The Star Late Edition

ON THIS DAY MARCH 19

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1644 200 members of the Peking imperial court commit suicide in loyalty to the emperor.

1649 The House of Commons of England passes an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring it useless and dangerous to the people of England.

1687 Explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, searching for the mouth of the Mississipp­i River, is murdered by his own men.

1775 Four people are buried by an avalanche for 37 days in Italy. Three survive.

1910 Thomas Thornton becomes the first air passenger in SA when he pays Albert Kimmerling £100 for a short flight from Sydenham Hill in Johannesbu­rg. On the same day, the Rand reporter, Julia Stansfield, becomes the first woman passenger when Kimmerling takes her on a flight over Johannesbu­rg.

1920 The US Senate rejects the Treaty of Versailles, which set terms for Germany’s surrender, for the second time (the first time was on November 19, 1919).

1927 Bloody battles break out between communists and Nazis in the streets of Berlin.

1945 Off Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew, and Adolf Hitler issues his “Nero Decree”, ordering all industries, military installati­ons, shops, transporta­tion facilities and communicat­ions facilities in Germany to be destroyed due to advancing Allied troops.

1982 Argentina invades South Georgia Island, precipitat­ing the Falklands War with the UK.

1990 Willie Hepburn sets a South African land speed record of 372.4km/h in a 7-litre Pontiac TransAm on the N3 near Villiers in the Free State.

1994 2 500kg of cocaine intercepte­d in Zeewolde, Netherland­s, and the world’s largest omelette (421.5m2) is made using 160 000 eggs, in Yokohama, Japan.

1998 Makhaya Ntini becomes the first black South African cricketer to play in a five-day Test. He takes two wickets in Cape Town.

2002 Operation Anaconda, part of the US-led invasion of Afghanista­n, ends (It started on March 2) after killing 500 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters with 11 allied troop fatalities.

2018 The world’s last male northern white rhino, 45-year-old Sudan, dies in Kenya, making the species extinct. | The Historian

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