Today is celebrated as Youth Day in South Africa, commemorating the Soweto Uprising, a mass demonstration by black South African students on this day 32 years ago against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 which required black schools to teach in both Afrikaans and English. At the time only one in five children in Soweto attended schools, and Afrikaans was regarded as the language of the oppressors.
On 30 April 1976 the students at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, and the unrest spread to other schools. Then on 16 June thousands of students marched to the Orlando Stadium, taking part in what was intended to be a peaceful protest. However, police had barricaded their intended route. Attempts by police to disperse the crowd using dogs and tear gas were unsuccessful, and the police started firing into the crowd, killing numerous children including Hector Pieterson, whose photo (taken by Sam Nzima) has become symbolic of the event.
The riots continued for two more days and sporadic violence continued for another 6 months, over which time hundreds of people were killed. The police brutality was met with international outrage, and the riots created economic instability. The Soweto Uprising was considered an important turning point, leading eventually to the disbandment of apartheid in South Africa in the early 1990s.