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A series that seeks to tell the story of the South Africa in some depth. Presented by experienced broadcaster/podcaster Des Latham and updated weekly, the episodes will take a listener throu...
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 Tr...
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 t...
The British had instigated a war in the Transvaal which fired off in early 1881, but they had already ignited another flashpoint - in Basuto...
The approach by the English political parties of the time to the young Boer Republics was confused, and even contradictory. William Gladston...
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 cons...
There is something magical about mountain passes, weaving through majesty, each corner beckoning a driver like a formidable and compelling s...
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 187...
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 hea...
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 gambli...
The twenty thousand strong Zulu army was camped near Nseka Mountain south of the British camp at Khambula hill — north west of modern day Vr...
The battles are coming thick and fast because this is the end of the seventh decade of the 19th Century - the British have just been defeate...
By mid-March 1879, Cetshwayo kaMpande made another attempt to open talks with Chelmsford, sending his indunas to negotiate for peace — but t...
Colonel Rowland’s number five column had been sent to guard the roads and garrison the Boer towns in the north eastern Transvaal — part to p...
We’re touring the sub-continent today, choose your mode of transport — Cape Cart, ox-wagon, horse, mule, on foot? Before the arrival of stea...
We’re touring the sub-continent today, choose your mode of transport — Cape Cart, ox-wagon, horse, mule, on foot? Before the arrival of stea...
It’s the 23rd January 1879, one of the most momentous days in South African history has passed, and the ripple effect will be felt across th...
Episode 258 Rorke’s Drift part two. It’s important to listen to Episode 257 because that sets everything up for this episode - there’s too m...
Rorke’s Drift was a battle that Cetshwayo kaMpande did not want, because it took place on the western bank of the Mzinyathi or Buffalo River...
Lord Chelmsford who had scurried off to the east in support of Major Dartnell only made it back to the slopes of Isandlwana at dusk on the d...
When we ended last episode a mounted patrol had stumbled on the main Zulu army of twenty thousand men which had which had hunkered down in t...
The morning of January 22, 1879, dawned with a deceptive, stillness across Zululand masking the fact that over 45,000 men were in motion acr...
Episode 253 - The order of Battle for Isandlwana and Nyezane as ‘ukuni’ Wood Heads North Three separate British columns are inside Zululand...
This is episode 252, it is January 19th 1879, and we’re standing alongside Lord Chelmsford at the British camp based at Rorke’s Drift — and...
Episode 251 and the British Invasion of Zululand is into it’s first week. King Cetshwayo kaMpande had prepared his people for war, and here...
First a quick note which the marketing weasel ordered me to announce. This week I received an email from Apple which read: "We’re thrilled t...
The invasion of Zululand did not arrive suddenly. It had been constructed brick by brick over the preceding months, through decisions made i...
Sir Bartle Frere’s ultimatum to Cetshwayo kaMpande of 11 January 1879 was about to expire. Last episode I explained the reasons behind Frere...
Episode 247 launches us into an intense period. We’re going to travel to the border between the Zulu kingdom and the Transvaal because there...
The year is1878 - and Cape Governor Sir Sir Bartle Frere is throwing the empire’s weight around South Africa. Let’s put ourselves in his sho...
Sir Bartle Frere had sailed into South Africa in March 1877 - lauded as a great British administrator in India. He arrived just in time to w...
Episode 244 and Victorian popular fiction author H Rider Haggard features as one of the main characters of this tale. Rider Haggards’ creati...
By 1876 the Sotho, Tswana, Venda, Pedi, the amaXhosa had all managed to secure for themselves a fairly easy access to firearms. The Griquala...
Episode 242 is about putting ploughs into the ground, how the rural areas of much of the country was experiencing something of an agricultur...
Episode 241 and we’re back with the diamond miners and their Kaias and Cocopans. More about this in a minute. A big thank you to Donald Pate...
This is episode 240 and our swivels to the north - a Great Apostle for Confederation and the pre-Scramble for Africa Geopolitical Omlette. P...
When we left off last episode amaHlubi chief Langalibalele and a few hundred warriors had sought shelter inside Basotholand, crossing the Dr...
This is episode 238 and it’s going to be full of legal back and forth, all about the Langalibalele Rebellion, another little war as the Lond...
Although responsible government had come comparatively late for the Cape Colony, the transition in many ways was still too early. It had com...
The sound of mining — And the sound of money — All across Griqualand West, tent towns mushroomed overnight, teeming with fortune seekers fro...
This is episode 235, and it’s back to high drama circa 1873. Before that just some news .. unbelievable as it may appear, Apple Podcasts has...
I have to say a big thank you to Adi and Janice who hosted me at their farm Kalmoesfontein this week as part of the Swartland Revolution eve...
This is an episode packed with odd resonances, echoes, large whiskers, many presidents and the origin of a modern bank. Now that the diamond...
This is episode 232 - Diamond Geology as an Art, Dinosaur Veldskoene and Waterboer’s claim Just a quick note about that amazing podcaster Ni...
Moshoeshoe, the Basotho king who’d outwitted, outfought and outlived most of his enemies, was nearing his end. He had managed to ensure his...
This is episode 230, From Knysna’s Burning Forests to Tolstoy’s War and Peace: The World in 1869. Globally, the end of the sixth decade of t...
Episode 229 - Moshoeshoe and the Red Dust, How War and famine led to British rule in Lesotho - we’re speeding up on the trek along history’s...
A quick shout out, this being the modern equivalent of a tip of the hat to Richard, who has made a significant donation to help me host this...
Episode 227 — a turning point not just in our nation’s past, but in the arc of 19th-century global history. For soon, the earth will yield i...
The years between 1865 and 1870 would bring a tangle of new challenges for the people of the south. Drought gripped the land with merciless...
This is episode 225, and the Griqua have trekked from Philippolis near modern day Kimberley, to the Maluti Mountains, a place called Nomansl...