Slavery abolished but new laws drawn up as disingenuous slave owners found loopholes

On this day in history: August 1

1096 The People’s Crusade, a rag-tag army of 30 000 peasants intent capturing the Jerusalem for Christendom, arrives in Constantinople. Most of them are slaughtered.

1774 We all breathe it, but it was only on this date that oxygen was discovered.

1834 The Slavery Abolition Act comes into effect, abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire. It doesn’t stop the practice.

1838 The apprenticeship system, used by slave owners to apprentice their human possessions after slavery is outlawed, is abolished in most of the British Empire.

1876 Sekhukhune, king of the Bapedi (Northern Sotho), successfully resists the Boers during a protracted land ownership dispute.

1900 The first Michelin Guide is published by the brothers Édouard and André Michelin as a hotel and restaurant guide to cunningly encourage road travel and thus tyre sales.

1936 Official launch of the SABC.

1954 The Natives Resettlement Act comes into being, empowers the government to remove Blacks from in and near Johannesburg.

1992 Britain's Linford Christie (32) becomes the oldest man to win the Olympic 100m race.

2004 A supermarket fire kills 396 people in Asunción, capital of Paraguay.

2008 Eleven mountaineers die on K2, the second-highest mountain in the world.

2020 Egypt tells Elon Musk the pyramids were not built by aliens, after Musk tweets they were.

2022 The first grain ship leaves the Ukrainian port of Odessa, in a UN-brokered deal, breaking a months-long Russian blockade, to help alleviate a global shortage. Later in the year, Russia says no to extending the grain deal, claiming nearly 80% of the grain is going to the Western nations behind sanctions on Russia, while only 20% reaches poor countries in Africa and Asia, which it was all meant for.

2023 South America experiences a winter heatwave, with Vicuña in the Chilean Andes reaching 38ºC, the warmest day in northern Chile for 72 years.

2024 US and Russia complete their biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War, involving seven countries and 24 people, including journalist Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

DAILY NEWS