Rhodesia, officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979. During this fourteen-year period, Rhodesia served as the de facto successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, and in 1980 it became modern day Zimbabwe.
Ian Douglas Smith was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first leader to be born and raised in Rhodesia, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965 in opposition to their demands for the implementation of majority rule as a condition for independence. His 15 years in power were defined by the country's international isolation and involvement in the Rhodesian Bush War, which pitted the Rhodesian Security Forces against the Soviet and Chinese-funded military wings of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU).
Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was a statement adopted by the Cabinet of Rhodesia on 11 November 1965, announcing that Rhodesia a British territory in southern Africa that had governed itself since 1923, now regarded itself as an independent sovereign state. The culmination of a protracted dispute between the British and Rhodesian governments regarding the terms under which the latter could become fully independent, it was the first unilateral break from the United Kingdom by one of its colonies since the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. The UK, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations all deemed Rhodesia's UDI illegal, and economic sanctions, the first in the UN's history, were imposed on the breakaway colony. With the help of the Commonwealth Secretariat, members of the Commonwealth were able to cooperate and advise Rhodesian Africans on policy. Amid near-complete international isolation, Rhodesia continued as an unrecognised state with the assistance of South Africa and Portugal.
The Selous Scouts was a special forces unit of the Rhodesian Army that operated during the Rhodesian Bush War from 1973 until the reconstitution of the country as Zimbabwe in 1980. It was mainly responsible for infiltrating the black majority population of Rhodesia and collecting intelligence on insurgents so that they could be attacked by regular elements of the security forces. The unit did this by forming small teams that posed as insurgents and usually included captured insurgents. Over time, the Selous Scouts increasingly attacked insurgents themselves and operated in the countries that neighbored Rhodesia.
The Rhodesian Bush War, also known as the Second Chimurenga as well as the Zimbabwean War of Independence, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia.
The Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR) was a regiment of the Rhodesian Army. The ranks of the RAR were recruited from the black African population, although officers were generally from the white population. The regiment was formed in May 1940 in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia.
Prince Edward School is a public, boarding and day school for boys aged 13 to 19 in Harare, Zimbabwe. It provides education facilities to 1200+ boys in Forms I to VI. The school is served by a graduate staff of over 100 teachers.
The Rhodesian Security Forces were the military forces of the Rhodesian government. The Rhodesian Security Forces consisted of a ground force, the Rhodesian Air Force, the British South Africa Police, and various personnel affiliated to the Rhodesian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Despite the impact of economic and diplomatic sanctions, Rhodesia was able to develop and maintain a potent and professional military capability.
Air Rhodesia Flight 825 was a scheduled passenger flight that was shot down by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) on 3 September 1978, during the Rhodesian Bush War. The aircraft involved, a Vickers Viscount named the Hunyani, was flying the last leg of Air Rhodesia's regular scheduled service from Victoria Falls to the capital Salisbury, via the resort town of Kariba.
The Police Support Unit, also known by their nickname of the Black Boots, is a paramilitary wing of the Zimbabwe Republic Police. They were founded as a native police force but later developed into a counter-insurgency unit of the British South Africa Police in Rhodesia during the Rhodesian Bush War. The unit was the only paramilitary unit retained by the Zimbabwe Republic Police after the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe.
Leonard Ray Morgan (1894–1967) was the first permanent Secretary for Education in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
The Geneva Conference took place in Geneva, Switzerland during the Rhodesian Bush War. Held under British mediation, its participants were the unrecognised government of Rhodesia, led by Ian Smith, and a number of rival Rhodesian black nationalist parties: the African National Council, led by Bishop Abel Muzorewa; the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe, led by James Chikerema; and a joint "Patriotic Front" made up of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union and the Zimbabwe African People's Union led by Joshua Nkomo. The purpose of the conference was to attempt to agree on a new constitution for Rhodesia and in doing so find a way to end the Bush War raging between the government and the guerrillas commanded by Mugabe and Nkomo respectively.
7 Independent Company was a short-lived company of francophone volunteers in the Rhodesian Army during the Rhodesian Bush War. Numbering about 200 men at its peak, it was unique in the history of the Rhodesian Army as an exclusively expatriate unit. It existed between November 1977 and May 1978 as a company in the 1st Battalion, the Rhodesia Regiment, and served two counter-insurgency tours on Operation Hurricane in north-eastern Rhodesia.
The modern political history of Zimbabwe starts with the arrival of white people to what was dubbed Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s. The country was initially run by an administrator appointed by the British South Africa Company. The prime ministerial role was first created in October 1923, when the country achieved responsible government, with Sir Charles Coghlan as its first Premier. The third premier, George Mitchell, renamed the post prime minister in 1933.
The British South Africa Company's administration of what became Rhodesia was chartered in 1889 by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and began with the Pioneer Column's march north-east to Mashonaland in 1890. Empowered by its charter to acquire, govern and develop the area north of the Transvaal in southern Africa, the Company, headed by Cecil Rhodes, raised its own armed forces and carved out a huge bloc of territory through treaties, concessions and occasional military action, most prominently overcoming the Matabele army in the First and Second Matabele Wars of the 1890s. By the turn of the century, Rhodes's Company held a vast, land-locked country, bisected by the Zambezi river. It officially named this land Rhodesia in 1895, and ran it until the early 1920s.
In August 1914, the United Kingdom declared war on the German Empire at the start of World War I. The settler society in Southern Rhodesia, then administered by the British South Africa Company, received the news with great patriotic enthusiasm. The Company administrator, Sir William Milton, wired the UK government, "All Rhodesia ... ready to do its duty". Although it supported Britain, the company was concerned about the possible financial implications for its chartered territory should it make direct commitments to the war effort, particularly at first. As a result, most of the colony's contribution to the war was made by Southern Rhodesians individually—not only those who volunteered to fight abroad, but also those who remained at home and raised funds to donate food, equipment and other supplies.
On 6 August 1977, during the Rhodesian Bush War, a Woolworths store in Salisbury, Rhodesia was bombed by nationalist forces. Eleven civilians were killed and 76 were injured. Of those killed, eight were black Rhodesians, including two pregnant women and a young boy, and three were whites, members of a single family, Gillian and Donald Mayor and their mother. Mr Mayor and another daughter, Wendy, were seated in a car outside when the bomb went off.
The Rhodesian Defence Regiment (RDR) was a unit of the Rhodesian Army during the last years of the Rhodesian Bush War from 1978 to 1980. It was a guard unit composed of mainly coloured and Asian conscripts.
Matthew Jonathan Raggett is a British educator, writer and the former Headmaster of The Doon School, the all-boys boarding school in Dehradun, India. He succeeded Peter McLaughlin in 2016, becoming the tenth headmaster of the school. Raggett left Doon in January 2020 and returned to Germany. He was the fourth Englishman in Doon's history to head the school and was a member of The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, UK. Jagpreet Singh succeeded him as headmaster, and joined the school in June 2020. He is currently the Director of the Thuringia International School (ThIS), Weimar, DE.
N.H. Brettell was a British-Zimbabwean poet and writer. His poetry collection, Bronze Frieze: Poems Mostly Rhodesian was published by Oxford University Press in 1950. The South African poet Douglas Livingstone remarked that Brettell was the best poet writing in the region. Brettell was awarded the Book Centre / P.E.N. Centre of Rhodesia Annual Literary Prize in 1972 and 1978.
