History of South Africa
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The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. In 1999, Unesco designated the region the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site. South Africa's first known inhabitants have been referred to as the Khoisan, the Khwe and the San. Starting in about 1,000 BCE, these groups were then joined by the Bantu tribes who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion.
Looking out over the floodplains of the Luvuvhu River (right) and the Limpopo River (far distance and left)
Statue of Bartolomeu Dias at the High Commission of South Africa in London. He was the first European navigator to sail around the southernmost tip of Africa.
Replica of an East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company/United East Indies Company (VOC). The Dutch East India Company was a major force behind the Golden Age of Dutch exploration (c. 1590s–1720s) and Netherlandish cartography (c. 1570s–1670s).
View of Table Bay with ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), c. 1683.
The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution of 1996; and in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement.
South African President F. W. de Klerk in May 1990.
De Klerk and Mandela at the World Economic Forum in January 1992, shortly after CODESA I.
Mandela casting his vote on 27 April 1994.