Events

• The first railway is started in South Africa
  South Africa
  The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
  
  . Its route is from Cape Town
  Cape Town
  Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
  
   to Stellenbosch, Paarl
  Paarl
  Paarl is a town with 191,013 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its the third oldest European settlement in the Republic of South Africa and the largest town in the Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni township, it is now a de facto urban unit with Wellington...
  
   and Wellington.

Births

• 11 January - John Tengo Jabavu
  John Tengo Jabavu
  John Tengo Jabavu was a political activist and the editor of South Africa's first newspaper to be written in Xhosa....
  
  , political activist and newspaper editor,
• 1 May -- Willem Johannes Leyds, attorney-general of the South African Republic
  South African Republic
  The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
  
  , is born in Java