Some of the more interesting things that happened on this day.
1224 Francis of Assisi is afflicted with stigmata (bodily marks, scars, or pains corresponding to those of the crucified Christ) after a vision he had while praying on Mount Verna in Tuscany, Italy.
1795 Britain seizes the Dutch Cape Colony to prevent its use by the Batavian Republic, which is allied to France, with whom Britain is at war.
1812 The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.
1830 The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens; and British MP William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported railway passenger fatality when he is struck and killed by the locomotive, Rocket.
1851 The 136-ton ship George Henri Harrison is wrecked at Plettenberg Bay.
1892 The railway line between Cape Town and Johannesburg is completed. The first train arrives after a journey lasting 2 days, 14 hours.
1910 The first general election in the Union of South Africa takes place. General Louis Botha becomes the first prime minister.
1914 Boer leader General Koos de la Rey is shot dead at a roadblock – set up to catch a gangster – near Langlaagte, Johannesburg.
1916 Tanks are used in action for the first time, at the Battle of the Somme. They dramatically change the way battles are fought.
1935 Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika.
1940 The Battle of Britain reaches its climax as the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe battle for control of the skies. At stake: the future of Britain; should the Germans get air supremacy then a German invasion of the British Isles is guaranteed.
1950 US Marines storm ashore at Inchon during the Korean War.
1959 Soviet space mission Luna-2 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the moon and the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body.
1997 Mother Teresa, the Albanian nun who captured the world’s attention with her selfless devotion to the poor, is buried in Calcutta.
2014 TB Joshua’s The Synagogue Church of All Nations, in Nigeria, collapses, killing 116 people, including 84 South Africans.
2018 Islamic extremism by 121 groups caused 84 000 deaths in 2017 according to a report by Global Extremist Monitor, presented by former British prime minister Tony Blair, a leading exponent of the War in Iraq.
2018 A report published in the world’s leading medical journal, “The Lancet”, reveals that nearly 40% of all female suicides occur in India.