January - Police kill four protesters after firing live ammunition during a protest over water in Madibeng municipality in Brits, North West.
- Crisis-hit Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital fails to pay its new recruits their salaries. Hospital boss Dr Sandile Mfenyana tells employees in a circular that salaries will only be paid at the end of the next month.
-Thousands of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union members working for the major platinum mining companies embark on a strike demanding a basic salary of R12500.
- Violence breaks out at universities over student demands for funding.
February
- Two universities established post-apartheid officially opened their doors.
The two institutions - Mpumalanga University and Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley - were also the first higher education institutions in their respective provinces.
- Twenty-five illegal miners are killed after an explosion in a disused gold mine near Roodepoort on the West Rand.
March
- Paralympian Oscar Pistorius's murder trial starts at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where he pleads not guilty to the charge of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
- Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappears over the South China Sea. The 227 passengers and 12 crew members were travelling from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
- Thousands of people die in West Africa in the world's worst ebola outbreak.
- Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death among South Africans. Statistician-general Pali Lehohla says in a report that more than 5million people died from TB in 2011.
April
- Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram kidnaps 276 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok in Borno State, northeast Nigeria. The kidnappings spark outrage all over the world.
- Tembisa Hospital is considered the most dangerous hospital in Gauteng after it is revealed that it had 71 serious adverse events between January and September last year.
- The South African National HIV Prevalence Survey stated that HIV in the country is on the rise. In 2008, 10.6% of the population were HIV positive and this increased to 12.2% in 2012.
- Judge Neil Tuchten rules that the education department had violated pupils' rights by not delivering textbooks before the start of the school year. The department of basic education is dragged to court again by lobby group Section27 over textbook shortages in more than 30 Limpopo schools.
- Bobby Soobrayan resigns from his position as basic education director-general after the SA Democratic Teachers' Union accuses him of misconduct. Soobrayan is later cleared of any wrongdoing.
- Public protector Thuli Madonsela is named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world for her fearless fight against corruption.
May
- Acclaimed American poet and author Maya Angelou dies at the age of 86.
- Former president Kgalema Motlanthe weds his long-time partner Gugu Mtshali. Motlanthe's mother MaSefako Madingoane dies at home in Meadowlands a day before her son walks down the aisle.
- SA Democratic Teachers' Union suspends its president Thobile Ntola over allegations of maladministration and misusing his position for personal gain.
lControversy rages over a new ethnic Venda porn DVD produced by Thohoyandou adult shop owner Zwoluga Madega.
- In a rare and traumatic case of mistaken identity, two Gauteng mothers end up in court after they discovertheir children, now aged four, were swapped at birth. The high court in Pretoria and the Centre for Child Law advise that the children should stay with their "mothers" until a ruling is made.
June
- Outrage sparks as controversial SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng is given 23-year-old human resources management student, Vanessa Mutswari, as a gift by Mudzi wa Vhurereli ha Vhavenda, a lobby group of traditional leaders and healers. He denies accepting her as a "gift", saying he is happily married.
- Metro FM DJ Eddie Zondi dies at the age of 47 after complaining of chest pains.
- The doors of learning are shut in over 200 schools in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district municipality near Kuruman, Northern Cape, as residents demand that a tarred road be built.
- Professor Russel Botman, rector and vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University, dies in his sleep at his home in Stellenbosch. At the time of his death Botman had been leading the university for 12 years. He was 60.
July
- Four-year-old Taegrin Morris dies after being dragged behind his mother's car after it was hijacked in Reiger Park, Boksburg.
- A report by the United Nations reveals that South Africa has the highest number of people with HIV and the highest number of new infections last year.
September
- A guesthouse belonging to TB Joshua, founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria collapses, killing 116 people, including 81 South Africans.
- A parliamentary inquiry into the misrepresentation of qualifications by SABC board chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala begins.
