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The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.
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The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, launching a colony that by the end of the 18th century numbered only about 15,000
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After occupying the Cape Colony in that year, Britain took permanent possession in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars
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The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold nine years later brought an influx of “outlanders” into the republics and spurred Cape Colony prime minister Cecil Rhodes to plot annexation.
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The Angola-Boer war was between the British and the Dutch.
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The Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1986 forced about 1.5 million Africans to move from cities to rural townships, where they lived in abject poverty under repressive laws.
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In 1960, 70 black protesters were killed during a peaceful demonstration in Sharpesville.
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In 1976, an uprising in the black township of Soweto spread to other black townships and left 600 dead.
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Nelson Mandela Becomes president of South Africa
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On June 2, 1999, Thabo Mbeki, the pragmatic deputy president and leader of the ANC, was elected president
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As expected, on April 15, 2004, the African National Congress won South Africa's general election in a landslide, taking about 70% of the vote, and Thabo Mbeki was sworn in for a second term.
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Parliament elected Kgalema Motlanthe, a labor leader who was imprisoned during apartheid, as president.
