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Cookhouse (village)
Cookhouse ( af, Kookhuis) is a small village located in Eastern Cape province, South Africa, some north of Port Elizabeth and east of Somerset East, on the west bank of the Great Fish River. Cookhouse is part of the Blue Crane Route Municipality, situated in Sarah Baartman District, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Cookhouse was an early colonial settlement. The Scottish abolitionist and poet, Thomas Pringle mentions Cookhouse in his journal. The town was also visited by early explorers and writers such as Dutch military commander Robert Jacob Gordon and French traveller François Levaillant. Gordon's stay in South Africa produced scientific writings, drawings and maps about the region. The town is home to the Cookhouse Wind Farm which comprises 66 turbines. The farm became operational in November 2014 and supplies clean energy to the Eskom grid. History The Great Fish River formed the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony until 1819. The current village is said to take its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Port Elizabeth
Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa's second-largest metropolitan district by area size. It is the sixth-most populous city in South Africa and is the cultural, economic and financial centre of the Eastern Cape. The city was founded as Port Elizabeth in 1820 by Sir Rufane Donkin, who was the governor of the Cape at the time. He named it after his late wife, Elizabeth, who had died in India. The Donkin memorial in the CBD of the city bears testament to this. Port Elizabeth was established by the government of the Cape Colony when 4,000 British colonists settled in Algoa Bay to strengthen the border region between the Cape Colony and the Xhosa. It is nicknamed "The Friendly City" or "The Windy City". In 2019, the Eastern Cape Geographical Names Committee recommended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Mann (poet)
Christopher Michael Zithulele Mann(1948 – 10 March 2021) was a South African poet. Biography Chris Mann was born in Port Elizabeth in 1948 and went to Diocesan College (Bishops) in Rondebosch, Cape Town. He studied English and Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, and went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar where he was awarded an MA in English Language and Literature. He also studied African Oral Literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. From 1977 to 1980 he held a lecturer post in the English Department at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. From 1980 to 1995 he worked with an NGO, The Valley Trust at KwaNyuswa outside Durban, after which he returned to Rhodes University where he was a professor of poetry with the Institute for the Study of English in Africa. He was founder and convenor of Wordfest, a national multilingual festival of South African languages and literature with a developmental emphasis. A native En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Government Railways
The Cape Government Railways (CGR) was the government-owned railway operator in the Cape Colony from 1874 until the creation of the South African Railways (SAR) in 1910. History Private railways The first railways at the Cape were privately owned. The Cape Town Railway and Dock Company started construction from Cape Town in 1859, reaching Eerste River by 1862 and Wellington by 1863. Meanwhile, by 1864, the Wynberg Railway Company had connected Cape Town and Wynberg. For the moment, railway development at the Cape did not continue eastwards beyond Wellington because of the barrier presented by the mountains of the Cape Fold Belt. Formation of CGR The discovery of diamonds, and the consequent rush to Kimberley that started in 1871, gave impetus to the development of railways in South Africa. Shortly afterwards, in 1872, the Cape Colony attained responsible government under the leadership of Prime Minister John Molteno, who presented plans for an enormous network of railways t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Port Alfred
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manchester and Duluth; these access the sea via rivers or canals. Because of their roles as ports of entry for immigrants as well as soldiers in wartime, many port cities have experienced dramatic multi-ethnic and multicultural changes throughout their histories. Ports are extremely important to the global economy; 70% of global merchandise trade by value passes through a port. For this reason, ports are also often densely populated settlements that provide the labor for processing and handling goods and related services for the ports. Today by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as Singapore and the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Aar
De Aar is a town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It has a population of around 42,000 inhabitants. It is the second-most important railway junction in the country, situated on the line between Cape Town and Kimberley. The junction was of particular strategic importance to the British during the Second Boer War. De Aar is also a primary commercial distribution centre for a large area of the central Great Karoo. Major production activities of the area include wool production and livestock farming. The area is also popular for hunting, although the region is rather arid. De Aar is also affectionately known as "Die SES" deriving its nickname from the six farms that have surrounded De Aar since the 1900s. History De Aar was originally established on the Farm "De Aar." The name means "the artery," a reference to its underground water supply. The Cape Government Railways were founded in 1872, and the route that the government chose for the line to connect the Kimberl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Molteno
