Murder, Betrayal, Spies, Lost Languages and a Fallen F1 Legend

Did you know?

The famous Mona Lisa painting has no eyebrows.

When Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, he included eyebrows, but over time they were eroded due to cleaning, to the point where they are no longer visible today.

On this day in history, December 29

1170 Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is murdered at the altar by knights eager to prove their loyalty to their king. Keen to bring the powerful Church to heel, England’s King Henry II was furious with opposition from Becket, his former friend. Enraged, he is said to have yelled: ‘Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?’ The knights take it to heart. The murder shocks medieval society, and as penance, Henry walks barefoot through the streets of Canterbury wearing poor sackcloth rather than his royal robes, and allows himself to be whipped by bishops while praying for forgiveness.

1852 Emma Snodgrass is arrested in Boston, US, because she was indecently dressed, wearing pants.

1895 British politician Leander Starr Jameson leads 600 British South Africa Company troops in a surprise attack on Johannesburg. The raid was intended to incite support from British miners who felt oppressed by the Boer government. It is a complete disaster and a humiliating failure for Britain. It also strengthened the Boer dominance of the Transvaal and its gold mines, which Britain was keen on, and was a key event in the lead-up to the Second Boer War (1899–1902).

1983 Commodore Dieter Gerhardt, the former Officer Commanding of Simonstown naval base, and his wife Ruth, are jailed for spying for the Soviet Union.

2003 The last known speaker of Akkala Sami dies, rendering the Russian language extinct. Of the world’s roughly 2 000 languages, 1 500 will be extinct by the end of this century.

2013 Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher is seriously injured after falling and hitting his head while skiing in the French Alps. The family wins a law suit in 2024 against a magazine which claimed an exclusive first interview with the driver since his accident, claiming: Michael Schumacher, The First Interview, World Sensation. It was an AI-generated lie.

2018 40 militants are killed in Giza and El-Arish by Egyptian police after attack on a tourist bus the day before killed four.

2018 The coldest temperature ever recorded, -111ºC, is registered by American satellite Noaa-20 at the top of a storm in the Pacific.

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