The Girl Guide movement shares its roots with the Boy Scout movement that was founded by Baden-Powell during the South African War of 1899-1902. During the war Baden-Powell, a British officer enlisted boys to act as messengers and organised these messengers into patrols. Each patrol had a leader. This scheme was so successful that on his return to England, he decided to continue the programme to teach young boys the skills of camping, teamwork, pioneering, leadership, pioneering and stalking.  Powell was pleasantly surprised at a scout rally at Crystal Palace in 1909, when a significant number of girls, dressed as scouts attended. He then realised that he should start a similar movement for girls. The name 'Girl Guides' came from Powell's experiences in India, where a group of men, who went by the name 'Guides' undertook dangerous expeditions in the North-West frontier. The name 'Girl Guides' was decided upon as the title of these pioneering young women.  Powell, together with his sister, Agnes wrote the Girl Guide Handbook, which was called 'How Girls can help build up the Empire". On 31 May 1910, the Girl Guides were formed with Agnes Baden-Powell as the First President of the Girl Guides movement. References: Girl Guides International History (online), available at: http://www.girlguides.org.sg [Accessed 17 May 2010] Some Aspects of Lord Baden-Powell and the Scouts at Modderfontein (online), available at: http://samilitaryhistory.org [Accessed 17 May 2010]

From the beginning of colonialism in the 1880s following the 'scramble for Africa', Congo had been regarded as King Leopold II's personal fiefdom. Leopold's administration of the Congo is reputed to have been ruthless and brutal. The decision to transfer Congo to the Belgian Government followed intense criticism of Leopold's policies toward the Congolese. Atrocities committed by colonial officials in the Congo were circulated in Europe, provoking widespread condemnation of Leopold's policies. These are chronicled in the book "The Heart of Darkness”, which was to be the most graphic account of the excesses committed by colonial officials on their subjects in Africa. Belgium and Leopold's business interests in the Congo were in the rubber industry. Africans, employed as labourers by the company, were subjected to extreme levels of violence to ensure that they met the targets set for them by the officials. Failure to achieve the targets was followed by extreme levels of violence meted out to the workers. One of such incidents, which occurred in early 1900s, was widely covered by the media across Europe. This helped persuade the Belgian government to demand that Leopold II hand over the colony to them.  

The inability of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR or Transvaal Republic) under President Francois Burgers to score a decided victory in the Sekhukhune War, presented the opportunity to the British to annex Transvaal in 1877. Soon afterwards, Britain declared war against King Sekhukhune, paramount chief of the Bapedi. After three unsuccessful attempts he was defeated by two British regiments under Sir Garnet Wolseley, assisted by 8 000 Swazis. About 1 000 Bapedi were killed, including Sekhukhune's heir, Morwamoche. Sekhukhune fled to the Mamatamageng cave where he was captured on 2 December 1879 and sent to prison in Pretoria. When the Transvaal again became independent after the Anglo-Boer War 1 in 1881, he was freed under article 23 of the Pretoria Convention signed between Britain and the Boers, and he was granted a location. Sekhukhune was murdered shortly afterwards on 13 August 1882 by his half-brother Mampuru.   Click here to read more about the Sekhukhune Wars.

Founder of and first commander of Cape Town, Johan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck, was born in Culemborg in the Netherlands on 21 April 1619. An administrator for the Dutch East India Company (DEIC), van Riebeeck landed at the southern tip of Africa on 6 April 1652 in order to create a settlement for the DEIC. His arrival therefore opened South Africa for white settlement. Van Riebeeck remains a prominent figure in the early history of colonial South Africa, and he was commander of the colony at the Cape of Good Hope from 1652 until 1662.

