opened the region to European merchants and missionaries.
The Europeans found a large supply of ivory, but found the local Bari had little interest in anything they were selling. As a result, the merchants often turned to force, seizing the ivory, even this proved not to be economical and the merchant ventures had little success. Christian missionaries also established posts in the region, with the Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Central Africa, that dotted the landscape. The missionaries also had little impact on the region in the early 19th century.
Al-Zubayr's trading empire.
The lack of formal authority was filled in the 1850s by a set of powerful merchant princes. In the east Muhammad Ahmad al-Aqqad controlled much land, but the most powerful was Al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur who came to control the Bahr el Ghazal and other parts of South Sudan. Al-Zubayr was a merchant from Khartoum, who hired his own private army and marched south.
He set up a network of trading forts known as "zaribas" through the region, and from these forts controlled local trade. The most valuable commodity was ivory. In previous centuries Sudanese merchants had not placed a high price on ivory, but the period of Egyptian rule coincided with a great increase in global demand as middle class Americans and Europeans began to purchase pianos and billiard balls.
To manage the trade al-Zubayr needed labour, and thus also began to capture a significant number of slaves. To his mercenary force, he also conscripted a large slave army. Due to trade disputes with the Sultanate of Darfur, al-Zubayr went to war against that kingdom and in 1874 defeated their forces and killed Ibrahim, the last Fur Sultan.
Equatoria.
The Ottoman Khedive of Egypt, Isma'il Pasha, was concerned over the growing power of al-Zubayr, and established the province of Equatoria and planned to colonize the area. Isma'il hired the British explorer Samuel Baker in 1869 to govern the area, and supplied him with soldiers and generous financing, but Baker was unable to extend Turko-Egyptian power over the area.
To dispose of Al-Zubayr, Isma'il Pasha dispatched the mercenary leader Muhammad al-Bulalwi and promised him the governorship of Bahr el Ghazal, if he defeated al-Zubayr. Instead, al-Zubayr routed the invaders and killed al-Bulalwi. In 1873, Isma'il Pasha thus agreed to appoint al-Zubayr as Ottoman governor and declared him "al-Zubayr Rahma Mansur Pasha".
Isma'il was still threatened by al-Zubayr and his independent base of power. The British media was also filled with stories about al-Zubayr the "Slaver King." In 1874 Charles George Gordon was appointed the governor of Equatoria. In 1877 al-Zubayr traveled to Cairo to ask for the governorship of Darfur as well but was placed under house arrest by Is'mail. Gordon defeated al-Zubayr's son, ending the merchants' control of the region. Despite this, Gordon still failed to exert authority over any territory in the region beyond the lands immediately around his few forts.
In 1878, Gordon was replaced by Emin Pasha (Eduard Schnitzer). The Mahdist Revolt did not spread south to the non-Muslim areas, but cut off southern Sudan from Egypt, leaving Emin Pasha isolated and without resources. He was rescued by the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition led by Henry Morton Stanley.
Equatoria ceased to exist as an Egyptian outpost in 1889. Important settlements in Equatoria included Lado, Gondokoro, Dufile and Wadelai. In 1947, British hopes to join the southern part of Sudan with Uganda were dashed by the Juba Conference, to unify northern and southern Sudan.
Republic of Sudan.
The region has been negatively affected by two civil wars since before Sudanese independence, resulting in serious neglect, lack of infrastructural development, and major destruction and displacement. More than 2.5 million people have been killed, and more than five million have become externally displaced while others have been internally displaced, becoming refugees as a result of the civil war and war-related impacts.
First civil war.
In 1955, four months before Sudan achieved independence, the First Sudanese Civil War started, with aims of achieving representation and more regional autonomy. For seventeen years, the Sudanese government fought the Anyanya rebel army. In 1971, former army Lt. Joseph Lagu gathered all the guerilla bands under his South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM). This was the first time in the history of the war that the separatist movement had a unified command structure to fulfill the objectives of secession and the formation of an independent state in South Sudan.
It was also the first organization that could claim to speak for, and negotiate on behalf of, the entire south. Mediation between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) eventually led to the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, which established the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region.
Second civil war.
In 1983, President of Sudan Gaafar Nimeiry declared all Sudan an Islamic state under Shari'a law, including the non-Islamic majority southern region. The Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was abolished on 5 June 1983, ending the Addis Ababa Agreement. In direct response to this, the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) was formed under the leadership of John Garang, and the Second Sudanese Civil War erupted. Several factions split from the SPLA often along ethnic lines and were funded and armed by Khartoum, with the most notable being the SPLA-Nasir in 1991 led by Riek Machar.
As a result of the infighting, more southerners died at each other's hands than were killed by northerners during the war. In the Bor massacre of 1991, an estimated 2000 civilians were killed by SPLA-Nasir and armed Nuer civilians and another estimated 25,000 died from the resulting famine in the following years. This war lasted for twenty-two years (until 2005), becoming the longest civil war in Africa.
In 2005, Comprehensive Peace Agreement, mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), as well as IGAD-Partners, a consortium of donor countries, was signed in Nairobi and autonomous Government of Southern Sudan was formed. This agreement lasted until 2011, when South Sudan declared independence.
Independence referendum.
From 9–15 January 2011 people from South Sudan voted on whether they should break away from Sudan and declare independence. On 30 January 2011, the results had shown that 98.83% of the population had voted for independence from Sudan.
At midnight on 9 July 2011, South Sudan became an independent country under the name Republic of South Sudan. On 14 July 2011, South Sudan became the 193rd member state of the United Nations. On 28 July 2011, South Sudan joined the African Union as its 54th member state.
