| Summary: | South Africa may be situated in an outlying corner of the world but it has been an important factor in world politics for more than three centuries. The antecedents of the Republic of South Africa go back to the planting of a colony by the Dutch East India Company on Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Long before the establishment of Cape Town, Dutch and English ships had stopped with increasing regularity at the Cape to break the long voyage to and from the East and to take on a supply of fresh water.
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