- The new University of Mpumalanga appoints its first vice-chancellor, Professor Thokozile Mayekiso. Before taking up the position, Mayekiso was a deputy vice-chancellor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
- The remains of anti-apartheid journalist Nathaniel "Nat" Nakasa are returned to South Africa from the United States 49 years after he apparently committed suicide in New York. He left South Africa on an exit visa after the apartheid government refused to grant him a visa to study journalism at Harvard University. He was reburied in his hometown of Chesterville, Durban.
- Oprah Magazine's 12-year run in South Africa comes to an end as it publishes its last issue.
- The first group of pupils from a primary school in the Sekhukhune district in Limpopo discover pieces of broken glass and small stones in their meals. All 360 pupils at Maserala Primary School are taken to hospital for observation. In the following months about 1000 pupils are hospitalised after discovering broken glass and small stones in food.
- The dreams of hundreds of matriculants in Northern Cape are shattered when the department of basic education deregisters them after their schools had been shut for months over a dispute regarding the tarring of a road.
October
- Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper and captain, Senzo Meyiwa, is gunned down while visiting his girlfriend, singer Kelly Khumalo, at her mother's house in Vosloorus.
- Author Chris van Wyk, best known for his memoirs Shirley, Goodness and Mercy and Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch, dies of cancer at the age of 57.
- The Western Cape High Court orders the SABC to suspend its chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng with immediate effect and start disciplinary proceedings against him for a string of alleged corporate misdemeanours including irregular salary increases, appointments and staff purges.
- Professor Fikile Mazibuko resigns from her position as vice-chancellor of the University of Zululand. Her term was due to end in January. It was alleged that the university was going to suspend her following allegations of maladministration.
- Almost a year after former president Nelson Mandela's death, his ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, goes to court to challenge his will. She insists she has a claim to the late statesman's Qunu home in Eastern Cape.
- Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan wins the Nobel peace prize for her education campaign alongside Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children's right activist.
November
- Dr Myles Munroe, evangelist and minister who founded the Bahamas Faith Ministries, his wife Ruth Munroe and seven others are killed in a plane crash.
- Acting South African Airways CEO Nico Bezuidenhout becomes the latest in a series of high-profile executives and politicians exposed for overstating their qualifications. SAA said its 2011 and 2012 annual reports were wrong to state that Bezuidenhout had a BCom in transport economics and industrial psychology as well as an MBA.
- lThe basic education department terminates the contracts of two companies linked to delivering poisonous food to schools in the Sekhukhune district in Limpopo that led to scores of pupils being hospitalised.
- Professor Nthabiseng Ogude resigns from her position as the vice-chancellor of Tshwane University of Technology. Ogude had led the institution for two years and had three years to go before the end of her five-year term. It was alleged that her sudden resignation was because students and workers at the university were unhappy with her leadership.
- The basic education department announces that more than 15000 pupils in Grades R to 11 from John Taolo Gaetsewe district municipality near Kuruman, Northern Cape will repeat their grades next year. This comes after a drawn-out protest during which residents shut down 54 schools demanding a tarred road be builtbefore pupils can be allowed to go back to school.
- Charges against Zamokuhle Mbatha, who was arrested in connection with the murder of Senzo Meyiwa, are withdrawn and he is released because of a lack of evidence.
- The Marikana Commission of Inquiry into the deaths of 44 people during strike-related violence at Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana near Rustenburg, North West, completes its two-year-long hearings into the tragedy.
- Power blackouts hit the country after the collapse of a coal silo at Eskom's 3800 megawatt Majuba Power Station in Mpumalanga.
-Afrikaner activist Dan Roodt asks the Randburg Magistrate's Court to issue an order preventing ventriloquist Conrad Koch, through his satirical puppet Chester Missing, from "harassing" Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr. Roodt's failed bid follows a Twitter war between Hofmeyr and the puppet when the singer tweeted that "blacks were the architects of apartheid".
- Cell C is left with egg on its face as it fails in its court bid to have a banner erected by a disgruntled client taken down. The massive banner denounced a Cell C branch for poor service.