Certain disputes still remain with Sudan, such as sharing of the oil revenues, as an estimated 80% of the oil in both Sudans is from South Sudan, which would represent amazing economic potential for one of the world's most deprived areas. The region of Abyei still remains disputed and despite attempts to hold a separate referendum to decide on ownership, a number of issues delayed and ultimately cancelled an official referendum. In July 2011, following a UNSC resolution, Ethiopian peacekeepers began entering the area in order to prevent the military forces of Sudan and South Sudan from attempting to seize control of the area.
Independence.
Heglig Crisis.
In March 2012, the Sudanese Air Force bombed areas of the South Sudanese state of Unity, near the border of the Sudanese province of South Kordofan. South Sudanese forces responded by seizing the Heglig oil field on April 10. Sudanese troops launched a counter offensive and forced the South Sudanese Army to withdraw nine days later. On 20 April, South Sudan announced it had begun a phased withdrawal from Heglig, while Sudan claimed it took it by force. Afterwards, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir held a victory rally in Khartoum.
On 22 April, more fighting broke out on the border as Sudanese soldiers backed by tanks and artillery launched three waves of attacks deep inside South Sudan. At least one South Sudanese soldier was killed and two wounded in the attack.
The two parties recommenced negotiations in June 2012 under mediation by the African Union's envoy Thabo Mbeki.
On 27 September, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudanese President Salva Kiir signed eight agreements in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which led the way to resume important oil exports and create a demilitarised zone along their border. The agreements allows for the return of of South Sudanese oil to the world market. In addition, the agreements include an understanding on the parameters to follow in regards to demarcating their border, an economic-cooperation agreement and a deal to protect each other's citizens. Certain issues remain unsolved and future talks are scheduled to resolve them. At the same time as the ongoing General debate of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly on the same day, South Sudan was scheduled to speak. Vice President Riek Machar outlined what agreements were signed, but lamented the lack of a resolution on Abyei.
In mid-March 2013, both countries began to withdraw their forces from the border area in a bid to create a demilitarised buffer zone and resume South Sudanese oil production for export through Sudan. In early April South Sudanese oil started to flow through pipelines in Sudan again. Though Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir threatened to cut oil transit through his country from South Sudan, South Sudanese President Salvar Kiir accused him of mobilising for war and said that he would not go to war over the oil transit issue.
South Kordofan conflict.
On 6 June 2011 armed conflict broke out between the forces of Northern and Southern Sudan, ahead of the scheduled independence of the South on 9 July. This followed an agreement for both sides to withdraw from Abyei.
By late June, several international interlocutors including the United Nations advanced a proposal to base 4,200 Ethiopian soldiers in Abyei to serve as peacekeepers.
Tribal conflict.
In the SPLA/M's attempt to disarm rebellions among the Shilluk and Murle, they burned scores of villages, raped hundreds of women and girls and killed an untold number of civilians. Civilians alleging torture claim fingernails been torn out, burning plastic bags dripped on children to make their parents hand over weapons and villagers burned alive in their huts if rebels were suspected of spending the night there. In May 2011, the SPLA allegedly set fire to over 7,000 homes in Unity State. The UN reports many of these violations and the frustrated director of one Juba-based international aid agency calls them "human rights abuses off the Richter scale".
In 2010, the CIA issued a warning that "over the next five years...a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in southern Sudan." Inter-ethnic fighting intensified in 2011 in Jonglei state between the Nuer White Army of the Lou Nuer and the Murle. The White Army warned it would also fight South Sudanese and UN forces. The White Army released a statement, to "wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth as the only solution to guarantee long-term security of Nuer’s cattle." Activists, including Minority Rights Group International, warn of genocide in the current Jonglei conflict.
Civil War.
At independence, South Sudan was at war with at least seven armed groups. According to UN figures, the various conflicts affected nine of its ten states, with tens of thousands displaced. Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) also operates in a wide area that includes South Sudan. The fighters accuse the government of plotting to stay in power indefinitely, not fairly representing and supporting all tribal groups while neglecting development in rural areas.
President Salva Kiir alleged that on 14 December 2013, a (largely Nuer) faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Army loyal to former vice president Riek Machar attempted a coup d'état and that the attempt was put down the next day. However, fighting broke out, igniting the South Sudanese Civil War. Machar denied trying to start a coup and fled, calling for Kiir to resign. Ugandan troops were deployed to fight on the side of the Kiir. The United Nations has peacekeepers in the country as part of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). In January 2014 the first ceasefire agreement was reached. Fighting still continued and would be followed by several more ceasefire agreements. Negotiations were mediated by "IGAD +" (which includes the eight regional nations as well as the African Union, United Nations, China, the EU, USA, UK and Norway). Following a ceasefire agreement in August 2015, known as the "Compromise Peace Agreement", Machar returned to Juba and was sworn in as vice-president. Following a second breakout of in Juba, Machar was replaced as vice-president and he fled to Sudan and the conflict erupted again. Rebel in-fighting has become of major part of the conflict. Rivalry among Dinka factions led by the President and Malong Awan have also led to fighting. In August 2018, another power sharing agreement came into effect.
There were ethnic undertones between the Dinka and Nuer in the fighting. About 400,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the war, including notable atrocities such as the 2014 Bentiu massacre. More than 4 million people have been displaced, with about 1.8 million of those internally displaced, and about 2.5 million having fled to neighboring countries, especially Uganda and Sudan.
See also.
General:


