Feb 18 in History

1478 — George, first Duke of Clarence, who had opposed his brother Edward IV, is “privately executed” at the Tower of London. The rumour soon gains ground that he had been drowned in a butt (about 570 litres) of malmsey wine.

1516 — Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, is born in the Palace of Placentia, Greenwich. She rules as Queen Mary I (“Bloody Mary”) of England and Ireland 1553-1558. 1546 — Martin Luther, 62, leader of the Protestant Reformation, dies in Eisleben, Germany (Holy Roman Empire).

1564 — Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), 88, Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance, dies in Rome.

1898 — Enzo Ferrari, Italian racing driver and sports car manufacturer, is born in Modena.

1900 — (to February 27) In the Battle of Paardeberg (Second Anglo-Boer War), 1 270 British soldiers are killed or wounded near Paardeberg Drift on the banks of the Orange River near Kimberley. By nightfall on the 18th, some 24 British officers and 279 men are dead and 59 officers and 847 men wounded. About 100 Boers die and 250 are wounded. It becomes known as Bloody Sunday.

1929 — Len (Leonard Cyril) Deighton, English spy author, is born in London. “The IPCRESS File” (1962), his first novel, is an instant bestseller.

1932 — Miloš Forman, film director (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “Amadeus”), screenwriter, actor and professor, is born in Cáslav, Czechoslovakia.

1965 — Gambia gains independence from Britain — as a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth.

1977 — Nigerian soldiers attack singer Fela (Anikulapo-)Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic commune, mercilessly beating residents and burning down buildings. Fela’s mother, women’s rights activist Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, 76, is thrown from an upstairs window and later dies from her injuries. Fela declared Kalakuta an independent republic due to his abhorrence of the military government which he believed ruled Nigerians with dishonesty.

2000 — Telkom announces it will buy and distribute five million condoms to its employees in an effort to fight Aids, which has infected some 13% of South Africa’s adult population.

2005 — The WHO says an outbreak of pneumonic plague in northeastern DRC has killed 61 diamond miners and infected hundreds more.