X-Nico

94 unusual facts about Cape Town


1815 in birding and ornithology

Karl Heinrich Bergius arrives in Cape Town in order to make natural history collections for the Berlin Museum

1999–2000 Premier Soccer League

The newly created Ajax Cape Town had a strong season, finishing in fourth place on 53 points, with inaugural PSL champions Manning Rangers just behind them in fifth.

2012 Cape Town International Challenge

The Cape Town International Challenge is an invitational association football tournament to be hosted in Cape Town, South Africa.

Alex Bell

Born in Cape Town, Cape Colony, to Scottish parents, Bell began his professional football career as a centre-forward with various clubs in Ayr, including Ayr Spring Vale, Ayr Westerlea and Ayr Parkhouse.

Alfred Hollins

In 1907, 1909 and 1916 he went to South Africa to give a series of concerts at Johannesburg and Cape Town, giving the opening recital for the organ at the new Town Hall in Cape Town.

Allan Webb

He was consecrated at Inverness Cathedral in Scotland and sailed for the Cape on 25 April 1871, arriving in Cape Town on 28 July.

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In 1883, on the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Benson) and of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Cape Town (West Jones), Webb accepted his unanimous election as the Bishop of Grahamstown.

Anthony Aristar

Anthony Manuel Rodrigues Aristar (born in Cape Town, South Africa, 1948) is a linguist, the founder of the LINGUIST List, an important linguistic resource on the web, and a professor emeritus of linguistics at Eastern Michigan University.

Anton Kannemeyer

Anton Kannemeyer (born 30 October 1967 in Cape Town) is a South African comics artist, who sometimes goes by the pseudonym Joe Dog.

Bengt Lidner

In 1776 he joined a ship of the Swedish East India Company from Gothenburg to China, but fled in Cape Town in April and in September he enlisted as a student of the University of Greifswald, which then was situated in Swedish Pomerania.

Booth Memorial Hospital

The Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital, at 32 Prince Street, Oranjezicht, Cape Town, South Africa was formerly a Maternity Home but longer operates as such.

Brian Victor Beck

Beck was licensed, prior to ordination, as a Sub-deacon at St Michael and All Angels, an Anglo-Catholic parish in Observatory, Cape Town.

Ceres Transport Riders’ Museum

The structure of the building was changed somewhat to accommodate the design by well-known Cape Town heritage architect Gawie Fagan.

Craig-y-Nos Castle

It was said that his family were cursed thanks to their bloodline relationship with the Dutch Overbeek family of Calcutta and Cape Town, with cholera taking his younger son in 1851, and the deaths of his wife and younger daughter before he died in 1862.

Culemborg

Roelof de Man (1634 - 1663), bookkeeper and second-in-charge to Jan van Riebeeck at founding of Cape Town (South Africa)

Cynanchum ellipticum

It occurs in coastal scrub from Cape Town as far north as Mozambique and further inland up to 1300 m, and may be found on flats or moderate slopes, in sand or between rocks, in indigenous forests and along forest margins and thickets, frequently occurring in disturbed habitats.

De Havilland DH.50

Cobham flew the aircraft on a 16,000 mi (25,750 km) flight from Croydon Airport to Cape Town between November 1925 and February 1926.

De Havilland Puss Moth

His wife Amy Johnson made record flights between England and Cape Town using G-ACAB, "Desert Cloud" in 1932.

Dennis Jubilant

One Jubilant chassis was delivered to Cape Town, South Africa and was fitted with bodywork supplied by Bus Bodies (South Africa) Limited.

Dominic Cervi

In 2010, he was named in the US squad that defeated South Africa 1-0 on November 17 in Cape Town.

Donald B. Beary

Mount Vernon was in the Atlantic Ocean as part of a convoy steaming from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, bound for Cape Town, South Africa, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, brought the United States into World War II on 7 December 1941.

Edward Griffith Colpoys

He left three sons, two of whom served in the Navy and one of which died just a few weeks after his father while stationed at Cape Town, and a daughter.

Edward Woore

After Parsons' death on 30 September 1934, Woore took over and completed many of Parsons' commissions, such as the north transept window of St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town.

Emil Holub

Inspired to visit Africa by the diaries of David Livingstone, Holub travelled to Cape Town, South Africa shortly after graduation and eventually settled near Kimberley to practise medicine.

English cricket team in South Africa in 1888–89

Monty Bowden became England's youngest ever Test captain aged 23 years 144 days in the Second Test at Newlands, Cape Town, replacing an injured Smith in Bowden's second and final Test.

