Find out what happened today, back in the day.
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Quote of the day “The older I get, the more I listen to people who don’t talk much.” | Ernest Hemingway
Did you know? Water can boil, freeze and be a gas at the same time (the triple point).
1397 Geoffrey Chaucer tells the story of the bawdy The Canterbury Tales, which would become enormously popular in medieval Europe, for the first time at the court of Richard II. The greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularisation of the English vernacular in mainstream literature.
1662 The first two apples are picked in the Company’s Garden in Cape Town. They are said to be small and rather tart.
1838 The “Grand Army of Natal”, led by Robert Bigger, John Cane and John Stubbs, reaches the Tugela River and runs into Zulu warriors, who overwhelm and kill most of the 18 Englishmen, 400 auxiliaries and 3 000 men.
1860 The first “world championship” boxing match takes place in a field in southern England. In a bare-knuckle fight, which was illegal, the two men fought for 2½ hours. Battered and bloodied, they were preparing to come out for the 43rd round when police stormed the ring. The crowd – and the pugilists – fled. The bout was ruled a draw.
1875 Snooker is invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain, a bored British officer in Jabalpur, India.
1902 Britain proposes that a Boer delegation meet at Vereeniging to decide on their future.
1949 At midnight, 26 Irish counties become the Republic of Ireland.
1970 The ill-fated Apollo 13 returns to Earth.
1980 For the last time in Africa, the Union Jack is lowered as Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe.
1984 Police officer Yvonne Fletcher is killed outside the Libyan Embassy in London.
1986 The Netherlands and the Scilly Islands sign a peace treaty, ending a 335-year war.
1993 Two Los Angeles police officers are convicted of violating the civil rights of Rodney King, whose beating sparked riots that only ended when the US Marines were brought in.
2021 Funeral of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s consort, takes place at Windsor Castle, England.
2024 Bad weather moves on from the UAE to cause heavy rain and flooding in Pakistan and Afghanistan, resulting in at least 135 deaths.
2025 A US citizen hijacks Tropic Air Flight 711 at knifepoint and injures three passengers before being killed by police in Belize.
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