João Albasini was born in Lisbon, Portugal on 1 June 1813. Beside the fact that his father was a sea captain, little is known about young Albasini’s youth. In 1831, when João was 18, his father left him in charge of a trading post at Delagoa Bay (In present day Mozambique). It was here that the Tsonga people nurtured his hunting skills. After learning on buck he soon became a skilled elephant hunter and traded ivory with interior peoples.

The biography below is from a tribute to Badela written by Prof Guy Berger, the head of the department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University (2002).

"Mono Badela - South African journalistic legend"

Amy Biehl was born on 26 April 1967 to a Roman Catholic family in Newport Beach, California, in the United States of America (USA). She excelled academically and graduated as valedictorian from Sante Fe High School. She went on to study at Stanford University, where she had graduated with honours.

Professor Robert Broom was born on 30 November 1866 Paisley, Scotland to a poor family. He was educated as a doctor and received his degree from the University of Glasgow in 1895. In 1893 he married Mary Baird Baillie.

Broom specialized in the field of midwifery, but he was fascinated by the origin of mammals and used his medical profession to support him while he travelled the world. After traveling to Australia, he settled in South Africa in 1897.

Richard S Canca was born in 1924 in Transkei. Canca was a leading figure in the All African Convention (AAC). Born about 1924, he obtained an M.A. degree from the University of Cape Town.

He was born in the Clarkebury district of the Cape and educated at the Clarkebury Training Institution, where he later taught boot making. Dhlwati was a secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape in the mid-1920s.

Born in 1920 Dichaba was a herd boy until he was 15. He left school to become a labourer in the railway workshops.

For many south africans, the name Fitzsimons will always be linked to snakes - to their diversity and the treatment of their venomous bites. Rightly so, as nobody has done more than the Fitzsimons family to inform the public about our serpentine fauna or to alleviate the dangerous effects of snakebite. For much of the twentieth century people have relied on Fitzsimons's snakebite serum to save their lives after having being bitten and have used the familiar Fitzsimons books to identify snakes they have encountered.

Janub Gool, also known as 'Jane', was a founding member of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) and an active figure in the All African Convention and the Anti-CAD (anti-Coloured Affairs Department movement) in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a sister of Goolam H. Gool and a college graduate.

Penny Heyns was born on 8 November 1974 to a deeply religious family in Springs, Gauteng Province. She attended the local primary school and later Amanzimtoti High School in Kwa Zulu Natal where she matriculated in 1992. At school Heyns was sporty but swimming was her first choice.