ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1519 An expedition led by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan sets off on a Spanish expedition which becomes the first to circumnavigate the globe (Magellan is killed along the way).

1700 Hendrik Swellengrebel, the only Cape governor to be born at the Cape, is born in Cape Town. Swellendam is named after him and his wife, Helena ten Damme.

1849 The “Hell Ship” Neptune sails into Table Bay. Outraged Capetonians, aided by millionaire Charles Bowery Adderley, after whom a street is named, manage to stop the British government’s attempt to turn the Cape into another penal colony like Australia, and the governor, Sir Harry Smith, forbids the 282 prisoners from leaving the vessel, which is sent on to Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania).

1861 Henry Francis Fynn, pioneer, settler after whom a suburb on the Bluff is named, dies in Durban.

1909The British Parliament passes the South Africa Act, creating the Union of South Africa from the colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal Colony.

1915 A battalion of Cape Coloured men, the Cape Corps, is established with the view of being sent to fight in East Africa.

1946 The first Cannes Film Festival is held.

1963 US president John F Kennedy proposes US-Soviet voyage to the moon.

1973 Tennis legend Billie Jean King beats three-time major champion Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match.

1994 King Goodwill Zwelithini and the Zulu Royal Family severs ties with Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, following a stoning by IFP youth at the king’s Enyokeni Palace.

2000 The UK’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service building is attacked with a Russian-made anti-tank missile.

2001 US president George W Bush declares a “War on Terror”.

2004 Pretoria schoolboy sprinter, Oscar Pistorius, falls coming out of the start of his 200m heat for leg amputees, then shows mind-blowing speed and tenacity to surge from last to victory in a world record 23.42sec for double-amputees at the Athens Paralympic Games. But that’s not what the world remembers him for.

2017 Hurricane Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico, resulting in 2 975 deaths and a major humanitarian crisis. | Compiled by Greg Hutson