Eric Mervyn Lindsay

He then went to South Africa for a post-graduate astronomy studies, and on May the 20th 1935 was married to Sylvia Mussells in Cape Town.

Erica turgida

This Erica used to grow naturally in the area that is now beneath the Cape Town suburbs of Rondebosch, Kenilworth and Wynberg.

Falling Mirror

Falling Mirror was an alternative rock band from Cape Town, South Africa founded in 1978 by cousins Allan Faull and Nielen Marais.

Fraser Russell

Born at St Andrew's Church, Somerset Road, Cape Town to the Reverend JM Russell and his wife Nancy, Russell attended Normal College, Merchiston Castle School, Scotland, the South African College, Cape Town.

George Fowlds

Fowlds emigrated to South Africa in 1882 and lived in Cape Town, Beaufort West, and Bultfontein.

German auxiliary cruiser Stier

On 27 September 1942 Stier encountered the Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins en route from Cape Town to Paramaribo.

Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff

En route to Batavia, Van Imhoff visited the Dutch colony in Cape Town, in the Cape Colony, where he discovered that Dutch settlers were penetrating increasingly further into the interior, and were losing contact with the VOC.

Gustav Fritsch

Along with his medical studies, Fritsch was also known for his ethnographical research in southern Africa (1863–66), during which time he traveled from Cape Town through the Orange Free State, Basutoland, Natal and Bechuanaland.

Hannah Morris

Originally from Vermont, United States, she spent more than five years in Stellenbosch and Cape Town, South Africa, completing postgraduate studies in visual arts at the Stellenbosch University fine arts department, focusing on picture books in South Africa.

Hartlaub's Gull

About one half of the total population, currently estimated at about 30 000 birds, are within the Greater Cape Town area.

Haviside's dolphin

Sightings are often recorded from major population centres such as Cape Town and towns such as Walvis Bay.

Heinz-Wilhelm Eck

The operation to sink the rafts and wreckage was not hugely successful, but the submarine was able to evade pursuit, and managed to sink the British cargo ship SS Dahomian off Cape Town on 1 April, this time hastily leaving the scene rather than pausing.

Individual Television Experience

Ericsson has outlined the multi-platform service future in a series of Televisionary Roadshows, including in Sydney, Moscow and Cape Town.

International Association of Wagner Societies

Wagner societies can be found in all parts of the world, including Venice, Great Britain, Shanghai, Tokyo, Lisbon, Melbourne, Adelaide, Ankara, New York, Toronto, Cape Town, Bangkok, New Zealand and Puerto Rico.

Japan during World War I

Two of the four cruisers of the First Special Squadron at Singapore were sent to Cape Town, South Africa, and four destroyers were sent to the Mediterranean Sea for basing out of Malta.

Japanese cruiser Asama

On 21 August 1920, it made a training voyage to Hong Kong, Singapore, Columbo, Durban, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Valparaíso, Tahiti, Truk and Saipan, thus circumnavigating the globe east to west.

John Harfield Tredgold

Tredgold married Elizabeth Merrington in Cape Town on New Year's Day 1825 in St Georges Cathedral before it was rebuilt.

Jordan Gysberts

Gysberts was named best on ground for the AFL/AIS Under 18 team during its 2009 Cape Town match against the South Africa national Australian rules football team.

Joseph McMaster

He was selected for an under-strength England team that toured South Africa in 1888/9 and was selected as a bowler in the second and final Test match, in Cape Town, starting on 25 March 1889.

Kjetil Siem

Siem started in 1994 the Soccer against crime project in Cape Town, South Africa and has since been involved in helping deprived communities.

Kristine Kershul

She moved to Cape Town, South Africa and spent the next six years traveling around the world.

Lady Anne Barnard

A chamber in the Castle of Good Hope is known as "Lady Anne Barnard's Ballroom"; a road in the suburb of Newlands, where the Barnards lived, is named "Lady Anne Avenue" and a carved sculpture of her is displayed in the foyer of the civic centre in the neighbouring suburb of Claremont.

Lamar Crowson

In 1963 Crowson travelled to Cape Town as an examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and lectured at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town from 1965 to 1968.

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He was appointed a music professor at UCT in 1980 from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1996.

Lympne

In the 1930s it was the starting point for several long distance record flights, including a solo one to Cape Town by Amy Johnson in 1932, and also ones by her later-to-be husband Jim Mollison.

Manchester United Premier Cup

The regional tournaments served to whittle down the competing teams from over 2,500 to just 12 for the finals tournament in Cape Town, South Africa.

