ON THIS DAY AUGUST 21

1680 Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt.

1770 English explorer James Cook claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1845 Sir Peregrine Maitland, Governor of the Cape, declares British authority over all emigrant Boers and defines the boundaries of Natal.

1911 The Mona Lisa is stolen by a museum worker from the Louvre.

1918 The Second Battle of the Somme begins. 1939 The Soviet Union and Germany sign the Molotov-ribbentrop pact, a 10-year nonaggression treaty, with a secret addendum, to partition Poland. This treaty proved to be the fuse that ignited World War II, and Germany would break it in less than five years.

1942 Walt Disney’s animated movie Bambi, based on Felix Salten’s book, is released. 1942 The flag of Nazi Germany is planted atop Mount Elbrus, the highest peak of the Caucasus.

1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th US state. 1967 A liquid gas tanker explodes in Martelange, Belgium, killing 22 people.

1972 Two oil tankers collide at sea near Stilbaai, in the Cape. The Texanita explodes and sinks, while the Oswego Guardian is severely damaged.

1976 ‘Operation Paul Bunyan’ begins in retaliation for the ‘Korean axe murder incident’ 3 days before. Some 110 troops, 27 helicopters, 3 B-52 bombers are sent to the Korean Demilitarised Zone to cut down a poplar tree that was blocking the view of UN observers.

1986 A volcanic eruption beneath Lake

Nyos in Cameroon releases a poisonous and invisible cloud of carbon dioxide, which kills 1 746 people and 3 500 livestock.

2000 Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer since 1953 to win 3 majors in a year.

2015 The oldest message in a bottle is found more than 108 years after it was placed in the sea. It was found on a beach in Amrum, Germany.

2017 The US destroyer John S Mccain hits an oil tanker near Singapore leaving 10 sailors missing and 5 injured. | THE HISTORIAN