ON THIS DAY SEPTEMBER 25

303 While preaching the gospel, St Fermin of Pamplona is beheaded in Amiens, France. 1780 American general Benedict Arnold switches sides to join the British during the American Revolutionary War.

1878 British physician Dr Charles Drysdale warns against the use of tobacco in a letter to The Times newspaper in one of the earliest public health announcements.

1900 Some 1 004 persons (849 burghers and boys, 152 women and girls, two coloureds and one black man) cross the border into Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), fleeing the British invasion of the Transvaal. They are later sent to Portugal where they are interned until the end of the Anglo-Boer War.

1901 British troops are attacked in Fort Itala, with the British force retreating after fierce fighting and with heavy losses on both sides. 1907 The railway line between Cape Town and George is opened.

1917 Sir Ernest Oppenheimer establishes the Anglo American Corporation of SA.

1926 The current accepted working week is born as US industrialist Henry Ford announces an 8-hour, 5-day work week.

1941 Richard “Rick” Turner is born on a farm near Stellenbosch. Around 36 years later the political philosopher was shot dead in his Durban home by unknown attackers just as he was coming to the end of a five-year banning order imposed on him for his anti-apartheid political activities. The fact that he was shot with a 9mm bullet identical to those used by the police, and that then Minister of Police Jimmy Kruger once called Turner “the most dangerous man in South Africa”, suggests why he was killed. There is a street in Durban named in his honour.

1974 Scientists report that aerosol sprays are destroying the Earth’s protective ozone layer. 1976 Bono, David Evans, his brother Dik and Adam Clayton respond to an advertisement posted by fellow student Larry Mullen to form a rock band, which becomes U2.

2012 50 Taiwanese ships clash with the Japan Coast Guard off the Senkaku Islands. 2018 Popular comedian Bill Cosby is jailed for sexual assault. His conviction was overturned this year. | THE HISTORIAN