
The anniversary of the fall of apartheid on Sunday takes on a special poignance this year.
Exactly two decades ago, centuries of white-only rule were effectively dismantled as South Africans of all races were able to vote for the first time.
It will be the first year that South Africa marks the anniversary in the absence of the beloved winner of that election and South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, who died in December 2013. Under Mandela's extraordinary leadership, the divided country became a "rainbow nation" and defied dire predictions of bloodshed.
Two decades on, South Africa still struggles with income and racial inequalities, and critics of Mandela's political heirs blame a corrupt elite for squandering his legacy. Yet as South Africa celebrates the "Freedom Day" holiday this weekend, a glance back at apartheid's long and devastating history is a reminder of just how remarkable South Africa's achievement is.


1st July 1854: Opening of the first Cape Parliament in the State Room, Cape Town. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Already resentful of the abolition of slavery by the British Parliament and its attempts to institute a more racially egalitarian society, 15,000 people of Dutch origin establish two independent republics: the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. When the British proposed a confederation of South African states in 1875, the Boers refused -- first non-violently and then with force. The conflict results in two Anglo-Boer Wars. By the end of the second war in 1902, the two previously Boer colonies are under control of the British Empire, which now holds all four South African colonies. A sense of Afrikaner nationalism prevails among the defeated.
The Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa, to which thousands flocked in the 1870's after the discovery of diamonds on the nearby De Beers farm. (Photo by Gray Marrets/Getty Images)

1907: Louis Botha (1862-1919) South African general in the Second Anglo-Boer War, and first prime minister of the Union of South Africa after its establishment in 1910. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

The Houses of Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, circa 1910. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Delegation of prominent Cape Town politicians who oppose the racist provisions of the draft to form the Union of South Africa. (South African Library, Cape Town, Wikipedia)

James Hertzog (1866-1942) the Afrikaaner South African soldier and statesman who founded the Nationalist Party in 1913 and later served as prime minister, circa 1920. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The 'Great Place' palace at Mqhekezweni where former South African President Nelson Mandela was entrusted under the guardianship of Thembu regent, Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, is pictured on April 5, 2013. Mandela was raised by Jongintaba and his wife Noengland alongside their son Justice and daughter Nomafuis at the Great Place. (CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)

3rd May 1939: A group of miners with safety lamps in the Robinson Deep Gold Mine at Kimberley, South Africa. (Photo by Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

South African politician Daniel Francois Malan, who led the Nationalist Party into government in 1948 and began instituting the white-supremacist doctrine of Apartheid as official policy. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Picture released in January 1947 illustrating the Indian population living in South Africa. (AFP/Getty Images)

A policeman checks the identity card of a black citizen. Enforcement of the Pass Laws controlled the movement and employment of blacks. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

Between 1961 and 1994, more than 3.5 million black South Africans are deported to one of these Bantustans, where they live in poverty and hopelessness.

15th November 1961: Agricultural students grading maize at the School of Agriculture for Africans at Tsolo, Transkei. (Photo by Ron Stone/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

An unlocated photo taken in South Africa in the 1950s shows supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) gathering as part of a civil disobedience campaign to protest the apartheid regime of racial segregation. (AFP/Getty Images)

The aftermath of the massacre at Sharpeville, thirty miles from Johannesburg, in which more than fifty black South Africans lost their lives. Police opened fire on them during a demonstration against the rule which forces black citizens to carry passes. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Former South African President Nelson Mandela's room is seen in Liliesleaf farm on June 5, 2008 in the Liliesleaf Farm museum in the Rivonia area of Johannesburg. Liliesleaf Farm occupies a momentous place in South African history and socio-cultural evolution, as it was the site responsible for breaking the resounding political silence of the 1960s. Originally purchased in 1961 by the South African Communist Party, Liliesleaf farm is recognized by the ANC as the birthplace of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress. (GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images)

Protestors outside the hotel in Pretoria where Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations, is staying, 10th January 1961. Hammarskjold meets with South African prime minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd for talks on South Africa's racial policies. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Two years later, in 1964, Mandela is retried along with several of his associates and convicted of sabotage. He is sentenced to life in jail.
A file photo dated 1961 of African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela. (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

Throughout the 1970s, the Black Consciousness Movement spreads across the country's universities, with students forming a mass, grassroots resistance to Apartheid.
Steve Biko Memorial, East London, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa (Getty)

An Apartheid notice on a beach near Capetown, denoting the area for whites only. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

While the government's official death toll counts 176 dead in the Soweto Youth Uprising, further estimates put the casualties from the resulting aftermath as high as 700. The images of police brutality against peacefully demonstrating students further galvanize international outrage.
21st June 1976: A rioter in Soweto, South Africa. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Picture taken 03 October 1977 in King William's Town of several anti-Apartheid militants attending the burial ceremony of Steve Biko. (STF/AFP/GettyImages)

29th June 1970: A London policeman bars the way to Downing Street to a group of anti-Apartheid demonstrators protesting against the supply of arms to South Africa. (Photo by Frank Barratt/Keystone/Getty Images)

A man washing a 'Free Mandela' slogan off the side of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. (Photo by Peter Dunne/Getty Images)

A policeman arrests two Indian men of South Africa, on November 14, 1983 during a demonstration against Apartheid outside Durban city Hall. (Paul Weinberg/AFP/Getty Images)

Picture released on March 24, 1981 of South African activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Copenhagen. (AFP/Getty Images)

South African activist and Anglican Archbishop and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Desmond Tutu, gives a Nobel lecture on December 11, 1984 in the auditorium of the Oslo University, after being awarded Nobel Peace Prize the day before. (LARS GRONSETH/AFP/Getty Images)

Trevor Tutu, son of Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is led from the Soweto court, on August 26, 1985, after being arrested under South Africa's state-of-emergency regulations after he disrupted a court hearing for dozens of black schoolchildren detained by police for boycotting classes. (WENDY SUE LAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

In response, the South African government begins to ease its enforcement of petty Apartheid, rolling back the pass laws' restrictions on black access to public space.
15th October 1985: Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1944-1991) with Neil Kinnock and Denis Healey on an official visit to London to discuss Britain's attitude to sanctions against South Africa. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

National Party leader Frederik Willem de Klerk (L) sworn in as acting State President on August 15, 1989 by the country's highest ranking judge, chief justice Michael Corbett (R). Frederik de Klerk was elected after the resignation of P. W. Botha. (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

South African National Congress (ANC) President Nelson Mandela (c) and his then-wife Winnie raise their fists 11 February 1990 in Paarl to salute the cheering crowd upon Mandela's release from Victor Verster prison. (ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty Images)

African National Congress President Nelson Mandela (R) shakes hands with South Africa's President Frederik W. de Klerk (C) as South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha (L) looks on, 15 May 1992 in Johannesburg, after the first day of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA). (TREVOR SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)

ANC Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa (L) chats with Nelson Mandela after arrival at the World Trade Center, in Kempton Park 18 November 1993, where political leaders formally endorsed a constitutional blueprint that will end 300 years of white minority rule. (WALTER DHLADHLA/AFP/Getty Images)

South African President Nelson Mandela stands at attention as the national anthem is played during his inauguration 10 May 1994 at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. (WALTER DHLADHLA/AFP/Getty Images)

South African President Nelson Mandela (L) with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, acknowledges applause after he received a five volumes of Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report from Archbishop Tutu, in Pretoria 29 October. (WALTER DHLADHLA/AFP/Getty Images)