Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigating and describing the Silurian, Devonian and Permian systems.
Moyeni is the capital city or camptown of Quthing District in Lesotho. Quthing was established in 1877, abandoned in the Gun War of 1880, and then rebuilt at its present site – the southernmost town in Lesotho. It has a population of 27,314.
Ladysmith is a city in the Uthukela District of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It lies 230 kilometres (140 mi) north-west of Durban and 365 kilometres (227 mi) south-east of Johannesburg. Important industries in the area include food processing, textiles, and tyre production. Ladysmith is the seat for both the Alfred Duma Local Municipality and Uthukela District Municipality.
Fort Tenedos was a large earth-walled fort constructed on the Zulu side of the Tugela River in January 1879, opposite Fort Pearson, to support the British at the start of the Anglo-Zulu War.
Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony William Durnford was an Irish career British Army officer of the Royal Engineers who served in the Anglo-Zulu War. Breveted colonel, Durnford is mainly known for his defeat by the Zulus at the Battle of Isandlwana, which was a disaster for the British Army.
The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside counties, before cutting through the northern Santa Ana Mountains via Santa Ana Canyon and flowing southwest through urban Orange County to drain into the Pacific Ocean. The Santa Ana River is 96 miles (154 km) long, and its drainage basin is 2,650 square miles (6,900 km2) in size.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert George Scott, VC, DSO was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Peter Brown was a Swedish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
Colonel Edmund Baron Hartley VC CMG was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
The Basuto Gun War, also known as the Basutoland Rebellion, was a conflict between the Basuto and the British Cape Colony. It lasted from 13 September 1880 to 29 April 1881 and ended in a Basuto victory.
Phuthi (Síphùthì) is a Nguni Bantu language spoken in southern Lesotho and areas in South Africa adjacent to the same border. The closest substantial living relative of Phuthi is Swati, spoken in Eswatini and the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. Although there is no contemporary sociocultural or political contact, Phuthi is linguistically part of a historic dialect continuum with Swati. Phuthi is heavily influenced by the surrounding Sesotho and Xhosa languages, but retains a distinct core of lexicon and grammar not found in either Xhosa or Sesotho, and found only partly in Swati to the north.
The Battle of Belmont was an engagement of the Second Boer War on 23 November 1899, where the British under Lord Methuen assaulted a Boer position on Belmont kopje.
The Queen's South Africa Medal is a British campaign medal awarded to British and Colonial military personnel, and to civilians employed in an official capacity, who served in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Altogether twenty-six clasps were awarded, to indicate participation in particular actions and campaigns.
The siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony, when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try to capture the area when war broke out between the British and the two Boer republics in October 1899. The town was ill-prepared, but the defenders organised an energetic and effective improvised defence that was able to prevent it from being taken.
The Zulu Kingdom, sometimes referred to as the Zulu Empire or the Kingdom of Zululand, is a monarchy in Southern Africa. During the 1810s, Shaka established a modern standing army that consolidated rival clans and built a large following which ruled a wide expanse of Southern Africa that extended along the coast of the Indian Ocean from the Tugela River in the south to the Pongola River in the north.
When the Second Boer War broke out on 11 October 1899, the Boers had a numeric superiority within Southern Africa. They quickly invaded the British territory and laid siege to Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking. Britain meanwhile transported thousands of troops both from the United Kingdom itself and from elsewhere in the Empire and by the time the siege of Ladysmith had been lifted, had a huge numeric superiority.
Touws River is a small railway town of 6,800 people in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is located on the river of the same name, about 160 kilometres (100 mi) north-east of Cape Town. The Touwsrivier CPV Solar Project is located just outside of the town and supplies 50 MW to the national electrical grid.
Christian Francis John Galloway BSc F.R.G.S., F.R.C.I. was of Scottish descent, born at Llantrissant Dinas, Wales, the second son of Sir William Galloway (1840–1927), mining engineer, and Christiana Maud Mary Gordon (1853–1880), and younger brother of William Albert Denis Galloway (1878–1957). He qualified as a mining engineer, and was later employed by the governments of British Columbia and Sarawak in Borneo to survey coal deposits.
Morosi was a Baphuthi chief in the wild southern part of Basutoland. He led a revolt against the Cape Colony government in 1879, in defence of his independence south of the Orange River. The British refused to help the Cape Government. However, Letsie, the paramount chief and first son of Moshoeshoe, and many of the Sotho ruling establishment, rallied to support the Cape forces, and the rebellion was put down after several months of arduous fighting. Morosi was beheaded and his body mutilated by Cape troops.
