ON THIS DAY MAY 11

330 Byzantium becomes the capital of the Roman Empire. Renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, it is more popularly referred to as Constantinople, becoming today’s .

868 A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest-known, dated printed book.

1310 Philip IV of France has 54 of the Knights Templar burned at the stake for heresy.

1891 Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia (later Nicholas II) suffers a critical head injury in a sword attack by a Japanese policeman in a failed assassination attempt. 1893 Tour de France founder Henri Desgrange establishes the world’s first bicycle world record, travelling 35.325 km/h.

1903 General Louis Botha lays the cornerstone of the Dutch Reformed church in Bosman street, Pretoria.

1915 General Louis Botha, leading the South African troops allied with Britain, enters undefended Windhoek, the capital of German South West Africa, and marches north in pursuit of the retreating German forces.

1924 Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie begin their first joint venture (later merging into Mercedes-Benz)

1927 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, home of the Oscars, is founded. 1943 US troops invade the Aleutian Islands in a bid to expel occupying Japanese forces. 1945 Off Okinawa, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill is hit by two kamikazes, killing 346 crew. Badly damaged, she returns to the US under her own power.

1960 Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann is captured in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1996 Eight climbers die on Mount Everest. 1997 Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

2012 Chinese scientists transfer photons 97km using quantum teleportation.

| THE HISTORIAN