ON THIS DAY FEBRUARY 2

1349 By this date at least 200 people a day were being buried in London as a result of the Black Death. Of the city’s 70 000 inhabitants, 30 000 would die from the plague; as would 30% to 60% of Europe’s population; and about 100 million of the world’s estimated 450 million inhabitants in the 14th century.

1659 The first wine (about 14 litres worth) is pressed at the Cape.

1709 British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being marooned on a desert island for five years. His story inspires Robinson Crusoe.

1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War and the US acquires Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona for $15 million.

1892 Harry Sharpe and Frank Crosby slug it out for the Missouri Lightweight Championship – one of the most brutal and longest boxing matches in modern history. Won by Sharpe, the 77-round bout lasted five hours and five minutes. Both fighters had outlasted the referee, who 12 rounds from the end succumbed to exhaustion. Sharpe won $500, but also got an 11-month jail sentence for violating a prizefighting code.

1899 The Australian Premiers’ Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia’s capital city, Canberra, between rivals Sydney and Melbourne.

1901 Queen Victoria’s funeral takes place in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, England.

1925 Dogsleds reach Nome with emergency diphtheria serum after 1 000km, inspiring the annual Iditarod race.

1960 The Moroccan city of Agadir, rebuilt after a 1731 earthquake, is razed to the ground when an earthquake sets off a tsunami and a fire.

1972 Demonstrators raze the British Embassy in Dublin in protest at the shooting dead of 13 people on “Bloody Sunday”.

1989 The last Soviet armoured column rolls out of Kabul, ending the USSR’s illfated occupation of Afghanistan.

1990 President FW de Klerk promises to free Nelson Mandela and legalises the ANC and 60 other political organisations

2003 A powerful explosion in Lagos, Nigeria, destroys a bank, killing 33 people. Rioting and looting break out as hundreds of people fight over cash.

2004 Roger Federer becomes the No 1 ranked men’s singles tennis player, a position he will hold for a record 237 weeks, or four-and-a-half years.

2018 All 955 miners are rescued from the Beatrix gold mine in Welkom after two days underground. | The Historian