Events

• 15 - 19 July - 766 men from the South African Brigade are killed during the Battle of Delville Wood in South Africa's biggest loss in World War I
  World War I
  World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
  
  

Births

• 12 January - Pieter Willem Botha
  Pieter Willem Botha
  Pieter Willem Botha , commonly known as "P. W." and Die Groot Krokodil , was the prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984 and the first executive state president from 1984 to 1989.First elected to Parliament in 1948, Botha was for eleven years head of the Afrikaner National Party and the...
  
  , Former prime minister and state president of South Africa is born on the farm Telegraaf in Paul Roux
  Paul Roux
  Paul Roux is a small town in the flatlands of Free State province of South Africa that produces poplar wood for the safety match industry. General farming however remains the main industry. It was established in 1909 by Dutch Reform Reverend Paul Roux on the farm Palmietfontein, and today has a...
  
   district, Orange Free State
  Orange Free State
  The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
  
  
• 28 March - Abraham Manie Adelstein
  Abraham Manie Adelstein
  Abraham Manie "Abe" Adelstein was a South African born doctor who became the United Kingdom's Chief Medical Statistician.-Career:...
  
  , United Kingdom
  United Kingdom
  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
  
  's Chief Medical Statistician
  Statistician
  A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
  
  , is born

Deaths

• 5 June - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener drowns when the HMS Hampshire
  HMS Hampshire (1903)
  HMS Hampshire was a Devonshire-class armoured cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick, Tyne and Wear and commissioned in 1905 at a cost of £833,817....
  
   sinks after being hit by a German
  Germany
  Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
  
   mine near the Orkney Islands
  Orkney Islands
  Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...
  
  . Fritz Joubert Duquesne, a confirmed Boer and German spy, claims to have sabotaged the HMS Hampshire and becomes known as: The man who killed Kitchner (also the title of a book by Clement Wood).
• 28 November - Martinus Theunis Steyn
  Martinus Theunis Steyn
  Martinus Theunis Steyn was a South African lawyer, politician, and statesman, sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902....
  
  , last State President of the Orange Free State
  Orange Free State
  The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
  
  , dies at Bloemfontein
  Bloemfontein
  Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
  
  while addressing a meeting. He was 59 years old.