IN HISTORY

1498 Vasco da Gama’s fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.

1653 The first slave, Abraham, a stowaway from Batavia, arrives in Table Bay aboard the Malacca. He is made to work for the company until he was sent back to Batavia three years later.

1653 The first return fleet from Batavia to receive fresh produce on its way to the Netherlands arrives in Table Bay and takes on cattle, sheep, cabbages, carrots and milk.

1657 A fire in Edo (Tokyo), Japan, causes more than 100 000 deaths.

1807 The US congress bans the importation of new slaves.

1859 The Great Slave Auction (the Time of Weeping) begins and 436 men, women and children are sold.

1882 Queen Victoria escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean – the last of eight attempts by different people. Tried for high treason, he was found “not guilty, but insane” by a jury after five minutes’ deliberation. That led to the Trial of Lunatics Act so that verdicts in similar cases would read as “guilty, but insane”.

1892 Sir John Coode, 75, the planner of a seaward defence for Table Bay, which was built by prisoners, dies in Brighton, England.

1949 A USAF B-50 Superfortress lands in Texas after completing the first non-stop, trans-global flight. It took 94 hours and one minute.

1969 The first test flight of the supersonic Concorde passenger plane is held in Toulouse, France.

1970 Rhodesia declares itself a republic, breaking its last links with the British crown.

1972 Jean-Bédel Bokassa appoints himself president for life of Central African Republic.

1983 CDs and CD players are released for the first time globally.

1990 Nelson Mandela is elected deputy president of the ANC.

1997 Greg Blewett (214) and Steve Waugh (160) bat for the entire third day of the first Test against South Africa in Johannesburg to set up Australian innings and 196 run victory.

2002 “Baby Jake” Matlala, 40, ends his 22-year career with a seventh-round TKO win over Columbia’s Juan Herrera to retain his WBU junior flyweight title in Johannesburg.

2016 US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko return to Earth after nearly a year

(340 days), setting an International Space Station record. | The Historian