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Bartholomew Diaz
Bartolomeu Dias ( – 29 May 1500) was a Portuguese mariner and explorer. In 1488, he became the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa and to demonstrate that the most effective southward route for ships lies in the open ocean, well to the west of the African coast. His discoveries were later used by Vasco da Gama to establish a sea route between Europe and Asia. Early life Bartolomeu Dias was born around 1450 in the Faro District of Portugal. His family had a maritime background, and one of his ancestors, Dinis Dias, explored the African coast in the 1440s and discovered the Cap-Vert peninsula in today's Senegal in 1445. Tracing his biography is complicated by the existence of several contemporary Portuguese seafarers with the same name. In 1481, Dias accompanied an expedition, led by Diogo de Azambuja, to construct a fortress and trading post called São Jorge da Mina in the Gulf of Guinea. Indirect evidence also points to his possible participation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Commission Of South Africa, London
The High Commission of South Africa in London is the diplomatic mission from South Africa to the United Kingdom. It is located at South Africa House, a building on Trafalgar Square, London. As well as containing the offices of the High Commissioner, the building also hosts the South African consulate. It has been a Grade II* listed building since 1982. History South Africa House was built by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts in the 1930s on the site of what had been Morley's Hotel. The building was designed by Sir Herbert Baker, with architectural sculpture by Coert Steynberg and Sir Charles Wheeler, and opened in 1933. The building was acquired by the government of South Africa as its main diplomatic presence in the UK. During World War II, Prime Minister Jan Smuts lived there while conducting South Africa's war plans. In 1961, South Africa became a republic, and withdrew from the Commonwealth due to its policy of racial segregation. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John II Of Portugal
John II (; ; 3 May 1455 – 25 October 1495), called the Perfect Prince (), was King of Portugal from 1481 until his death in 1495, and also for a brief time in 1477. He is known for reestablishing the power of the Portuguese monarchy, reinvigorating the economy of Portugal, and renewing the Portuguese exploration of Africa and Asia. Early life Born in Lisbon on 3 May 1455, John was the second son of Afonso V of Portugal and Isabella of Coimbra. At one month old, on 25 June 1455, he was declared legitimate heir to the crown and received an oath of allegiance from the three estates. In 1468, Afonso V and Henry IV of Castile attempted to arrange a double marriage in which John would marry Henry's daughter, Joanna, and Afonso would marry Henry's half-sister and heir-presumptive, Isabella of Castile. However, Isabella refused to consent to the arrangement. Instead, John married Eleanor of Viseu, his first cousin and the eldest daughter of Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, on 22 Janu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boesmans River (Eastern Cape)
Boesmans River () is a river in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It originates north of Kirkwood and runs east past Alicedale, before it turns and twists south and east to Kenton-on-Sea, where it mouths into the Indian Ocean through a tidal estuary only 1.7 km to the SW of the mouth of the Kariega River. Tributaries Its tributaries include: Bega River, iCamtarha, Ncazala River, Komga River, New Years River, Steins River, Swartwaters River, Soutkloof River and Bou River. See also * List of rivers of South Africa This is a list of rivers in South Africa. It is quite common to find the Afrikaans word ''-rivier'' as part of the name. Another common suffix is "''-kamma''", from the Khoisan term for "river" Meiring, Barbara"South African Toponymic Guidelin ... * Bushman's River Mouth References External linksBoesmansriviermondat Geonames.org (cc-by) Rivers of the Eastern Cape {{SouthAfrica-river-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwaaihoek
Kwaaihoek is a rocky headland on the coast of Algoa Bay, at Boknesstrand near Bushman's River Mouth in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is a section of the Addo Elephant National Park. It is here that the Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias erected the ''Padrão de São Gregório'', his first padrão, or stone cross on 12 March 1488. First visited by Robert Jacob Gordon on 13 February 1786, remnants of the cross were rediscovered in 1938 by E. Axelson and transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. away, shortly after midnight on 17 July 1755, the East Indiaman East Indiamen were merchant ships that operated under charter or licence for European trading companies which traded with the East Indies between the 17th and 19th centuries. The term was commonly used to refer to vessels belonging to the Bri ... ''Doddington'' struck the south-eastern corner of the low-lying Bird Island (or Chaos Island as it was then known). She went d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mossel Bay
