What a day it has been!
Image: sora
Africa must stop begging. We have gold, oil, land and people, but we still act poor. This must change. | Ibrahim Traore
You are about 1 cm taller in the morning than at night. Blame gravity.
1752 An expedition led by August Beutler into the interior of the country rescues survivors of the French sloop Le Nécessaire in Algoa Bay. Beutler’s eight-month expedition from Cape Town explored as far as the present-day site of Butterworth. He wrote a comprehensive account of the tribes living along the route and the possibility of anything that might be profitable to the Dutch East India Company.
1846 Martin West, lieutenant-governor of Natal, appoints a location commission to investigate the problems caused by about 100 000 Blacks who streamed into Natal, mostly from Zululand, after the British occupation. It recommends that a number of locations be established for Blacks.
1885 The UK establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Botswana).
1889 The Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris. Built for the Exposition Universelle, at 300 m high it holds the record for the tallest man-made structure for 41 years.
1900 General Christiaan de Wet’s men, in a battle that marks the start of the guerrilla phase of the Anglo-Boer War, clash with British forces at Sannaspos, east of Bloemfontein.
1932 About 150 wild swans die when they are swept over Niagara Falls. It’s not the first time this happens, nor the last.
1954 A year after Josef Stalin dies and a year before the Warsaw Pact – an alternative to NATO – is established, Russia asks if it can join NATO, but is snubbed.
1991 Self-confessed Civil Co-operation Bureau (a secret South African military intelligence and counter-insurgency unit) agent Donald Acheson is deported to London. The Irish-born Acheson was implicated in the assassination of anti-Apartheid Windhoek lawyer and member of SWAPO, Anton Lubowski.
1994 President FW de Klerk declares a state of emergency in Natal because of black-on-black violence in the province.
2017 Mudslides sweep through Mocoa, Colombia, killing more than 200 people.
2025 Giant Japanese restaurant chain Sukiya says it is closing 2 000 branches so pest control agents can rid them of vermin after a rat and a cockroach were served in different outlets.
DAILY NEWS