Real people, real stories – more than just dates and boring facts
1514 Pope Leo X issues a papal bull (decree)against slavery.
1898 Australian cricketer Joe Darling hits the first six in a Test match.
1904 Violence escalates in German South West Africa during Herero Revolt.
1914 The Gandhi-Smuts Agreement is reached between General Jan Smuts and Mahatma Gandhi, regarding voluntary registration, poll tax and the recognition of Indian marriages.
1943 Japan begins Operation Ke to evacuate its forces from the island of Guadalcanal.
1949 During ‘one fierce burst of terror which lasted from Friday afternoon, January 14, to Saturday morning, January 15’, blacks descend on Indian shops and homes in Durban while the forces of law and order look on. The result: 142 people of all races dead, 1 087 injured, and a factory, 58 stores and 247 dwellings destroyed. The outburst, concludes RW Nowbath, editor of The Leader newspaper, was the result of the shocking conditions under which the African people were forced to endure in and around Durban.
1967 Counterculture of the ‘60s: The Human Be-In takes place in the Golden Gate Park, near San Francisco,launching the ‘Summer of Love’.
1969 An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, near Hawaii, kills 27 ratings.
1989 Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses is burnt by 1 000 muslims in Bradford, England.
2007 Test pilot Marina Popovich is awarded the title ‘Hero of the Nation’ by the Russian Federation for excelling in the field of aviation. ‘Madam Mig’, as she was called, was the holder of 102 aviation world records and committed to the search for extraterrestrial life, but said that 90% of UFO sightings were due to hallucinations, space debris, marsh gas, weather balloons and Friday-night vodka parties.
2015 Floods in Mozambique and Malawi leave 63 people dead and 70 000 people homeless.
2021 The US Secret Service takes control of Joe Biden’s inauguration as president with 20 000 troops ordered to guard Washington DC – more than all those stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia.