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Episode 273 - The Mountain of Destiny: Majuba and the Birth of a Nation
It is not a stretch to say that the defeat by the British at Majuba was also the political birth of the Afrikaner people. While the Great Trek provid…
16 hours ago
Episode 272 - The Boers wring Major General Colley’s Column at Laing’s Nek
Weather, some say, is fickle. Of course nature is just nature but when you’re on high ground, the mountains, and the weather moves in, the temperatur…
1 week ago
Episode 271 - Basutoland Gun War, Gold Coast and Ottoman Empire
The British had instigated a war in the Transvaal which fired off in early 1881, but they had already ignited another flashpoint - in Basutoland. Thi…
2 weeks ago
Episode 270 - Kruger vs Black Michael and Courageous Women at the Battle of Bronkhorstspruit
The approach by the English political parties of the time to the young Boer Republics was confused, and even contradictory. William Gladstone, a libe…
3 weeks ago
Episode 269 - Bapedi Chief Sekhukhune’s Cruel Fate and the Afrikaner Paradox
The Bapedi have a rich and textured history, as with most of South Africa’s past, where religion and tradition are entwined to create a consciousness…
4 weeks ago
Episode 268 - The Theodolite and the Hardepad: Thomas Bain’s Silent Mountain Pass Artisans
There is something magical about mountain passes, weaving through majesty, each corner beckoning a driver like a formidable and compelling saga, muff…
1 month ago
Episode 267 - Betrayal at the End: Mnyamana, Cetshwayo’s Dutchman, and the Crushing of the Zulu Kingdom
Cornelius Vijn had made a few bad decisions in his life as we all do at some point. Born in Holland in 1856, he made his way to Natal in 1874 where h…
1 month, 1 week ago
Episode 266: The Wakkerstroom Boer-Zulu Alliance and the death of Prince Napoleon
As the British tried to wrap up their war against the Zulu in South Africa, further afield the happy sound of a baby being born could be heard in Ger…
1 month, 2 weeks ago
Episode 265 – John Dunn’s MI5 Connection, Gingindlovu, and the Relief of Eshowe
The last quarter of the 19th Century was in some ways, like the first quarter of the 21st Century - full of tone-deaf business barons gambling buildi…
1 month, 3 weeks ago
Episode 264 - The Forgotten Battle of Khambula (1879): The Turning Point of the Anglo-Zulu War
The twenty thousand strong Zulu army was camped near Nseka Mountain south of the British camp at Khambula hill — north west of modern day Vryheid. Af…
2 months ago