Radama II

Radama II (September 23, 1829 – May 12, 1863 ["contested"]) was the son and heir of Queen Ranavalona I and ruled from 1861 to 1863 over the Kingdom of Madagascar, which controlled virtually the entire island. Radama's rule, although brief, was a pivotal period in the history of the Kingdom of Madagascar. Under the unyielding and often harsh 33-year rule of his mother, Queen Ranavalona I, Madagascar had successfully preserved its cultural and political independence from European colonial designs. Rejecting the queen's policy of isolationism and persecution of Christians, Radama II permitted religious freedom and re-opened Madagascar to European influence. Under the terms of the Lambert Charter, which Radama secretly contracted in 1855 with French entrepreneur Joseph-François Lambert while Ranavalona still ruled, the French were awarded exclusive rights to the exploitation of large tracts of valuable land and other lucrative resources and projects. This agreement, which was later revoked by Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony, was key to establishing France's claim over Madagascar as a protectorate and, in 1896, as a colony.
The dramatic contrast between Ranavalona's isolationism and her son's pro-European stance represented an abrupt reversal of policy that threatened the traditional sociopolitical order. Radama's absolutism in pursuing dramatic reforms in disregard of the advice of his ministers ultimately turned them against him. In a coup led by his prime minister, Rainivoninahitriniony, Radama II was strangled on May 12, 1863. His wife Rabodo, who took the throne name Rasoherina, was allowed by the ministers to succeed her husband on the condition that she and future sovereigns would no longer rule unilaterally, but rather in concert with the Hova (the class of free citizens) as represented by the position of prime minister. The public was informed that Radama had committed suicide and that his body had been unceremoniously interred in a tomb in Ilafy. However, there soon emerged rumors – believed by prominent foreigners Jean Laborde and William Ellis – that Radama lived and was making plans to reclaim the throne. A strong case has since been made on the basis of significant evidence that Radama may indeed have revived after the strangling and lived to old age in anonymity near Lake Kinkony in the northwestern part of the island.
Upbringing and early years.
Radama II was born Prince Rakoto (Rakotosehenondradama) on September 23, 1829 in the Imasoandro building on the compound of the Rova of Antananarivo. He was officially recognized as the son of King Radama I and his widow Queen Ranavalona I, although the king had died more than nine months before the prince's birth. He was likely fathered by a lover of his mother, Andriamihaja, a progressive young officer of the Merina army who the queen may have been tricked into putting to death by conservative ministers at court.
After his mother succeeded Radama I on the throne, she instituted an increasingly regressive regime that attempted to restore traditional values and contain or eliminate westernization. The prince, however, who had been highly influenced by the French adviser to the queen, Joseph-François Lambert, was favorably impressed by European culture, knowledge and its state of economic, political and technological development, and was troubled by some of the socially repressive policies pursued by Ranavalona I. According to a British account, the French played on this sympathy in 1855 by pressuring Prince Rakoto into signing a request for French aid that would have enabled France to establish control over Madagascar had the true nature of the letter and its signing not been uncovered by Rakoto and his British contacts. An alternate explanation was offered by Lambert, who maintained that the prince had knowingly supported the attempt to put an end to his mother's harsh policies, and was a willing collaborator in a failed 1857 plot to remove her from the throne.
Prior to Queen Ranavalona's death, the conservative and progressive factions within the Merina court waged a tactical power struggle to secure a successor favorable to their own political agenda. The conservative faction favored Ramboasalama, the son of the Queen's sister, while the Queen's prime minister, Rainivoninahitriniony and head of the army, Rainilaiarivony, brothers and progressives, supported Radama II. The latter successfully obtained key strategic allies within the court that enabled Radama to seize the throne without violence following his mother's death. Ramboasalama was obliged to swear a public oath of allegiance to Radama, and was later sent into exile in the highland village of Ambohimirimo where he died in April 1862.
Reign.
Prince Rakoto acceded to the throne on August 16, 1861 upon the natural death of his mother, Queen Ranavalona I, assuming the throne name Radama II. His coronation ceremony was held the following year on September 23, 1862. Once upon the throne, he immediately initiated a rapid and dramatic reversal of many of his mother's traditionalist policies. He reopened the country to foreign powers and concluded treaties of friendship with Britain and France. The Lambert Charter opened up business possibilities for French investors. Freedom of religion was declared, persecution of Christians ceased, missionaries returned to the island and their schools were reopened. Radama abolished the traditional trial by ordeal of "tangena", in which the guilt or innocence of an accused person was determined based on the outcome of consuming the poison of the "tangena" nut, and inhabitants of Antananarivo were permitted to raise swine within the city walls, a practice previously forbidden by a "fady" (taboo) forbidding them from being kept near the royal talismans ("sampy"). The sampy were dispersed to the sacred villages where they had originated under 16th-century Merina king Ralambo and other early monarchs. Significantly, Radama freed numerous political prisoners captured under Ranavalona I during provincial wars of subjugation and offered repatriation of confiscated property. This pardon was reciprocated by many of the beneficiary ethnic groups around the island, and good will between the coasts and central administration at Antananarivo improved significantly. These changes, and the king himself, were unequivocally praised by Madagascar's European partners:
The reaction within Imerina was less one-sided. The abrupt and dramatic policy changes pursued by the progressive king both alienated and disfranchised the established conservative factions among the andriana (nobles) and Hova (freemen) at court. Especially controversial were the special privileges accorded to Joseph-François Lambert and his partners under the Lambert Charter, including the exclusive implementation of public works projects (felling trees, making roads, building canals etc.), control over minting coinage, lucrative mining rights and more as part of the purview of Lambert's proposed "Compagnie de Madagascar" (French Madagascar Company). The citizens' concern stemmed primarily from clauses in the agreement that would have permitted Lambert's company to become permanent owners of Malagasy lands. Until this point, land in Madagascar, which was viewed by the populace as the sacred ground of the ancestors, could only ever be temporarily possessed by foreigners until their death, at which point the land would revert to the crown. The threat of permanently losing any part of sacred Malagasy soil to foreigners was deeply troubling.
Assassination plot.
The legalization of dueling was ultimately the issue that brought to a head the tension between King Radama II's entourage (mostly friends and some established political figures, known collectively as the "menamaso" or "red-eyes") and representatives of the opposition led by Radama's prime minister Rainivoninahitriniony. On May 7, 1863, Radama II announced his intention to allow disputes to be settled by a duel, much to the disapproval of many of his advisers at court who feared the practice would lead to anarchy. The prime minister prevented the law from being publicly declared at the "Zoma" (Friday) market the following day. Friday afternoon, the prime minister's younger brother, Rainilaiarivony, who was head of the army, called several thousand troops into the city to besiege a number of the "menamaso" and members of the royal family at the Rova palace compound, and by Saturday morning the decision had been made and carried out to execute eleven of the "menamaso" and other key political figures who had counseled Radama to legalize dueling. On Sunday, May 10, Rainivoninahitriniony demanded that Radama hand over the "menamaso" he was sheltering in the palace, which he refused to do until the prime minister agreed to spare their lives; they were handed over but by Monday morning had all been speared to death.
The drama ended on Tuesday morning, May 12, 1863, when a group of officers and soldiers forced their way into the Rova and seized the king. His wife, Queen Rabodo, pleaded for his life to be spared and attempted to stop them but was forcibly removed. The soldiers threw a lamba over Radama's head and strangled him with a silk sash until he was believed to be dead, thereby avoiding the shedding of royal blood as was the custom for royal executions in Imerina.
The nobles informed Rabodo that she would have their support as queen on the condition that she would accept to abide by certain articles that would form a new contract between rulers and ruled in Madagascar:
Rabodo agreed to these conditions. The next morning, it was publicly announced in the marketplace that Radama had taken his own life due to grief over the deaths of his compatriots the "menamaso" and that Rabodo would succeed him as Queen Rasoherina. To cement the new power-sharing agreement between the ruler, the nobles and the heads of the people, a political marriage was contracted between the queen and Prime Minister Rainivoninahitriniony, who had been instrumental in her first husband's death. Radama's name was struck from the list of kings and it was declared illegal to mourn his death.
Rumors of survival.
Following Radama II's apparent death, rumors spread that he had only been rendered unconscious by the attempt on his life and had revived as his body was being transported to Ilafy for interment in his designated tomb. French historian Delval presents evidence that supports a scenario wherein the group tasked with carrying Radama's body to Ilafy became frightened as the king began to revive, prompting them to abandon the body and then falsely maintain that they had completed their task to place him in the tomb. Within months after his reported death, rumors began circulating that Radama was alive, residing on the west coast of the island and was amassing supporters for a political comeback. The rumors persisted to the point of causing political turmoil in Antananarivo. These claims may have had some substance judging by the actions of others. Prominent Christian missionaries outside the capital made extensive efforts to visit and support Radama but seemingly never succeeded. Traditionalist factions within the government were concerned enough by the rumors to have put to death sixteen of his supporters, as well as fining hundreds of others. According to evidence in Delval's study, Radama may indeed have survived and, failing to regain the throne, lived to old age as an ordinary citizen in the north of the island.
With the apparent murder of Radama II, the power of the Merina monarchs was broken. Subsequent monarchs were controlled by influential Hova, particularly Rainilaiarivony, who became prime minister after his brother and successively married all three remaining queens of the monarchy: Rasoherina, Ranavalona II and Ranavalona III.


