From Edison's Christmas Lights to Coelacanths: December 21 Through Time

Did you know that?

The first South African to win an Oscar was actress Charlize Theron in 2004 for her role in Monster.

On this day in history, December 21

1135 Stephen of Blois becomes King of England following the White Ship Disaster in which the heir to the throne drowns. His reign is marred by war with his cousin, Empress Matilda. Her son, Henry II, succeeds Stephen.

1882 The first string of Christmas tree lights is created by Thomas Edison.

1938 Marjorie Courtney-Latimer and Professor JLB Smith of Rhodes University identify the first coelacanth – a ‘living fossil’ thought to have become extinct 50 million years ago.

1944 During the Battle of the Bulge, German troops demand the surrender of US troops, prompting the famous laconic reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: ‘Nuts!’

1959 The Dusi Canoe Marathon starts with eight individuals agreeing to canoe from Alexandra Park in Pietermaritzburg to Durban. The eight – Ian Player, Denis Vorster, Miles Brokensha, Fred Schmidt, Ernie Pearce, Basil Halford, John Naudé, and Willie Potgieter – had to make their way down the Umsindusi, through the Valley of a Thousand Hills to the mouth of the Umgeni. Player was the only one to do so (6 days, 8 hours and 15 minutes later – on December 28).

1988 South Africa signs an accord granting independence to South-West Africa.

2001 Richard ‘Shoebomber’ Reid tries to blow up an airliner with explosives in his shoes.

1999 Thomas Adolf Florin is found guilty in Windhoek of killing his wife, Monika, after she refused to return to Germany. He had beaten her to death with a hammer and boiled and baked her, and then carved up body at their home while their two small children were in the house.

2018 A tsunami hits Indonesia’s Sunda Strait killing over 400 people after part of the Anak Krakatau volcano slips into the sea.

2024 While on patrol in the Red Sea, the US Navy’s guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg accidentally shoots down a friendly F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet as it comes in to land on the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman. The aircraft is destroyed, but both pilots eject safely. A little later another missile locks onto a second Super Hornet and narrowly misses it (by 100ft). A system malfunction was blamed.

2024 Rapport and City Press newspapers publish their final print editions.

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