Cape Town Timeline of Events

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Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

Timeline of Events

1652

4.6.1652

At the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp that eventually becomes Cape Town .

1806

1.10.1806

Dutch settlers in Cape Town surrender to the British.

1829

10.1.1829

South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa; it will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.

1936

5.15.1936

Amy Johnson arrives back in England after a record-breaking return flight to Cape Town

1966

9.6.1966

In Cape Town, South Africa, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death during a parliamentary meeting.

1967

12.3.1967

At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).

12.21.1967

Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, after living for 18 days after the transplant.

1988

2.29.1988

South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town

1990

2.11.1990

Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa.