Some of the more interesting things that happened on this day.
1138 An earthquake in Aleppo, Syria, kills 230 000 people.
1521 Pope Leo X titles England’s King Henry VIII ‘Defender of the Faith’. Yet in less than 10 years Henry would snub the pope and dump Catholicism, because of its refusal to annul his marriage, and establish the Church of England (Anglicans), with himself as the head.
1634 The Burchardi Flood, on the North Sea coast of Europe, overruns dykes and drowns up to 15 000 people.
1649 After a 10-day siege, Oliver Cromwell’s English troops storm and sack Wexford, Ireland, killing over 2 000 Irish troops and 1 500 civilians.
1737 An earthquake kills 300 000 people and destroys half of Calcutta, India.
1886 Standard Bank starts business in a tent in Ferreirasdorp, on the Witwatersrand.
1887 A Miles patents the lift.
1890 The first 100-yard dash in under 10 seconds is run by John Owen in 9.8 sec in, Washington DC.
1899 War is officially declared between Britain and the Boers, with the empire expecting an easy victory. No such luck.
1915 Despite international protests, Edith Cavell, an English nurse in Belgium, is executed for helping Allied prisoners escape.
1945 A Chinese civil war starts between Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Communist Party.
1963 The UN General Assembly calls on South Africa to abandon the Rivonia Trial and release of all political prisoners.
1968 Nasa launches Apollo 7, the first successfully manned Apollo space mission.
1972 A race riot on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk injures 50 ratings.
1984 An Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-154 crashes on landing in Omsk, Russia, killing 178 people.
1985 US President Ronald Reagan bans import of Krugerrands to the US.
1986 Mother Teresa escapes unhurt from a plane crash in Tanzania, which kills six.
2000 Proteas captain Hansie Cronje is banned from cricket for life because of match-fixing.
2018 The world’s new longest flight flies from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey in 17 hours and 52 mins.
2019 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for the peace deal with Eritrea.
2020 British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins the Eifel Grand Prix at Germany’s Nürburgring to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 Formula 1 victories.