Sometime at the beginning of 2001, Sunday Times investigative journalist Mzilikazi wa Afrika confronted ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni with evidence that he had taken a bribe.
When he shook the politician's hand in his office in parliament, Yengeni asked: "Why is your hand sweating like that?"
Mzilikazi replied: "It is not my hand that is sweating, but yours, Mr Yengeni."
The Sunday Times ran the investigation on March 25 2001. It was a bombshell, the first major corruption scandal to hit post-apartheid South Africa. The front page screamed: "Tony Yengeni, the 4x4 and the R43bn arms probe."
The investigation had been initiated after whispers in parliamentary corridors about how Yengeni had acquired his luxury Mercedes ML320, worth almost R400000 at the time.
To counter the innuendo, Yengeni hand-picked five journalists to whom he showed the vehicle's papers. When the Sunday Times asked for copies of the documents, he refused, saying the newspaper could conduct its own investigation. It did.
Through painstaking investigation the newspaper proved that the vehicle was ordered as a private staff car at a "massive discount" for an employee of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace - the company that had secured a contract to supply tracking radars for the corvette warships bought in the arms deal. Yengeni was a member of a parliamentary committee reporting on the same deal and had illegally received the discount on the car.When the story broke, high-ranking ANC and government officials accused the Sunday Times of a witch-hunt. Yengeni's credentials as a struggle hero were repeatedly raised. This was, after all, a man who had joined Umkhonto weSizwe in exile.
But the investigation was watertight, and Yengeni was eventually charged with fraud and sentenced to four years in jail.
Today, when we are pummelled every week with corruption stories on a scale never imagined, it's worth remembering what an important milestone the Yengeni investigation was for South African journalism.
In 2001 we were still basking in the glow of our rainbow miracle. A regime as venal as any in history had been dismantled and those at the forefront of that struggle were heroes. The new ruling class had the gargantuan task of building a nation and the people trusted these struggle heroes would be swept along by the Madiba aura to make this happen. There were so many left broken by years of apartheid rule; poor, uneducated, jobless.
We now know that no sooner had some of these struggle heroes taken office than they started plundering and looting the public purse. The Yengeni investigation was the first of many.
One that stands out because it involved red soles and toyboys was the Dina Pule scandal.
She was fired as communications minister in 2013 after the Sunday Times exposed her relationship with an avaricious toyboy and her love for expensive Christian Louboutin shoes that cost more than most South Africans earn in a month.
Pule was dogged by controversy for months with allegations that she funnelled contracts and government resources to her lover.
Pule repeatedly denied the relationship, but a personal assistant revealed she had seen the minister and her boyfriend together in a Prague hotel. "I did see them in bed together when I went to collect their clothing for ironing."The Sunday Times also linked Pule to an alleged plot to assassinate the top parliamentary officials who were probing her misconduct.
As a result of the Sunday Times exposé, parliament's ethics committee found Pule and her top officials were liars who should face criminal charges.
Several Sunday Times investigations into the Gupta family have left the public dumbstruck.
On October 23 last year the Sunday Times published explosive details of a meeting between deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas and Ajay Gupta in 2015. In an affidavit, Jonas alleged that the Gupta brother had offered him up to R600-million - and promotion to finance minister - to do their bidding in relation to a R1-trillion nuclear deal. A black refuse bag stuffed with R600000 in cash would seal the deal.
Then details around Des van Rooyen's notorious four-day stint as finance minister in 2015 started leaking, strengthening the charge that he was a Gupta stooge deployed to capture the National Treasury. On October 30 2016 the Sunday Times revealed that he had spent seven consecutive days at the Gupta compound just before being appointed finance minister.Mind your buzziness
One of the biggest battles waged by the Sunday Times did not involve politicians, but the common housefly.
The paper printed coupons for free fly swatters and bottles of formaldehyde, which readers could collect from department stores. The competition required entrants to send their flies to the local health department.
"Flies must NOT ON ANY ACCOUNT be delivered to the Sunday Times office."
Municipal health departments went to great lengths to weigh the flies and with instruments so sensitive the results could not "in any way be questioned".
The winner of the first 12-week fly campaign was announced in a 1913 article that claimed 61493300 flies had been zapped.K-word's liberal use
Opinion writers in those early years called for an end to "racialism" - but by that they meant relationships between Brit and Boer. The master-servant relationship between black and white was unquestioned, and the K-word was liberally used in the paper.
As late as 1937 in a comment headlined "Colour on Wheels", the paper waded into a campaign to "prohibit natives from driving cars belonging to Europeans". But why stop there? "If the native driving a car belonging to (and containing) his European employer is a menace to public safety, how much more is the native driving a car owned by himself?"'Mad dog of Europe'
World War 2 was declared against Nazi Germany on September 3 1939. That day, a special edition of the Sunday Times hit the streets. The headline screamed "WAR DECLARED" and the paper said of Hitler, "The mad dog of Europe has set his life upon a cast.
It is certain that he will lose the hazard of the die." As early as 1931, the paper had been reporting on Hitler, "the ranting fanatic foaming at the mouth", and wondered if he was about to stage a coup in Germany.
On July 28 1935 the paper listed the Nazis' latest restrictions against Jews. They were forbidden from working with Aryan girls or using swimming baths. Jewish doctors were forbidden from treating Aryan girls.
South Africa was deeply divided on the question of sending troops into battle, with nearly half the white population bitterly opposed to fighting "Britain's war".
With so many loved ones in mortal danger, readers were frantic to get the latest dispatches. In 1943 readers were asked not to stampede "newsboys".Cutting youth to size
Submissions from readers were welcomed, but the latter had to have buffalo hides to handle the vitriol. The rebuffs were cruel.
Youth was not a buffer against sarcasm: "You are a boy of seventeen and these are your first verses.
Be well advised, young man, and never, never write verse again!"
"What, you again? Shoo!" the Sunday Times barked at one repeat offender...