ON THIS DAY

SEPTEMBER 3

301 San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world’s oldest republic, is founded by Saint Marinus.

1189 Richard the Lionheart is crowned in Westminster; 30 Jews are massacred – Richard orders the killers be executed.

1260 The Mamluks defeat the Mongols in Palestine, marking the latter’s first decisive defeat.

1752 Britain and the British Empire adopt the Gregorian Calendar, losing 11 days. People riot thinking the government stole 11 days of their lives.

1783 Treaty of Paris signed in Paris ends the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain and US.

1841 Cape Governor Sir George Napier refuses to acknowledge the independence of Natalia, the short-lived Boer republic.

1900 President Paul Kruger issues a counter proclamation from Nelspruit, declaring Lord Robert’s annexation proclamation of September 1 null and void.

1916 The Allies turned back the Germans in the Battle of Verdun on the Western Front.

1929 The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches all time high of 381.17, to be shortly followed by the Crash of 1929.

1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive faster than 300mph (480km/h).

1939 Britain declares war on Germany, followed by France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada.

1939 Ardent Adolf Hitler fan and English socialite Unity Mitford commits suicide after Britain declares war on Germany. However, she dies a lingering death; the bullet lodged in her brain eventually kills her in 1948.

1956 US Army tanks are deployed against racist demonstrators in Clinton, Tennessee.

1988 About 50 000 Kurds are killed by Iraq, many with chemical weapons.

1989 Thousands of “non-Whites” march and bathe at “Whites only” beaches in a nationwide defiance campaign.

2004 The Beslan school massacre ends in the deaths of approximately 344 people.

2007 Italian opera star Luciano Pavarotti, hailed by many as the greatest tenor of his generation, dies of cancer.

2016 The US and China, together responsible for 40% of the world’s carbon emissions, both formally joined the Paris global climate agreement.