BACK IN THE DAY, MAY 2

1536 Anne Boleyn, the Queen of England, is arrested on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. The charges cost her her head and clear the way for King Henry VIII to take another wife.

1611 The widely used King James Version of the Bible is first published.

1863 Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson is wounded by his sentries while on reconnaissance. He dies eight days later. 1906 Bambata Rebellion: Dundee-based troops under Captain Park Grey proceed to Nkandla, where the first skirmish takes place. Four rebels are killed.

1945 The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin.

1952 The world’s first jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet, makes its maiden flight, taking off from London with 36 passengers, touching down in Johannesburg 18 hours later. 1957 Die Stem van Suid-Afrika (The Call of South Africa) is accepted as the country’s national anthem. Part of it remains in use.

1964 Two Viet Cong frogmen sink the escort carrier SUNS Card in Saigon harbour.

1980 The government bans Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall because it has been adopted by the Struggle.

1982 The submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano. 1986 The city of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the nuclear disaster.

1989 Hungary dismantles its part of the Iron Curtain, allowing East Germans to defect.

2008 A cyclone kills more than 138 000 people in Myanmar.

2011 Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed by US Navy Seal commandos in the fortified complex of his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 2012 Barcelona striker Lionel Messi breaks the European goal-scoring record.

2014 Mudslides in Afghanistan kill up to 2 500 people.

2016 Rank outsiders Leicester City wins the English Premier League.

2018 The date for first humans in the Philippines is pushed back tenfold with the discovery of a rhino that was butchered

709 000 years ago. | THE HISTORIAN