A Trip Around South African People Quiz

Answer: Shaka

King Shaka airport, designed by Osmond Lange Architects, at a cost of R6.8 billion opened for business a month before the start of the 2010 World Cup.
According to tradition, the Zulu nation was founded by Zulu, son of Malandela who led a small section of the southerly Nguni migration into, what is today, KwaZulu-Natal.
King Shaka, the most famous of Zulu warrior kings, was born in 1787 and claimed to be a direct descendant of Zulu.
He was murdered by his two half brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana sometime in 1828.

Answer: Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town

Although the heart transplant was considered a success the recipient, Louis Washkansky, died eighteen days later from pneumonia.
Dr Barnard also performed the first kidney transplant in South Africa.
The Groote Schuur Hospital, opened in 1938, is still one of the leading academic hospitals in South Africa.
Dr Barnard died in Cyprus in 2001 from an asthma attack.

Answer: Mango Groove

Mango Groove, formed in 1983, have sold worldwide, had twelve South African No1 hits, also winning all the top South African music and video awards.
Their music has been described as a mix of South African marabi, kwela and pop influences.
In 1990 Mango Groove had the honour to play for Nelson Mandela at his inauguration as President of South Africa
Their charastmatic lead singer, Claire Johnston and haunting penny whistles tunes have helped to make them the great band they are. A great band to bop too!
If you've never heard them, here's one of my favourites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4HJfcecgos

Answer: Alan Paton

Alan Stewart Paton was born on 11 January 1903 in Pietermaritzburg.
His novel "Cry, the Beloved Country", published in 1948, sold millions around the world and it was being internationally known that helped the liberally minded champion of racial equality, Paton, to avoid trouble with the government, and travel around the world bringing attention to oppressive South African system. However, in 1960 his passport was taken and not returned to him until the 1970s!

He died in 1988 from throat cancer at his home in Natal.
The new 'South Africa's Bill of Rights' apparently contains many of his beliefs.

J.R.R Tolkien was also born in South Africa in Bloemfontein.

Answer: The first gold rush pioneers

Gold was discovered in quantity in Johannesburg in 1886. With it came the entrepreneurs and prospectors. Within twenty years the town, consisting of little more than tents, grew into a bricks and mortar town.
A couple of examples:

Robinson Street was named for one of the earliest entrepreneurs, Joseph Benjamin Robinson. An astute man who had already made money in the diamond mines of Kimberly. Robinson bought up farms and land in the area and was said to be worth 8 million pounds in just a few years after laying out only twenty-six thousand pounds.

There were six Von Brandis streets in Johannesburg named for Captain Carl von Brandis. When the farms were proclaimed open or digging he was given the position of Gold Commissioner and set up his office (a tent at the time) on what is now known as Commissioner street.
Since the end of apartheid many of the street names have been changed to reflect the country's new democracy.

Answer: Money

Basson, born in Capetown in 1880, was motivated by greed. He set up a money lending business, insisting that his clients took out a life insurance policy naming him as the beneficiary.
Possibly his first victim was his own younger brother, Jasper. Basson took out a life policy worth over three thousand pounds for Jasper. He then took his brother fishing at Gordon's Bay on 14 February 1903. Jasper was never seen again!
On 22 January 1906, Basson murdered Wilhelm Schaefer, a farmer whom he had been trying to defraud. However, a passerby witnessed the murder and the burial of Schaefer in Basson's back yard. When the police arrived to dig up his yard, Basson, rather than facing his crimes, shot himself in the head.

Answer: Basil Rathbone

Philip St.John Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg on 13 June, 1892. His British born parents were accused of being spies by the Boers, so when Basil was three years old the family left South Africa for England.
Rathbone made numerous film appearances including Sir Guy of Gisbourne "The Adventures of Robin Hood" in 1938 and Baron Wolf von Frankenstein "Son of Frankenstein" in 1939.
He was also a accomplished stage actor and was made a Knight Bachelor by George VI for his 'services to the stage'. In 1948 Rathbone won a "Tony" award for his performance in "The Heiress".
He died in New York City on 21 July 1967 from a heart attack.

Answer: Mvezo

Mvezo is a small village which was located in an area known as The Transkei, an area which was set aside during apartheid for black South Africans. It is now part of the Eastern Cape Province.

It was just outside Howick, a town in KwaZulu-Natal, that Nelson Mandela was caught and arrested by government forces on 5 August 1962.

Mandela was imprisoned or twenty seven years, spending eighteen of those years on Robben Island which is a small island just of the coast from Capetown.
Mandela was released on 2 February 1990 and became the first black present of South Africa on 10 May 1994.

Nelson Mandela returned to his natal homeland in July 2011, maybe because it is a Xosha custom to die where you are born. Hopefully that will not be a while, even the greatest of statesmen deserve a rest with their family.

Answer: Jan van Riebeeck

Commander (Governor) Jan van Riebeeck set out from the Netherlands on Christmas Eve in 1651 for the Cape with five ships. His mission was to establish a victualling station for the Dutch East India Company.
The Cape was about half way between the mother country and the riches of the East and the station was to provide fresh meat and vegetables for the merchantmen travelling back and forth.
Within 350 years this little station grew into a country, the new South Africa.

Answer: Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba was born in a township near Johannesburg in 1932 to a Xhosa father and a Swazi mother.
She became an active opponent of her countries oppressive apartheid regime and was affectionately known as "Mama Africa".
She once said, "I don't sing about politics; I sing the truth." She was exiled from South Africa from the 1960s until the release of Nelson Mandela in the 1990s, when she returned to South Africa to a hero's welcome.
During her exile she performed worldwide and became an overnight sensation in the jazz clubs of New York.
She was invited to sing at President Kennedy's forty fifth birthday party, appearing alongside Marylin Monroe.

Miriam Makeba died in Naples in November 2008. She collapsed on stage after singing in a memorial concert for six immigrants from Ghana who were shot dead in the previous September.

"'Retire? I will sing till the day I die", wrote Miriam Makeba in her 2004 biography 'Makeba' ".