ON THIS DAY, APRIL 12

1606 Following James I of Scotland inheriting and uniting the English and

Irish thrones, a new flag is unveiled – one that combines the St George’s Cross, St Andrew’s Cross and St Patrick’s Cross to form the Union Jack (jack being a naval term for flag).

1861 Fort Sumter in South Carolina is attacked by the Confederacy, beginning the American Civil War.

1877 British statesman Theopolis

Shepstone annexes Transvaal as a British colony despite protests and hoists the Union Jack in Church Square, Pretoria.

1892 George Blickensderfer patents the portable typewriter

1901 Emily Hobhouse witnesses the clearing of Warrenton and the dispatch of people in open coal trucks to Kimberley, where only 25 tents are available for 240 people.

1937 Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first aircraft jet engine.

1945 US President Franklin D Roosevelt dies in office.

1945 The US Ninth Army crosses the Elbe River astride Magdeburg, and reached Tangermünde – only 80km from Berlin.

1955 The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective. With the help of this vaccine, polio was obliterated from SA.

1958 Meetings of more than 10 Africans are banned in all major urban areas.

1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit. 1981 Skippered by John Young and flown by Robert Crippen, the first Space Shuttle mission blasts off.

2009 The US navy simultaneously shoots three Somali pirates and catures a fourth, rescuing their hostage, Captain Richard Phillips of the container ship Maersk Alabama.