- The grand jury in a US court decides not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. The decision sparks protests in Ferguson and across the US.
- Sowetan exposes apartheid-era style racially segregated toilets in Limpopo. The SA Human Rights Commission launches an investigation.
December
- The world commemorates a year since the death of Nelson Mandela, struggle icon and the first democratically elected president of the country.
- Miss South Africa Rolene Strauss wins the Miss World title at a glittering event in London. She becomes the first Miss South Africa to win the prestigious title in 40 years.
- SABC board chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala resigns and President Jacob Zuma accepts her resignation from the public broadcaster. She was found guilty of misrepresenting her qualifications.
- Songstress Lulu Dikana dies after a short illness while being treated at a Joburg hospital. Dikana died a week after she opened for John Legend on his All of Me tour in South Africa.
- The National Prosecuting Authority scores a major victory when the Supreme Court of Appeal increases the sentence of former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown to 15 years in prison. The high court in Cape Town had given Brown a fine of R150000 for two convictions of fraud or a suspended sentence of 18 months in prison. He is, however, planning to apply for leave to appeal against his sentence in the Constitutional Court.
- The Randburg Magistrate's Court rules that Duduzane Zuma, son of the president, has to answer for a fatal accident in which his silver Porsche crashed into a minibus taxi in Johannesburg earlier in the year. The accident led to the death of minibus taxi passenger Phumzile Dube.
- Free State teacher Pierre Korkie is killed in Yemen, where he was held hostage by al-Qaeda, during a botched operation by US Special Forces trying to rescue him and US photographer Luke Somers.
- British businessman Shrien Dewani, accused of the honeymoon murder of his wife Anni Dewani in Cape Town in November 2010, is acquitted of the charge after a lengthy extradition battle to have him stand trial in South Africa. He was accused of orchestrating her murder by hiring people to kill her and make it look like a hijacking.
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
It was 12 months of tension and drama
January - Police kill four protesters after firing live ammunition during a protest over water in Madibeng municipality in Brits, North West.
- Crisis-hit Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital fails to pay its new recruits their salaries. Hospital boss Dr Sandile Mfenyana tells employees in a circular that salaries will only be paid at the end of the next month.
-Thousands of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union members working for the major platinum mining companies embark on a strike demanding a basic salary of R12500.
- Violence breaks out at universities over student demands for funding.
February
- Two universities established post-apartheid officially opened their doors.
The two institutions - Mpumalanga University and Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley - were also the first higher education institutions in their respective provinces.
- Twenty-five illegal miners are killed after an explosion in a disused gold mine near Roodepoort on the West Rand.
March
- Paralympian Oscar Pistorius's murder trial starts at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where he pleads not guilty to the charge of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
- Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappears over the South China Sea. The 227 passengers and 12 crew members were travelling from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, to Beijing Capital International Airport in China.
- Thousands of people die in West Africa in the world's worst ebola outbreak.
- Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death among South Africans. Statistician-general Pali Lehohla says in a report that more than 5million people died from TB in 2011.
April
- Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram kidnaps 276 schoolgirls from a school in Chibok in Borno State, northeast Nigeria. The kidnappings spark outrage all over the world.
- Tembisa Hospital is considered the most dangerous hospital in Gauteng after it is revealed that it had 71 serious adverse events between January and September last year.
- The South African National HIV Prevalence Survey stated that HIV in the country is on the rise. In 2008, 10.6% of the population were HIV positive and this increased to 12.2% in 2012.
- Judge Neil Tuchten rules that the education department had violated pupils' rights by not delivering textbooks before the start of the school year. The department of basic education is dragged to court again by lobby group Section27 over textbook shortages in more than 30 Limpopo schools.
- Bobby Soobrayan resigns from his position as basic education director-general after the SA Democratic Teachers' Union accuses him of misconduct. Soobrayan is later cleared of any wrongdoing.
- Public protector Thuli Madonsela is named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world for her fearless fight against corruption.
