The first Paris Olympics begin.
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Desires make slaves out of kings and patience makes kings out of slaves. | Al Ghazali
The average human brain contains around 78% water.
1875 The Metre Convention is signed by 17 nations, leading to the establishment of the International System of Units.
1900 The second modern Olympics opens in Paris, and lasts five months.
1940 The 1st SA Infantry Brigade is the first South African unit called up for World War II.
1983 An Umkhonto we Sizwe car bomb in Pretoria kills 19 people and injures 217.
1992 Rapper Tung Twista (Chicago native Carl Terrell Mitchell) raps to a world-record 597 syllables in fewer than 60 seconds.
2018 Two cyclists are attacked by a cougar in Washington State. One of them dies.
2021 One of Sri Lanka’s worst ecological disasters happens when the container ship MS X-Press Pearl catches fire 10km offshore and begins spilling debris, including highly toxic chemicals and billions of nurdles – tiny plastic pellets used to make nearly all plastic goods.
2024 The common cockroach originated in South Asia, says a study, and was domesticated in Germany before spreading around the world.
2024 A record is set for the world’s most expensive feather – from the extinct New Zealand Huia bird. It fetches US$28 400 at auction in Auckland.
Maori chiefs wore the tail feathers in their hair, but the striking songbird’s fate was sealed when a feather was given as a gesture of friendship to the visiting heir to the British throne in 1902.
Then it was open season and by 1907 the Huia, whose bold and inquisitive nature made them easy pickings, had gone the way of New Zealand’s giant Moa and the Dodo in Mauritius – hunted to extinction.
2024 A UK Public Enquiry report into the infected blood scandal that killed around 3 000 people between 1970 and 1991 is published, placing the blame firmly at the government’s and the health service’s door.
2025 Nearly 300 people, 90 sheep, 26 cows – including an injured cow that needed to be ferried out by helicopter – and 20 rabbits are evacuated from the Swiss Alpine village of Blatten due to concerns of a glacier moving at an alarming pace.
On May 28, the village was largely destroyed by a debris flow and ice avalanche.
A 64-year-old shepherd, who was outside the evacuation zone, died in the disaster.
DAILY NEWS