Significant and interesting snippets of news, with a South African angle, from this day in history
1613 Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, where most of The Bard’s plays debuted, burns down during a performance of Henry VIII.
1881 Muhammad Ahmad declares himself the Mahdi – the messianic redeemer of Islam.
1914 A woman attempts to one of several failed assassination attempts on Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man Grigori Rasputin, who became close to the Tsarina and influenced matters of state. Rasputin’s behaviour and influence came to symbolise everything negative in Russian politics and society at the time.
1927 The Bird of Paradise, a US Army Air Corps Fokker tri-motor, completes the first transpacific flight.
1949 Mixed marriages are banned in SA.
1974 While on tour, world-famous Russian ballerino Mikhail Baryshnikov defects to Canada.
1975 Steve Wozniak tests his first prototype of the Apple I computer.
1988 Bombs from a Mig hit an Eland armoured car and a Buffel personnel carrier in southern Angola, killing 12 South African soldiers.
1995 A department store in Seoul collapses, killing 501 people and injuring 937.
1999 AngloGold mineworkers at the Mponeng mine in Carletonville accidentally drill into a pocket of flammable methane gas, which spreads through the mine and ignites. All the miners are rescued, bar 19. Rescuers descend into the 2 770m shaft and find 18 bodies and another miner fatally injured.
2002 Naval clashes between South and North Korea lead to six South Korean sailors dying and the sinking of a North Korean vessel.
2007 Apple releases the iPhone.
2008 Thomas Beatie, formerly a woman, gives birth to a daughter.
2012 A year after the meldown at the Fukushima plance, 15 000 Japanese anti-nuclear protesters blockade the Japanese Prime Minister's office in Tokyo
2014 In Mosul, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announces the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate’.
2015 The Beijing Times reports that 30% of the Great Wall of China has disappeared due to natural forces and the stealing of bricks.
2017 During the Battle for Mosul, the Great Mosque of al-Nur is destroyed. It had been the site where the from Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a caliphate. Islamic State grew out of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) group,
2021 Former president Jacob Zuma is sentenced to 15 months in prison on contempt of court charges. Zuma’s jailing in July will lead to violent riots, killing more than 300 people and witnessing looting and vandalism estimated to cost businesses billions of rand in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
2022 Data on the US murder rate show that half of all murders are left unsolved, and they are less likely to be solved if the victim is Black or Hispanic.
2022 Singer R Kelly sentenced to 30 years in jail on nine counts of sex trafficking in Brooklyn, New York.