1503 - Antonio de Saldanha, leading a Portuguese squadron, enters Table Bay due to a navigational error.[1] De Saldanha and his squadron become the first Europeans to climb Table Mountain, formerly known as Hoerikwagga.[2][3] The Portuguese begin to actively explore the South African coastline, and eventually establish early contact with the Khoikhoi people. De Saldanha and his men attempt to trade with the local Khoikhoi people, offering mirrors, glass beads, and a rattle for two sheep and a cow. The Khoikhoi realize the unfair deal, and ambush De Saldanha and his men to reclaim their animals.[4]
1554 - The Portuguese ship Saint Benedict is shipwrecked on the coast of what is now called St. Lucia. The survivors named the estuary Rio dos Medos do Ouro (alternatively Rio dos Médãos do Ouro — River of the Gold Dunes)[9][10]
1564 - Shipwreck of São Bento in 1554 is described by Portuguese mariner and cartographer Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo. This is the first book exclusively about South African events.[12]
1564 - The first British slave ship, named "The Jesus Ship," sets sail for Africa.[13]
1570s
13 December 1575 - on the feast of Saint Lucy, Manuel Peresterello renamed Rio dos Medos do Ouro to Santa Lucia
1580s
Portugal maintains contact and interaction with South Africa, as a land and as a people, during the reign of King Sebastian.[14]
18 July 1580 - An English admiral, Sir Francis Drake, rounded the Cape on his voyage round the world. He called it "a most stately thing and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth".[15]
1 March 1510 - Francisco de Almeida, the Viceroy of Portuguese India, is killed by the Khoikhoi at the mouth of the Salt River in Table Bay, after engaging in provocations towards the indigenous people
Steenkamp, Willem (2012). Assegais, Drums & Dragoons: The Untold Military History of the Old Cape 1510 - 1806. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. ISBN978-1-86842-479-5.
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