ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1192 English King Richard I (the Lion Heart) is captured by Leopold V, the Duke of Austria, and imprisoned by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who demands a ransom of £100 000 in silver. Richard’s brother, John, makes a counteroffer of £80 000 to keep Richard locked up. Eventually freed, Richard sends word to John: “Look to yourself, the devil is loose.” The pope excommunicates both Leopold and Henry for capturing a crusader.
1780 Benedict Arnold, whose name is synonymous with treachery, gives the plans to the stronghold of West Point to the British during the American Revolutionary War.
1899 Hong Kong offers military assistance to Great Britain in its fight with Boer commandos.
1913 The world’s first aerobatic manoeuvre is performed in France.
1915 Cecil Chubb buys the English prehistoric monument Stonehenge for £6 600 as a present for his wife, who had sent him to buy curtains. She was less than impressed and he was the last private owner of of the Neolithic megaliths, which he donated to the British government in 1918.
1921 A fertiliser plant explodes in Oppau, Germany, killing 500 to 600 people.
1931 Britain abandons the gold standard and the pound devalues by 20% as a result.
1934 A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing more than 3 000 people.
1937 JRR Tolkien’s book The Hobbit is published. 1966 Jimmy Hendrix changes spelling of his name to Jimi.
1985 Mbuyiselo Mbotya, 35, affiliated to the KWT Youth League/UDF, dies in custody from head injuries in King William’s Town.
1988 Suriname swimmer Anthony Nesty wins the 100m butterfly at the Seoul Olympics, the country’s first gold medal and the first by a black person in an individual Olympic swim final. It also thwarts Matt Biondi’s attempt to win seven gold medals.
1999 The Chi-Chi earthquake in central Taiwan, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale, leaves about 2 400 people dead.
2004 Construction of the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building, starts.
2004 Catherine Labuschagne, 25, makes history when she becomes the first woman fighter pilot in the world to fly a Gripen fighter jet, during the opening of the African Aerospace and Defence Air Show at the Waterkloof Air Force base.
2008 Recalled by the Jacob Zuma-led ANC, President Thabo Mbeki resigns from office, effective on September 25.
2013 Al-Shabaab Islamic militants attack the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 67 people.
2016 Genomic study finds Australian’s Aboriginals the oldest known civilisation on Earth. The study is published in the journal Nature.
2017 The first brainless animal that sleeps is discovered: the jellyfish Cassiopea. The research paper is published in Current Biology on September 21 by Caltech scientists. – Compiled by Greg Hutson