ON THIS DAY

FEBRUARY 8

The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, is botched. Instead of a clean beheading, the first strike of the axe catches her at the back of the skull and the second leaves her head hanging by a piece of sinew. Later, as her head is triumphantly held aloft, her auburn tresses are revealed to be a wig as the head falls to the ground, revealing short, grey hair.

Cetshwayo, Shaka’s cousin and the last king of independent Zululand, dies.

Japan triggers the Russo-Japanese War with a torpedo attack at Port Arthur.

Bambatha Rebellion: 14 policemen go to arrest those who threatened a tax collector at Henley, Natal, but are forced to retreat with two of their number dead.

Bolshevik troops capture Odessa, ending foreign involvement in the Russian civil war.

An explosion in a coal mine in Manchuria kills 3 000 miners.

Japanese armoured barges cross Strait of Johore to attack Singapore.

Fighter pilot Mikhail Devyataev and nine others make an escape from a Nazi concentration camp on the Baltic by hijacking the camp commandant’s plane.

The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, is established.

The Allende Meteorite, “the beststudied meteorite in history”, breaks up in the sky over Chihuahua, Mexico, scattering 2 tons of fragments.

Prize stallion and Derby winner Shergar is kidnapped in Ireland. Never found, insurers, Lloyds of London pays out $10.6 million for the missing horse.

A 320m-deep dust cloud envelops Melbourne, Australia, turning day to night.

Natal is placed on flood alert as torrential rains lash the province.

A storm in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan triggers 36 avalanches, burying 4km of road, killing at least 170 people and trapping 2 000 travellers.

A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia kills 15 Egyptian pilgrims.