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Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Dias is the first European to travel round the southern tip of Africa
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Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama lands on Natal coast.
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Jan van Riebeeck, representing the Dutch East India Company, founds the Cape Colony at Table Bay.
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British forces seize Cape Colony from the Netherlands. Territory is returned to the Dutch in 1803; ceded to the British in 1806.
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Shaka Zulu founds and expands the Zulu empire, creates a formidable fighting force.
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Boers leave Cape Colony in the 'Great Trek' and found the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
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Boers proclaim the Transvaal a republic
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After Britain annexes Transvaal, Boers rebel against the British, sparking the first Anglo-Boer War. Conflict ends with a negotiated peace. Transvaal is restored as a republic.
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British troops gather on the Transvaal border and ignore an ultimatum to disperse. The second Anglo-Boer War begins.
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The Union of South Africa parliament enacts the Status of the Union Act, which declares the country to be "a sovereign independent state". The move followed on from Britain's passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which removed the last vestiges of British legal authority over South Africa.
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Policy of apartheid (separateness) adopted when National Party (NP) takes power.
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FW de Klerk replaces PW Botha as president, meets Mandela. Public facilities desegregated. Many ANC activists freed.
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ANC wins first non-racial elections. Mandela becomes president, Government of National Unity formed, Commonwealth membership restored, remaining sanctions lifted. South Africa takes seat in UN General Assembly after 20-year absence.
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President Mbeki sacks his deputy, Jacob Zuma, in the aftermath of a corruption case.
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June - Hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers take part in the biggest strike since the end of apartheid. The strike lasts for four weeks and causes widespread disruption to schools, hospitals and public transport.