ON THIS DAY JULY 17

1453 End of the 100 Years War between England and France (it actually lasted 116). 1836 The Doncaster is wrecked west of Cape Agulhas and is lost with all hands.

1878 Nqwiliso, tribal chief of West Pondoland and eldest son of Ndamase, signs a treaty, ceding sovereign rights and shipping in the Umzimvubu River mouth to the Cape.

1917 King George V orders the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames. Saxe-coburg becomes Windsor and Battenburg becomes Mountbatten.

1918 Former Czar Nicholas II, his wife and their children are murdered by Bolsheviks. 1944 Two ammunition ships explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320 people.

1945 The main leaders of the Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.

1950 The SABC introduces the first national news service in the country.

1955 Disneyland is opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.

1996 A Boeing 747 explodes off Long Island, New York, killing all 230 on board.

1998 A Papua New Guinea earthquake triggers a tsunami, which kills 2 700 people. 2007 An Airbus crashes upon landing during rain in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 199 people. 2014 A Malaysia Airlines plane is shot down over Ukraine by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-russian controlled territory. All 298 people on board die.

2015 Scientists solve mystery of sleeping sickness in two villages in northern Kazakhstan – uranium mining had caused increase in carbon monoxide.

2018 Former US Barack Obama gives a passinonate speech during the 16th annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg, honoring Madiba ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth, and warning of ‘strongman politics’.

2018 The oldest evidence of breadis discovered by archaeologists in Jordan.

2019 Notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is sentenced in New York to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, plus 30 years. | THE HISTORIAN