1911
A South African team competes at the Inter-Empire championships in London. The event is to celebrate the coronation of King George V and is a forerunner to the Commonwealth Games
1912
South Africa’s Kenneth McArthur wins gold and Christian Gitsham the silver for the marathon at the Stockholm Olympic Games.
1913
The touring Springboks beat England 9-3 and France 38-5 on consecutive Saturdays in January.
1914-1918
All quiet on the sporting front during the First World War
Many sportsmen perished including five South Africans who had played for the Springboks. They were: Adam Francis Burdett, died on November 4, 1918, aged 36; Septimus Heyns Ledger, died on April 13 1917 aged 26; Tobias Mortimer Moll, died on July 14 1916, aged 26; Jan Willem Hunter Morkel, died on May 15 1916, aged 25 and Gerald W Thompson, died on June 20 1916, aged 29.
1919
Jack Demsey, the “Manassa Mauler”, KOs Jess Willard in the third round to take the world heavyweight boxing title.
1920
South Africa’s Bevil Rudd wins gold in the 400m at the Antwerp Olympic Games.
1921
Western Province win cricket’s Currie Cup competition.
1921-22
Liverpool win English soccer’s First Division championship.
1922-23
Liverpool retain the title.
1924
The Boks beat the touring British Isles rugby team in three Tests, while one game is drawn.
1925
Herbert Chapman is appointed coach of Arsenal and revolutionises training methods. Way ahead of his time he also calls for floodlights, white balls and stadium clocks for fans to count down the time.
1927
American baseball legend Babe Ruth becomes the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season, setting the season record which stood until broken by Roger Maris in 1961.
1928
The Springboks and All Blacks draw the four-Test series in South Africa. The Boks win the first test 17-0 and the third 11-6 while NZ take the other two 7-6 and 13-5.
l SA’s Sydney Atkinson wins gold for the 110m hurldes at the Amsterdam Olympics.
1930
Soccer’s first World Cup tournament is held in Uruguay with the hosts beating Argentina 4-2 in the final.
l Wally Hayward wins the Comrades Marathon in 7hr 27min 26sec.
1937
Orlando Pirates soccer club is formed.
1939
The longest cricket Test between South Africa and England began in Durban on March 3, and continued till March 14, although they did not play on the 5th, 11th or 12th. Unfortunately England had to catch a boat home on the 15th so after play on the 14th the match was called a draw and both teams went home. The world’s longest cricket match spanned 43 hours and 16 minutes of playing time in which 1,981 runs were scored.
1939-1945
World War Two.
The only games held were those to lift public morale, such as an England-Scotland soccer match attended by British prime minister Winston Churchill.
1946
Northern Transvaal beat Western Province 11-9 in the Currie Cup final.
1947
Western Province go one better, beating Transvaal in the Currie Cup final.
1948
Boxing’s world heavyweight champion Joe Louis knocks out Jersey Joe Walcott in the 11th round to retain the title.
1949
Joe Louis retires from the ring as undefeated heavyweight champion.
l Milesia Pride wins the Durban July Handicap
1950
Milesia Pride makes it two in a row at South Africa’s major horse race.
1952
SA’s Esther Brand clinches the gold medal for the high jump at the Helsinki Olympics.
1954
West Germany win the World Cup, beating Hungary 3-2 in the final in Switzerland.
1955
Tropical Night wins the Metropolitan Handicap
1957
January 5: Russell Endean became the first cricketer to be given out “handled ball”, in a Test against England.
February 24: Hugh Tayfield takes 9/113 in a single innings against England at the Wanderers.
1959
Gary Player wins the British Open for the first time.
1960
Basil D’Oliviera leaves South Africa for England, to pursue a career in a country without a colour bar.
l The last appearance (until 1992) of South Africa at the Olympics.
l Geoff Griffin, then 21, becomes the first South African to take a hat- trick in Test cricket. Griffin is then no-balled eight times for throwing, practically ending his Test career.
1961
Gary Player becomes the first non-American citizen to win the US Masters.
1962
Brazil win soccer’s World Cup, beating Czechoslovakia 3-1 in the final in Santiago, Chile.
