Some of the more interesting things that happened on this day.
1829 The South African College is founded in Cape Town. It will later separate into UCT and the South African College Schools (SACS).
1864 A cyclone hits Calcutta, India, killing 70 000 people.
1867 Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital in Berlin, a description of the capitalist system, its instability and tendency to self-destruction.
1903 Three people are injured on the railway line in Maitland, Cape Town, in the country’s first serious motorcar accident.
1918 Arab and British forces commanded by Lawrence of Arabia capture Damascus, Syria, from Turkish forces.
1934 Adolf Hitler expands German army and navy, violating Treaty of Versailles.
1939 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill calls Russia a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma“.
1942 The submarine USS Grouper torpedoes and sinks the Japanese ship Lisbon Maru, not knowing it is carrying British PoWs.
1949 The People's Republic of China is proclaimed by Mao Zedong (National Day).
1949 Republic of China (Taiwan) forms on island of Formosa.
1970 63 people are arrested after a riot breaks out as fans jostle to buy Rolling Stone tickets in Milan, Italy. Some, clearly, did not get satisfaction.
1971 The first brain-scan using X-ray computed tomography (CAT scan) is done in London.
1975 ‘The Thrilla in Manila’; Muhammad Ali stops Joe Frazier in 14 rounds in Quezon City, the Philippines, to retain his WBC/WBA heavyweight title.
1979 The US returns the Panama Canal to Panama.
1977 Brazilian soccer great Pelé plays his final game for the New York Cosmos in an exhibition against Santos in front of 75 000 at Giants Stadium; 1 281 goals in 1 363 games.
1982 Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player.
1988 Steffi Graf beats Gabriela Sabatini 6-3, 6-3 to win the women’s singles tennis gold medal at the Seoul Olympics; clinches first and only Golden Slam in history (Grand Slam & Olympics)
1998 SA’s first commercial service television station, depending solely on advertising, e.tv, starts broadcasting.
2005 Suicide bombers strike three restaurants in tourist areas on the Indonesian island of Bali killing 22 people.
2015 Heavy rains trigger a landslide in the village of El Cambray Dos within Santa Catarina Pinula, Guatemala, killing 280 people.
2017 A gunman shoots dead 58 people, and injures another 851, at a concert in Las Vegas in the deadliest mass shooting in American history. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, commits suicide as police storm the hotel room that he was shooting from.
2021 The death toll from Covid-19 in the US passes 700 000, with daily deaths averaging 1 900.
2022 A stampede at an Indonesian soccer stadium kills 131 people in Malang city, East Java, after police fire teargas at rioters in the crowd.