The Durban Declaration was a statement signed by over 5 000 people in the scientific community stating that HIV caused AIDS. The declaration was signed and published in response to then President Thabo Mbeki's AIDS denialism. Mbeki asserted the view that HIV was not the sole cause of AIDS and this viewpoint affected the South African government's response to the AIDS epidemic. Access to azidothymidine (AZT) was limited due to Mbeki's belief that it was toxic and not effective in dealing with HIV. Instead, Mbeki espoused the view that AIDS was linked to the issue of poverty and that poverty should be dealt with broadly, rather than focusing on AIDS specifically. Mbeki's AIDS denialism has become synonymous with his presidency and in 2008 it was determined that his influence on policy resulted in thousands of preventable deaths. The declaration was published to coincide with the International AIDS Conference being held in Durban that year. The document was signed by people with doctorate level qualifications including 11 Nobel Laureates. Despite the document's strong support for HIV being the cause of AIDS, the South African government's reaction to the Durban declaration was that it was 'elitist'. This was consistent with Mbeki's belief that the link between HIV and AIDS formed part of racist rhetoric that black men were vectors of disease, and was a ploy to assert the superiority of Western medicine over Afro-centric approaches to health and disease. Mbeki and health minister Dr Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang instead advocated for African traditional medicine and approaches to health, seeing poverty as a cause of AIDS rather than a risk factor.

After South Africa's first national democratic elections in April 1994, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa's first democratic President at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 10 May 1994.. He replaced the outgoing National Party leader F.W. de Klerk as President. Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail at the Robben Island Prison. In June 1990 he retired from politics at the age of 80.

Fred M'membe is a Zambian journalist who founded the country's first independent newspaper, Zambia Post. As the only independent newspaper in Zambia, Zambia Post constantly clashed with the government, from the time of President Kenneth Kaunda up until President Rupiah Banda's rule. He has been arrested and prosecuted several times for his reporting. M'membe is the third recipient of the Media Institute of Southern Africa's Press Freedom Award in 1995. That same year, he also won the International Press Freedom Award. However, M'membe had been accused of being an ally of President Michael Sata, leader of the Patriotic Front, who died in London of an undisclosed illness on 28 October 2014.

Elsa the lioness was one of three orphaned lions whose mother was killed in self defence by George Adamson. Adamson was a wildlife conservationist based in Kenya. He was forced to kill Elsa's mother in self- defence when she tried to attack him. It was only after he had shot her that he realised the lion was protecting her three cubs. Adams took the cubs home and together with his wife, Joy, raised them. The two older cubs were later sent to a Rotterdam zoo, while Elsa remained with the Adamsons. Joy and Elsa developed a close bond as she slowly trained the lioness to survive in the wild. Eventually, the time came and Elsa was released into the wild. The Adamsons returned to England and upon their return a year later, found that Elsa is the mother of three cubs and that she still remembered them. Elsa died from Babesia felis, a tick-borne blood disease, on 24 January 1961. Joy documented her experience with Elsa in a book titled Born Free, published in 1996. The book was later made into a Hollywood film of the same title.

Funmilayo Ransome Kuti was born Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas on 25 October 1900 in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Kuti founded a women's organisation with 20 000 members that comprised of literate and illiterate women. The organisation was thrust into the public eye when it organised a rally of women against price controls which were hurting the female merchants of the Abeokuta markets. This was just the first of many campaigns for the benefit of women, including their right to vote. Kuti had three sons Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a musician, Beko Ransome-Kuti, a doctor, and Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti. All her sons were activists in their own right. In 1978 Kuti was thrown out of a second floor window by military men that had invaded her son, Fela's compound. She went into a coma and died two months later.

The leader of the New Republic Party (NRP), Vause Raw announced that his party was ready to give the President's Council a chance as a start on the road to a negotiated future. The history of the President's Council could be traced back to September 1980 when it was appointed with the task of recommending to the Government a constitutional blueprint. According to News 24 Archives, Raw rose to prominence in the now-defunct United Party (UP) as the party's fortunes declined after it was voted out of office in a landslide defeat by the National Party (NP) in 1948, which then introduced Apartheid policy. He became the founding member and the leader of the NRP, formed in 1977 after the break-up of the UP, which started splintering after 1959 when MPs, including veteran anti-apartheid fighter Helen Suzman.