Maria de Fonseca

Maria de Fonseca was the great wife of Msiri, the powerful warrior-king of Katanga, at the time when the Stairs Expedition arrived in 1891 to take possession of the territory for the Belgian King Leopold II, with or without Msiri's consent.
Msiri typically cemented alliances with trading partners by marriage. Maria was the daughter of mixed Portuguese-African parents from Angola, and was also the sister of Coimbra, the first trader to supply him with gunpowder from the west coast, the key to Msiri's power.
In 1891, Maria was about forty-five years old and Msiri, about sixty, and had been ruler of Katanga for thirty years. When treaty negotiations with Msiri reached stalemate, Christian de Bonchamps, third officer of the expedition, proposed capturing Msiri and holding him hostage. Msiri typically had 300 armed warriors at his stockade, but de Bonchamps had discovered that every night, he would leave with just a handful of guards to visit Maria at her compound nearly a kilometre away.
Captain Stairs rejected the idea of the ambush in favour of an ultimatum, and this led to a confrontation in which Captain Omer Bodson shot Msiri dead, and was himself fatally shot. Maria and Coimbra appear to have come to terms with this development, and took part in talks with Stairs on the acceptance by Msiri's successor of Leopold's sovereignty over Katanga. Coimbra returned to Angola but Maria remained in Katanga as she enjoyed her position at the king's court.
According to the oral history of the Mwami Mwenda chieftainship which succeeded Msiri, Maria had "betrayed Msiri to the Belgians" and so his adopted son and successor Mukanda-Bantu beheaded Maria with a machete while standing behind her and shouting to the crowd: "I am Mukanda-Bantu, the one who walks over his foes".


Mariam Naigaga

Mariam Naigaga (born 22 May 1979) is a Ugandan banker, statistician and politician. She is the elected Woman Representative for Namutumba District in the 10th Parliament and is a member of NRM, the ruling political party in Uganda. She serves on the special Presidential Advisory Committee on Budget (PACOB) and is a member of the Budget Committee and the Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Parliament.
Naigaga is a member of the Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change (PFCC), the Uganda Parliamentary Forum for Children (UPFC), the Uganda Women's Parliamentary Association (UWOPA), and the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection (UPFSP). Additionally, she is the NRM secretary general for Namutumba District, the treasurer of the NRM Parliamentary Caucus and the secretary of the Busoga Parliamentary Caucus.
Naigaga is a former branch manager of Centenary Bank where she secured employment over a thirteen-year period from 2003 up until 2015 when she resigned to join elective politics. She is also a member of the Uganda Institute of Banking and Financial Services (UIBFS) and the East African Banking School.
Early life and education.
Naigaga was born in Namutumba District, Busoga sub-region, on 22 May 1979 in a Muslim family of the Basoga. She had her primary education in her home district of Namutumba acquiring her PLE certification in 1992.
Naigaga then attended Bugobi High School for her O-Level education, attaining her UCE certification in 1996, and then St. Mathias Kalemba Senior Secondary School Nazigo for her A-Level education, where she acquired her UACE certification in 1998.
Naigaga further advanced to Makerere University where she graduated in 2002 with a Bachelor of Science in Statistics. Still in the same institution of higher education, she acquired a Master in Finance in 2011.
Career.
Upon attaining her bachelor's degree, Naigaga secured employment at Centenary Bank where she served for thirteen years from 2003 to 2015, acquiring extensive knowledge in financial management in the process. She started out as a bank officer from 2003 to 2007. She was then promoted to branch supervisor, a position she held up to 2009 when she was again promoted to assistant branch manager in 2009. In 2011, she was elevated to branch manager up until her resignation in 2015 to join elective politics.
Following her resignation from Centenary Bank and subsequently kick-starting her political career, Naigaga bid for the Namutumba District Woman Representative seat on the NRM ticket and won both the NRM party primaries in 2015 and the general elections in 2016 to become a member of the 10th Parliament for the Pearl of Africa.
In the 10th Parliament, Naigaga serves on the special Presidential Advisory Committee on Budget (PACOB) and is a member of the Budget Committee and the Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development. She is also a member of the Parliamentary Forum on Climate Change (PFCC), the Uganda Parliamentary Forum for Children (UPFC), the Uganda Women's Parliamentary Association (UWOPA) and the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection (UPFSP).


Reuben Povey

Reuben Povey (born 2 July 1889, date of death unknown) was a South African sprinter. He competed in the men's 100 metres at the 1912 Summer Olympics.


