ON THIS DAY FEBRXUXAXRY 8

1587 The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, is botched. Instead of a clean beheading, the first strike of the axe struck the back of the skull and the second left her head hanging by a piece of sinew. Later as her head was triumphantly held aloft, her auburn tresses were revealed to be a wig as the head fell to the ground, revealing short, grey hair.

1884 Cetshwayo, Shaka’s cousin and the last king of independent Zululand, dies.

1904 Japan triggers the Russo-Japanese War with a torpedo attack at Port Arthur.

1906 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.

1920 Bolshevik troops capture Odessa, ending foreign involvement in the Russian civil war.

1931 An explosion in a coal mine in Manchuria kills 3 000 miners.

1942 Japanese armoured barges cross Strait of Johore to attack Singapore.

1945 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.

1950 The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, is established.

1969 The Allende Meteorite, “the beststudied meteorite in history”, breaks up in the sky over Chihuahua, Mexico, scattering 2 tons of fragments.

1983 A 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.

1983 A 320m-deep dust cloud envelops Melbourne, Australia, turning day to night.

1988 Natal is placed on flood alert as torrential rains lash the province.

2010 A storm in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan triggers 36 avalanches, burying 4km of road, killing at least 172 people and trapping 2 000 travellers.

2014 A hotel fire in Medina, Saudi Arabia kills 15 Egyptian pilgrims.