1978 — The Cassinga Massacre

Before dawn on May 4, 1978, South African jets and paratroopers struck the SWAPO camp at Cassinga in southern Angola. The attack fell on a community far from the border fighting, and by the time it ended, 624 people were dead, most of them women and children who had no chance to escape.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the raid as an armed invasion of Angola. After independence in 1990, Namibia made this day Cassinga Day, a national holiday. Each year, crowds gather at Heroes' Acre outside Windhoek to remember the dead, keeping the names and the morning itself alive in the nation's memory.