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2010 WORLD CUP FINALS
Venue: South Africa Date: 11 June-11 July Coverage: Matches will be live on BBC TV, ITV and Radio 5; live text commentary and in-depth analysis on BBC Sport website Full details of BBC World Cup coverage
The 2010 World Cup in South Africa got under way with a spectacular and vibrant opening ceremony at the 94,000-capacity Soccer City in Johannesburg.
The ceremony was followed by the first game of the tournament between the hosts and Mexico, which ended 1-1.

Africa is staging the World Cup for the first time, with 32 nations competing in 64 games until the final on 11 July.

Nelson Mandela was due to attend the opening ceremony but withdrew following the death of his great-granddaughter.

Zenani Mandela, 13, died in a car crash when travelling home from the pre-World Cup concert in Johannesburg on Thursday.

She was one of the 91-year-old anti-apartheid icon's nine great-grandchildren.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation released a statement saying it would be "inappropriate" for Mandela, a former South African president, to be at the opening ceremony.

"We are sure that South Africans and people all over the world will stand in solidarity with Mr Mandela and his family in the aftermath of this tragedy," added the statement.

"We continue to believe that the World Cup is a momentous and historic occasion for South Africa and the continent and we are certain it will be a huge success."

The 40-minute ceremony began with a five-plane military flypast over the stadium, which resembles a huge African cooking pot.

A group of drummers and dancers performed a 'Welcome to Africa' song that included an introduction to all 10 tournament's venues.

The next sequence saw a gigantic beetle show off its football skills with the Jabulani - the official football of the finals - before large pieces of cloth were used to show a map of the continent.

Musicians and artists from the other African finalists - Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria - also had their chance to perform in a joint sequence.

Multiple Grammy Award winner R Kelly then sang the ceremony's showpiece song, 'Sign of a Victory' with South Africa's Soweto Spiritual Singers.

But one of the loudest cheers was reserved for Mandela, whose image appeared on screens to a message of hope from him in song.

Not everyone made it to their seats by the start, with traffic problems delaying some fans.

But Archbishop Desmond Tutu and president Jacob Zuma were in attendance, along with the likes of United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Mexican president Felipe Calderon, Prince Albert of Monaco and United States vice-president Joe Biden.

The global TV audience for the tournament will be made up of viewers in more than 215 countries and will run into hundreds of millions.

The festivities began in earnest on Thursday, with Shakira among the artists at a vast pre-tournament concert in Soweto.

The Colombian pop star performed the official World Cup song Waka Waka and was joined by a cast of international stars, including the Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys, along with African stars Amadou & Mariam and Hugh Masekela.

Since it was chosen as the first African host of the World Cup in 2004, South Africa has spent about 40bn rand (£3.55bn) on stadiums, transport infrastructure and upgrading airports.

The tournament, which is made up of 32 nations, could add as much as 0.5% to the country's GDP in 2010 and will bring in an estimated 370,000 foreign visitors.

There are 64 games in total, with the final taking place at Soccer City on Sunday, 11 July.

There have been concerns about ticketing policy and security in the run-up to the tournament.

Fifa has come under fire for the way tickets have been distributed, with critics claiming its preferred method of making tickets available online excluded many locals who did not have an internet connection.

However, football's world governing body has made a number of tickets exclusively available to South Africans and announced on Wednesday that 97% of the 3.1m tickets had been sold, allaying fears of empty stadiums.

As for security, there have been concerns about the safety of fans, media and players travelling to South Africa.

Sixteen people - including two police officers - were injured at a stampede ahead of a World Cup warm-up match on Sunday between Nigeria and North Korea outside Makhulong Stadium in the township of Tembisa near Johannesburg.

And journalists from China, Spain and Portugal were targeted in two separate armed robberies in and around Johannesburg on Monday and Wednesday.

However, Fifa president Sepp Blatter insists the World Cup will be a success.

"Everywhere, one can feel, I hope, that this World Cup is very special, the first on African soil," he said. "We find ourselves in a position of indescribable anticipation.

"More importantly, this competition will prove that South Africa, and the African continent in general, is capable of organising an event of this magnitude."

