ON THIS DAY MARCH 29

1803 Henry Francis Fynn, the Natal pioneer and settler and a member of an expedition to the Zulu chief Shaka in the 1820s, is born in London.

1879 British forces defeat 20 000 Zulu warriors at the Battle of Kambula.

1886 Coca-Cola, which was originally developed by Dr John Pemperton as a brain tonic, is sold for the first time in Atlanta, Georgia, after being brewed in Pemperton’s backyard. It goes on to become the world’s most popular soft drink.

1912 Polar explorer, Captain Robert Scott, storm-bound in a tent near South Pole, makes last entry in his diary, “the end cannot be far”. 1932 Jim Mollison completes his epic flight from England to Cape Town in just over 114 hours. Today the trip takes less than a 10th of that.

1936 Nazi propaganda claims that 99% of Germans voted for Nazi candidates.

1941 The British Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy defeat the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan.

1942 The British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea.

1961 After a 4½ year trial Nelson Mandela is acquitted of treason in Pretoria.

1973 The Vietnam War draws to a close at the last US combat soldiers leave South Vietnam. 1979 Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator, flees Uganda after a reign of seven years. 1988 Dulcie September, the main representative of the ANC in France, is murdered in Paris.

1990 The Czechoslovak parliament is unable to reach an agreement on what to call the country after the fall of Communism, sparking the so-called Hyphen War.

2004 The Republic of Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants. | THE HISTORIAN