South Africa Events

1828 Sep 22 Shaka Zulu is Assassinated
In 1827, Shaka's mother, Nandi, died, and the Zulu leader lost his mind. In his grief, Shaka had hundreds of Zulus killed, and he outlawed the planting of crops and the use of milk for a ...
1852 Feb 26 Wreck of HMS Birkenhead
In December of 1851, the Birkenhead sailed from Cork in Ireland, under the command of Captain Robert Salmond. She left Simon's Town on the morning of the 25th February, after loading 35...
1893 Apr Mohandes Gandhi Travels to South Africa to Work Under a Year-Long Contract with Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian Firm
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a young man of 24 when he arrived in South Africa in 1893. Gandhi's work in South Africa dramatically changed him, as he faced the discrimination commonl...
1893 May Mahatma Gandhi is Ejected from a South African Train, Motivating Him to Fight for Indian Rights in the British Colony
Pietermaritzburg is also famous for an incident early in the life of Mahatma Gandhi. In May 1893, while Gandhi was on his way to Pretoria, a white man objected to Gandhi's presence in a f...
1894 Aug 22 Mohandes Gandhi Founds the Natal Indian Congress
Gandhi realized that what the India urgently needed was a permanent organization to look after their interests. Out of deference to Dadabhai Naoroji, Who had presided over the Indian Nati...
1897 Jan 10 Mohandes Gandhi is Nearly Lynched by White Settlers in Durban upon Returning from a Brief Trip to Fetch his Family in India
It is a measure of Gandhi’s success as a publicist that the Indian National Congress Recorded its protest against the disabilities imposed upon the Indian settlers in South Africa, and th...
1899 Churchill Acts As War Correspondent During the Second Boer War
In 1899, Winston Churchill headed to South Africa as a newspaper correspondent for the Morning Post to cover the Boer War between British and Dutch settlers. Unfortunately, he was present...
1899 Gandhi Organizes an Indian Ambulance Corps of 1100 Men During His Service in the Boer War
At the onset of the South African War, Gandhi argued that Indians must support the war effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship, organizing a volunteer ambulance cor...
1904 Nov Gandhi Founds the Phoenix Settlement
Influenced by the teachings of Ruskin, Gandhi purchased a farm at Phoenix, near Mount Edgecombe in 1904 in order to establish a communal settlement. The settlement was based on the ideals...
1906 Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance Requires Asians in Transvaal to Carry Fingerprinted Identification
At the onset of the South African War, Gandhi argued that Indians must support the war effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship, organizing a volunteer ambulance cor...
1906 Sep 11 Gandhi Introduces Non-Violent Protest Philosophy of Satyagraha
At the onset of the South African War, Gandhi argued that Indians must support the war effort in order to legitimize their claims to full citizenship, organizing a volunteer ambulance cor...
1908 Jan 10 Gandhi is Arrested for the First Time, for Refusing to Carry an Obligatory ID Card in South Africa
In January 1908, he was arrested for breach of the registration law and clapped into prison. The following month he was released after an understanding seemed to have been reached with t...
1910 May 30 Gandhi Establishes the Tolstoy Farm, which Serves as a Base of Operations for His Activities in South Africa
Since the centre of the campaign was in the Transvaal, the farm had to be close to Johannesburg. Herman Kallenbach, an architect until he became Gandhi's ardent follower, came to the resc...
1913 Nov 6 Gandhi Begins "Great March" to Gain Indian Rights in South Africa
Led at 6.30.a.m. the "great march", consisting of 2,037 men, 127 women and 57 children from Charlestown; addressed marchers halfway between Charlestown and Volksrust. At Volksrust border,...
1914 Jun Gandhi Suspends South African Struggle After Winning Passage of the Indian Relief Act
The treatment of Indians had reached pathetic limits. The prisons were too small to house the resisters. Mr Hult, a mine manager had flogged 300 Indian prisoners placed under his custody....
1914 Sep 25 Battle of Sandfontein
South African General Sir Henry Lukin ought to have realized that the Germans wouldn't let the wells of Sandfontein be captured without a fight the moment his column, known as Force A, oc...
1915 Jan 9 Gandhi Receives Hero's Welcome Upon Returning to India from South Africa
In 1915, Gandhi returned from South Africa to live in India. He spoke at the conventions of the Indian National Congress, but was primarily introduced to Indian issues, politics and the I...
1915 Jul 9 German Southwest Africa Surrenders to British-Boer Forces
British-Boer Forces, 20,000 General Louis Botha, Commander-in-Chief General Lukin General Myburgh General Mackenzie General Smuts Colonel Van der Venter German Forces, 10,000 Go...
