ON THIS DAY SEPTEMBER 1
1853 The world’s first triangular postal stamps – and the first stamps in Africa – are issued in the Cape Colony.
1873 Cetshwayo becomes Zulu king following the death of his father, Mpande.
1879 Britain signs a peace treaty with the Zulus, banishing Cetshwayo and dividing Zululand in 13 separate chiefdoms under a British Resident.
1900 Commandant Piet Fourie takes Ladybrand, OFS, in a street-by-street fight, but fails to capture the British garrison, who retreats to a position at the foot of Platberg. 1923 The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing 105 000 people. 1939 Nazi Germany and Slovakia invade Poland. In the “scoop of the century,” Telegraph journalist Clare Hollingworth becomes the first to report the outbreak of the European phase of World War II.
1939 Adolf Hitler orders the extermination of the mentally ill, arguing that wartime is the best time to eliminate ‘the incurably ill’.
1952 Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Old Man and the Sea, is published.
1958 The Cod Wars with Britain begin as Iceland expands its fishing zone.
1963 The Air Force Memorial – to 3 000 SAAF members who made the ultimate sacrifice – on Bays Hill, south of Pretoria, is inaugurated before 8 000 people.
1974 The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, flying at Mach 2.3, sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds.
1983 A Korean Air Lines 747 is shot down by a Soviet jet fighter when the commercial aircraft strays into Soviet airspace, killing 269 people. 1995 Casual Day, is started. A fundraising project benefiting persons with disabilities, it is held on the first Friday of September.
2000 South Africa’s Dingaan Thobela wins the World Boxing Council (WBC) middleweight title.
2004 The Beslan school hostage crisis begins as terrorists take hundreds of school children and adults hostage in North Ossetia.
2018 Bishop Charles H Ellis apologises for groping singer Ariana Grande during Aretha Franklin’s funeral service. | THE HISTORIAN