Sarah Millin

Sarah Gertrude Millin, née Liebson (19 March 1889 – 6 July 1968), was a South African author.
Biography.
Millin was born in Žagarė, Kovno Governorate on 19 March 1889, was one of a family of seven children. Five months later her parents, Isaiah and Olga, immigrated to South Africa and the family settled in Beaconsfield near Kimberley. In 1894, when she was six years old, they moved to the diamond diggings on the banks of the Vaal River in the Kimberley area where her father opened a trading store. This environment was to provide the setting for much of her future work that combined a love of the South African landscape with an abhorrence of the poverty and squalor in which most of the diggers lived. After matriculating at Kimberley High School for Girls in 1904 she chose not to take up the bursaries offered to her to attend the university at the South African College in Cape Town but instead studied music in Kimberley. She obtained a piano teacher’s certificate but never practiced that career. From the age of six she had been convinced that writing was her destiny and had begun writing short stories at an early age. Some of her first compositions appeared in newspapers in the years 1910 to 1912.
On 1 December 1912 she married Philip Millin and they settled in Johannesburg. Philip, a lawyer who later became a judge of the Supreme Court, encouraged her literary ambitions. Philip Millin died of heart failure on the bench while she had just begun to write her autobiography "The Measure of My Days", an event which affected her deeply.
She died in Johannesburg.
Bibliography.
Non-fiction.
"The South Africans" was Millin's first foray into non-fiction. It was published in the UK in 1926 by Constable & Co. Ltd, and in the US in 1927 by Boni & Liveright.
"Men on a Voyage" differs from anything else Millin ever produced. It consists of thoughts and essays on various subjects. "Men on a Voyage" was only released in the UK and the Commonwealth, and was published in 1930 by Constable & Co. Ltd.
Her biography of Cecil Rhodes is still considered to be an authoritative source of information on the Diamond Magnate's life. Chatto & Windus published "Rhodes" in 1933, and then a revised edition in 1952. Harper & Brothers released the work in the US in 1933 under the title "Cecil Rhodes". Millin is credited as one of the contributors to the screenplay for the film "Rhodes of Africa", which was released in 1936 and starred Walter Huston. To coincide with the release of "Rhodes of Africa", Grosset & Dunlap reprinted this biography in the US under the title "Cecil Rhodes, Empire Builder".
"General Smuts" is Millin's second biography. In 1936 it was published in two volumes. Faber & Faber served the UK market while Little, Brown and Company served the American market.
Millin contributed the chapter on South Africa contained in "The British Commonwealth & Empire" (nonfiction, W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., 1943)
"The People of South Africa" is an expansion of "The South Africans" of 1926. Constable & Co. Ltd published it in 1951 in the UK and Alfred A Knopf published it in America in 1954.
Millin acted as editor of "White Africans are also people", published in 1966 in South Africa by Howard Timmons, and in the UK by Bailey Swinfen.
"South Africa" published by William Collins of London 1941, Editor W. J. Turner. a part of the Britain In Pictures series. 48 pages, illustrated 12 colour plates and 28 black and white illustrations. Produced by ADPRINT LONDON, Printed in Great Britain by Harrison & Sons Ltd. London. Printers to His Majesty the King.


