In 7 May 1837
Karl Gottlieb Mauch, purported to be the first man to discover gold in SA, is born in Stetten, Wurtemberg.
Gold was worked by the indigenous inhabitants of South Africa well before colonization.
Mauch made important geological and archaeological discoveries in southern Africa.
One of his discoveries was a gold field in Hartley Hills and the city of Zimbabwe on the 5th of September 1871.
Mauch thought that the city of Zimbabwe was probably the gold mines of the King Solomon of the Bible.
The discoveries were important because they were evidence that biblical stories such as King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba were not myths or legends.
Recent archaeological studies proved that they were wrong to assume that the city of Zimbabwe was the city of Solomon.
Instead, Africans, not lost Phoenicians and Persians, built it.
Monday, 7 May 1945
In the early hours of 7 May 1945, the Chief-of-Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, General Alfred Jodl, signed unconditional surrender documents to the Allies at the SHAEF headquarters in Rheims, France.
General Franz Bohme also announced the unconditional surrender of German troops in Norway on 7 May.
It included the phrase “All forces under German control to cease active operations at 23:01 hours Central European Time on 8 May 1945.”
These documents of surrender ended the European conflict of World War II.
Monday, 7 May 1956
The Industrial Conciliation Act of 1956 was passed in parliament.
The primary objective of the Act was to separate the trade unions along racial lines, with the aim of weakening the unions.
It ended recognition of trade unions with racially mixed membership.
The Act further empowered the Minister of Labour to reserve any job on a racial basis and announced strikes illegal in essential industries.
Tuesday, 7 May 1985
A three days’ long International Conference on Women and Children under Apartheid was held in Arusha, Tanzania.
The conference was organised by the Special Committee against Apartheid in cooperation with the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Thursday, 7 May 1987
Since its formation in 1985, Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) was viewed as a threat by the government.
COSATU officials and members were subjected to physical attacks and arrests by the government agents.
In the early hours of the morning of 7 May 1987, two large bombs ripped through the basement of COSATU House in Johannesburg.
Although no one was killed the badly damaged building was declared a health hazard by the City Council.
Cosatu and its affiliates were forced to vacate their offices.
In 1998 the former Minister of Law and Order, Adriaan Vlok, as well as 22 former members of the former security police appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to apply for the amnesty for their involvement in the bombing of COSATU House.
The TRC was satisfied with the information disclosed by the applicants and granted them amnesty for malicious damage caused to the building, unlawful possession of arms and ammunition and defeating the ends of justice in covering up the cause of the bomb.