Sir John Charles Molteno (5 June 1814 – 1 September 1886) was a soldier, businessman, champion of responsible government and the first Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Early life Born in London into a large Anglo-Italian family, Molteno emigrated to the Cape in 1831 at the age of 17, where he found work as an assistant to the public librarian in Cape Town. At the age of 23 he founded his first company, ''Molteno & Co.'', a trading company that exported wine, wool and aloes to Mauritius and the West Indies, and opened branches around the Cape. In 1841, he undertook Southern Africa's first experimental export of fruit, loading a ship with a range of fruits (necessarily dried, as no refrigeration existed yet) and sending it to Australia to test foreign markets. The experiment ended in disaster when his ship was wrecked in a storm – pushing Molteno close to bankruptcy. Disposing of the remains of his mercantile businesses, he immediately bought some land in the arid Bea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archiving, web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cookhouse
A cookhouse is a small building where cooking takes place. Often found at remote work camps, they complemented the bunkhouse and were usually found on ranches that employed cowboys, or loggers in a logging camp. Prior to the 20th century, cookhouses were a feature of some private residences where the kitchen was a separate building so the heat and smoke from cooking was kept away from the main residential building. Types of cookhouses In North America, cookhouses were a standard feature of remote work sites, as the working men (e.g. cowboys, loggers, miners, etc.) needed large amounts of food for the strenuous work they performed. In logging camps, cooks were important to the morale of the workers. In some cases, workers would follow a cook to the camp where they were working each season. The cookhouse was one of the key buildings at any work site, along with the bunkhouse and tool shed. The use of a cookhouse was not limited to resource extraction industries. Travelling circus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa. The British colony was preceded by an earlier corporate colony that became an Dutch Cape Colony, original Dutch colony of the same name, which was established in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company, Dutch East India Company (VOC). The Cape was under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and under rule of the Napoleonic Batavian Republic, Batavia Republic from 1803 to 1806. The VOC lost the colony to Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain following the 1795 Invasion of the Cape Colony, Battle of Muizenberg, but it was acceded to the Batavian Republic, Batavia Republic following the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. It was re-occupied by the British following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Levaillant
François Levaillant (born Vaillant, later in life as Le Vaillant, ''"The Valiant"'') (6 August 1753 – 22 November 1824) was a French author, explorer, naturalist, zoological collector, and noted ornithologist. He described many new species of birds based on birds he collected in Africa and several birds are named after him. He was among the first to use colour plates for illustrating birds and opposed the use of binomial nomenclature introduced by Carl Linnaeus, preferring instead to use descriptive French names such as the bateleur (meaning "tumbler or tight-rope walker") for the distinctive African eagle. Life François Vaillant was born in Paramaribo, the capital of Dutch Guiana ( Surinam), the son of Nicolas François, a French lawyer from Metz who had fled there after eloping with his mother Catherine Joséphine and then took up a position as the French Consul. Growing up amid forests, François took an interest in the local fauna, collecting birds and insects. His family ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Jacob Gordon
Robert Jacob Gordon (29 September 1743, in Doesburg, Gelderland – 25 October 1795, in Cape Town) was a Dutch explorer, soldier, artist, naturalist and linguist of Scottish descent. Life Robert Jacob Gordon was the son of Maj. General Jacob Gordon of the Scots Brigade (1572–1782) in the service of the Netherlands. Although of Scottish descent, Robert Gordon's allegiance and service lay with the Netherlands. He joined the Dutch Light Dragoons as a cadet in 1753 and enrolled at the University of Harderwijk in 1759. Here he studied in the humanities and soon proved to be of exceptional intelligence with diverse interests. He served at first with the Scots Brigade and later joined the Dutch East India Company, rising to the rank of colonel and commanding the Cape garrison between 1780 and 1795 and lived in the manor house known as Schoonder Sight. He went on more expeditions than any other 18th-century explorer of southern Africa. Of the six journeys he undertook, only four betw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
