971 Using crossbows, Song dynasty troops soundly defeat a war elephant corps of the Southern Han at Shao, China.
1556 An estimated 8 to 8.5-magnitude earthquake kills about 830 000 people in China’s Shaanxi province. Although the deadliest ever recorded,, it was by no means the most powerful. The second-most fatal earthquake was a 9.3-magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day, 2004. It and the tsunami that followed killed about 230 000 people. The most powerful, the 9.5-magnitude Valdivia quake combined with a tsunami, in Peru in 1960, killed far fewer people (5 700).
1795 After a charge across the frozen Zuiderzee during an exceptionally cold winter, the French cavalry captures 14 Dutch ships and 850 guns, in a rare case of a battle between ships and cavalry.
1879 The overnight attack on Rorke’s Drift is repulsed at about 4am when the decimated Zulu regiments withdraw. Eleven VCs (Victoria Crosses) are dished out, partly to alleviate Britain’s national humiliation after their overwhelming defeat by the Zulus at Isandlwana the day before Rorke’s Drift.
1897 Isaac Pitman dies. He was the founder of a form of shorthand that was a standard tool in the armoury of many a reporter, among others.
1900 At the Battle of Spioenkop, the Boers beat off a British attempt to break the Siege of Ladysmith. Many of the soldiers killed, some 300 of them, came from Lancashire regiments, with a strong contingent from Liverpool and a section of Liverpool FC’s stadium is known as The Kop in their honour. (Many other teams have their own stands named after the design, such as Leeds United, Notts County, Leicester City, Paris Saint Germain, De Graafschap. (The design of a 'Kop' stand is usually located behind a goal, is single-tiered, and occupied by the most vocal supporters.
1903 Colonel Arthur Alfred Lynch is found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death for leading the ‘Irish Commando’ alongside the Boers against British forces. The sentence is later commuted to life imprisonment.
1920 The Netherlands refuses to surrender exiled German Kaiser Wilhelm II to the Allies. The last Prussian king and German emperor lives in the Netherlands, until his death in 1941. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler, but the feelings aren’t mutual.
1960 The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 10 911m in the Pacific Ocean. The record stands until 2019 when French businessman Victor Vescovo pilots his submersible down to 10 927m in the Challenger Deep part of the Mariana Trench. Veriscovo, who uniquely has stood on the top of earth’s highest point, Mt Everest, and been to its deepest point, found both life and plastic trash at the bottom of the ocean.
1999 Sifiso Nkabinde, secretary-general of the UDM, is shot dead at Richmond, in KZN.
2002 US journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and murdered.
2016 Eight museum workers from Egyptian Museum, Cairo referred for prosecution for reattaching Tutankhamun's beard with inappropriate glue.
2017 The most expensive house in the US, worth $250 million, goes on the market in Bel Air, Los Angeles
2018 Twelve camels are disqualified from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz Camel beauty contest after their owners use botox on their lips. This is a recurring problem the organisers face each year.
2020 China locks down the city of Wuhan and its 9 million people, in a belated but ultimately successful effort to control the city's Covid-19 epidemic.