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Apartheid put into action by National Party
Although many of the segregationist policies dated back to the early decades of the twentieth century, it was the election of the Nationalist Party in 1948 that marked the beginning of legalized racism's harshest features called Apartheid. The Cold War then was in its early stages. -
mixed marriages act
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No. 55 of 1949, was an apartheid-era law in South Africa that prohibited marriages between "whites" and "non-whites". It was among the first pieces of apartheid legislation to be passed following the National Party's rise to power in 1948. -
population registration act
The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. -
Sharpeville Massacre
Police officers in a Black township in South Africa opened fire on a group of people peacefully protesting oppressive laws. Sixty‐nine protestors were killed. -
Rivonia Trial
The Rivonia Trial was a trial that took place in apartheid-era South Africa between 9 October 1963 and 12 June 1964, after a group of anti-apartheid activists were arrested on Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. The farm had been the secret location for meetings of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the newly-formed armed wing of the African National Congress -
Bantu Homeland Citizen Act
The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970 made every Black South African, irrespective of actual residence, a citizen of one of the Bantustans, which were organized on the basis of ethnic and linguistic groupings defined by white ethnographers. -
Township uprising
On 3 September the Tricameral Parliament opened in Cape Town while protest demonstrations began in the Transvaal, marking the start of the longest and most widespread period of black resistance to white rule. -
Nelson Mandela Released from prison
South African leader Nelson Mandela is released from prison after serving 27 years. The African National Congress won a 63 percent share of the vote at the election, and Mandela, as leader of the ANC, was inaugurated on 10 May 1994 as the country's first Black President, with the National Party's F.W. de Klerk as his first deputy and Thabo Mbeki as the second in the Government of National Unity. -
Prime Minister Hendrik Verwood is Assassinated
On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was stabbed several times by parliamentary aide Dimitri Tsafendas. -
Nelson Mandela becomes president
The presidency of Nelson Mandela began on 10 May 1994, when Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist, leader of uMkhonto we Sizwe, lawyer, and former political prisoner, was inaugurated as President of South Africa.