ON THIS DAY

1485 Bartholomew Dias, anchors at the present day Walvis Bay, and calls it Golfo de Santa Maria da Conceiçao. 1895 At the Battle at Amba Alag, Ethiopian emperor Menelik II routs Italian forces.

1906 Britain threatens to intervene in the Congo because of Belgian and German atrocities.

1914 General Christiaan Beyers, one of the leaders of the rebellious Boers, drowns.

1941 Japanese forces invade Shanghai, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies. The attacks happen at the same time as the assault on Pearl Harbour, but is recorded as a day later because of the International Date Line.

1980 Former Beatle John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in New York City.

1987 Occupied Palestinians start “intifada” (uprising) against Israel. 1991 The Soviet Union is dissolved, replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States.

1998 Tadjena massacre sees 81 people killed by armed groups in Algeria.

1998 Petrified skeleton of a

3.5 million-year-old hominid found in the Sterkfontein Caves near Krugersdorp. This is seen as the biggest archaeological discovery of the century.

2010 Spacex becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. | The Historian