Marvin Breckinridge Patterson

She traveled extensively and published photographs from her world travels in magazines such as Vogue, National Geographic, Look, Life, Town & Country, and Harper's Bazaar, especially a 1932 Africa trip from Cape Town to Cairo.

Michaelis School of Fine Art

Michaelis School of Fine Art was founded in 1925, and is the Fine Arts department of the University of Cape Town.

Moore Embayment

Admiral Sir Arthur Moore, Naval Commander-in-Chief at Cape Town, placed the resources of the naval dockyard at Cape Town at the disposal of the Discovery for much-needed repairs before the ship proceeded to New Zealand and the Antarctic.

Nellie Shabalala

Tragedy struck Joseph when, in May 2002, Nellie was murdered in outside their home in Claremont by a masked gunman.

Netherlands at the 2008 UCI Road World Championships

The Netherlands competed at the 2008 UCI Road World Championships in Varese, Italy, from 23 September to 28 September 2009 and at the 2008 UCI Juniors Road World Championships in Cape Town, South Africa from 18 July to 20 July 2008.

New Loud Rockets

New Loud Rockets were an indie band from Cape Town, South Africa.

North of the Yukon

Scrooge refuses, saying that if more people knew that he was the Richest Duck in the World, "every chisler from Cape Town to Nome would be waylaying me!"

Ossie Newton-Thompson

A lawyer, he ran successfully in 1961 for a seat in South African parliament, as the United Party candidate for Pinelands.

Overberg branch line

The line branches from the Bellville–Stellenbosch line at Eerste River, from which it runs through Faure and Firgrove to Somerset West.

Pan Africanist Congress of Azania

People gathered in Sharpeville and Langa and Sobukwe and other top leaders were arrested and later convicted for incitement.

Regiment Boland

However, the 1st Battalion fought to regain their original name and this succeeded in 1974, when the two battalions became independent units - the 1st Battalion became Regiment Westelike Provincie and was headquartered in Cape Town, while the 2nd Battalion retained the designation Regiment Boland.

Robert Priday

Robert Priday (born 29 March 1925 in Cape Town, South Africa) was a South African footballer who played as a midfielder for Liverpool F.C. in The Football League.

Robert Wertheimer

In 2004, his first television series as co-creator and showrunner, Charlie Jade, commenced production in Cape Town, South Africa.

Roslyn Sulcas

She grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and studied English literature at university, receiving post-graduate degrees from the University of Cape Town and Paris VII (Jussieu).

Saltoblattella montistabularis

Saltoblattella montistabularis or leaproach is a new species of cockroach, from the Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, discovered in 2009.

Sofia Hellqvist

Since 2010 Hellqvist spends most of her time in Langa, South Africa with Project Playground a center for abused and orphaned children, a center she and her sister Frida Vesterberg has started together.

South African Archaeological Society

A Cape Archaeological Society was founded in Cape Town in August 1944 by Professor A.J.H. Goodwin (1900-1959), who headed the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town.

Southern Cross Drive

'Southern Cross Drive' is also the name of an important arterial road in Cape Town, South Africa, on the eastern side of Table Mountain.

SS Athenic

On 13 February 1902, she sailed into London on her maiden voyage to Wellington via the Canary Islands, Cape Town and Hobart.

SS City of Cairo

Her last voyage, under the command of her Master, William A. Rogerson, was to take her from Bombay, which she departed on 1 October 1942 to the UK, via Durban, Cape Town and Pernambuco, Brazil.

SS Maori

She went aground a few kilometres south of the suburb of Llandudno.

Streptocarpus

In 1884, seed was collected in the mountains of the Transvaal gold fields, and sent to Kew by Mr E. G. Dunn of Claremont, Cape Town.

Strike Back: Vengeance

In one such instance locals portrayed a group of rioters in the township of Langa in Cape Town.

Symphony of Fire

The fireworks are choreographed to music, and are presented at English Bay in Vancouver, at the Lake Ontario waterfront of the Ontario Place theme park in Toronto, and in Victoria & Alfred waterfront in Cape Town.

The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again the Elusive Avengers

Duc's minions, led by Perov, hijack a ship to pick up Ovechkin and carry the crown to Cape Town.

The Return of Tarzan

Afterwords, Tarzan sails for Cape Town and strikes up a shipboard acquaintance with Hazel Strong, a friend of Jane's.

The Silent Fall

The Silent Fall is a 2007 South African drama film set in and around Cape Town, focusing on the AIDS problem of Africa.