1944 The African National Congress Youth League is Founded
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) is the youth wing of the African National Congress. Its foundation in 1944 by Anton Muziwakhe Lembede (1914-1947), Ashley Peter Mda, Nel...
1952 Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo open first black legal firm in South Africa
By 1952 Mandela and Tambo had opened the first black legal firm in the country, and Mandela was both Transvaal president of the ANC and deputy national president. A petition by the Tra...
1960 Mar 21 Sharpeville Massacre
The Sharpeville Massacre, also known as the Sharpeville shootings, occurred on 21 March 1960, when South African police began shooting on a crowd of black protesters. The confrontation oc...
1961 Mar Nelson Mandela and others found not guilty in Treason Trial
The Treason Trial was a trial in which 156 people (105 Blacks, 21 Indians, 23 Whites and 7 Coloureds), including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Af...
1961 Sep 26 Lynne Brown Is Born
Lynne Brown is a former Premier of the Western Cape province in South Africa. She was born in Cape Town on 26 September, 1961 and grew up in Mitchells Plain. She was appointed to the post...
1961 Dec 10 Albert Lutuli is Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
If the nonwhite people of South Africa ever lift themselves from their humiliation without resorting to violence and terror, then it will be above all because of the work of Lutuli, their...
1962 Nelson Mandela leaves country for military training
In January Mandela leaves South Africa illegally to attend a freedom conference in Algeria and to scout for military training facilities for Umkhonto members and raise funds from African ...
1962 Aug 5 Nelson Mandela arrested for leaving country illegally
On 5 August 1962 Mandela was arrested after living on the run for seventeen months, and was imprisoned in the Johannesburg Fort.[38] The arrest was made possible because the U.S. Central ...
1963 Nov 26
to 1964 Jun 12
 Rivonia Trial
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in South Africa between 1963 and 1964, in which ten leaders of the African National Congress were tried for 221 acts of sabotage designed to ...
1967 Dec 3 First Human-to-Human Heart Transplant is Performed
I was 15 years old when Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant. I still have the Life magazine cover. My dad was a cardiologist, so the drama carried out in the public's ...
1984 Dec 10 Desmond Tutu is Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. In 1984, Tutu became the second So...
1986 Coretta Scott King Travels To South Africa
During the 1980s, Scott King reaffirmed her long-standing opposition to apartheid, participating in a series of sit-in protests in Washington, D.C. that prompted nationwide demonstrations...
1990 Feb 11 Nelson Mandela Released from Prison
11 February 1990: After 27 years of imprisonment, Mandela is released. His new life is busy, visiting old friends and supporters, becoming deputy president of the ANC, and travelling with...
1993 Dec 10 Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk are Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born 18 July 1918 in Transkei, South Africa, is a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election, who h...
1994 May 10 Nelson Mandela inaugurated as South Africa's first black President
South Africa's first multi-racial elections in which full enfranchisement was granted were held on 27 April 1994. The ANC won 62% of the votes in the election, and Mandela, as leader of t...
1995 May 11 Vaal Reef Gold Mine Elevator Disaster
Deep, dirty, and dangerous - the life of a South African goldminer is often short and brutal. More than 69,000 miners were killed in work-related accidents between 1911 and 1994. On May...
2001 Apr 11 Ellis Park Stadium Disaster
ON this day in 2001 fans of the Orlando Pirates and Kaiser Chiefs gathered excitedly for a match between the two rivals – the biggest derby game in South Africa – at the Ellis Park Stadiu...
2008 Sep 21 President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa Resigns
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki (born 18 June 1942) is a South African politician who served almost two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September...
2008 Sep 25 Kgalema Motlanthe is Elected as the President of South Africa
Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe (pronounced [ˈk͡xɑ.lɪ.mɑ mʊ.ˈt͡ɬ’ɑ.n.tʰɛ]) (born 19 July 1949) is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa between 25 September 2008 and...
2010 May 12 Crash of Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771
A young boy appeared to be the only survivor on Wednesday after a Libyan airliner crashed while landing at the airport in Tripoli, Libya, killing 92 passengers — most of them Dutch touris...
2010 Jun 11 World Cup 2010 Kicks Off in South Africa
South Africa opens the soccer World Cup against Mexico today on a 12-match unbeaten streak that has raised local expectations ahead of a tournament that already pulled thousands of fans i...
2010 Jun 14 World Cup Refuses to Ban Deafening Plastic Trumpets, called 'Vuvuzelas'
The incessant blasting of the plastic trumpets has become the unofficial World Cup soundtrack, but the vuvuzelas have triggered controversy. A BBC report said chief organizer Danny Jor...