1965 in South Africa

Incumbents

• State President: Charles Robberts Swart

Events

January

• 8 – Adam Faith, a British pop singer, cancels his tour of South Africa because the South African government prohibited mixed audiences at concerts.

May

• 4 – Units of the South African Defence Force begin to be issued with the R1 7.62 mm rifle, made in South Africa under license.

November

• Rhodes University in Grahamstown installs a computer, the first university in South Africa to do so.

Unknown date

• The African National Congress establishes its headquarters in Morogoro, Tanzania.

Births

• 1 February – David Callaghan, an all-rounder in one-day cricket matches.
• 2 June – Angela Thoko Didiza, politician, is born in Durban.

Deaths

• 1 April – Frederick John Harris, school teacher, member of the African Resistance Movement and chairman of the Nonracial Olympic Committee, is hanged for exploding the bomb at Johannesburg Park Station that killed 77-year-old Ethel Rhys and injured 23 others on 24 July 1964.
• 19 July – Ingrid Jonker, Afrikaans poet, walks into the sea and commits suicide by drowning at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town.

Railways

Locomotives

Two new Cape gauge locomotive types enter service on the South African Railways (SAR):

• The first of sixty-five Class 33-000 General Electric type U20C diesel-electric locomotives.^{[1]:139–140}
• The first of one hundred Class 5E1, Series 4 electric locomotives.^[1]:128[2]

References