ON THIS DAY
Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta is born in Tangier, Morocco. At the age of 21 he goes on pilgrimage to Mecca and would write extensively about the 29-year trip that took him to several interesting places throughout the Middle East and North and West Africa.
Announcing his intention to reduce Venice to the status of a fishing village, thereby extending the papacy’s power, Pope Julius II (founder of the Swiss Guard and commissioner of Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel) excommunicates the republic of Venice.
Julius Gottlieb Jeppe, founder of the Jeppe and Ford Estate Company that planned the first Johannesburg suburbs, is born in Rostock, Germany.
Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the US to face charges of impeachment. He is acquitted in the Senate. The second was Bill Clinton. The third, Donald Trump. Richard Nixon resigned before he could be tried.
Germany’s plan to get Mexican help in World War I is exposed when the US ambassador to the UK is given the Zimmermann Telegram. In it, Germany pledges the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if it declares war on the US.
Mahatma Gandhi is released from an Indian jail after serving a six-year sentence for disobedience.
Du Pont begins the commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles
A false alarm among jittery Americans fearing a Japanese attack leads to ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ – an anti-aircraft barrage that lasted into the early hours of the next day.
Britain’s Prince Charles announces his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer.
A US Boeing 747 loses parts of its roof over the Pacific and nine passengers are sucked out of the plane to their deaths.
Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the war after Iraq ignored a 24-hour deadline for its troops to vacate Kuwait.
Two civilian airplanes are shot down in international waters by the Cuban Air Force.
Fidel Castro retires as the president of Cuba due to ill-health after nearly 50 years.
At least 133 people died and 200 were treated in hospital after drinking toxic bootleg alcohol in Golaghat district of India.
A Roman Catholic Church summit on paedophilia ends with Pope Francis promising more action and calling those guilty, ‘tools of Satan’. | THE HISTORIAN