1480s - Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Dias is the first European to travel round the southern tip of Africa.
 
 

1497 - Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama lands on Natal coast.

 

1652 - Jan van Riebeeck, representing the Dutch East India Company, founds the Cape Colony at Table Bay

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1795 - British forces seize Cape Colony from the Netherlands. Territory is returned to the Dutch in 1803; ceded to the British in 1806

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1816-1826 - Shaka Zulu founds and expands the Zulu empire, creates a formidable fighting force.

 

1835-1840 - Boers leave Cape Colony in the 'Great Trek' and found the Orange Free State and the Transvaal

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1852 - British grant limited self-government to the Transvaal.

1856 - Natal separates from the Cape Colony.

 

Late 1850s - Boers proclaim the Transvaal a republic.

 

1860-1911 - Arrival of thousands of labourers and traders from India, forebears of the majority of South Africa's current Indian population.

 

1867 - Diamonds discovered at Kimberley.

 

1877 - Britain annexes the Transvaal.

 

1879 - British defeat the Zulus in Natal.

 

1880-81 - Boers rebel against the British, sparking the first Anglo-Boer War. Conflict ends with a negotiated peace. Transvaal is restored as a republic.

 

Mid 1880s - Gold is discovered in the Transvaal, triggering the gold rush.

 

1899 - British troops gather on the Transvaal border and ignore an ultimatum to disperse. The second Anglo-Boer War begins.

 

1902 - Treaty of Vereeniging ends the second Anglo-Boer War. The Transvaal and Orange Free State are made self-governing colonies of the British Empire.

 

1910 - Formation of Union of South Africa by former British colonies of the Cape and Natal, and the Boer republics of Transvaal, and Orange Free State.

 

1912 - Native National Congress founded, later renamed the African National Congress (ANC).

 

1913 - Land Act introduced to prevent blacks, except those living in Cape Province, from buying land outside reserves.

 

1914 - National Party founded.

 

1918 - Secret Broederbond (brotherhood) established to advance the Afrikaner cause.

1919 - South West Africa (Namibia) comes under South African administration.

 

1934 - The Union of South Africa parliament enacts the Status of the Union Act, which declares the country to be "a sovereign independent state". The move followed on from Britain's passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which removed the last vestiges of British legal authority over South Africa.