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CAPE TOWN, Reuters – Here is a list of the key events in Desmond Tutu’s lifetime:

1931 – Desmond Tutu, born in Klerksdorp (170km /105 miles to the west) of Johannesburg.

1943 – Tutu’s Methodist Family joins the Anglican Church.

1947: Tutu becomes ill from tuberculosis as he is studying in a secondary school close to Sophiatown, Johannesburg. He makes a friend with a priest, and he serves his faith after overcoming illness.

1948 – In the lead-up to 1948’s national elections, the white National Party starts apartheid. White voters support it because they want to keep their hold on the Black majority.

1955 – Tutu wed Nomalizo Leah Shenxane. He begins to teach at the Johannesburg high school where his father is headmaster.

1958: Tutu leaves the school and refuses to teach in a system that encourages racism against Black students. He is ordained a priest.

1962 – Tutu leaves for Britain in order to study Theology at King’s College London.

1966 – Tutu returns home to South Africa where he starts teaching theology at an Eastern Cape seminary. He makes his opposition to apartheid views public.

1975 – Tutu become the first Black Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg.

1980 – Tutu is the general secretary of South African Council of Churches and leads a delegation of church leaders that meets Prime Minister PW Botha to urge him to end apartheid. The meeting is historic because a Black leader meets a white senior government official, even though nothing happens. Tutu is deported by the government.

1984: Tutu receives the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his efforts towards ending white minority rule.

1985 – Tutu is elected the first Black Bishop in Johannesburg. Tutu publicly supports an economic boycott in South Africa as well civil disobedience, which he believes will help to abolish apartheid.

1986 – Tutu, the first Black bishop of Cape Town is appointed and heads the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa. Together with other leaders of the church, he helps mediate conflicts between Black protesters & government security.

1990 – A statement by FW de Klerk, the State President of South Africa, announcing plans to free Nelson Mandela from jail and removing all African National Congress members from their country.

1991 – The state repeals Apartheid laws, racist restrictions and begins power sharing talks with 16 anti-apartheid organizations.

1994 – Mandela is elected to the helm at the ANC’s first democratic elections. Tutu coined the term “Rainbow Nation”, to refer to the coming together and integration of different races in South Africa post-apartheid.

1994 – Mandela requests Tutu’s chairing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established to record and sometimes grant amnesty for perpetrators under apartheid.

1996 – Tutu is forced to leave the church in order to concentrate on the commission. He is named Archbishop Emeritus after he continues to advocate for reconciliation and equality.

1997 – Tutu gets diagnosed with prostate carcinoma. Since then, he has been admitted to the hospital for treatment of recurring infections.

2011 – After the South African government refused the Tibetan spiritual leader a visa, the Dalai Lama opens the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture. He does it via satellite link.

2013 – Tutu has a series of outspoken remarks about the ANC. Because the party has done such a poor job of addressing violence and inequality, he said he would no longer vote.

2013. Tutu is dubbed the “moral compass” of the nation and declares support for gay rights. He also stated that he will never worship a homophobic God.

2021 – A frail looking Tutu is wheeled to his old parish, St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town. This was a refuge for anti-apartheid activist activists and it will be the site of a special thanksgiving ceremony.

Dec. 26, 2021, Tutu is 90 years old and dies in Cape Town.