ON THIS DAY

JULY 23

636 Arabs gain control of most of Palestine from the Byzantine Empire. 1148 Crusaders attack Damascus.

1253 Jews are expelled from Vienne France by order of Pope Innocent IV.

1706 At a meeting in Amsterdam, the Council of 17 decides Mauritius be abandoned as a settlement because the one in the Cape is more important.

1829 In the US, William Burt patents the typographer (typewriter).

1853 Andries Pretorius, the Voortrekker leader after whom Pretoria was named, dies in the Magaliesberg district.

1904 The ice cream cone is created during the St Louis World Fair.

1907 The House of Assembly votes in favour of the union of the four provinces of South Africa.

1925 Minister of the Interior DF Malan introduces a Parliamentary bill, defining Indians as aliens and recommending their repatriation.

1929 The Fascist government in Italy bans the use of foreign words.

1942 SAAF Hurricane fighters of No 1 Squadron shoot down 13 Ju-87 bombers over the Western Desert.

1952 Military officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrow Egypt’s King Farouk.

1956 The Bell X-2 rocket plane sets world aircraft speed record of 3 050km/h. (The current record is Mach 9.6, or 11 800km/h).

1962 Ben Turok is sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for attempting to cause an explosion in the centre of Johannesburg.

1970 Qaboos bin Said al-Said becomes sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, and initiates massive reforms.

1982 The International Whaling Commission bans commercial whaling.

1983 Pardoned, the last six Seychelles’ mercenaries arrive in South Africa, among them Martin Dolinchek and Jerry Puren, who got the death sentence.

1986 The obligatory carrying of passbooks by blacks in SA is lifted.

1991 Mozambican rebels rampage through villages, killing about 1 000 people and beheading them.

1996 Penny Heyns wins gold for South African in the 200m breaststroke final.

2005 Bomb attacks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh kill 88.

2015 Nasa’s Kepler mission announces discovery of the most Earth-like planet yet, “a mere” 1 400 light years distant.