ON THIS DAY JUNE 1

4000 BC Approximate domestication of the horse on the Eurasian steppes near Dereivka, central Ukraine. 1215 Beijing is captured by the Mongols under Genghis Khan. 1495 The first record of Scotch whisky appears. Friar John Cor is the distiller.

1773 The Jonge Thomas, a Dutch East India ship, is wrecked in a gale near

Salt River mouth in Table Bay. Wolraad Woltemade, passing by on horseback, makes seven trips to the wreck and saves

14 people. On his eighth trip, he and his horse drown when frantic seamen pull them under the waves. 1824 Lord Charles Somerset, governor of the Cape, is linked to Dr James Barry (who was allegedly a woman) in a scurrilous placard in the Heerengracht, Cape Town. 1845 A homing pigeon completes the 11 000 km trip from Namibia to London in 55 days. 1879 The Prince Imperial of France, 22, the last of the Bonaparte dynasty, is killed in the Anglo-Zulu War. 1886 The railroads of the Southern US convert 17 700km of track from a five-foot rail gauge to standard gauge. 1900 The British army occupies Pretoria, South Africa. 1908 John Krohn begins to walk the perimeter of the US, which takes him 357 days to complete. 1948 Engenas Barnabas Lekganyane (also called Enginasi or Ignatius), leader of the Zion Christian Church, is laid to rest in Moria, Pietersburg district. 1948 Israel and Arabs agree to a ceasefire in hostilities. 1962 SS officer Adolf Eichmann is executed in Israel for war crimes. 1965 A coal mine explosion in Fukuoka, Japan, kills 236. 2001 Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family, including his father and mother. 2001 Nkosi Johnson, an HIV-positive pupil and activist, dies. 2002 Disgraced former Proteas captain Hansie Cronje is killed when the light plane he is in crashes into a mountain near George. 2004 Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols is jailed for 161 consecutive life terms without parole. 2009 An Air France plane disappears off Brazil. All 228 passengers and crew are killed.