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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was ...
Sep 27, 2024 · J.R.R. Tolkien (born January 3, 1892, Bloemfontein, South Africa—died September 2, 1973, Bournemouth, Hampshire, England) was an English writer and scholar who achieved fame with his children’s book The Hobbit (1937) and his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55).
The period 1898–1910 was crucial in the history of South Africa and included the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the ensuing peace treaty, and the 1910 formation of the Union of South Africa. Back in England, Kipling wrote poetry in support of the British cause in the Boer War and on his next visit to South Africa in early 1900, became a ...
In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows scientists' trail of discoveries about human origins, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies as well as their...
- Early Life
- Education
- Vision For Africa
- Exploration of Southern and Central Africa
- Stanley Meeting
- Christianity and Sechele
- Death
- Livingstone and Slavery
- Legacy
- Family Life
Livingstone was born on 19 March 1813 in the mill town of Blantyre, Scotland, in a tenement building for the workers of a cotton factory on the banks of the River Clyde under the bridge crossing into Bothwell.He was the second of seven children born to Neil Livingstone (1788–1856) and his wife Agnes (née Hunter; 1782–1865). David was employed at th...
Livingstone attended Blantyre village school, along with the few other mill children with the endurance to do so despite their 14-hour workday (6 am–8 pm). Having a family with a strong, continuing commitment to study reinforced his education. At the age of 21, he was excited by a pamphlet his father got from the church setting out Gützlaff's call ...
Though Livingstone had responded to Gützlaff's call for missionaries to China, the looming First Opium War made the LMS directors cautious about sending recruits there. When he asked to extend his probationary training at Ongar, Cecil told him of their wish that he should be employed in the West Indies "in preference to South Africa". On 2 July 183...
To improve his Tswana language skills and find locations to set up mission stations, Livingstone made journeys far to the north of Kolobeng with William Cotton Oswell. In 1849 they crossed the Kalahari Desert and reached Lake Ngami. In 1850, he was recognised by the Royal Geographical Society which presented him a chronometer watch for 'his journey...
Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years and was ill for most of the last four years of his life. Only one of his 44 letter dispatches made it to Zanzibar. One surviving letter to Horace Wallerwas made available to the public in 2010 by its owner Peter Beard. It reads: "I am terribly knocked up but this is for your o...
Livingstone is known as "Africa's greatest missionary," yet he is recorded as having converted only one African: Sechele, who was the chief of the Kwena people of Botswana (Kwena are one of the main Sotho-Tswana clans, found in South Africa, Lesotho, and Botswana in all three Sotho-Tswana language groupings). Sechele was born in 1812. His father di...
Livingstone died on 1 May 1873 at the age of 60 in Chief Chitambo's village at Chipundu, southeast of Lake Bangweulu, in present-day Zambia, from malaria and internal bleeding due to dysentery. Led by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi, his expedition arranged funeral ceremonies. They removed his heart and buried it under a tree near the spot wher...
While talking about the slave trade in East Africa in his journals: Livingstone wrote about a group of slaves forced to march by Arab slave traders in the African Great Lakesregion when he was travelling there in 1866: He also described: Often cited is Livingstone's estimate of the number of slaves that made it to market versus those who died becau...
By the late 1860s Livingstone's reputation in Europe had suffered owing to the failure of the missions he set up, and of the Zambezi Expedition; and his ideas about the source of the Nile were not supported. His expeditions were hardly models of order and organisation. His reputation was rehabilitated by Stanley and his newspaper,and by the loyalty...
While Livingstone had a great impact on the expansion of the British Empire, he did so at a tremendous cost to his family. In his absences, his children grew up missing their father, and his wife Mary (daughter of Mary and Robert Moffat), whom he married in 1845, endured very poor health, and died of malaria on 27 April 1862. He had six children: 1...
Aug 18, 2011 · In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows the trail of discoveries about our human origins made by scientists over the last hundred years, as well as describing the history of scholarship in...
Sep 20, 2024 · David Livingstone (born March 19, 1813, Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland—died May 1, 1873, Chitambo [now in Zambia]) was a Scottish missionary and explorer who exercised a formative influence on Western attitudes toward Africa.
