Editing Sub-Saharan Africa (section)

===Southern Africa===
{{Main|History of Southern Africa}}
{{Further|Kingdom of Mutapa}}

[[File:Great-Zimbabwe-2.jpg|thumb|[[Great Zimbabwe]]: Tower in the Great Enclosure]]

Settlements of [[Bantu languages|Bantu]]-speaking peoples, who were [[iron]]-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were already present south of the [[Limpopo River]] by the 4th or 5th century displacing and absorbing the original [[Khoisan languages|Khoisan]] speakers. They slowly moved south, and the earliest ironworks in modern-day [[KwaZulu-Natal|KwaZulu-Natal Province]] are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the [[Xhosa people]], whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoisan inhabitants. They reached the [[Great Fish River|Fish River]] in today's [[Eastern Cape|Eastern Cape Province]]. [[Monomotapa]] was a medieval kingdom (c. 1250–1629), which existed between the [[Zambezi]] and [[Limpopo River|Limpopo]] rivers of [[Southern Africa]] in the territory of modern-day [[Zimbabwe]] and [[Mozambique]]. Its old capital was located at [[Great Zimbabwe]].

In 1487, [[Bartolomeu Dias]] became the first European to reach the southernmost tip of Africa. In 1652, a [[Victualler|victualling station]] was established at the [[Cape of Good Hope]] by [[Jan van Riebeeck]] on behalf of the [[Dutch East India Company]]. For most of the 17th and 18th centuries, the slowly expanding settlement was a [[Dutch Empire|Dutch]] possession. In 1795, the Dutch colony was captured by the [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] during the [[French Revolutionary Wars]]. The British intended to use [[Cape Town]] as a major port on the route to [[Australia]] and [[Indian subcontinent|India]]. It was later returned to the Dutch in 1803, but soon afterward the Dutch East India Company declared bankruptcy, and the Dutch (now under French control) and the British found themselves at war again. The British captured the Dutch possession yet again at the [[Battle of Blaauwberg]], commanded by [[Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet|Sir David Blair]]. The [[Zulu Kingdom]] was a Southern African tribal state in what is now [[KwaZulu-Natal]] in southeastern South Africa. The small kingdom gained world fame during and after their defeat in the [[Anglo-Zulu War]]. During the 1950s and early 1960s, most sub-Saharan African nations achieved independence from colonial rule.<ref>M. Martin, Phyllis and O'Meara, Patrick (1995). ''Africa''. 3rd edition, Bloomington and Indianapolis: [[Indiana University Press]], p. 156, {{ISBN|0-253-32916-7}}.</ref>