ON THIS DAY

AUGUST 16

1796 Capitulation of Saldanha Bay – a near-mutinous Dutch expeditionary force sent to recapture the Dutch Cape Colony surrenders unconditionally to the British Royal Navy.

1800 The bilingual Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser is first published. It is the first South African paper to publish both news and advertisements.

1835 Solymon Merrick patents the wrench.

1896 Gold is found in a tributary of the Klondike River in Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.

1869 In the War of the Triple Alliance, a Paraguayan battalion made up of children is massacred by the Brazilian Army during the Battle of Acosta Ñu.

1927 The Dole Air Race begins from California to Hawaii, during which six out of the eight competitors crash or disappear.

1929 Riots start in Mandatory Palestine leading to the deaths of 133 Jews and 116 Arabs.

1940 Adolf Hitler orders a total blockade of Great Britain.

1945 Puyi, the last Chinese emperor and ruler of Manchukuo, is captured by Soviet troops.

1945 Korea is divided into North and South Korea along the 38th Parallel.

1946 George Orwell’s Animal Farm is published.

1980 Baby Azaria Chamberlain disappears while her parents camp in the Australian outback at Ayers Rock. In a controversial case, her mother is wrongly convicted and jailed for murder.

1988 Pakistani president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and the US ambassador die in a plane crash.

1993 South Africa relinquishes sovereignty over Walvis Bay to Namibia.

1998 US president Bill Clinton admits he had an “improper physical relationship” with intern Monica Lewinsky and “misled people” about it.

1999 A 7.4-magnitude earthquake in Turkey kills more than 17 000 people.

2001 Banned activist and former editor of the Daily Despatch Donald Woods dies of cancer in London aged 67.

2012 Police open fire on striking miners and kill at least 34 people at Marikana.

2018 World’s first floating dairy farm opens in Merwehaven harbour, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with 40 cows milked by robots.