Today in History:

Union of South Africa Created (1910)

It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unity of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Following the First World War, the Union of South Africa was granted the administration of the German South-West Africa colony as a League of Nations mandate and it became treated in most respects as if it were another province of the Union.

The Union of South Africa was founded as a dominion of the British Empire. The Union was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch represented by a governor-general. The Union came to an end when the 1961 constitution was enacted. On 31 May 1961 the nation became a republic, under the name of the "Republic of South Africa".

Today in History: Mary Had a Little Lamb Published (1830)

Today in History: Six-Year-Old Etan Patz Abducted in New York (1979)