TODAY IN HISTORY

1976: More than 10 000 Soweto pupils riot and stone police at Phefeni Junior Secondary School in Orlando West. The protest is against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. The rioting spreads to the East and West Rand, and the death toll mounts. Some 600 die in months of racial upheaval. 1977: Police shoot and wound nine demonstrators as unrest breaks out on the first anniversary of the Soweto riots. 1983: Anglican clergyman and former ANC secretary-general James Calata, pictured, dies in Cradock. In 1960, he was given a suspended sentence under the Suppression of Communism Act.