If you want the job done right, don't get any old rat, get an Africa rat
Magawa, the famous mine-clearing rat who was awarded a gold medal for his heroism, has died at the age of eight. In a five-year career, the rodent sniffed out over 100 landmines and other explosives in Cambodia.
Image: Bbc
On this day in history, September 25
1878 British physician Dr Charles Drysdale warns against the use of tobacco in a letter to The Times newspaper of London in one of the earliest public health announcements.
1901 British troops in Fort Itala, Zululand, are attacked with the Boer attackers only retreating after fierce fighting and heavy losses on both sides.
1917 Sir Ernest Oppenheimer establishes the Anglo American Corporation of SA.1926 Industrialist Henry Ford begins an 8-hour, 5-day work week. It quickly spreads.
1941 Richard ‘Rick’ Turner is born on a farm near Stellenbosch. Thirty-six years later the political philosopher was shot dead in his Durban home by unknown attackers just as he was coming to the end of a five-year banning order imposed on him for his anti-apartheid political activities. That he was shot with a 9mm bullet identical to those used by the police, and that Minister of Police, Jimmy Kruger, once called Turner ‘the most dangerous man in South Africa’, suggests why he was killed. A street in Durban honours him.
1976 Bono (Paul Hewson (nicknamed Bono), David Evans (Edge), his brother Dik and Adam Clayton respond to an advertisement by fellow student Larry Mullen to form a rock band. Initially they call it Feedback, then The Hype and settle for U2, becoming one of the most successful rock bands of all time. (Evans supposedly got his nickname from the angular shape of his head, which might explain why he mostly wears a beanie. However, the origin of the name is disputed and other theories include a description of his guitar playing and his preference for not becoming fully involved and therefore remaining on the edge of things. Hewson’s nickname, on the other hand, comes from the Latin phrase for ‘good voice’. The nickname was given by a childhood friend.)
2020 Singapore says it will be the first to use facial verification for ID purposes.
2020 Magawa, an African Giant Pouched Rat, is the first rat to be awarded a major award, for sniffing out landmines in Cambodia.
2023 At least 68 people are killed in a fuel depot explosion as ethnic Armenians rush to leave Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region after a military offensive by Azerbaijan.
DAILY NEWS