key events in south africa

• 1950 - Population Registration Act passed
• 1948 - National Party wins election, implements Apartheid
• 1953 - Bantu Education Act passed
• 1953 - Bantu Education Act introduced, which aimed to separate black children from white schools.
• 1963 - Treason Trial begins against ANC leaders
• 1976 - Soweto Uprising
• 1960 - Sharpeville Massacre
• 1956 - Treason Trial began against ANC leaders including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, and Oliver Tambo.
• 1958 - Group Areas Act was passed, forcing people into segregated areas based on race.
• 1962 - Nelson Mandela arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment
• Soweto uprising

  • 16th june 1976
  • in protest of an extension of the Bantu education act known as the Afrikaans medium decree (1974) which introduced afrikaans as an equal to english in terms of use in schools
  • 20,000 students went on protest and were met with police brutality involving live ammunition
  • an estimated 176 students were killed (some accounts say up to 700) - over 1000 injured
  • government claimed just 23 were killed
  • two white people and a police were killed by the students
• Rivonia trial

  • 1963-4
  • led to the imprisonment of ANC leaders such as mandela
• Sharpsville massacre

  • 21st march 1960
  • 69 killed - 180 injured
  • police claimed that protestors threw stones at police who then opened fire - police planted weapons on some of the dead
  • police killed the injured
  • 7,000 protestors against the pass laws
• The Sharpeville Massacre occurred in March 1960 when police fired upon peaceful protesters demanding the abolition of the Pass Laws, resulting in the deaths of 69 individuals.