ON THIS DAY JANUARY 9

The Jewish population of Basel – all 700 of them – believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and burned alive.

Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese king, João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process.

US soldiers led by General Douglas Macarthur invade the Philippines.

The global peacekeeping body, the UN, which replaced the League of Nations in 1945, opens its headquarters in New York.

A bone-numbing Greenland record of -66°C is recorded at Northice Station.

Former Springbok skipper Gary Teichmann is born in Gwelo, Zimbabwe. He showed his leadership qualities when was appointed captain of the Natal Sharks by Ian Mcintosh and went on to captain the Boks 36 times out of the 42 games he played for them.

Sixty-three men are beheaded by the sword in Saudi Arabia for an attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, in November.

A limpet mine explodes and damages a substation in Jacobs, Durban. Later a second one explodes and kills a policeman and injures others, as well as two electrical workers who arrived at the scene of the first explosion.

First Chechen War: Chechen separatists launch a raid against the helicopter airfield and a civilian hospital in the city of Kizlyar in neighbouring Dagestan, which turns into a hostage crisis involving thousands of civilians.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs publicly unveils the original iphone.

Iran Air Flight 277 crashes near Urmia, Iran, in icy conditions, killing 77 people.

The perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris two days earlier are both killed after a hostage situation at a Jewish market in Vincennes.

A mass poisoning at a funeral in Mozambique involving beer that was contaminated with plant-based bacteria, leaves 75 people dead and more than 230 ill.

Mudslides sweep away 100 houses in Montecito, California, killing at least 20 people, on land stripped bare by recent fires. | THE HISTORIAN