ON THIS DAY FEBRUARY 22
1371 Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty. The FitzAlans – his ancestors – held the office of High Steward of Scotland. Mary, Queen of Scots,one of Robert’s descendents, was brought up in France and adopted the French spelling of the name, Stuart, since there was no ‘W’ in the French alphabet.
1630 Native American Indians introduce the pilgrims to popcorn.
1707 A young man on horseback races through the hamlet of Stellenbosch shouting ‘Victorie! Victorie!’ as news spread that the burghers scored a resounding victory against Governor Adrian Willem van der Stel, with his VOC bosses in Amsterdam ruling in favour of the burghers and firmly establishing them as the sole suppliers of food in the Cape. Young Hendrik Biebouw and his friends – who lived on the periphery of burgher society – staged a celebration in Stellenbosch. These festivities would have gone unnoticed, except for Biebouw’s strong identification of himself as an Afrikaner, at least 80 years before the burghers commonly used the term for themselves.
1857 A thatched roof church is inaugurated on the square in Pretoria, giving rise to the name, Church Square.
1878 Frank Woolworth opens the first of many stores that will go on to bear his name. 1911 A report is released in London about the disappearance of the SS Waratah between Durban and Cape Town with all hands (211), blaming a storm for its loss.
1942 US President Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as the Japanese victory becomes inevitable. 1983 The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night. One of the reviewers, New Yorker art critic Brendan Gill, said the play ‘would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas’. Moose Murders is considered the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway failures are judged.
1983 Hindus kill 3 000 Muslims in Assam, India.
2002 The survivor of more than a dozen previous assassination attempts, Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi is finally killed in a military ambush.
2011 An earthquake strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people.
2018 Neanderthals not humans were the first artists on Earth, producing red cave paintings 65 000 years ago in Spain, according to new research, published in Science. | THE HISTORIAN