Significant and interesting moments in time with a South African angle, from this day in history
565 St Columba reports seeing a monster in the Scottish lake, Loch Ness, thus beginning an enduring myth.
1485 England’s King Richard III dies on the field at the Battle of Bosworth Field after defeat by Henry Tudor’s forces. It is the last battle in the Wars of the Roses, marking the end of the Plantagenets’ reign. Richard is the last English monarch to die in battle.
1788 The British settlement in Sierra Leone is founded. Britain says it is to provide a home in Africa for freed slaves and homeless Africans from England.
1848 The US annexes New Mexico.
1849 The first air raid happens as Austria launches pilotless balloons against Venice.
1851 The yacht America wins the Royal Yacht Squadron Cup, now the America’s Cup.
1864 The first Geneva Convention is adopted in Geneva ‘for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies in the field’.
1894 Mahatma Gandhi forms the Natal Indian Congress to fight discrimination against Indian traders.
1896 Theo Samuels scores South Africa’s first ever Test try and also the first points for the country in a rugby match, against Great Britain. The wing scored two tries in the 17–8 loss at the Wanderers. Samuels died by drowning after getting cramp while swimming in cold seas at Cape Town. He was 23.
1901 The Duke of Cornwall – the future King George V – lays the cornerstone of the St George Cathedral in Cape Town.
1952 The Ossewa-Brandwag (OB), a republican-minded anti-war movement, disbands after 13 years.
1965 Four-time world surfing champion, Wendy Botha is born in East London. She won her first title as a South African citizen in 1987, then she became an Australian and won three more titles, in 1989, 1991, and 1992.
1975 Prime Minister John Vorster opens the Orange-Fish River Tunnel, then the world’s longest continuous tunnel (80km).
1979 Eschel Rhoodie, one of the key players in the 1978-79 Information Scandal (Infogate), is extradited from France. In Pretoria’s Supreme Court, he is charged with fraud and theft. Found guilty, he wins on appeal and moves his family to the US, where he dies in 1993.
2007 The Storm botnet, created by the Storm Worm sends out 57 million emails in one day.
2020 Thirteen people die in a stampede at an illegal disco in Lima, Peru, during a police raid to shut it down.
2022 One of world's longest school closures ends in the Philippines as schools reopen for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic after only online learning was allowed for two and a half years – one of the longest pandemic-induced school closures in the world.