Real people, real stories – more than just dates and boring facts
366 The Alamanni cross the frozen Rhine River in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire.
533 Mercurius becomes Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.
1602 A Spanish force in Ireland surrenders to the English army at Kinsdale.
1666 The four cornerstones of the castle (Kasteel de Goede Hoop) at the Cape are laid, making it the oldest building in South Africa.
1837 Voortrekker leaders Andries Hendrik Potgieter and Gerrit (Gert) Maritz, each with his own men, leave for Western Transvaal to punish Mzilikazi for the Ndebele attack on the Voortrekkers at Vechtkop (Vegkop).
1896 Sir Leander Starr Jameson and about 500 Rhodesian police surrender to Boers at Doornkop, near Krugersdorp, after the failure of the Jameson Raid.
1903 US President Theodore Roosevelt shuts down a post office in Indianola Mississippi, for refusing to accept its appointed postmistress because she was black.
1944 Helicopters are first during warfare (British Atlantic patrol).
1959 Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union.
1960 The solar system is estimated to be about 4.9 billion years old.
1966 The first Jewish child is born in Spain since the 1492 expulsion.
1984 Cricketer Darryl Cullinan, 16, scores his first first-class century.
1988 Guerrillas ambush a train in Mozambique, killing at least 22 people.
1995 The most distant galaxy yet discovered is found by scientists in Hawaii. The galaxy is about 15 billion light years away, that is it would take15 billion light years just to get there.
2014 Thirty people die when a bus plunges off a cliff and falls 400ft in Malshej Ghat, India.
2018 A bus crash in Pasamayo, Peru, kills 51 people on the notorious “Devil’s Curve” road.
2018 The WHO says it will classify gaming addiction as mental health condition.
2023 Gridiron football player Damar Hamlin, of the Buffalo Bills, has a heart attack while playing and is revived by CPR on the field in a televised NFL game.
Thirty people die when a bus plunges off a cliff and falls 400ft in Malshej Ghat, India.
2018 A bus crash in Pasamayo, Peru, kills 51 people on the notorious “Devil’s Curve” road.
2018 The World Health Organization says it will classify gaming addiction as mental health condition.
2023 Gridiron football player Damar Hamlin, of the Buffalo Bills, has a heart attack while playing and is revived by CPR on the field in a televised NFL game.