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EventZubeida Jaffer is detained, while pregnant, by the security police under Apartheid regulations
Zubeida Jaffer, former reporter from the Cape Times and her husband John Issel, were detained by the security police on 31 January 1986. Jaffer who was three…
EventVanessa Brereton, former human rights lawyer, admits that she was an Apartheid spy
Vanessa Brereton worked as a human rights lawyer in South Africa, taking on high profile cases under the Apartheid regime. When the African National Congress …
EventHaitian leader General Raoul Cedras resigns in favour of exiled President Jean
Haiti's recorded history began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The island was named Hispaniola and became the territory of the Spanish crown…
EventNelson Rolihlahla Mandela passed away
The 5th of December marks the anniversary of the death of revolutionary anti-Apartheid liberation leader, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, whose vision and respect…
EventNamibian artist, John Ndevasia Muafangejo, dies
On 27 November 1987, Namibian artist John Ndevasia Muafangejo died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Katutura Township, Windhoek. He was 44 years old…
BiographyCecil John Rhodes
The Early Years Cecil John Rhodes was born on 5 July 1853 in the small hamlet of Bishops Stortford, England. He was the fifth son of Francis William Rhodes…
EventFormer ANC President, Oliver 'OR' Tambo, is born
On 27 October 1917, Oliver Tambo, who would become African National Congress (ANC) President, was born at Bizana, Transkei (now known as Eastern Cape). During…
PlaceManenberg, Cape Flats
Manenberg is a Township of Cape Town, South Africa, that was created by the Apartheid government, for low-income Coloured families in the Cape Flats and…
EventSouth West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) is founded to oppose South African rule
The South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) was founded in Windhoek, South West Africa (presently Namibia) on 19 April 1960 by Herman Toivo Ya Toivo…
Economic Transformation for a National Democratic Society by ANC, 20 December 2007, 52nd National Conference, Polokwane
… crises in the last decades of white rule. In the early 1990s South Africa faced falling levels of GDP and …
ArchiveConclusion by Howard Barrell
Operation Vula, with whose destruction I began this dissertation and with whose genesis I have just ended the tenth and final chapter, is the climax of our…
EventWendy Botha, South Africa’s world champion surfer is born
Wendy Botha was born in East London on 28 August 1965.[i] She began surfing at the age of 13, and won four consecutive South African National Championships…
EventMinnie Dlamini, the South African television personality is born
Minenhle “Minnie” Dlamini was born in Durban, KwaZulu Natal on 7 July 1990.[1] Minnie attended Northlands Girls’ High School and studied at the University of…
EventSt James Church massacre
Azanian Peoples' Liberation Army (APLA - the armed wing of the Pan-Africanist Congress) operatives attack St. James Church in the Cape Town suburb of…
EventVlakplaas Commander testifies before Harms Commission about secret police killings in 1981
In 1981, Dirk Coetzee, Jan Viktor and Jac Buchner began Vlakplaas, a parliamentary hit squad, with 16 police officers. The existence of the unit was first…
EventFreedom Day is celebrated in South Africa
27 April commemorates the day in 1994 when the first democratic election was held in South Africa. Today, South Africa celebrates Freedom Day to mark the…
EventSA national soccer team, Bafana Bafana, win the SA’s first ever FIFA sanctioned match.
South Africa had been suspended by FIFA in 1961 and formally expelled in 1976 because apartheid law forbade mixed-race sport. For three decades, generations of…
EventThe apartheid government establishes a Department for Coloured Affairs' (CAD)
Long before the inception of apartheid "Coloured" people in South Africa occupied this precarious position between White and Black South Africans. This…
Funeral arrangements afoot for Mama Dideka Mhlaba, 20 January 2010
Funeral arrangements are afoot in the Eastern Cape in preparation for the funeral of African National Congress (ANC) veteran, Mama Dideka Mhlaba (85) - wife of…
PlaceNoupoort
Noupoort is a town in the Eastern Karoo region of South Africa. With the start of the Railways in Noupoort nearly all the personnel were English speaking and…
EventSeretse Khama is asked to renounce chieftaincy
Seretse Khama was the chief of the Bama-Ngwato tribe, Bechuanaland (now Botswana). Khama's problems with the British started when he married an English woman,…
EventTricameral Parliament inaugurated
On 3 September 1984, Members of Parliament convened in Cape Town to promulgate a new South African Constitution with a three-tier parliament which would re…
EventThe Prime Minister announces the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the reporting of defence matters, to be headed by Justice M.T. Steyn
More recent initiatives by the post 1994 SA government to establish a media tribunal have been condemned as an attempt to introduce 'apartheid style draconian…
EventThe apartheid government reportedly pays compensation for death of Steve Biko
Steve Biko was born in King Williams Town and began his political career as the co-founder of the all-black South African Student's Organization (SASO). It was…
EventThe first successful non-direct blood transfusion is carried out
On 27 March 1914, Belgian doctor Albert Hustin conducted the first non-direct transfusion, using sodium citrate as an anticoagulant. Initially, blood…
PlaceRosemount
Woodbrook Farm was established at about the same time as East London, and was located immediately south of the town. By the early 1900s it had been overtaken…
SACTU press release in ‘New Age’, 22 November 1962
Quoted in Luckhardt, K. & Wall, B. (1980). Organize or Starve! The History of the South African Congress of Trade Unions, New York: International Publishers, p…
ArticleGeneral South African History Timeline: 1800s
… of years throughout the southern African region. Until the 1990s the view that the upheavals were caused solely by the …
PlaceThe South African Police Service Museum
The Muizenberg Police Museum, also known as South African Police Services (SAPS) Museum, is situated on the Main Road in Muizenberg, Cape Town, Western Cape…
EventGertrude Shope, former president of the ANC Women's League, is born
Gertrude Shope was born in Johannesburg, but grew up in Zimbabwe. She was trained as a teacher and went on to teach in Natal and Soweto. When she was 29 years…