The UN proclaims a year of mobilization for sanctions

After months of boycotts, authorities closed schools mainly in the Cape rather than address demands for equal education.

Media workers demanded higher pay and recognition of their union, connecting workplace rights with opposition to racial inequality in the press.

Commandos attacked homes used by ANC members near Maputo, killing activists and Mozambican civilians. The cross-border raid showed the regional reach of apartheid repression.

Boycotts and demonstrations marked twenty years of the republic by challenging a state founded on the exclusion of the Black majority.

Rocket fire struck the major military complex outside Pretoria, symbolically targeting the armed institutions protecting apartheid.

The trade-union organizer died after prolonged Security Branch interrogation. His death triggered protests and a major labour funeral.

Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni were moved from Robben Island, partly as the state began considering political contacts.

A parcel bomb sent by apartheid security agents killed the scholar and activist at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo.

The attack on houses in Lesotho killed ANC members and Basotho civilians, provoking international condemnation of apartheid's cross-border warfare.

Explosives damaged the unfinished plant near Cape Town shortly before fuel was to be loaded, delaying the project without causing deaths.