'What shall we do with a drunken sailor' seem about right
On this day in history, July 31
Graham Gooch has been sacked as England's batting coach with immediate effect, the England and Wales Cricket Board said. Accomplished English cricketer Graham Gooch during his time as a batting coach of his national team
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1861 India’s monsoon is so bad that a record 9 300mm of rain falls during July in Cherrapunji, Assam.
1970 Black Tot Day: The last day of the rum ration in the Royal Navy. (To help supply the vast volumes required during World War II, the Admiralty recruited out of Durban, aid from the South African National Chemical Syndicate. Established to make methylated and rectified spirits for the tanning industry, the syndicate began distilling cane spirit in support of the war effort. While regarded as rum, it was more similar in taste to its methylated cousins. South Africa supplied rum to the Royal Navy ‘til 1961.
1990 The fifth day of the Test between India and England at Lords ends with a total of 1 603 runs being scored in as many minutes. England captain Graham Gooch scores 333 in his first innings and 123 in his second for a world-record Test aggregate score of 456. He is the most prolific run-scorer of all time.
1998 ‘Dr Death’, Wouter Basson testifies before the TRC that he had to help keep Nelson Mandela alive in prison during the 1980s because it was thought that certain ANC members were trying to poison him.
2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin orders the Russian army to help put out huge wildfires covering three million hectares in Siberia.
2022 Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who helped plan 9/11 attacks in 2001, is killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. US President Joe Biden calls it the group’s biggest loss since Osama bin Laden was killed.
2022 Women’s Euro 2022: England defeats Germany 2-1 in extra time in front of the biggest-ever Euro crowd of 87 192 at Wembley, London, four years before defending their title on home soil – the first English team to do so.
2023 Phoenix, Arizona, experiences a high temperature of 42.2°C, ending a heat record of 31 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 43.3°C.
2023 Location of first English slave fort in Africa is found: Fort Kormantine, built in 1631, at Fort Amsterdam, in Ghana.
2024 A 5 000-year-old large-scale farming settlement is discovered at Oued Beht in Morocco, confirming North Africa’s significance during the Neolithic period.
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