South Africa

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The **Republic of South Africa** (**RSA**) is the nation/setting that takes place in Michael Jamison videos.

## History

###### *(Main Article:* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_South\_Africa.)

The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. South Africa's prehistory has been divided into two phases based on broad patterns of technology: the Stone Age and Iron Age. Australopithecine fossils have been discovered at Taung and in limestone caves at Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Kromdraai. In 1999, Unesco designated the region the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site.

South Africa's first known inhabitants have been referred to as the Khoisan, the Khoekhoe and the San. Starting in about 1,000 BCE, these groups were then joined by people who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion southwards through Africa. While some maintained separateness, others were grouped into a category known as Coloureds, a multiracial ethnic group legally defined by apartheid authorities. The definition included people with shared ancestry from two or more of these groups: Khoisan, Bantu, English, Afrikaners, Austronesians, East Asians and South Asians.

European exploration of the African coast began in the 13th century when Portugal committed itself to discover an alternative route to the silk road that would lead to China. In the 14th and 15th century, Portuguese explorers traveled down the west African Coast, detailing and mapping the coastline and in 1488 they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, European workers who settled at the Cape became known as the Free Burghers and gradually established farms in the Dutch Cape Colony.

Following the Invasion of the Cape Colony by the British in 1795 and 1806, mass migrations collectively known as the Great Trek occurred during which the Voortrekkers established several Boer settlements on the interior of South Africa. The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the nineteenth century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto the world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialisation and the development of urban infrastructure. The discoveries also led to new conflicts culminating in open warfare between the Boer settlers and the British Empire, fought essentially for control over the nascent South African mining industry.

Following the defeat of the Boers in the Anglo–Boer or South African War (1899–1902), the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on 31 May 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909, which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Transvaal Colony, and Orange River Colony. The country became a fully sovereign nation state within the British Empire, in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act. The monarchy came to an end on 31 May 1961, replaced by a republic as the consequence of a 1960 referendum, which legitimised the country becoming the Republic of South Africa.

From 1948–1994, South African politics was dominated by Afrikaner nationalism. Racial segregation and white minority rule known officially as apartheid, an Afrikaans word meaning "separateness", was implemented in 1948. On 27 April 1994, after decades of passive resistance, armed struggle, and international opposition to apartheid, the first black party African National Congress (ANC) achieved victory in the country's first democratic election. Since then, the African National Congress has governed South Africa, in an alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

On 11th September 1974, Michael Jamison was born in Springs, Gauteng, South Africa.

## Geography and Climate

South Africa has, in general, a Mediterranean style climate with Hot and dry Summers and Mild, wet Winters with occasional Snow. Due to the warm climate, South Africa is one of the World’s Wine regions.