May
- Acclaimed American poet and author Maya Angelou dies at the age of 86.
- Former president Kgalema Motlanthe weds his long-time partner Gugu Mtshali. Motlanthe's mother MaSefako Madingoane dies at home in Meadowlands a day before her son walks down the aisle.
- SA Democratic Teachers' Union suspends its president Thobile Ntola over allegations of maladministration and misusing his position for personal gain.
lControversy rages over a new ethnic Venda porn DVD produced by Thohoyandou adult shop owner Zwoluga Madega.
- In a rare and traumatic case of mistaken identity, two Gauteng mothers end up in court after they discovertheir children, now aged four, were swapped at birth. The high court in Pretoria and the Centre for Child Law advise that the children should stay with their "mothers" until a ruling is made.
June
- Outrage sparks as controversial SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng is given 23-year-old human resources management student, Vanessa Mutswari, as a gift by Mudzi wa Vhurereli ha Vhavenda, a lobby group of traditional leaders and healers. He denies accepting her as a "gift", saying he is happily married.
- Metro FM DJ Eddie Zondi dies at the age of 47 after complaining of chest pains.
- The doors of learning are shut in over 200 schools in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district municipality near Kuruman, Northern Cape, as residents demand that a tarred road be built.
- Professor Russel Botman, rector and vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University, dies in his sleep at his home in Stellenbosch. At the time of his death Botman had been leading the university for 12 years. He was 60.
July
- Four-year-old Taegrin Morris dies after being dragged behind his mother's car after it was hijacked in Reiger Park, Boksburg.
- A report by the United Nations reveals that South Africa has the highest number of people with HIV and the highest number of new infections last year.
September
- A guesthouse belonging to TB Joshua, founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria collapses, killing 116 people, including 81 South Africans.
- A parliamentary inquiry into the misrepresentation of qualifications by SABC board chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala begins.
- The new University of Mpumalanga appoints its first vice-chancellor, Professor Thokozile Mayekiso. Before taking up the position, Mayekiso was a deputy vice-chancellor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
- The remains of anti-apartheid journalist Nathaniel "Nat" Nakasa are returned to South Africa from the United States 49 years after he apparently committed suicide in New York. He left South Africa on an exit visa after the apartheid government refused to grant him a visa to study journalism at Harvard University. He was reburied in his hometown of Chesterville, Durban.
- Oprah Magazine's 12-year run in South Africa comes to an end as it publishes its last issue.
- The first group of pupils from a primary school in the Sekhukhune district in Limpopo discover pieces of broken glass and small stones in their meals. All 360 pupils at Maserala Primary School are taken to hospital for observation. In the following months about 1000 pupils are hospitalised after discovering broken glass and small stones in food.
- The dreams of hundreds of matriculants in Northern Cape are shattered when the department of basic education deregisters them after their schools had been shut for months over a dispute regarding the tarring of a road.
October
- Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper and captain, Senzo Meyiwa, is gunned down while visiting his girlfriend, singer Kelly Khumalo, at her mother's house in Vosloorus.
- Author Chris van Wyk, best known for his memoirs Shirley, Goodness and Mercy and Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch, dies of cancer at the age of 57.
- The Western Cape High Court orders the SABC to suspend its chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng with immediate effect and start disciplinary proceedings against him for a string of alleged corporate misdemeanours including irregular salary increases, appointments and staff purges.
- Professor Fikile Mazibuko resigns from her position as vice-chancellor of the University of Zululand. Her term was due to end in January. It was alleged that the university was going to suspend her following allegations of maladministration.
- Almost a year after former president Nelson Mandela's death, his ex-wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, goes to court to challenge his will. She insists she has a claim to the late statesman's Qunu home in Eastern Cape.
- Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan wins the Nobel peace prize for her education campaign alongside Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children's right activist.
November
- Dr Myles Munroe, evangelist and minister who founded the Bahamas Faith Ministries, his wife Ruth Munroe and seven others are killed in a plane crash.
