South Africa's Parliament repealed the Population Registration Act, which had required racial classification of every citizen at birth, dismantling a pillar of apartheid law.
Sources: Los Angeles Times ; South African History Online
Politics
Ceiling of Debre Birhan Selassie church, Gondar, Ethiopia. Photo: Rod Waddington, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence · Source
On this day: June 17 in African history
Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.
Photo by Michael Gross, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1969 Paul Tergat, the Kenyan runner who set the marathon world record and won multiple World Cross Country titles, was born.
Sources: World Athletics ; Olympics.com (International Olympic Committee)
Birth
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 2021 Kenneth Kaunda died at a military hospital in Lusaka at 97, where he was being treated for pneumonia. He had led Zambia to independence in 1964 and governed it for 27 years, and several African countries declared days of mourning for him.
Sources: Africanews ; Al Jazeera
Death
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1942 Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat who later won the Nobel Peace Prize as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was born.
Sources: NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach) ; U.S. Government Publishing Office
Birth