Some of the more interesting things that happened on this day.
46BC Vercingetorix, who united the Gauls and led the Celts in revolt against Roman power, is paraded in chains through Rome before being garrotted. After a long siege, he had surrendered to save his men.
1192 Returning from the Holy Land, England’s crusading King Richard the Lion Heart is captured and held for ransom for £100 000 in silver. Liking the throne he’s been warming for his elder brother, John makes a counter-offer of £80 000 to keep Richard locked up. Eventually freed, Richard sends word to his little brother, saying: “Look to yourself, the devil is loose.”
1915 Cecil Chubb buys the English prehistoric monument Stonehenge at an auction on a whim because he doesn’t want to see it in foreign hands. He pays £6 600. In 1918 he donates it to the British government.
1921 An explosion at a fertiliser plant in Oppau, Germany, kills 500 – 600 people.
1956 Tom Attridge, testing the new F11F Tiger jet fighter, pushes the plane in to a dive and fires off a few bursts of cannon fire as part of the flight test profile. Unknowingly, as he pulls out of his dive, his cannon shells are somewhere above his canopy and the plane is struck, badly damaging it. The US, Grumman company test pilot had shot himself down with his own gun. He survived.
1988 Suriname’s Anthony Nesty wins the 100m butterfly at the Seoul Olympics. He is the first black man to win an Olympic swimming gold medal.
2003 The Galileo spacecraft is destroyed by sending it into Jupiter’s crushing atmosphere.
2004 Catherine Labuschagne, 25, makes history when she becomes the first female pilot to fly a Gripen, at a Pretoria air show. South Africa is the leader of gender representation in Africa, with nearly 40% of its military being female.
2008 Recalled from office by the Jacob Zuma-led ANC, president Thabo Mbeki resigns. He is replaced by his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe.
2013 The extremist al-Shabaab group attacks an Israeli-owned shopping mall in Nairobi; 71 people die, including 4 Kenyan soldiers.
2016 A Caltech study finds that Australian Aboriginals are Earth’s oldest civilisation.
2022 Russia says 5 397 Russian soldiers have died fighting in Ukraine, The New York Times says the figure is anywhere from 25 000 to over 80 000 dead.