Today, May 11, is an important anniversary in the history of Mercedes Benz.
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Every man is guilty of all the good he does not do. | Voltaire
The fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth is called ‘arachibutyrophobia’.
868 A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest-known, dated printed book.
1310 Philip IV of France has 54 of the Knights Templar burned at the stake for heresy.
1891 Tsarevich Nicholas II of Russia suffers a critical head injury in a sword attack by a Japanese policeman in a failed assassination attempt.
1893 Henri Desgrange, founder of the Tour de France, establishes world’s 1st bicycle world record, travelling at a speed of 35.325 km/h.
1903 General Louis Botha lays the cornerstone of the Dutch Reformed church in Bosman Street, Pretoria.
1915 General Louis Botha, leading the South African troops allied with United Kingdom, enters undefended Windhoek, the capital of German South West Africa, and marches north in pursuit of the retreating German forces.
1924 Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie begin their first joint venture (later merging into Mercedes-Benz).
1927 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, home of the Oscars, is founded.
1943 United States troops invade the Aleutian Islands in a bid to expel occupying Japanese forces.
1960 Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann is captured in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1996 Eight climbers die on Mount Everest.
1997 Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.
2012 Chinese scientists transfer photons 97km using quantum teleportation.
2019 Parliamentary elections return ruling Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress party to power, but with a reduced majority (58%), which will be further reduced in the 2024 polls.
2021 Northern Ireland inquest into 1971 Ballymurphy massacre killing of 10 people finds people were innocent and killed (nine by soldiers) using unjustified force.
2025 India and Pakistan both claimed success after agreeing to a ceasefire following intense cross-border fighting in Kashmir.
2025 In Sri Lanka, at least 21 people are killed when a bus plunges into a ravine.
2025 Afghanistan’s Taliban government moves to ban chess.
DAILY NEWS