Some of the more interesting things that happened on this day.
1002 English king Æthelred II orders the murder of all Danes in England – the St Brice’s Day massacre.
1841 James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism, which leads to his study of the subject he eventually calls hypnotism.
1850 Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson is born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Best known for Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
1884 The British flag is hoisted at St Lucia, on the Natal North Coast.
1899 Boer Generals Piet Joubert and Louis Botha cross the Tugela River and head down the railway line to Pietermaritzburg.
1925 Diamonds are found near Port Nolloth.
1941 The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is torpedoed and sinks the following day.
1947 The Soviet Union completes development of the AK-47, one of the first proper, and most successful, assault rifle.
1950 Seretse Khama is asked to renounce his chieftaincy of the Bama-Ngwato tribe, in Bechuanaland (Botswana), by the British colonial government for a pension in return. (It was thrown into turmoil when he married Ruth Williams, an English woman, without the permission of the tribal elders). The British ban him from returning to Bechuanaland. The ban lasts until 1956 when he and his uncle Tshekedi Khama renounce all royal claims.
1974 Ronald DeFeo jr murders his family in Amityville, Long Island, New York. The killings spawn the film, The Amityville Horror.
1985 The volcano Nevado del Ruiz melts a glacier and causes a mudslide that buries Armero, in Colombia, killing 23 000 people.
2015 Co-ordinated terrorist attacks by a 9-man cell of Islamic State terrorists in Paris kill 130 people, seven attackers, and injure 368 others at bistros, restaurants, a rock concert and a soccer match.
2019 Venice is hit by the worst floods in half a century, due to a very high tide with waves in St Mark’s square, killing one resident.
2020 Fly-half Nicolas Sanchez scores all the Pumas points as Argentina claim their first win over New Zealand’s All Blacks, winning 25-15 in a Rugby Championship game in Sydney.