June 10 in History

671 — Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock known as Rokoku, in Otsu, the capital of Shiga Prefecture. The recorded date, April 25, corresponds to June 10 on the solar calendar and is thus designated as Clock Day in 1920.

1190 — Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa), 67/8, king of Germany and Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, drowns near Silifke Castle crossing the Saleph River while leading an army on the Third Crusade.

1692 — Bridget Bishop, 59/60, is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts — the first official execution (of 19) of the Salem witch trials.

1786 — A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by an earthquake 10 days earlier collapses, killing

100 000 in the Sichuan province of China.

1819 — Gustave Courbet, leader of the Realism movement in French painting, is born in Ornans.

1829 — The first Boat Race between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge takes place on the River Thames in London.

1836 — André-Marie Ampère, 61, French mathematician, physicist and considered the father of electrodynamics, dies in Marseille. The SI (International System of Units) unit of measurement of electric current, the ampere, is named after him. 1909 — An SOS signal is transmitted for the first time in an emergency as the Cunard liner RMS Slavonia is wrecked in foggy weather at Punta dos Fenais. Two ships respond and rescue all on board. 1921 — Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark (consort of Elizabeth II) is born on the Greek island of Corfu. 1927 — Artist Mizream Maseko is born in Boyne near Pietersburg. He begins his career as a house painter and is inspired by the art works in the houses. He takes up painting designs and pictures on scarves in a small shop where he is discovered by John Mohl. 1929 — AG Visser, 51, physician and poet, dies in Heidelberg, Transvaal. He twice won the prestigious Hertzog Prize for literature.

1935 — Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, by William Wilson, a stockbroker, and Dr Robert Smith, a heart surgeon.

1967 — The Six-Day War ends with Israel’s final offensive in the Golan Heights. A ceasefire is signed on the 11th, by which time Israel had crippled the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian militaries; killed more than 20 000 troops while losing fewer than 1 000 of their own; seized the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank (including Jerusalem) from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.

1990 — Miriam Makeba returns to South Africa after 31 years in exile.

2000 — President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, 69, dies and is succeeded by his son Bashar, 34.