South Africa historical timeline

Origins

The limestone caves north-west of Johannesburg have produced so many hominin fossils that the area is called the Cradle of Humankind, and South African sites have yielded some of the oldest evidence of symbolic behaviour anywhere. San hunter-gatherers and Khoikhoi herders occupied the region for millennia; Bantu-speaking farmers moved south from around the third century; and by 1200 the kingdom of Mapungubwe was trading gold and ivory with the Indian Ocean world.

Turning points

The Dutch East India Company set up a supply station at the Cape in 1652 and began importing enslaved people from Asia and East Africa. Britain took the Cape in 1806, Boer settlers trekked inland in the 1830s, and then two discoveries changed everything: diamonds at Kimberley in 1867 and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886, which drew capital and labour on an enormous scale and made the region worth fighting two wars over. The Union of South Africa was formed in 1910, the African National Congress in 1912, and from 1948 the National Party legislated apartheid into a comprehensive system of racial classification, removal and control. Sharpeville in 1960, the Rivonia trial in 1964 and the Soweto uprising in 1976 marked the resistance and the repression. Negotiations began in 1990 with Nelson Mandela’s release, and on 27 April 1994 South Africans of every race voted together for the first time.

Influential people

Shaka, who built the Zulu kingdom. Cecil Rhodes, whose mining wealth and imperial ambition shaped southern Africa and whose statues are now contested. Nelson Mandela, twenty-seven years in prison and then president. Desmond Tutu, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Steve Biko, who died in police custody in 1977. Miriam Makeba, who carried the country’s music into exile. And two Nobel laureates in literature, Nadine Gordimer and J. M. Coetzee.

Cultural evolution

Twelve languages have official status, sign language having been added in 2023, and most South Africans speak several. The constitution that came out of the transition has one of the most expansive bills of rights in the world. The braai is a national institution with its own public holiday. Kwaito and, more recently, amapiano have gone from township sound to global export. And rugby carries a weight beyond sport: the 1995 World Cup win, with Mandela in the captain’s jersey, is the image the transition is remembered by.

Present-day significance

South Africa has the most industrialised and diversified economy on the continent, and also one of the highest unemployment rates and the widest measured income inequality in the world. Years of underinvestment in the state electricity utility produced rolling blackouts that have constrained growth directly. It holds a seat in the G20 and hosted the summit in 2025, and its diplomacy — in the BRICS grouping and at international courts — gives it a voice larger than its economy.