Islamic militants brutalise villagers in Mozambique. Picture: Reuters
Some of the more interesting things that happened on this day.
1519 Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés enters Tenochtitlán and Aztec ruler Moctezuma welcomes him with a great celebration, little knowing what was in store for him.
1679 Simon van der Stel makes camp on the bank of the Eerste Rivier and calls the place Stellenbosch.
1789 Whiskey is first distilled in the US from corn by Elijah Craig in Bourbon, Kentucky.
1797 Mutiny breaks out in Table Bay among sailors of the Royal Navy over low pay and conditions of service. Officers are lured aboard one vessel and seized. The mutineers demanded the officers be court-martialed for maltreatment of their crews. The authorities play for time and go through the formalities of the trial of one captain, but when he is acquitted, drunken, sailors tried to storm the castle. Alarmed citizens evacuate the town.
1887 The Johannesburg Stock Exchange is formed.
1895 While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.
1899 Free State President Steyn takes General Snyman to task for a cattle raid against Chief Montshiwa, admonishing him not to alienate the locals over a small herd of livestock.
1923 In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt – the Beer Hall Putsch – to overthrow the German government.
1939 Hitler escapes the assassination while marking Beer Hall Putsch’s anniversary.
1940 The Italian invasion of Greece fails as outnumbered Greek units repulse the Italians.
1950 A US F-80 Shooting Star shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft dogfight in history.
1973 The right ear of John Paul Getty III, scion to the Getty oil family, is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay $2.9 million.
1974 British Lord Lucan disappears after his nanny is found murdered in London.
1999 Bruce Miller is killed at his junk yard near Flint, Michigan. Wife Sharee Miller, who asked online lover Jerry Cassaday to kill him, was convicted – the world’s first Internet murder.
2018 An Azerbaijan woman who spent a whopping £16m in the London luxury department store, Harrods, is granted bail in the UK after being arrested for suspected embezzlement.
2018 China's state news agency is the first to introduce a virtual newsreader.
2020 More than 50 people are beheaded in the latest attack by Islamist militants in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province.
2022 Uganda extends a three-week Ebola lockdown for another two weeks, closing schools, after the death toll reaches 53, with 135 people infected.
2022 Actor Chris Evans named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, says “My mom will be so happy”.
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