The national anthem of South Africa was adopted in 1997 and is a hybrid song combining extracts of the 19th century Xhosa hymn "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" and the Afrikaans song that was used as the South African national anthem during the apartheid era, "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika", with new English lyrics.
The Great Trek was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British Empire. It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers", "pathfinders" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
The Voortrekker Monument is located just south of Pretoria in South Africa. The granite structure is located on a hilltop, and was raised to commemorate the Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony between 1835 and 1854. It was designed by the architect Gerard Moerdijk.
Fokofpolisiekar is an Afrikaans alternative rock band from Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. Due to the obscenity in the name, they are also commonly known simply as Polisiekar or FPK.
Gustav Schoeman Preller was a journalist, historian, writer and literary critic. He fought for the recognition of Afrikaans. Preller helped the Afrikaner to awake to the importance of the history of South Africa. He made great contributions to the writing of South African history, through his research and the literature. He also contributed greatly to making South Africans aware of the legacy of the Voortrekkers and also played an early part in planning the Voortrekker Monument.
Allan Wilson was an officer in the Victoria Volunteers. He is best known for his leadership of the Shangani Patrol in the First Matabele War. His death fighting overwhelming odds made him a national hero in Britain and Rhodesia.
Major Patrick William Forbes was a British South Africa Police officer who commanded a British South Africa Company force which invaded Matabeland during the First Matabele War.
Patrick Beattie Mynhardt was a well-known South African film and theatre actor. He appeared in over 150 stage plays in South Africa and England, 100 local and international films, TV plays and serials as well as an opera. He died in London, where he was performing in his one-man show Boy from Bethulie at the Jermyn Street Theatre in the West End.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Africa is a Reformed Christian denomination based in South Africa. It also has congregations in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Along with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) and the Reformed Churches in South Africa, the NHKA is one of the three Dutch Reformed sister churches of South Africa. The NHKA retains the old Nomenclature Nederduitsch, the word originally referring to the Dutch language. The word refers to the Low Saxon language today. The Dutch language remained the official language of the church until 1933 when the church started functioning almost exclusively in Afrikaans.
Shangani Patrol is a war film based upon the non-fiction book A Time to Die by Robert Cary (1968), and the historical accounts of the Shangani Patrol, with Brian O'Shaughnessy as Major Allan Wilson and Will Hutchins as the lead Scout Frederick Russell Burnham. Also includes the song "Shangani Patrol" by Nick Taylor.
Brian O'Shaughnessy was a British-born film actor. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, in 1931, but was evacuated during the Second World War to South Africa, where he later found fame as an actor.
The Shangani Patrol was a 34-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors in pre-Southern Rhodesia, during the First Matabele War. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia. Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called "Wilson's Last Stand", achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, similarly to events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Battle of the Alamo in the United States.
Al (Alec) Debbo was a South African comedian, singer and actor. As one of the most famous artists of his generation he made an enormous contribution to Afrikaner music and culture.
Anna M. Louw was a South African author. She was born in Calvinia in a so-called "Nagmaalhuis". Her father was a sheep farmer near Calvinia on the farm Soetwater and her mother was a teacher on a farm school in the district.
The 1992 Currie Cup was the top division of the Currie Cup competition, the premier domestic rugby union competition in South Africa. This was the 54th season since the competition started in 1889.
Stephanus Petrus Erasmus Trichard was a field cornet and Commander for the South African Republic in the First and Second Boer War.
Bethlehem Voortrekker High School is a public co-education dual medium High School situated in Wesweg, Bethlehem, South Africa. Voortrekker High School was founded in 1870 by the Dutch Reformed Church. It was reopened in 1902 after the Anglo Boer War under the leadership of Dr George Clark.
Ian Yule was a British born South African actor and soldier. He had a film career that commenced in the late 1960s and lasted to around the early to mid 2000s. Many of the roles he has played are that of a soldier. The films he has appeared in include Killer Force, in 1976, One Way also released in 1976, Golden Rendezvous in 1977, The Wild Geese in 1978, —Safari 3000 in 1982, City of Blood in 1983, and many more. He was also a stuntman in a few films. He also was a screenwriter and wrote some screen plays including Shamwari in which he starred opposite Ken Gampu. He was a well known actor in South Africa.
Martha Mabel Jansen, DMS was a South African educator, writer, journalist, cultural leader, politician and pioneer in the promotion of Afrikaans, as well as the spouse of the penultimate Governor-General of the Union of South Africa, E.G. Jansen.
