ON THIS DAY

AUGUST 14

1040 King Duncan I is killed in battle against his first cousin and rival Macbeth. The latter succeeds him as King of Scotland. 1281 During Kublai Khan’s second invasion of Japan, his invading fleet of 3 500 vessels disappears in a typhoon off the coast of Japan. 1816 The UK annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, administering the islands from the Cape. 1880 Cologne Cathedral is finally completed after work began in 1248. It is the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. 1882 Deposed Zulu King Cetshwayo goes to London to ask to be restored to the throne. 1901 The first claimed powered flight, by Gustav Whitehead in his aircraft, takes place three years before the Wright brothers. 1915 A British transport ship is sunk by a German U-boat, causing the death of 1 000 Commonwealth troops. 1937 Six Japanese bombers are shot down by Chinese fighters, marking the beginning of airto-air combat in the Second Sino-Japanese War – and of World War II – in general. 1945 V-J Day: Japan surrenders unconditionally, bringing to an end a global war in which millions of people died, including 11 000 of the 334 000 South Africans of all races who served. 1945 Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh movement launches a co-ordinated uprising against French rule across Vietnam following Japan’s surrender. 1989 Pieter Willem Botha resigns as State President of South Africa. 1991 The chauffeur of Chief Mhlabunzima, who was a witness at the inquest into the chief’s death, is killed in the Natal Midlands. 1994 Terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez (Carlos the Jackal) is captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence agents who, because there was no extradition treaty with Sudan, sedate and kidnap him. 2004 Germany apologises for the massacre of 65 000 Hereros in South-West Africa (Namibia) during the 1904 rebellion, but rules out compensation. 2017 A parliamentary citizenship scandal deepens in Australia after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is found to be a New Zealand citizen.