Nigerianisation

Nigerianisation was the policy of training and posting Nigerians to positions of responsibility previously occupied by expatriates in the public service. The process was largely implemented in the 1950s. It was gradual and involved reorganizing government agencies and expanding educational facilities at selected high schools and colleges. Nigerianisation became important as Nigeria marched towards independence, the Nigerian Council of Ministers and the House of Representatives both supported the idea of a Nigerian control of the Public Service' senior positions such as permanent secretaries.
Background.
Colonial service.
In the 1930s, the Colonial Service administration became unified and controlled from London, rendering it the image of a unified empire. A consequence of the unified system was the recruitment and placement of officers into the Nigeria service was processed through the London office while little deliberation was considered for suitable Africans. In Nigeria, the structure of the colonial machine placed emphasis on indirect rule and the placement of expatriate Residents, Divisional Officers and administrators to the provinces where they were in direct contact with citizens. The unified system also created a bureaucratic secretariat with expatriate secretaries responsible for communications with London. Though both offices were inundated with constant transfer of personnel and lack of funds, many of the positions in the secretariat were filled with expatriates from other colonies while most of the governing functions were done by residents in the provinces.
By the beginning of World War II, Nigeria had a large bureaucratic service manned by expatriates. But the quality of service provided by the expatriates began to dwindle, a situation aggravated by among other things low pay, restriction of expatriate participation in the war effort, constant transfers, separation from families and the increasing complexity of governance not matched by the qualifications. After the war, a salary commission was instituted to consider the welfare of civil servants. The commission encouraged the use of the word ‘Senior Posts’ for administrative positions in the secretariat and provinces which were dominated by Europeans and formerly known as 'European posts'. The new designation also came with expatriation pay and allowances while the 'African posts' was referred to as junior posts but had little benefits. Since the 1930s, the number of Nigerians of Southern origin who were mission school graduates was increasing. The educated Africans including some on the civil service and the nationalists began to clamor for increased involvement of Nigerians in the senior positions of administration. Nigerianisation was shaped as a fight against discrimination and colonialism.
Prior to 1948, the senior positions were dominated by expatriates though a few Africans managed to be promoted. Colonial officials in London and in Nigeria had limited the advancement and recruitment of educated Africans into senior positions with the exception of a few such as Henry Rawlingson Carr and Joseph McEwen. In the middle of 1948, out of a total of 3,786 senior positions, 245 were Africans, 1,245 vacant and the remainder expatriates. To include more Africans in public service, the first step usually began with commission of enquiries into the nature and requirement of public service.
1948-1952.
The first commission was the Foot Commission of Enquiry, saddled with the task of finding ways to recruit suitable and qualified Nigerians to work in public service. The report of the commission provided progressive recommendations. Hugh Foot's commission recommended the creation of a Public Service Board to work in conjunction with the Civil Service Commission to implement its proposals. During the same year, a revamped constitution established regionalized government in Nigeria limiting the implementation of Foot's proposals. The new system also increased the level of participation in political development by educated Nigerians who opted not to join the civil service.
A few years after the commission published its report, the regional political leadership in Southern Nigeria were not convinced that enough qualified Nigerians were being recruited into the civil service. This sentiment varied in the predominantly Islamic North where indirect rule was a tool of governance, Western education was limited and thus the number of qualified Northerners were few. The Northern regional government feared that progressive recruitment of Nigerians into the civil service cadre will lead to marginalization of Northerners.
Nigerianisation: 1952-1960.
Progress in the Southern region.
In early 1952, a new Council of Ministers was inaugurated, the first in the country to be dominated by Nigerians. The ministers chose Nigerianisation as a key policy to pursue. In March 1952, the council appointed a commission jointly led by Simeon Adebo and Sydney Phillipson to review the process of the recruiting more Nigerians into the civil service. In the commission's report released a year later, it noted that between 1948 and 1953, the number of Africans in senior positions increased from 245 to 685 but also the number of expatriates increased from 2,296 to 2,984. In conclusion, the commission gave far reaching recommendations. The report's title was "The Nigerianisation of the Civil Service", this was the first time the expression, Nigeriansation of the civil service was publicly used in the country. Among the recommendations of the commission include: advertisement of vacancies to Nigerians abroad, promotion based on merit but excluding non-Nigerians on secondment, that non-Nigerians should not be recommended to fill newly created posts or posts in new departments, that contract terms should be the first option in recruiting non-Nigerians. However, just like the previous commission new political developments impacted the full implementation of the proposals. In 1954, the Lyttleton Constitution displaced the Macpherson Constitution of 1951. The new constitution changed the civil service from a unified structure into a regionalized one. As a result, the two Southern regional governments, led by Awolowo’s Action Group and Azikiwe’s NCNC aggressively promoted the training and recruitment of Nigerians into the regional civil service. Many Africans in the Federal service were heavily sought after by the regional governments. This led to progressive Nigerianisation within the regional governments of the South but a depletion of Africans in the Federal service.
Progress in the Federal service.
The regional governments in the south hastened the process of Nigerianisation, in 1955, the Western government reduced the recruitment of pensionable expatriates while newly trained Nigerians from colleges overseas were appointed into senior positions.
At the Federal level, progress began later. In August 1955, the House of Representatives called on the Council of Ministers to present proposals towards the Nigerianisation of the civil service. In March 1956, the council presented before the House, Sessional Paper No.4 of 1956, a statement policy on Nigerianisation. The council proposed that a new position, the Office of the Nigerianisation Officer be created and increased level of post-secondary school training of Nigerians so as to meet the needs of the public service. To ensure the success of the proposals three training programmes were to be instituted. Senior Training, Intermediate Training and Preliminary Training. Three major governmental bodies were charged with implementing the process: the Public Service Commission, Scholarship Board and the establishment office.
Each ministry was mandated to keep tabs on departmental needs and Nigerians in training who could fit the staff needs. The process also involved recruitment of Nigerian students in U.K. for administrative positions at home.
While the number of Nigerians in senior positions was 786 out of a total of 5,125, in 1961 the figure had increased to 3,030 out of a total of 5,133. By 1965, the process of Nigerianisation had virtually been completed in the Federal Service and at the regional levels.
Foreign service.
The training of diplomats to man overseas mission was contained in Sessional Paper No 11 of 1956. A selected number of administrative officers were sent abroad for training in preparation of Nigerians independence and establishing Nigerian overseas embassies.
Military.
As part of the transition towards independence, the control of the armed forces was transferred from the army council to the office of the Governor-General. Expatriate military officers were now placed under the control of Nigerians and given a maximum period of 3 years of secondment before returning home. In 1959, there were 297 officers in the military with 37 of them Nigerians. The Nigerian cadre in 1959, were 3 majors, 6 captains and 28 subalterns. By 1960, more officers were planned to be commissioned and others promoted into the major and captain ranks. From 1956 to 1961 British non-commissioned officers were gradually decreased and at which point the remaining officers were those with technical skills. Cadetship was established in select secondary schools to discover potential recruits who could qualify for officer positions. About seventeen yearly cadets were recruited yearly and sent to train abroad as potential officers.
Northernization.
Nigerianisation was slow to materialize in the Northern region due to a limited number of qualified graduates from the region. Administration in the North was through indirect rule and Western education was not considered very important in many divisions. After the regionalization of the public service, political leaders in the region felt that the number of Northerners in the service was minimal in comparison to their counterparts in the South. Due to political considerations, leaders in the region limited the recruitment of Southerners into the Northern regional service and found ways to push up the ranks of northerners in junior and senior positions. The leaders retained the services of expatriates, because Northerners regarded expatriates as transients but feared southern domination of the regional civil service. Measures were put in place to train northerners; in 1949, a scholarship board provided grants to almost all Northerners with qualifications to enter universities. In 1957, administration courses were taught at the Institute of Administration in Zaria. Apart from trying to fill positions in the civil service with Northerners, political leaders in the zone also made it a priority to secure Northern representation in senior positions of the Federal service.
Issues.
Expatriates.
To prevent loss of career opportunities, the expatriate led Civil Service Organization demanded compensation from the government. In 1958, the colonial office agreed to a compensation plan prior to discussions with the Federal Government. The Nigerian government thus created a lump sum settlement for expatriate officers who wish to leave prior to the granting of independence in 1960 and also promised to fairly treat expatriates who remain after independence. Modifications to the agreement were later made in 1959.


Seble Desta

Princess Seble Desta (also Princess Sybil Desta, born 29 August 1932) is the daughter of "Ras" Desta Damtew and Princess Tenagnework, and granddaughter of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. She was educated at Clarendon School for Girls in the United Kingdom. She is the widow of "Dejazmach" Kassa Wolde Mariam, heir to the former Welega kingdom of Leqa Qallam.They married at Addis Ababa, on 31 January 1959 (in a double wedding with her sister, Princess Sophia Desta).
Princess Seble and "Dejazmach" Kassa were the parents of five children:
Other.
Princess Seble was imprisoned by the Dergue from 1974 until 1988.


Enkorika

Enkorika is a village and neolithic site in Kenya's Rift Valley Province. It is located in an upslope area, about 100 by 130 m. It was an Iron Age smelting site. Geologically it forms part of the Enkorika Fissure Zone.


