ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1440 Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, is taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by Jean de Malestroit, the bishop of Nantes.
1795 Britain seizes the Dutch Cape Colony to prevent its use by the Batavian Republic.
1812 The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.
1825 Dr James Barry, the colonial medical inspector who will perform what is believed to be the first recorded, and successful, caesarean operation, in 1826, is summoned to appear before the Court of Justice in Cape Town after clashing with the fiscal, but refuses to take the oath, answer questions or give evidence. The court orders his imprisonment. Barry asks that the relevant documents be placed before a royal commission of inquiry in Cape Town. (This was granted but the commission’s verdict was unfavourable and Barry was relieved of his post.) Barry died in 1865 in London whereupon it was found that the physician had been a woman.
1830 The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens; and British MP William Huskisson becomes the first widely reported railway passenger fatality when he is struck and killed by the locomotive Rocket.
1835 HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands.
1892 The railway line between Cape Town and Johannesburg is completed. The first train arrives after a journey taking two days, 14 hours and 43 minutes.
1910 The first general election in the Union of South Africa takes place. General Louis Botha becomes the first prime minister.
1914 Boer leader General Koos de la Rey, en route to Potchefstroom with General Beyers, is shot dead when his chauffeur-driven car fails to stop at a roadblock near Johannesburg that was meant to forestall gangster William Foster, who had shot dead a policeman during the day.
1916 Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the World War I Battle of the Somme. 1935 The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.
1935 Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika.
1940 The Battle of Britain reaches its climax, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft.
1962 The Soviet ship, Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1971 The first Greenpeace ship sets sail to protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island.
1978 Muhammad Ali outpointed Leon Spinks in a rematch to become the first boxer to win the world heavyweight title three times, at the Superdome, in New Orleans.
1998 Dr Achmat Davids, 59, historian, researcher and author, dies in Cape Town.