1957 in South Africa

The following lists events that happened during 1957 in South Africa.

Incumbents

• Monarch: Queen Elizabeth II.
• Governor-General and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Ernest George Jansen.
• Prime Minister: Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom.
• Chief Justice: Albert van der Sandt Centlivres then Henry Allan Fagan.

Events

January

• 30 – The General Assembly of the United Nations calls on South Africa to reconsider its apartheid policy.

May

• 2 – Die Stem van Suid-Afrika, written by Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven, becomes the official National Anthem

July

• 8 – The United States and South Africa sign a nuclear cooperation agreement, the terms of which state that the United States will provide South Africa with a nuclear research reactor, supply enriched uranium as fuel, and train additional scientists and reactor technicians.

December

• 16 – The 45th Annual Conference of the African National Congress is held in Orlando, Johannesburg.
• A series of shark attacks near Durban occur during Black December.

Births

• 7 January – Ivan Glasenberg, billionaire businessman.
• 23 March – Edna Molewa, politician.
• 26 May – Dan Roodt, activist, author and politician.
• June – Peter de Villiers, Springboks coach.
• 14 September; Kepler Wessels, cricketer.

Deaths

• 23 April – Roy Campbell, poet and satirist. (b. 1901)
• 14 November – Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef, landscape artist. (b. 1886)
• 10 December – James Stevenson-Hamilton, first warden of the Kruger National Park. (b. 1867)

Railways

Locomotives

• The South African Railways places the first of forty-five Class 5E, electric locomotives in mainline service.

References