1963
Former caddie, Sewsunker “Papwa” Sewgolum, causes a stir in apartheid South Africa when he beats a field of 103 white golfers including Harold Henning at the Natal Open in Durban.
1964
l Cassius Clay wins the world heavyweight title when Sonny Liston fails to answer the bell for the seventh round.
l South Africa is banned from the Olympics because of apartheid.
1965
Papwa Sewgolum wins the Natal Open for a second time, beating Gary Player, who had just won the US Open. Sewgolum was forced to receive his trophy outside in the rain as Indians were not allowed in the clubhouse because of apartheid.
l Karen Muir, then 12 years old, breaks the world record in the 110-yards backstroke, becoming the youngest world-record holder in any sport.
1966
Basil D’Oliviera wins his first cap for England, playing against the West Indies.
l England win the World Cup beating West Germany 4-2 in the final.
1967
US tennis star Billie-Jean King wins Wimbledon for the second time.
1968
Playing for Worcestershire, D’Oliviera is refused entry to SA.
1969
Anti-apartheid demonstrators, led by Peter Hain, disrupt the Springbok’s rugby tour of Britain.
1970
The first Maoris and Samoans tour SA with the 1970 New Zealand All Blacks. Sid Going (Maori) and Bryan Williams (Samoan) make a huge impression on white South Africans.
1971
The Keg League (the name was later changed to the Castle League) is founded with 13 teams (including Bloemfontein Celtic, Kaizer Chiefs, Moroka Swallows, Orlando Pirates and Witbank Black Aces).
l France-born Roger Bourgareland, a black with African genes, tours SA as part of the French rugby team playing on the wing.
l Black American tennis player, Arthur Ashe, is refused a visa to visit South Africa.
1973
Durban club Aurora becomes the first multi-racial club in South Africa to play white league cricket.
l South African boxer Arnold Taylor beats Romeo Anaya to win the world bantamweight title.
l In the first mixed-race boxing match in apartheid South Africa, Bob Foster beats Pierre Fourie.
1974
South Africa win tennis’ Davis Cup for the first (and only) time.
1975
The Jockey Club rules that, due to a government instruction, black people cannot own registered racehorses.
1976
Defying the government and rugby authorities, the Junior Springbok Cheeky Watson and seven other whites play in a mixed-race rugby match.
1977
A multi-racial Springbok soccer team play Rhodesia at the Rand Stadium, in front of 40,000.
1978
In Kerry Packer’s world tournament, Garth le Roux is judged to be Man of the Series.
lA multi-racial NSPL soccer league is established with 24 teams of mixed race.
1979
Jody Scheckter, from East London, becomes the first (and to date, only) South African to be crowned world Formula One racing champion.
1980
Bjorn Borg wins the French Open for the third consecutive year and fifth time overall.
1981
Sydney Maree becomes the first black athlete to win the SA Athlete of the Year Award, in the same year as he wins the New York Mile.
l Errol Tobias is the first black rugby player to play for South Africa, in a Test against Ireland at Newlands.
1982
SA tennis star Johan Kriek wins the Australian Open.
1983
Gerrie Coetzee becomes the first South African and African world heavyweight boxing champion.
l Johan Kriek retains the Aussie Open title.
1984
Running the 3000m for Britain at the Los Angeles Olympics, Zola Budd bumps into race favourite Mary Decker at the halfway stage. Decker is sent tumbling out of the race in tears while a distraught Budd finishes seventh.
1985
Western Province beat Northern Transvaal 22-15 in the Currie Cup final.
1986
The New Zealand Cavaliers rebel rugby team tours SA.
l Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in football’s World Cup final.
1987
Nelson Piquet wins the F1 drivers’s title, ahead of Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna.
1988
Stefan Edberg beats Boris Becker in the men’s final at Wimbledon while Steffi Graf ends Martina Navratilova’s six-year reign at the Championships.
1989
Wally Hayward, at the age of 80, completes the 87.5km Comrades Marathon in 10hr 58sec.
1990
“Comrades King” Bruce Fordyce wins the Comrades Marathon for his ninth victory in a a time of 5hr 40min 25sec. It was his last win in the ultra marathon between Durban and Martizburg.