Some of the world's best players will be on display in South Africa, among them Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney.

But some big names will be missing because of injury, such as England duo Rio Ferdinand and David Beckham, Germany skipper Michael Ballack and Ghana midfielder Michael Essien.

Didier Drogba - an icon in African sport - fractured his elbow in a recent friendly against Japan, but is hopeful of playing a part in the Ivory Coast's campaign.

England are among the favourites in South Africa and get their Group C campaign under way against the United States in Rustenburg on Saturday.

Defending champions Italy start on Monday with a match against Paraguay, Brazil face North Korea in their first game on Tuesday and Euro 2008 winners Spain start their bid for a first World Cup win by taking on Switzerland on Wednesday.

South Africa began their campaign with a 1-1 draw with Group A rivals Mexico.

Managed by Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira, the Bafana Bafana took the lead on 55 minutes when Siphiwe Tshabalala found the net with a wonderful left-foot shot.

The Mexicans levelled through Rafael Marquez in the 79th minute, but South Africa hit the post through Katlego Mphela in the 90th minute.

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2010 WORLD CUP FINALS Venue: South Africa Date: 11 June-11 July Coverage: Matches will be live on BBC TV, ITV and Radio 5; live text commentary and in-depth analysis on BBC Sport website Full details of BBC World Cup coverage The 2010 World Cup in South Africa got under way with a spectacular and vibrant opening ceremony at the 94,000-capacity Soccer City in Johannesburg.

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A chronology of key events in the history of South Africa from 4th-century migrations to the present day.

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Why is he famous?

Nelson Mandela was a tireless campaigner for equality and justice who spent 27 years in prison for his beliefs.

In 1994 he became the first president of South Africa to be elected by all the people, black as well as white. He worked to take apart the old racist system of government and to make South Africa a fair society for all its citizens.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and 250 other awards for his bravery and courage.

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Why is he famous? Nelson Mandela was a tireless campaigner for equality and justice who spent 27 years in prison for his beliefs. In 1994 he became the first president of South Africa to be elected by all the people, black as well as white.

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BBC - Archive - Apartheid in South Africa - Living under racial segregation and discrimination

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Title: Life Under Apartheid. Subject: apartheid in South Africa. Source: BBC Archive.

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For white South Africans the 1960s was a decade of boom and unprecedented prosperity. For black South Africa, the 1960s saw apartheid harden into its most dogmatic and racist form. Ernest Cole, born Kole, was probably the finest documentary photographer of his generation.

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To understand the role of Apartheid in South Africa's history

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To explain the importance of the Rugby World Cup in providing unity for South Africa

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To explain why Nelson Mandela forgave those who put him in prison

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Fresberg Cartoon – Learning & History for Students

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Nelson Mandela Facts! After 27 years in prison Nelson Mandela becomes President of South Africa

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To understand how black and white people lived differently in South Africa

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) - My mother was furious. The operators of the gas station in rural, racist South Africa had taken her money to fill the car, but would not give her the key to the toilets. They were for whites only.

It was the early 1960s, and apartheid was the law of the land.

So my indomitable mum did the only thing she could do: She ordered me and my two sisters to urinate right there, very publicly, in front of the fuel pumps.

We did not disobey, but I started crying - and my sisters bawled, too. We lowered our shorts, but I was so traumatized that I simply could not go.

My widowed mother, Ethel Pillay, had driven us from our home in Zimbabwe, which was then called Rhodesia, to visit family in her native South Africa.

There was racism in Rhodesia, too, but it was nothing like the institutionalized code in South Africa that made blacks subhuman - the system that Nelson Mandela later fought to bring down.

We had been on the road for more than 15 hours that day. We were taking the car because the train ride was difficult for a woman with three children and lots of baggage.

The train also was an uncomfortable ride for blacks: Halfway through the trip, in the middle of the night, they would have to get out of the Rhodesian Railways compartments and transfer to decrepit blacks-only South African carriages.

The car trip presented its own challenges. Hotels catered only to whites, so the drive needed to be nonstop. We also had to carry piles of food and drinks because my mother refused to go to the back door of shops; only whites were allowed inside the stores.

