A big diamond is cut up; the Sixth Frontier War ends; a hated symbol of division, the Berlin Wall falls; and a royal marriage captivates world
1429 French national hero Joan of Arc and her army arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.
1587 England’s Sir Frances Drake sails into Cadiz and sinks the Spanish fleet, and then boasts of “singeing the King of Spain’s beard”.
1829 The freedom of the press is established at the Cape through the efforts of John Fairbairn, founder of oft-banned South African Commercial Advertiser.
1864 Battle of Gate Pa (Pukehinahina): 1 700 British troops suffer their worst defeat of the New Zealand Wars at the hands of 230 entrenched Maori warriors in Tauranga.
1835 Peace is established between the Cape government and the Xhosa under King Hintsa, ending the Sixth Frontier War.
1863 William Randolph Hearst, ‘the master of fake news’, who built the world’s largest newspaper and magazine business, is born. He fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer, birthing the age of yellow journalism, and said: “When the reader looks at Page 1, he says, ‘Gee-whiz’. When he turns to the second page, ‘Holy Moses’. And when he turns to the middle page, he says, ‘God Almighty’.”
He backed the underdog Cubans fighting on America’s doorstep and agitated for the US to declare war on Spain. In 1897 he sent artist Frederic Remington to Havana with instructions to illustrate the tension. After some time the artist sent a note to Hearst saying: ‘Everything is quiet. There is no trouble. There will be no war. I wish to return.’
Hearst replied: ‘Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.’
1902 A ceasefire is called to allow for a rugby match between the British and Boer forces at Okiep, in Namaqualand.
1936 The enormous Jonker diamond – found on a farm near Pretoria – is cut in three.
1944 British agent Nancy Wake, the Gestapo’s most wanted person, parachutes back into France fight with the Maquis resistance outfit.
1945 On the night of April 28/29, realising time is running out, German dictator Adolf Hitler marries long-time mistress, Eva Braun, in a bunker below Berlin as the Red Army closes in.
1990 Wrecking cranes began demolishing the much-hated Berlin Wall, which divided the city and families after World War II. Many people died trying to escape from communist East Germany to democratic West Germany by crossing the wall.
1991 A cyclone in Bangladesh kills at least 138 000 people; while a staggering 10 million are left homeless.
1995 The world’s longest sausage, at 46km, is made in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
2011 Watched by millions around the world, Britain’s Prince William marries Catherine Middleton in London.
2020 World record for the longest single lightning flash of 768km across US states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi says World Meteorological Organization.
2022 A six-story building collapses in the Chinese city of Changsha, killing 26, with one woman surviving after being buried alive for six days in the rubble.
2022 The world’s longest glassed-bottomed bridge, the 632m-long Bach Long (White Dragon), opens at a mountain park in Vietnam.
