1520 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan passes through the straits that bear his name (at the southern tip of South America), crossing from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific.
1582 In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway marry.
1663 The first report of giraffes in Southern Africa is made by Jonas de la Guerre, whose expedition to Namaqualand finds them at Spoegrivier (Spit River), 190km south of the Orange River.
1717 Pirate Blackbeard captures a French slave ship, which he renames the “Queen Anne’s Revenge” and uses her as his flagship.
1720 Anne Bonny and Mary Read are tried on charges of piracy, found guilty, and sentenced to death in Spanish Town, Jamaica, although their pregnancies win them stays of execution.
1879 The British under Sir Garnet Wolseley defeat Pedi paramount chief Sekhukhune and imprison him in Pretoria.
1885 The railway line from Cape Town to Kimberley is completed.
1899 A British column is engaged by Boer forces at the Battle of Modder River and suffers heavy casualties. Both generals – De la Rey and Methuen – are wounded, and the former’s son, Adriaan, is fatally injured.
1942 Fire erupts in Boston’s Coconut Grove nightclub, killing 500 people who are trapped inside.
1979 An Air New Zealand DC-10 crashes on Antarctica’s Mount Erebus, killing 257 people on board.
1979 Eddie Dunn, SA’s ambassador to El Salvador, is kidnapped and murdered.
1987 The SA Helderberg, SAA Flight 295, crashes in the Indian Ocean, killing all on board. Conspiracy theories abound.
2016 A plane carrying the Brazilian football Chapecoense team crashes near Medellin, Colombia, killing 71 players and journalists.
2015 British boxer Tyson Fury beats Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko to win the WBA, WBO, IBF, IBO, The Ring magazine and lineal heavyweight titles in Düsseldorf, Germany; ending Klitschko’s 9-year reign at the top.
2019 Zimbabwe is on the brink of man-made starvation, says the UN.
2020 Boko Haram kill 110 people in north-east Nigeria.
2022 Qatar Football World Cup Chief Hassan Al-Thawadi confirms that 400-5000 immigrant workers died during the building of world cup soccer venues.