Tell me, what great contribution has Africa made in the last 100 years or so?
Important advances made in South Africa[edit]
[icon] This section requires expansion. (June 2011)
1.5 Mya - Earliest evidence of controlled use of fire by humans at Swartkrans[11][12]
1882, 1 September - Kimberley becomes the first city in the Southern Hemisphere and in Africa to have electric street lights.[9]
1920 - Hendrik van der Bijl publishes The thermionic vacuum tube and its applications.[13] The standard textbook on the subject of vacuum tubes for more than 20 years.[14]
1937 - The 17-D Yellow Fever vaccine is announced by Max Theiler
1945 - Council for Scientific and Industrial Research was founded
1955 - SASOL produces its first automotive fuel from coal[5][6]
1959 - Trevor Wadley invented the Tellurometer, the first successful microwave distance measurement device.
1962 - SANAE I, the first South African Antarctic base is built.[15][16]
1963 - The Dolos was developed in East London
1965, 18 March - SAFARI-1, the first nuclear reactor on the African continent, goes critical
1967, 3 December - The first successful human-to-human heart transplant was performed by Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital
1974 - The first automated pool cleaner, the Kreepy Krauly, was introduced by Ferdinand Chauvier
1975 - Development is started on a helmet mounted sight system and the South African Air Force later become the first country to deploy these during combat.[17]
1978 - SAR Class 6E1 (No. E1525) sets the narrow gauge land speed record for rail vehicles at 245 km/h (152 mph).[18][19][20]
1995 - Mark Shuttleworth founded Thawte, an early Internet security company which is now the second largest certificate authority on the internet.
1995 - The Natal Sharks Board starts marketing of the Shark POD, a personal device to deter sharks.[21][22]
1999, 23 February - SUNSAT, the first South African produced satellite was put in orbit by an American Delta II launch vehicle.[23]
Nobel Laureates[edit]
1951, Max Theiler, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on producing a Yellow fever vacine
1979, Allan McLeod Cormack, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering work in X-ray computed tomography
2002, Sydney Brenner, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for pioneering work in molecular biology