Dec 15 in History
1832 — Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, French engineer famous for the eponymous tower in Paris and the Statue of Liberty in NYC, is born in Dijon.
1890 — Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull, 59, is killed at the Standing Rock Indian Reserve in Grand River, South Dakota, during a shoot-out with the Indian agency police who attempted to arrest him. 1933 — Donald Woods, SA journalist and activist, is born in Hobeni, Transkei.
1939 — “Gone with the Wind”, the highest-grossing film adjusted for inflation, premieres in Atlanta.
1944 — Band leader Glenn Miller, 40, a US Army major, disappears in a single-engine plane over the English Channel. Trombonist Miller was en route from Clapham, England, to Paris to arrange a Christmas broadcast. The plane was likely forced down by icy weather. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was world famous and had appeared in two motion pictures when he persuaded the US Army in 1942 to accept his service to “put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men” with his 50-member band. His compositions include “Moonlight Serenade”.
1956 — Tony Leon, SA politician, is born in Durban. 1961 — Adolf Eichmann, the former German Gestapo official accused of a major role in the Nazi murder of 6-million Jews, is sentenced to death by a Jerusalem court on 15 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership in a criminal organisation. He was captured by Israeli agents in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 11 1960 and smuggled to Israel. Eichmann, 56, is hanged at a prison in Ramla on June 1 1962.
1965 — In Karachi, Pakistan, some 10,000 people die in a cyclone.
1973 — John Paul Getty III, 17, grandson of US oil tycoon J Paul Getty, is found alive in Lauria, Potenza, Italy. He was kidnapped in Rome by an Italian gang on July 10, his right ear severed and sent to a newspaper in November and a $2.9m ransom paid.
1998 — At least 14 people die and hundreds are left injured or homeless when freak storms unleash tornados, hailstorms, rainsqualls and lightning in the Eastern Cape. In Umtata, President Nelson Mandela narrowly escapes injury while shopping in a pharmacy. 2000 — The last working nuclear plant at Chernobyl in Ukraine — site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster on April 26 1986 — is shut down.
2002 — The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy, is reopened after a $27m realignment that started in January 1990 to prevent it from collapsing. Its tilt was reduced by 45cm by removing 38m³ of soil from underneath the raised end, returning to its 1838 position.