A selection of significant and interesting snippets of news, with a South African angle, on this day over the ages
1248 The University of Oxford, the second oldest university in the Western world, after the University of Bologna, receives its royal charter. They are predated by institutions from the Islamic Golden Age – the University of Al Quaraouiyine, in Fez, Morocco (circa 857–859), regarded by Unesco as the world’s oldest existing university, and Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, founded in 970 or 972.
1631 The Irish village of Baltimore is sacked by pirates from Algeria.
1756 A British garrison is imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta after the Siraj ud-Daulah Nawab of Bengal takes Calcutta from the British. Most of the soldiers die.
1867 US buys Alaska from Russia for $7.2m.
1877 Alexander Graham Bell installs world’s first commercial telephone service.
1895 The Kiel Canal, crossing the base of the Jutland peninsula and the busiest artificial waterway in the world, is opened.
1921 At the Imperial Conference in London, Srinivasa Sastri argues for full citizenship rights to Indians in South Africa and other colonies.
1940 Italy tries invading France and fails.
1944 A German V-2 rocket soars 176 km – it’s the first man-made object in outer space.
1961 Egyptian president, General Nasser, announces plans to protect the ancient temples at Abu Simbel by moving them to above the floodwater level of the Aswan Dam.
1963 The Soviet Union and US agree to set up the “red telephone” link between them.
1975 Steven Spielberg’s movie, Jaws, based on the book by Peter Benchley, is released.
1983 Iran invades northern Iraq.
1987 New Zealand beat France 29-9 in final of first Rugby World Cup, in Auckland.
1990 Nelson Mandela and wife Winnie are given a ticker-tape parade in New York city as they begin an eight-city fund-raising tour.
1991 The German Bundestag votes to move the seat of government from Bonn to Berlin.
2018 Algeria turns off its internet to stop students cheating during exams.
2020 Highest temperature recorded in the Arctic circle, 38C in Verkhoyansk, Siberia.
2020 A dust cloud from the Sahara desert in North Africa reaches the Caribbean, largest for half a century.