Significant and interesting snippets of news, with a South African angle, from this day in history
930 The world’s oldest parliament, Iceland’s Alþingi, is established.
1835 The mission station Berea at Port Natal is renamed D’Urban, after Sir Benjamin D’Urban, governor of the Cape Colony.
1868 Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his ‘Type-Writer’, which is different from earlier versions in that he arranged the arms carrying the letters most frequently jammed (caused by speedy typists) as far apart as possible, creating the ‘Qwerty’ keyboard, which is still in use today. In 1873 he sold the patent to Remington. An early customer was Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. His The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.
1894 The International Olympic Committee is founded in Paris.
1904 Cape Town is flooded by heavy rain when a wall of muddy water pours off Table Mountain and catches Capetonians off guard. Residents in Gardens wade through their living rooms, while the torrent rushes down Breda Street, Mill Street, Hope Street and Buitenkant Street. The next day the clouds cleared to reveal picturesque waterfalls on the mountain. It was a sample of what was to come.
1917 An ammunition factory in Bohemia explodes, killing 1 000 people.
1960 The first contraceptive pill is sold.
1961 South Africa signs the Antarctic Treaty, ensuring it is used for peaceful purposes only.
1969 IBM creates the software industry.
1985 A terrorist bomb blows up on a 747 off Ireland, killing all 329 people aboard.
1991 Mazda becomes first Japanese car to win the coveted Le Mans 24-hour race.
1993 In a story that travels around the world, US woman Lorena Bobbitt amputates the penis of her abusive husband, John Wayne Bobbitt.
2000 The ore carrier MV Treasure sinks off the West Coast, soiling 19 000 penguins; causing the world’s biggest rescue of oiled birds.
2012 Seventy-six Thai monks are hospitalised after a bee attack.
2016 The UK votes to leave the EU, giving rise to the word, Brexit (Britain’s exit).
2018 Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, survives an assassination attempt after a blast at an election rally in Bulawayo kills 2 people and injures nearly 50.
2018 Twelve boys and their coach are stranded in a cave in Thailand by monsoon flooding. An international rescue effort saves them over a week later.