Thomas Möller

Möller's extravagant lifestyle in South Africa, where he lived in a seaside property in Llandudno close to Cape Town became the source of scrutiny from Swedish and South African authorities.

Thomas Upington

However his life-long health problems worsened and on 10 December 1898, Upington died in Wynberg, Cape Town, aged only 54.

Tokaj

Tokai, a region of Cape Town, is named after the nearby mountains' resemblance to the hills of Tokaj-Hegyalja.

Tom Campbell Black

Boomerang did not live up to her name and in a near fatal accident over Africa the Comet was written off and Campbell Black's aspirations of flying from Firbeck to the Cape and back in a weekend came to an end.

Trevor Boris

He has been nominated twice for the "Best Stand-up Newcomer" Canadian Comedy Award, and has performed at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, as well as the CBC Winnipeg, Halifax, and Vancouver Comedy Festivals and at the 2006 Cape Town Comedy Festival in South Africa.

Triumph Herald

In late 1958, prototype cars embarked on a test-run from Cape Town to Tangiers.

Two Oceans Marathon

The race starts in Newlands, and follows a more or less circular route through Muizenberg, Fish Hoek, over Chapman's Peak and Constantia Nek, and eventually finishes at the University of Cape Town campus.

USCG Activities Europe

• There are over 6,500 miles between two of ACTEUR's regular inspection locations; Bergen, Norway, and Cape Town, South Africa.

Valkenberg Hospital

It is situated in the suburb of Observatory between the banks of the Liesbeeck and Black Rivers, overlooking Devil's Peak in the distance.

Wenceslas Lauret

He has also been selected to play for the French national team, he made his debut against South Africa in Cape Town on 12 June 2010.

Wensley Pithey

A graduate of the University of Cape Town where he studied music and drama, he travelled to Britain in 1947.

Western Cape Provincial Parliament

It is located in the Provincial Government Building at 7 Wale Street, Cape Town.

William Lutley Sclater

The couple were married at St. George's Cathedral in London on 1 February 1896 at St. George, shortly after which they moved to Cape Town, South Africa.

William Sudell

According to this account Sudell became a successful rugby journalist, dying from pneumonia on 5 August 1911 in Cape Town.

William Vere Reeve King-Fane

William Dashwood Fane was the son of Willam Fane of Calcutta and Cape Town and grandson of the Hon Henry Fane of Fulbeck Hall.

Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II

Youth (or Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II) (2002) is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical novel by J. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960s London after fleeing the political unrest of Cape Town.


A Guide to the Old Buildings of the Cape

A Guide to the Old Buildings of the Cape is a book by Hans Fransen, subtitled A survey of extant architecture from before c. 1910 in the area of Cape Town–Calvinia–Colesberg–Uitenhage.

Aeras

Aeras has approximately 160 employees, with offices in Rockville, Maryland; Cape Town, South Africa; and Beijing, China.

AllAfrica.com

It is available in both English and French and produced by AllAfrica Global Media, which has offices in Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, Monrovia, Nairobi, and Washington, D.C..

Amanda Strydom

She also began performing as a solo cabaret artist, at Garbo's in Cape Town and at Club 58 in Hillbrow.

Anna Maria Truter

Anna Maria Truter (17 August 1777 Cape Town - 15 December 1857 England) was a Cape Colony botanical artist who was married to Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet who became second Secretary to the Admiralty in 1804, and was author of "An Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, in the Years 1797 and 1798" (London, 1801).

Argyrosomus japonicus

The case was dropped until there was a public outcry and the department of public prosecution in Cape Town had decided to reopen the case.

Cape Dutch architecture

Most Cape Dutch buildings in Cape Town have been lost to new developments – particularly to high-rises in the City Bowl during the 1960s.

De Havilland DH.14 Okapi

The aircraft did attempt the first flight between London and Cape Town in February 1920, but it only got as far as Italy, where it force-landed near Messina.

Edwin Percy Phillips

Edwin Percy Phillips (18 February 1884 Sea Point, Cape Town - 12 April 1967 Cape Town), was a South African botanist and taxonomist, noted for his monumental work The Genera of South African Flowering Plants first published in 1926.

False Bay

Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, Lion's Head and Signal Hill form an amphitheatre along the western edge of the Cape Flats.

Felix du Plessis

Felix made his debut on 16 July 1949 for South Africa as a lock in the first test match at Newlands Stadium, Cape Town against the touring All Blacks, led by Fred Allen.

Free Willy: Escape from Pirate's Cove

Kirra is sent to stay with Gus in his run-down amusement park in Cape Town after her father was hospitalized for six weeks.

