1977 in South Africa

Incumbents

• State President: Nicolaas Johannes Diederichs

Events

January

• 8 – The railway line near Soweto is maliciously damaged.

February

• 1 – KwaZulu is granted self-governance.
• 24 – A bomb explodes at the Daveyton Police Station, causing only superficial damage.

March

• 5 – British Formula One racing driver Tom Pryce dies in a freak accident during the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami when his car strikes marshal Frederik Jansen van Vuuren, who is also killed.
• 7 – A Pretoria restaurant is destroyed by a bomb.

April

• 1 – Pik Botha, South Africa's ambassador in the United States of America, is appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

June

• 4 – Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, Secretary of the South African Catholic Bishops' Conference, is served a 5-year restriction order.
• 15 – Monty Motlaung and Solomon Mahlangu, two Umkhonto we Sizwe cadres, are arrested by police in a warehouse in Goch Street, Johannesburg. Two bystanders are killed during the arrest, Motlaung ends up brain damaged and Mahlangu was later tried and hanged.
• 29 – The United Party is renamed the New Republic Party.

July

• 15 – The railway line at Umlazi in Durban is maliciously damaged.
• 29 – The "Antipolis", a Greek oil tanker, runs aground on the rocks near Victoria Road in Oudekraal, Cape Town, while being towed to a wrecker's yard.

August

• A Soviet surveillance satellite detects South Africa's nuclear test preparations and alerts the United States.
• Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko is detained for breaking a banning order.^[1]:18

September

• 12 – Steve Biko dies in police detention in Pretoria.^[1]:19
• 23 – The Netherlands suspends its cultural agreement with South Africa.

November

• 4 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 418, placing a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa, is passed.^[1]:19
• 25 – Fourteen people are injured when a bomb explodes at the Carlton Centre.
• 30 – A bomb explodes on a Pretoria-bound train.
• 30 – A whites only general election is held. The National Party wins.
• The railway at Dunswart (Boksburg) and Apex (Benoni) is maliciously damaged and a train driver is slightly injured.

December

• 12 – Guerrillas attack the Germiston police station.
• 14 – A bomb explodes at the Benoni railway station.
• 16 – The Venpet-Venoil collision between two supertankers occurs off the coast of Cape St. Francis.
• 22 – An unexploded bomb is found in OK Bazaars in Roodepoort.

Unknown date

• Former members of the United Party join the Progressive Reform Party, which is renamed the Progressive Federal Party.
• Cedric Mayson, a Methodist minister, is banned for 5 years.

Births

• 11 May – Victor Matfield, Springbok rugby player.
• 12 November – Benni McCarthy, soccer striker.
• 12 November – Susan Wessels, field hockey player.
• 17 November – Ryk Neethling, swimmer.

Deaths

• 8 March – Moses Kottler, sculptor, dies in Johannesburg at the age of 81.
• 29 April – Marimuthu Pragalathan Naicker, journalist and anti-apartheid activist, dies at the age of 56 from suspected heart failure on a flight from London to Berlin.
• 9 September – Leonard Mandla Nkosi, a special branch policeman who was a former African National Congress member, is murdered.
• 12 September – Steve Biko dies in police detention.

Railways

Locomotives

• The South African Railways places the first of 150 Class 6E1, Series 7 electric locomotives in mainline service.^[2][3]

Sports

Motorsport

• 5 March – The South African Grand Prix takes place at Kyalami.

References