- Acting South African Airways CEO Nico Bezuidenhout becomes the latest in a series of high-profile executives and politicians exposed for overstating their qualifications. SAA said its 2011 and 2012 annual reports were wrong to state that Bezuidenhout had a BCom in transport economics and industrial psychology as well as an MBA.
- lThe basic education department terminates the contracts of two companies linked to delivering poisonous food to schools in the Sekhukhune district in Limpopo that led to scores of pupils being hospitalised.
- Professor Nthabiseng Ogude resigns from her position as the vice-chancellor of Tshwane University of Technology. Ogude had led the institution for two years and had three years to go before the end of her five-year term. It was alleged that her sudden resignation was because students and workers at the university were unhappy with her leadership.
- The basic education department announces that more than 15000 pupils in Grades R to 11 from John Taolo Gaetsewe district municipality near Kuruman, Northern Cape will repeat their grades next year. This comes after a drawn-out protest during which residents shut down 54 schools demanding a tarred road be builtbefore pupils can be allowed to go back to school.
- Charges against Zamokuhle Mbatha, who was arrested in connection with the murder of Senzo Meyiwa, are withdrawn and he is released because of a lack of evidence.
- The Marikana Commission of Inquiry into the deaths of 44 people during strike-related violence at Lonmin's platinum mine in Marikana near Rustenburg, North West, completes its two-year-long hearings into the tragedy.
- Power blackouts hit the country after the collapse of a coal silo at Eskom's 3800 megawatt Majuba Power Station in Mpumalanga.
-Afrikaner activist Dan Roodt asks the Randburg Magistrate's Court to issue an order preventing ventriloquist Conrad Koch, through his satirical puppet Chester Missing, from "harassing" Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr. Roodt's failed bid follows a Twitter war between Hofmeyr and the puppet when the singer tweeted that "blacks were the architects of apartheid".
- Cell C is left with egg on its face as it fails in its court bid to have a banner erected by a disgruntled client taken down. The massive banner denounced a Cell C branch for poor service.
- The grand jury in a US court decides not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. The decision sparks protests in Ferguson and across the US.
- Sowetan exposes apartheid-era style racially segregated toilets in Limpopo. The SA Human Rights Commission launches an investigation.
December
- The world commemorates a year since the death of Nelson Mandela, struggle icon and the first democratically elected president of the country.
- Miss South Africa Rolene Strauss wins the Miss World title at a glittering event in London. She becomes the first Miss South Africa to win the prestigious title in 40 years.
- SABC board chairwoman Zandile Tshabalala resigns and President Jacob Zuma accepts her resignation from the public broadcaster. She was found guilty of misrepresenting her qualifications.
- Songstress Lulu Dikana dies after a short illness while being treated at a Joburg hospital. Dikana died a week after she opened for John Legend on his All of Me tour in South Africa.
- The National Prosecuting Authority scores a major victory when the Supreme Court of Appeal increases the sentence of former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown to 15 years in prison. The high court in Cape Town had given Brown a fine of R150000 for two convictions of fraud or a suspended sentence of 18 months in prison. He is, however, planning to apply for leave to appeal against his sentence in the Constitutional Court.
- The Randburg Magistrate's Court rules that Duduzane Zuma, son of the president, has to answer for a fatal accident in which his silver Porsche crashed into a minibus taxi in Johannesburg earlier in the year. The accident led to the death of minibus taxi passenger Phumzile Dube.
- Free State teacher Pierre Korkie is killed in Yemen, where he was held hostage by al-Qaeda, during a botched operation by US Special Forces trying to rescue him and US photographer Luke Somers.
- British businessman Shrien Dewani, accused of the honeymoon murder of his wife Anni Dewani in Cape Town in November 2010, is acquitted of the charge after a lengthy extradition battle to have him stand trial in South Africa. He was accused of orchestrating her murder by hiring people to kill her and make it look like a hijacking.
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
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