Astronaut Laurel Clark on the fight deck of the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia, which burnt up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Picture: REUTERS/Handout/NASA TV Astronaut Laurel Clark on the fight deck of the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia, moments before it burnt up on re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere. Picture: REUTERS/Handout/NASA TV
Bubonic plague breaks out in Cape Town, the South African Air Force is formed, a plague of locusts descends on East Africa and Nasa loses another space shuttle. This and more as we highlight what happened today in history
1587 Queen Elizabeth I of England signs the death warrant for her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.
1662 The Dutch garrison on Formosa (Taiwan) surrenders to Chinese pirates.
1864 David Hume, 66, explorer and big-game hunter, dies in Grahamstown. He came to the Cape with Benjamin Moodie’s Scotch settlers in 1817 and was probably the first European to meet Mzilikazi, headman of the Matabele (Ndebele). He was also the first to enter Bamangwato (Botswana) in 1833.
1895 Africa’s oldest nature reserve, Fountains Valley, is proclaimed by President Paul Kruger.
1901 Bubonic plague out in Cape Town.
1920 The South African Air Force is formed, the first of the Commonwealth air forces, under Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre van Ryneveld.
1926 Land at Broadway & Wall Street, New York is sold for a record $7 per square inch.
1946 Norway’s Trygve Lie becomes the first secretary-general of the UN.
1981 In one of cricket’s biggest controversies, Australian captain Greg Chappell instructs younger brother Trevor to bowl underarm, with New Zealand needing six from the final ball to tie the third World Series Cup ODI in Melbourne. Australia win by six runs.
1991 President FW de Klerk opens Parliament with a speech promising to repeal all apartheid laws: the Land Act, the Group Areas Act and the Registration of Population Act.
2003 Space shuttle Columbia burns up re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts, almost 17 years to the day after the loss of the shuttle Challenger, in 1986.
2004 In a stampede during the Hajj in Saudi Arabia, 251 people are trampled to death.
2009 The first cabinet of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is formed in Iceland, making her the country’s first female prime minister and the world’s first gay head of government.
2013 Proteas captain Graeme Smith makes history by becoming the first man in cricket history to captain his side in 100 Test matches.
2013 26 people die after a fireworks truck explodes in Henan, China.
2020 Huge locust swarms across East Africa lead Somalia to declare a national emergency.