ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1077 German King Henry IV petitions Pope Gregory VII for forgiveness. A controversial figure, but one of the most powerful men of the 11th Century, he was excommunicated by the church no fewer than five times.

1525 The Swiss Anabaptist Movement is founded when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock and about a dozen others baptise each other in the home of Manz’s mother in Zürich, breaking a 1 000-year tradition of church-state union.

1535 Following the Affair of the Placards, French Protestants are burnt at the stake in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.

1793 King Louis XVI of France is executed by the guillotine in Paris, following his conviction for high treason during the French Revolution.

1954 The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady of the US.

1960 Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.

1960 A large section of the Coalbrook mine, near Sasolburg, caves in and traps 435 miners, in the country’s worst mine disaster. There are no survivors.

1972 The Reza Shah Museum, in honour of Reza Shah Pahlevi, situated in the Johannesburg house where he lived from 1942-44, is inaugurated.

1976 The commercial service of Concorde begins (London-Bahrain, Paris-Rio).

1987 At least 12 people are killed in the KwaMakhuta massacre when the home of UDF activist Bheki Ntuli is attacked.

1990 US tennis star and “Superbrat” John McEnroe becomes first player to be expelled from the Australian Open for misconduct.

1994 American Lorena Bobbitt is found not guilty by way of temporary insanity after she cut off her abusive husband’s penis.

2005 Three people die and 500 are left homeless when a tornado cuts a path of destruction through the KZN Midlands. The province had been battered by storms nearly every day from December 17 to January 3, causing millions of rands in damage.

2008 Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. Britain’s FTSE 100 had its biggest one-day points fall; European stocks closed with their worst result since 9/11 and Asian stocks drop as much as 15%. | The Historian