In those days, of course, we didn't say "blacks" and "whites." Black people were called "Africans," we were "colored" to designate our mixed race, and whites were called "Europeans."

Sometimes those lines got blurred. South Africa had a crazy system of deciding your race, including whether the moons of your fingernails were a bit more mauve than white, indicating a hint of black blood. There also was the test of whether a pencil would stay in your hair, indicating it must be of kinky black stock. If the pencil slid through, you could be considered white.

Under such rules of apartheid, Chinese were classified colored despite their straight hair; Japanese were white.

Blacks who wanted to be reclassified as colored also could undergo the pencil test: if it fell out when you shook your head, you could be become colored.

Tens of thousands of people changed their race in this manner. Sometimes it was not voluntary and led to families being forcibly separated - even children from their parents - if one member was deemed not to belong to the same race. It was not unusual, in the colored community, to find siblings ranging in shades from deepest black to fair with blond hair.

I remember the sorrow brought on our family because one of my mother's sisters "played white." When she was in her 90s, my grandmother recounted how her own daughter walked past her in the street, pretending not to know her. But with the pain still stark in her eyes, she told me, "That's what she had to do to make a better life for herself and her children."

Being white meant you got decent health care, your kids could go to school, and you could live where you wanted.

Blacks were corralled into townships, if they could get jobs in the city. If not, their urban shacks often were bulldozed and they were forcibly moved to unproductive "homelands." This was at the heart of the policy of apartheid, or "separateness."

My experience was more the absurd pettiness of apartheid, rather than the brutal, state-sponsored violence used to maintain it.

If you were white, you had access to jobs denied to blacks. The only black professionals were teachers, like my mother; nurses and doctors who could only treat blacks; and lawyers, the profession chosen by Mandela, who once believed he could end apartheid by reasoning and legal argument.

We moved to England from Rhodesia when I was child because my mother fell in love with a white man, Michael Faul, who had come to Rhodesia when he was 2. His mother strenuously objected to the marriage, and for years, she was estranged from her only son until my mother forced him to reconcile.

I remember our ship docking in Southampton. On the train ride to London, seeing whites doing menial work, I exclaimed to my mother: "But those are Europeans - picking up dustbins!" It was so alien.

On subsequent visits to South Africa as a teenager, I had a British passport. That put me in the peculiar position of being an "honorary white" - meaning I could stay in white hotels and, upon showing my passport, go to restaurants, movie theaters and other places reserved for whites. The exception was South Africa's racially segregated beaches.

To my surprise, I realized that Johannesburg was not made up of dusty, treeless suburbs with poor homes crowded onto small plots overlooked by dumps. White people lived in green neighborhoods with paved roads and sidewalks, in lush homes with gardens, swimming pools and tennis courts.

Black people who worked in those suburbs had to have permission to live in the "boy's quarters" at the bottom of the garden - such approval was stamped into much-hated "passbooks." Or they had to be out of the white suburbs before nightfall.

My mother, now writing her memoirs, recalls racism as something that "children were not taught. ... It seemed to be imbibed unconsciously, and automatically became a part of you."

In Cradock, a South African town in the eastern Cape where she was living when apartheid was legalized in 1948, my English-speaking mother struggled with her studies after new laws sought to entrench white superiority through the Afrikaans language. Once, she was "locked into my classroom to do my topic in history, in a foreign language I could neither read nor write."

Opposition to Afrikaans as "the language of the oppressor" led to the 1976 uprising in Soweto, when police opened fire on 15,000 students marching in a peaceful protest. Images of the state violence published around the world proved a momentous turning point, changing how many perceived apartheid.

When that evil system finally was crushed, we all were in awe of Mandela's insistence on reconciliation and not retribution. It is a tribute to him that today, as he ordained, I and others forgive but do not forget.

EDITOR'S NOTE - Michelle Faul is Chief Africa Correspondent for The Associated Press.

Copyright (2013) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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What Life Was Like In South Africa During Apartheid

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) - My mother was furious. The operators of the gas station in rural, racist South Africa had taken her money to fill the car, but would not give her the key to the toilets. They were for whites only. It was the early 1960s, and apartheid was the law of the land.