1991
Cricket and soccer lead the way in becoming the first sports to be united after decades of division under apartheid.
The national cricket team, now called the Proteas, are able to play all opponents and India are the first side to face the “new” SA.
1992
South Africa is re-admitted to Fifa and the national soccer team beats Cameroon 1-0 in a friendly in Durban.
1993
Eighteen members of the Zambian national soccer team are killed when their plane crashes into the sea off Gabon on their way to a World Cup qualifying match against Senegal.
1994
Ernie Els wins the US Open while Durban-born Zimbabwean Nick Price clinches two Majors back-to-back, the British Open and US PGA.
1995
24 June: the Springboks, led by Francois Pienaar, beat New Zealand’s All Blacks 15-12 in the Rugby World Cup final.
1996
Bafana Bafana win the Nations Cup, beating Tunisia 2-0 in the final with Cape Town’s Mark Williams getting both goals.
Josiah Thugwane wins the marathon at the Atlanta Olympics to give SA a third gold medal after swimmer Penny Heyns had won two in the pool.
1998
SA’s Cathy O’Dowd becomes the first woman to summit Mount Everest from both the northern and southern side.
2000
SA cricket team captain Hansie Cronje is sacked after admitting that he and other players engaged in match-fixing, sparking the country’s worst-ever sports scandal.
The government appoints a commission headed by retired judge Edwin King. On October 11, Cronje was banned for life from cricket; he died in a 2002 plane crash. King concluded his investigation unsure if Cronje had been entirely forthcoming.
2001
April 11: During a league match between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, 43 soccer fans die at Ellis Park after being crushed by crowds.
2002
October: South African opening batsman Gary Kirsten scores 150 against Bangladesh to become the first batsman in Test history to score a century against all nine other Test-playing nations.
2003
Former Bok coach, Rudolf Straueli, apologises for the furore that erupted around his “Kamp Staaldraad”.
2006
March 12: South Africa beat Australia in the highest scoring one-day international. Australia scored 434/4. Batting second, South Africa scored 438/9, winning with a ball and a wicket to spare.
June 15: Former South African rugby chief, Brian van Rooyen, is banned from serving in any capacity on the general council or committees of the SA Rugby Union.
August 12: Roland Schoeman breaks the world 50m freestyle short-course record in Germany, clocking 20.98sec to improve on the previous 21.10sec mark set by France’s Fred Bousquet in 2004. This was Schoeman’s 8th world record since 2000.
September 2: In the first ever rugby Test at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium, the Springboks beat the All Blacks 21-20.
2007
May 19: The Bulls win the Super 14 contest, the first time a South African team wins the event. They beat the Sharks in Durban, in an all-South Africa final (also a first).
May 27: Percy Sonn dies in Cape Town at the age of 57. Sonn was the first African president of the ICC and a former president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
October 20: The Springboks, captained by John Smit, beat England 15-6 to win the Rugby World Cup at the Stade de France in Paris.
2008
May 16: Double amputee, Oscar Pistorius, wins the right to participate at the able-bodied Olympics when the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturns an earlier decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations to ban Pistorius.
July 12: The Springboks beat the All Blacks for the first time at Carisbrooke Stadium in Dunedin, the “House of Pain”; where the teams first played in 1921. The score is 30-28.
August 2: The Proteas beat England at Edgbaston to ensure a Test series victory in England for the first time since 1965.
December 30: South Africa clinch the series beating Australia at the MCG. This is South Africa’s first cricket series win in Australia, and Australia’s first home series defeat since the West Indies in 1992.
2009
April 18: The Indian Premier League’s T20 competition is held in South Africa.
The Boks win the Tri-Nations and beat the Irish and British Lions in a three-Test series
2010
Spain win the World Cup, beating Holland 1-0, when South Africa becomes the first African nation to host soccer’s premier global tournament.
2011
As coach, Gary Kirsten steers India to the ODI World Cup title before being installed as Proteas head coach.
l At 24, Germany’s Sebastian Vettel becomes the youngest double Formula One champion.
Compiled by Ian Sadler. Sources: Sport, Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know by Tim Harris. www.safrica.info. ITV Encyclopedia of Football. SuperSport Factfinder. Nat Fleischer’s The Ring