ON THIS DAY NOVEMBER 16

1272 While on the Ninth Crusade, Prince Edward becomes King of England, but does not return to England for nearly two years to assume the throne.

1818 Carl August Pacalt, missionary of the London Missionary Society, dies at his mission station, Hoogekraal, George. The settlement is renamed Pacaltsdorp.

1855 Explorer David Livingstone reaches the Victoria Falls and names it after his queen. 1855 Pretoria is chosen as the capital of the ZAR, but the seat of the government remains in Potchefstroom until 1860.

1894 The Turks massacre 6 000 Armenians in Kurdistan.

1900 The Battle of Sprinkaansnek is fought. 1938 LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) is first synthesised by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.

1940 The Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.

1948 Operation Magic Carpet begins as the first Jews are flown from Yemen to Israel. 1988 Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto’s PPP wins the first free Pakistani elections in 11 years.

1989 President FW de Klerk announces the abandonment of the Separate Amenities Act, opening the country’s beaches to all races. 2003 Lionel Messi makes his debut for FC Barcelona in a friendly against Porto.

2015 The largest diamond discovered in more than a century, a 1 111 carat stone, is found in the Karowe mine, in Botswana.

2017 Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, Salvator Mundi, sells for a record $450.3 million in New York.

2018 A lift at John Hancock Center in Chicago falls 84 floors when the hoist rope breaks. All six passengers are unharmed. | THE HISTORIAN