July 29 in History

25AD — Guangwu (born Liu Xiu), 30, becomes emperor of China and restores the Han Dynasty. He initially rules over parts, but the whole of China is consolidated through suppression and conquest of regional warlords.

1807 — Jeanne Baret, 67, botanist and the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, dies in Saint-Aulaye, France. She joined Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s 1766-1769 expedition disguised as a man, enlisting as valet and assistant to naturalist Philibert Commerçon (for whom she had worked as housekeeper).

1860 — Joseph Carey Merrick, “Elephant Man”, is born in Leicester, England.

1863 — The Confederate raider Alabama, built during the American Civil War to prey on the mercantile shipping of the Northern states, captures the Northern bark Sea Bride outside Table Bay.

1930 — Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon (July 21 1969), is born in Wapakoneta, Ohio. 1960 — Upper Volta, formerly part of French West Africa, attains full independence from France. It is renamed Burkina Faso in 1984.

1962 — Nelson Mandela is arrested near Howick, Natal, shortly after returning from six months’ military training in Oujda, Morocco, and the All Africa People’s Conference in Ethiopia. He is charged with incitement to strike and illegally leaving the country and sentenced to five years in prison.

1962 — Actress Marilyn Monroe, 36, dies in her Los Angeles home. Her death is ruled a “probable suicide” and the cause “acute barbiturate poisoning”.

1963 — The Soviet Union, UK and US sign a

Partial Test Ban Treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. South Africa deposits its accession on October 10 (in London and Washington) and November 22 (Moscow).

1965 — South Africa’s first atomic reactor, Safari I (South African Fundamental Atomic Reactor Installation-1), is opened by Prime Minister Dr HF Verwoerd at Pelindaba near Hartbeespoort Dam on the farm that once belonged to author, editor and historian Gustav Preller.

1984 — Actor Richard Burton, 58, dies of a cerebral haemorrhage in Geneva, Switzerland. In a tribute to his Welsh roots, he is buried in a red suit and with a copy of Dylan Thomas’s poems.

2008 — The Chinese Embassy in Washington revokes the visa of Joey Cheek, 2006 Olympic

500m gold medallist, thereby barring the US speed skater from the Beijing Olympics. He planned to attend the Games in support of Team Darfur, an organisation of athletes attempting to draw attention to human rights violations in Darfur, Sudan.