Misuzulu kaZwelithini is crowned the new Zulu monarch

On this day in history, August 20

480BC Estimated date of the Battle of Thermopylae, one of history’s most famous last stands where 7 000 Greeks, led by Sparta’s king, block the narrow pass of Thermopylae for a week against 300 000 Persian warriors.

636 At the Battle of Yarmouk, Arab forces take control of the Levant, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests.

1911 The New York Times sends the first telegram around the world to see how long it takes. After being relayed by 16 different operators, it returns 16.5 minutes later.

1940 Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is hit in the head with an ice pick in Mexico City. He dies a day later. The heir apparent to Soviet leader Lenin, he lost out to Joseph Stalin, of whom he was openly critical.

1940 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously says of the Battle of Britain pilots: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’

1960 The USSR recovers two dogs – they are the first living creatures to return from space.

1968 Czechoslovakia’s ‘Prague Spring’ uprising is crushed by Warsaw Pact forces.

1977 The Voyager II space probe is launched to explore the cosmos. Both Voyagers continue to send data back to Earth and will until 2036. After zipping through space for 47 years at a mind-bending 55 440kp/h, they are 19 billion and 24.5 billion km from Earth. At this speed it will take 19 400 years to travel a light year. Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, is 4.246 light years away from Earth.

1988 The 7-year Iran-Iraq War ends.

1998 The US launches missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan and a factory in Sudan in retaliation for the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

2015 In the US, 30 West Point Military Academy students are hurt in a ‘pillow fight’.

2016 Middle-distance runner Caster Semenya retains her Olympic women’s 800m title in a time of 1:55.28 in Rio de Janeiro.

2018 Pope Francis releases letter to all Catholics condemning sexual abuse atrocities and clerical cover-ups, saying: ‘We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.’

2022 Misuzulu kaZwelithini is crowned Zulu king.

DAILY NEWS