Following the Nationalist electoral victory in 1948, Verwoerd assumed high positions in the government and wielded strong influence over South African society.

By the mid-1960s Verwoerd's government to a large degree had put down internal civil resistance to apartheid by employing extraordinary legislative power, draconian laws, psychological intimidation, and the relentless efforts of the white state's security apparatus.

His actions prompted the passing of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1761, condemning apartheid, and ultimately leading to South Africa's international isolation and economic sanctions.

His father was a shopkeeper and a deeply religious man who decided to move his family to South Africa in 1903 because of his sympathy towards the Afrikaner nation in the wake of the Second Boer War.

[9] By the end of 1912, the Verwoerd family moved to Bulawayo, Rhodesia, where his father became an assistant evangelist in the Dutch Reformed Church.

Due to the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic, the younger Verwoerd only sat for his matriculation exams in February 1919, achieving first position in the Orange Free State and fifth in country.

[11] Verwoerd studied at Stellenbosch University, where he was regarded as a brilliant social science academic, and it was widely claimed that he possessed a photographic memory.

In Hamburg, he studied under William Stern; in Berlin, under Wolfgang Köhler and Otto Lipmann; and in Leipzig, under Felix Krueger.

Claims that Verwoerd studied eugenics during his German sojourn[12] and later based his apartheid policy on Nazi ideology,[13] are still being evaluated by scholars.

Christoph Marx asserts that Verwoerd kept a conspicuous distance from eugenic theories and racist social technologies, emphasising environmental influences rather than hereditary abilities.

His lecture notes and memoranda at Stellenbosch University stressed that there were no biological differences between the big racial groups, and concluded that "this was not really a factor in the development of a higher social civilization by the Caucasians.

[16] Verwoerd returned with his wife to South Africa in 1928 and was appointed to the chair of Applied Psychology and Psycho Technique at the University of Stellenbosch where, six years later, he became Professor of Sociology and Social Work.

[citation needed] Afrikaans politics from 1910 to 1948 were divided between the "liberals" such as Jan Smuts who argued for a reconciliation with Britain vs. the "extremists" who expressed anti-British sentiments due to the Boer War.

[17] In 1936, Verwoerd, joined by a group of Stellenbosch University professors, protested against the immigration of German Jews to South Africa, who were fleeing Nazi persecution.

Combining republicanism, populism and protectionism, the paper helped "solidify the sentiments of most South Africans, that changes to the socio-economic system were vitally needed.

[20] In 1943, Verwoerd, editor of Die Transvaler, sued the English-language newspaper The Star for libel after it accused him of being a Nazi propagandist.

The Young Turks of the Transvaal got the upper hand and thus J. G. Strijdom was elected as the new leader of the National Party, succeeding Malan as Prime Minister.

With his overwhelming constituency victory in the 1958 election and the death shortly thereafter of Prime Minister J. G. Strijdom, Verwoerd was nominated, together with Eben Dönges and C. R. Swart from the Orange Free State, as candidates to head the party.

[33] Under the Premiership of Verwoerd, the following legislative acts relating to apartheid were introduced:[34] The creation of a republic was one of the National Party's long-term goals since originally coming to power in 1948.

After the pistol fell to the floor, Harrison, with the help of Major Carl Richter, the Prime Minister's personal bodyguard, civilians and another policeman overpowered the gunman.

The court accepted the medical reports submitted to it by five different psychiatrists, all of which confirmed that Pratt lacked legal capacity and could not be held criminally liable for having shot the prime minister.

[44] On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies.

On 7 August 1963, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 181 calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and in the same year, a Special Committee Against Apartheid was established to encourage and oversee plans of action against the authorities.

[48] Three days before his death, Verwoerd had held talks with the Prime Minister of Lesotho, Chief Leabua Jonathan, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

[This quote needs a citation] On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was stabbed to death in Cape Town, shortly after entering the House of Assembly at 14:15.

A uniformed parliamentary messenger named Dimitri Tsafendas stabbed Verwoerd in the neck and chest four times before being subdued by other members of the Assembly.

Verwoerd's state funeral, attended by a quarter of a million people,[52] was held in Pretoria on 10 September 1966, during which his South African flag-draped casket was laid on an artillery carriage towed by a military truck.

Under questioning, Tsafendas made coherent statements explaining that he had committed his act in the hope that after Verwoerd's "disappearance" "a change of policy would take place."

"[55] At the same time, the South African police gathered a plethora of evidence of Tsafendas's long history of political activism, from his membership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) between 1936 and 1942 to his time in London in the early 1960s, when he had attended meetings of the Committee of African Organizations and had held "the posters up" at "anti-colonial", "anti-apartheid" and "anti-racial" meetings; in South Africa from 1939 to 1942, he had "engaged actively in Communistic propaganda"; he had fought on the Communist side in the Greek Civil War of 1947–49; and in London he had been a close associate and assistant of the ANC's local representative, Tennyson Makiwane.

Judge Andries Beyers ordered Tsafendas to be imprisoned indefinitely at the "State President's pleasure"; in 1999 he died aged 81 still in detention.