Mossel Bay () is a harbour town of about 170,000 people on the Garden Route of South Africa. It is an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province. Mossel Bay lies 400 kilometres east of the country's seat of parliament, Cape Town (which is also the capital city of the Western Cape), and 400 km west of Gqeberha, the largest city in the Eastern Cape. The older parts of the town occupy the north-facing side of the Cape St Blaize Peninsula, whilst the newer suburbs straddle the Peninsula and have spread eastwards along the sandy shore of the Bay. The town's economy relied heavily on farming, fishing and its commercial harbour (the smallest in the Transnet Ports Authority, Transnet Port Authority's stable of South African commercial harbours), until the 1969 discovery of natural offshore gas fields led to the development of the gas to liquids, gas-to-liquids refinery operated by PetroSA. Tourism is another important driver of Mossel Bay's economy. Etymolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the northeast, approximating a quadripoint, Zimbabwe lies less than 200 metres (660 feet) away along the Zambezi, Zambezi River near Kazungula, Zambia. Namibia's capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been inhabited since prehistoric times by the Khoekhoe, Khoi, San people, San, Damara people, Damara and Nama people. Around the 14th century, immigration, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. From 1600 the Ovambo people#History, Ovambo formed kingdoms, such as Ondonga and Oukwanyama. In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walvis Bay
Walvis Bay (; ; ) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the List of cities in Namibia, second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The city covers an area of of land. The bay is a haven for sea vessels due to its natural deep-water harbour, protected by the Pelican Point sand spit, which is the only natural harbour of any size along the country's coast. Being rich in plankton and marine life, these waters also draw large numbers of southern right whales, attracting whalers and fishing vessels. A succession of colonists developed the location and resources of this strategic harbour settlement. The harbour's value about the sea route around the Cape of Good Hope had caught the attention of world powers since it was discovered by the outside world in 1485. The importance of the harbour, combined with its extreme isolation by land, explains the complicated political history of the town. For much of its history, Walvis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porto Alexandre, Angola
Porto Alexandre, occasionally known in English as ''Port Alexander'', is a bay in Angola. It is located in the Namibe Province. Geography Porto Alexandre is a very well-sheltered bay of the South Atlantic Ocean. The bay is facing east, with high sandstone cliffs rising from the Ponta do Porto, the promontory guarding the eastern end of the harbour located at the end of the protecting landspit. ''Saco da Baleia'' is a bay located west of the western end of the spit. The town of Tômbua is located on the southern shore of the bay. It was formerly a whaling port, but currently it is an important harbor for oil production and fishing in the area. The port has refrigeration facilities installed with European Union assistance at the Tombwa canning factory. See also * List of lighthouses in Angola * Geography of Angola Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Padrão
A ''padrão'' (literally "standard") (, '' standard''; plural: ) is a stone pillar left by Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries to record significant landfalls and thereby establish primacy and possession. They were often placed on promontories and capes or at the mouths of major rivers. Early markers were simple wooden pillars or crosses but they deteriorated quickly in the tropical climate where they were often erected. Later, ''padrões'' were carved from stone in the form of a pillar surmounted by a cross and the royal coat of arms. History Diogo Cão was the first to place stone padrões on his voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1482–1484. They had been carved ahead of time in Portugal and carried in his ship at the behest of King João II. Cão placed the pillars at points in what is now Gabon, Angola and Namibia. The first was installed at the mouth of the river Congo. In August 1483 he erected one on the headlands of Angola at Cab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
João De Barros
João de Barros (; 1496 – 20 October 1570), nicknamed the "Portuguese Livy", is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his (''Decades of Asia''), a history of the Portuguese in India, Asia, and southeast Africa. Early years João de Barros was born in Viseu, Portugal around 1496. He was the illegitimate son of Lopo de Barros, a squire in the royal household of Manuel I of Portugal and a holder of various judicial posts. Nothing is known of his mother. At a young age his father died and he was placed into service at the royal household, where he became a page to the heir apparent, Dom João, the future João III of Portugal. Educated in the palace, he composed, at the age of twenty, a romance of chivalry, the ''Chronicle of the Emperor Clarimundo'', in which he is said to have had the assistance of Prince John (later King John III). Upon ascending the throne, King John III awarded Barros the captaincy of the fortress of St George of Elmina, to which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, landslides, glacier calvings, meteorite impacts and other disturbances) above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami. Unlike normal ocean waves, which are generated by wind, or tides, which are in turn generated by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun, a tsunami is generated by the displacement of water from a large event. Tsunami waves do not resemble normal undersea currents or sea waves because their wavelength is far longer. Rather than appearing as a breaking wave, a tsunami may instead initially resemble a rapidly rising tide. For this reason, it is often referred to as a tidal wave, although this usage is not favoured by the scientific community because it might give the false impression of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