Sibudu Cave

Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77,000 years ago to 38,000 years ago.
Evidence of some of the earliest examples of modern human technology has been found in the shelter (although the earliest known spears date back 400,000 years). The evidence in the shelter includes the earliest bone arrow (61,000 years old), and the earliest stone arrows (64,000 years old), the earliest needle (61,000 years old), the earliest use of heat-treated mixed compound gluing (72,000 years ago), and an example of the use of bedding (77,000 years ago) which for a while was the oldest known example (an older example from 200,000 years ago was recently discovered at Border Cave, South Africa).
The use of glues and bedding are of particular interest, because the complexity of their creation and processing has been presented as evidence of continuity between early human cognition and that of modern humans.
Description.
Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter, located roughly north of the city of Durban and about inland, near the town of Tongaat. It is in a steep, forested cliff facing WSW that overlooks the Tongati River in an area that is now a sugar cane plantation. The shelter was formed by erosional downcutting of the Tongati River, which now lies below the shelter. Its floor is long, and about in width. It has a large collection of Middle Stone Age deposits that are well preserved organically and accurately dated using optically stimulated luminescence.
The first excavations following its discovery in 1983 were carried out by Aron Mazel of the Natal Museum (unpublished work). Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand started renewed excavations in September 1998.
Occupation.
The occupations at Sibudu are divided into pre-Still Bay, Still Bay (72,000–71,000 years ago), Howiesons Poort (before 61,000 years ago), post-Howiesons Poort (58,500 years ago), late (47,700 years ago), and final Middle Stone Age phases (38,600 years ago). There were occupation gaps of approximately 10,000 years between the post-Howiesons Poort and the late Middle Stone Age stage, and the late and final Middle Stone periods. There was no Late Stone Age occupation, although there was an Iron Age occupation about 1000 years ago.
Evidence suggests these were dry periods and the shelter was occupied only during wet climatic conditions.
Technology.
The pre-Still Bay occupation had a lithic flake-based industry and made few tools. The Still Bay occupation, in addition to such flakes, made bifacial tools and points . Trace use analysis on the tips of the points finds evidence of compound adhesives on their bases where they would once have been hafted to shafts.
Various examples of early human technology have been found:
The plant bedding consisted of sedge and other monocotyledons topped with aromatic leaves containing natural insecticidal and larvicidal chemicals. The leaves were all from Cape laurel ("Cryptocarya woodii") which, when crushed, are aromatic and contain traces of α-pyrones, cryptofolione, and goniothalamin, chemicals that have insecticidal and larvicidal properties against, for example, mosquitoes. "Cryptocarya" species are still used extensively in traditional medicine.
The Howiesons Poort occupation manufactured blade tools. These blades are shaped like the segment of an orange, with a sharp cutting edge on the straight lateral and an intentionally blunted and curved back. These were attached to shafts or handles by means of ochre and plant adhesive or alternatively fat mixed with plant material. Segments often were made with a cutting edge along their entire length, which required that they be attached to their hafts without twine and so, calls for particularly strong adhesive glue.
Points were used in the period after the Howiesons Poort for hunting weapons, such as the tips of spears. Use–trace analysis suggests that many of these points were hafted with ochre-loaded adhesives.
Cognitive archaeology.
The replication of shafted tool manufacture using only methods and materials available at Sibudu has enabled the identification of the complexity of the thought processes that it required. The stone spear was embedded in the wood using a compound adhesive made up of plant gum, red ochre, and, to aid the workability, possibly a small amount of beeswax, coarse particles, or fat. This preliminary mixture had to have the correct ingredient proportions and then, before shafting, undergo a controlled heat treatment stage. This heating had to avoid boiling or dehydrating the mixture too much, otherwise it would weaken the resulting mastic. The maker also had to reduce its acidity. By experimentally recreating the fabrication of this adhesive, researchers concluded that the Middle Stone Age (MSA) humans at Sibudu would have required the multilevel mental operations and abstract thought capabilities of modern people to do this.Artisans living in the MSA must have been able to think in abstract terms about properties of plant gums and natural iron products, even though they lacked empirical means for gauging them. Qualities of gum, such as wet, sticky, and viscous, were mentally abstracted, and these meanings counterpoised against ochre properties, such as dry, loose, and dehydrating. Simultaneously, the artisan had to think about the correct position for placing stone inserts on the shafts... Although fully modern behaviour is recognizable relatively late in the MSA, the circumstantial evidence provided here implies that people who made compound adhesives in the MSA shared at least some advanced behaviors with their modern successors.p. 9593.
In a commentary upon this research it has been suggested that instead of focusing upon language, with activities that tax reasoning ability and are also visible archaeologically, such as shafting, archaeologists are in a better position to contribute to an understanding of the evolution of the modern mind.p. 9545.
Some of these hafted points might have been launched from bows. While "most attributes such as micro-residue distribution patterns and micro-wear will develop similarly on points used to tip spears, darts or arrows" and "explicit tests for distinctions between thrown spears and projected arrows have not yet been conducted" the researchers find "contextual support" for the use of these points on arrows: a broad range of animals were hunted, with an emphasis on taxa that prefer closed forested niches, including fast moving, terrestrial and arboreal animals. This is an argument for the use of traps, perhaps including snares. If snares were used, the use of cords and knots, which also would have been adequate for the production of bows, is implied. The employment of snares also would demonstrate a practical understanding of the latent energy stored in bent branches, the main principle of bow construction.
The use of Cryptocarya leaves in bedding indicates that early use of herbal medicines may have awarded selective advantages to humans, and the use of such plants implies a new dimension to the behaviour of early humans at this time.
Interrupted technological development.
Artifacts such as piecing needles, arrows, and shell beads at Sibudu and elsewhere occur in a pattern whereby innovations are not further and progressively developed, but arise and then disappear. For instance, the shell beads occur in the Still Bay layers, but are absent from the Howiesons Poort ones, in Sibudu and elsewhere. This challenges the idea that the early development of technology by early humans was a process of accumulation of improvements. In discussing the findings of artifacts at Sibudu researchers have commented that they:can hardly be used to support the "classic" out of Africa scenario, which predicts increasing complexity and accretion of innovations during the MSA, determined by biological change. Instead, they appear, disappear, and re-appear in a way that best fits a scenario in which historical contingencies and environmental, rather than cognitive, changes are seen as main drivers.p. 1577.
The idea that environmental change was responsible for this pattern has been questioned, and instead it has been suggested that the driving factors were changes in the social networks related to changes in population density.
Tentative World Heritage Status.
In 2015, the South African government submitted a proposal to add the cave to the list of World Heritage Sites and it has been placed on the UNESCO list of tentative sites as a potential future 'serial nomination' together with Blombos Cave, Pinnacle Point, Klasies River Caves, Border Cave and Diepkloof Rock Shelter.