Hendrik Swellengrebel

Hendrik Swellengrebel (Cape Town, 20 September 1700 - Utrecht, 26 December 1760) was the first and only Dutch East India Company governor of the Dutch Cape Colony who was born in the Cape.

Horace Campbell

He gave presentations on Peace and Reconstruction before the Uganda Society in Uganda, the Nairobi Peace Initiative (Nairobi, Kenya) and the Desmond Tutu Peace Center (Cape Town, South Africa).

J. Paul Getty

They were picking up Sutton Place phones and placing calls to girlfriends in Geneva or Georgia and to aunts, uncles and third cousins twice-removed in Caracas and Cape Town.

Japanese cruiser Tsushima

From mid-1915 to 1918, Tsushima and her sister ship Niitaka were permanently based at the Cape Town, assisting the Royal Navy in patrolling the sea lanes linking Europe to the east.

Japheth J. Omojuwa

Omojuwa has graced speaking platforms on universities and in cities across Nigeria and around the world from Washington to London, Lagos, Accra, Cape Town, Abuja, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, New York, Cologne, Dortmund and other cities.

John King Davis

Davis's formal education, at Colet Court, London, and at Burford Grammar School, Oxfordshire, ended in 1900, when he and his father left London for Cape Town, South Africa.

John Witherston Rickards

Bishop Robert Gray of Cape Town visited St Cyprian's Marylebone on St Cyprian's Day 1870 and it is surmised that his sermon and call for recruits to the church in South Africa had inspired Rickards.

Johnny Wardle

In the second Test at Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town, he took 7 for 36 to dismiss South Africa for 72, and may have taken more than 26 Test wickets but for injury.

Kenneth Martin Willett

While en route from Cape Town, South Africa to Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, his freighter was attacked on September 27, 1942 by two enemy surface raiders.

Lionel Bastos

In May 2010, Bastos and radio host Doug Anderson organized a concert at which a number of notable South African artists (incl. Farryl Purkiss, Merseystate, and Wendy Oldfield) performed to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, at the Baxter Concert Hall in Cape Town.

Makua people

Although the majority of the Makua people in South Africa were settled in Bayview, some live in Wentworth, Marianhill, Marianridge, Umlazi, Newlands East and West, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Mannenberg

The producer was Rashid Vally and the recording was made in June 1974 in a studio in Cape Town, "against a backdrop of forced removals as the apartheid government finalised its destruction of District Six and evicted coloured families from homes throughout the city".

Masiphumelele High School

Masiphumelele High School is a publicly owned secondary school (grades 8-12) in Masiphumelele, Cape Town, in the Western Cape region of South Africa.

Molteno Dam

Still in service, it was established in 1877 and is now located in the suburb of Oranjezicht, Cape Town.

Mountain Records

Mountain Records is a record label started in Cape Town, South Africa in 1980 by Patrick Lee-Thorp.

Mutual railway station

Mutual is a particularly busy station because it is the junction at which the Central Line towards Mitchell's Plain and Khayelitsha diverges from the Northern Line main line to Bellville.

Overberg branch line

Metrorail services of the Northern Line operate from Cape Town through Bellville to Strand; the rest of the line has no regular passenger service.

Peter Tregloan

In 2001 a bad bench press led to a third place finish in Cape Town although in December of that year in Amberg he set the world record for the Masters age category in Deadlift, Squat and Total.

Robert Scheidt

He also won in 1996 the World Championship, held in Cape Town, South Africa and again in 1997, in Algarrobo, Chile.

Ronald K. McMullen

Other overseas assignments include serving as Deputy Principal Officer in Cape Town, South Africa; Economic Officer in Libreville, Gabon; Political Officer in Colombo, Sri Lanka; and Vice Consul in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

South African Class 3E

E201, one of two known survivors of the Class, is being staged under a shelter at the Bellville locomotive depot in Cape Town along with a few other early SAR electric locomotives that were earmarked for preservation.

The Rhodes Colossus

Rhodes measures with the telegraphic line the distance from Cape Town (at his right foot) in South Africa to Cairo (at his left foot) in Egypt, illustrating his broader "Cape to Cairo" concept for British domination of Africa.

Wilhelm Langschmidt

Wilhelm Heinrich Franz Ludwig Langschmidt, or Willem Langschmidt, (10 January 1805 Grabow, Gustrow - 5 October 1866 Caledon) was a German-born South African painter and drawing master of 59 Long Street, Cape Town.

Yolanda Foster

After she signed with Ford, she modeled all over the world, modelling internationally in Paris, Milan, Sydney, Cape Town, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and Hamburg.