This is how today went down over the years.
Image: ChatGPT
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. | William James
A quarter of the number of bones in your body are in your feet.
455 Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III is assassinated in Rome by the bodyguards of General Flavius Aetius, in revenge for ordering the general’s death the year before.
1561 The Jesuit, Gonçalo da Silveira, the first missionary in Southern Africa, is martyred.
1657 Jan Wouters is found guilty in court in the Cape for ‘blasphemous libels on Cape ladies’ and is sentenced to beg their pardon on his knees, to have his tongue ‘bored through’, to forfeit his wages, and to be banished for three years.
1713 A quarter of the Cape’s white population dies of smallpox, but the Khoisan fare worse.
1871 Dr Hans Merensky, discoverer of tin near Pretoria, platinum near Lydenburg, diamonds at Alexander Bay, chromium at Pietersburg, and phosphate at Phalaborwa, is born at Botshabelo, in the eastern Transvaal.
1872 English football club, Wanderers FC, win the first FA Cup – the oldest football competition in the world – beating Royal Engineers AFC 1–0.
1900 Sir Arthur Evans rediscovers Knossos in Crete, home of the legendary Minotaur.
1971 Influential blues musician Muddy Waters wins his first Grammy Award.
1978 Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped.
1988 The Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraq is attacked with a mix of poison gas and nerve agents on the orders of President Saddam Hussein, killing 5,000 people and injuring about 10,000.
2012 India’s Sachin Tendulkar becomes the first cricketer to score 100 international centuries.
2023 French President Emmanuel Macron’s government forces through unpopular reform, raising the retirement age from 62 to 64.
2023 Houston Zoo announces that their oldest resident, Mr Pickles, 90, becomes a father with Mrs Pickles, 53, of three rare baby radiated tortoises, named Dill, Gherkin, and Jalapeño.
2025 A fire caused by pyrotechnic devices at a nightclub hosting a concert in Kocani, North Macedonia, kills at least 60 people and injures 155 others.
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