Monday, 5 June 1916
Lord Kitchener, British secretary of war, was drowned in the spring of 1916 near the Orkney Islands.
Kitchener had been sent to Russia by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith to try to get the support of that country for Britain’s fight against Germany.
He drowned when the HMS Hampshire struck a mine off the Orkney Islands.
Wednesday, 5 June 1918
On 5 June 1918 disaffected Afrikaners were brought together in a new organisation called Jong Suid-Afrika (Young South Africa). In 1919 the organisation changed its name to Afrikaner Broederbond (Afrikaner Brotherhood).
A rigorous selection process was maintained and membership – by invitation only – was restricted to white, Protestant, Afrikaner men over the age of 25.
Although the organisation’s political power was evident throughout South African society, its rituals and membership remained secret.
In 1993, the Afrikaner Broederbond, under its new name,Afrikanerbond made a resolution to end the secrecy by opening membership to women and other races.
By 1938 another Afrikaner organisation Ossewabrandwag‘oxwagon guard’ (OB), was formed by Johannes Frederik Janse ‘Hans’ van Rensburg.
The main objective of the OB was to formally represent growing Afrikaner nationalism stimulated by the Great Trek centenary celebrations.
Its elite paramilitary wing was the Stormjaers.
The Stormjaers were responsible for severe acts of sabotage in South Africa during World War II, in protest against Jan Smuts’ United Party government and its support for the British during World War II.
Wednesday, 5 June 1974
Due to South Africa’s Apartheid regime in the 1970s and 1980s, many countries were cautious to be seen as allies with the country.
Japan was one of these countries. Japan depended heavily on trade and it could not risk receiving negative international attention.
On 5 June 1974, the Japanese government announced that South Africans would no longer be granted visas to enter Japan.
The announcement meant that they were not to take part in sporting, cultural and educational activities.
The ban came into effect on 15 June 1974.
Friday, 5 June 1981
On 5 June 1981, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) reported that 5 gay men in California were suffering from a rare pneumonia (Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia or PCP).
This strain of pneumonia was found in patients with weakened immune systems.
These were the first ‘recognised’ cases of what became known as AIDS.
Therefore, 1981 is therefore often referred to as the beginning of the HIV/Aids epidemic in the USA, and at this stage doctors believed that the disease only affected gay men.
Later in the 1980s, a blood sample taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo back in 1959 was tested to reveal the HIV virus.
This suggested that HIV/AIDS might have been introduced to humans in the 1940s or early 1950s.
However, in January 2000 (San Francisco, California) the results of a new study presented at the 7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, suggested that the first case of HIV infection occurred as early as 1930.
Wednesday, 5 June 1991
The South African parliament under President F.W. de Klerk adopted the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act 108 of 1991, which scrapped the segregation laws relating to the use and occupation of land.
The new act made provision to repeal and amend laws to abolish restrictions based on race or membership of a specific population group on the acquisition and utilisation of land; to provide for the rationalisation or phasing out of certain racially based institutions and statutory and regulatory systems; for the regulation of norms and standards in residential environments; and for the establishment of a commission under the name of the Advisory Commission on Land Allocation. The Act also repealed the 1913 and 1936 land acts.
The white paper on land reform was subsequently published, proposing limited land redistribution.
Courtesy of https://www.sahistory.org.za/
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