Third Nigerian Republic

The Third Republic was the planned republican government of Nigeria in 1993 which was to be governed by the Third Republican constitution.
Founded (1993).
The constitution of the Third Republic was drafted in 1989. General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), the military head of state, promised to end military rule by 1990. This date was subsequently pushed back to 1993. In the spring of 1989, IBB lifted the ban on political activity, which had been in place since the coup of 1983. The conference established two political parties: the centre-right National Republican Convention (NRC) and the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP). The parties were required to draw from a national rather than regional or tribal basis. Gubernatorial and state legislative elections were conducted in December 1991. The civilian governors elected in this balloting took office in January 1992.
The presidential election was postponed until 12 June 1993 due to political unrest. MKO Abiola, a wealthy Yoruba businessman, won a decisive victory in the presidential elections on the SDP platform, defeating Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention. Abiola won even in his northern opponent's home state. Abiola won in the Federal capital, Abuja, the military polling stations, and in over two-thirds of Nigerian states. Men of northern descent largely dominated Nigeria's political landscape after independence and the win by Abiola, a southern Muslim, remains unequaled today.
IBB said years later that he now regards the decision to annul the election as unfortunate given its consequences. But he still believes he did the right thing, he said, because he had specific information about plans to overthrow the Abiola government and it seemed pointless to turn the country over to civilian rule if there would be a military coup within months. He acknowledged the irony of the Sani Abacha coup in the light of this claim but maintained that the military overthrow of the civilian government that succeeded him was precisely the outcome he had been trying to avoid.
Annulment.
On 23 June 1993, IBB had the election annulled. This threw the country into chaos. "Many Yoruba have long resented the domination of Nigeria's political life by the mostly northern Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, and were ecstatic when one of their own, Mr. Abiola, appeared to have won the recent balloting," commented the New York Times. Great Britain responded to the announcement by freezing aid and withdrawing military assistance. IBB eventually bowed to pressure from his inner circle and resigned from office on 23 August 1993. Ernest Shonekan, a Yoruba business man, and the head of IBB's transition team, assumed the office of the presidency as the head of the interim national government. Shonekan was unable to manage the political turmoil which ensued in the post IBB months.
Shonekan's caretaker government was quietly removed from office by Minister of Defence, General Sani Abacha on 17 November 1993. On 11 June 1994, president-elect Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, declared himself president and went into hiding. The Abacha administration hunted Abiola down and arrested him on charges of treason. Abiola remained in prison until he died in 1998.


Ndlela kaSompisi

Ndlela kaSompisi (died February 1840) was a key general to Zulu Kings Shaka and Dingane. He rose to prominence as a highly effective warrior under Shaka. Dingane appointed him as his "inDuna", or chief advisor. He was also the principal commander of Dingane's armies. However, Ndlela's failure to defeat the Boers under Andries Pretorius and a rebellion against Dingane led to his execution.
Career.
According to E. A. Ritter Ndlela was a "Ntuli cannibal recruit" to Shaka's army. His name means "road" or "path". During the Ndwandwe–Zulu War Ndela distinguished himself by his fighting ability, performing "incredible deeds of destruction" on Shaka's enemies. He was severely wounded in battle with the Ndwandwe. Despite his non-Zulu origins, he was rapidly promoted and was appointed chief of the Ntuli. When his practice of promoting non-Zulus was questioned, Shaka is said to have replied, "Any man who joins the Zulu Army becomes a Zulu. Thereafter his promotion is purely a question of merit, irrespective of the road (ndlela) he came by", referring to the most famous of his adopted soldiers.
After Dingane assassinated and succeeded Shaka he remained the highest ranking political and military officer in Dingane’s regime. With Dingane’s volatility and thirst for blood, Ndlela proved he was a shrewd operator by maintaining these highly influential positions in a changing regime where Dingane was quick to order an execution of his perceived enemies. A defender of traditional Zulu culture, Ndlela strongly objected when Dingane allowed Francis Owen of London's Anglican Church Missionary Society to set up a mission at the Zulu capital, uMgungundlovu.
He served as Dingane's inDuna – his chief adviser and Ndunankulu (Prime Minister) and "uMkhuzi wamaButho kaZulu" – Commander-In-Chief of the Zulu Army. He led a campaign against the Northern Ndebele in 1837, but the war was inconclusive. He allegedly persuaded Dingane to kill Piet Retief and crush the Boers. He was general of Dingane's forces at the Battle of Blood River (16 December 1838) with Dambuza Nzobo, a significant defeat for the Zulus as the spears and large numbers of Zulus were unable to breach the Boer laager of Andries Pretorius defended with muskets.
Neither Shaka nor Dingane had children. Mindful of the lineage of the Zulu kings, Ndlela repeatedly defied Dingane's request that he assassinate Mpande, half-brother of Shaka and Dingane as he was a threat to Dingane's power. He argued that it would diminish his greatness and that, in any case, Mpande did not aspire to the throne. The Battle of Maqongqo where the forces of Mpande and Dingane clashed in 1840 culminated in Dingane calling Ndlela a traitor. A significant portion of Ndlela's army deserted to Mpande's general Nongalaza. Ndlela withdrew his remaining force rather than be overwhelmed. This resulted in a great loss for Dingane against his brother Mpande who had co-opted the Boers to fight on his side.
Dingane ordered his death through slow strangulation by cow hide thong.
Mpande and after.
Ndlela's inaction against Mpande preserved the blood line of the Zulu monarchy. Mpande, the king after Dingane, was married to Ndlela's daughter Msukilethe. Mpande's son Cetshwayo in turn succeeded him. All subsequent Zulu monarchs are descended from Mpande.
Monument.
In 2004 a monument to Ndlela kaSompisi was unveiled in KwaZulu Natal, attended by Jacob Zuma.


Kite Fiqi

Ibrahim Fiqi Yusuf (), more commonly known as Kite Fiqi, was a Somali military leader and a poet. As a military leader, he led the Soocane faction during the early to mid 19th century, consisting of forces from various sub-divisions of the Habr Je'lo clan. The Soocane faction ruled over most of what is today eastern Somaliland.
Overview.
Kite Fiqi was born in 1810 to a religious family. He belonged to the Habr Je'lo clan, part of the Isaaq clan family. His father, Fiqi Yusuf, was a scholar.


Hendrik Swellengrebel

Hendrik Swellengrebel (Cape Town, 20 September 1700 – Utrecht, 26 December 1760) was the first and only Dutch East India Company governor of the Dutch Cape Colony who was born in the Cape.
Life.
Swellengrebel was governor from 14 April 1739 to 27 February 1751. In his time, new districts were added to the colony. The town of Swellendam in the Western Cape is named after him and his wife Helena Wilhelmina ten Damme.
In 1751 he was succeeded as governor by Ryk Tulbagh. Upon return to the Netherlands, he bought the land now known as the "Kaapse Bossen" (Cape Forests) in Utrecht.