History Unfolds: From Blackbeard's Pirate Raid to Mandela's Final Farewell – Today in History

Did you know . . .

The formidable Drakensberg mountains are also called the ‘Barrier of Spears’ or uKhahlamba in Zulu. It is a world heritage site.

On this day in history, December 5

1717 Infamous English pirate Blackbeard ransacks the merchant sloop Margaret and keeps her captain, Henry Bostock, prisoner for 8 hours before releasing him. Bostock later provides the first record of Blackbeard’s appearance, and the source of his real name, William Teach.

1766 In London, auctioneer James Christie holds his first sale.

1839 George Armstrong Custer is born in New Rumley, Ohio. Graduating bottom of his class from West Point, he is a dashing cavalry officer in the US Civil War. As a brigadier-general, he and 200 of his soldiers are slaughtered by the Sioux at Little Bighorn in Montana, June 1867.

1901 Cartoonist Walt Disney is born in Chicago, Illinois. In 1928 he produces Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse, in the first cartoon film with synchronised sound. In 1937, he releases his full length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His company has since grown into a global entertainment empire.

1931 The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow is destroyed on Joseph Stalin’s orders so that a Palace of the Soviets could be built, but it wasn’t owing to World War II. Rebuilt between 1995 and 2000, and at 103m in height, it is the world’s tallest Orthodox church.

1941 General Georgy Zhukov orders a Soviet attack, chasing the Germans out of Moscow.

1945 Flight 19, the ‘Lost Squadron’ of five torpedo bombers and 14 airmen, goes missing east of Florida in the Bermuda Triangle.

1952 A cold fog descends upon London, combining with air pollution and kills 12 000.

1956 Nelson Mandela and 156 others arrested for political activities.

1983 A bomb blast shatters the Johannesburg office of the Department of Foreign Affairs. It is the 42nd attack by ANC saboteurs of the year.

2008 Human remains found in 1991 are finally identified as those of Tsar Nicholas II.

2013 Nelson Mandela dies.

2022 Construction begins on world’s biggest radio telescope – the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in South Africa’s Karoo and in Australia with a collection area of nearly 500 000m².

2024 John Williams, SA rugby union lock (13 Tests; Northern Transvaal RFU), dies from leukaemia at 78.

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