Cunning Greeks use Trojan Horse, Armenians butchered, Antarctic explorer lives up to the name of his ship, a failed rescue mission and deadly clashes in Sudan
1184BC Using stealth and guile, the Greeks besieging Troy finally enter the city, after 10 years, hidden inside the fabled Trojan Horse. Today, Trojan Horse has come to mean getting a target to willingly embrace an enemy without knowing it. It is also the nickname for malware.
1066 Halley’s Comet over the skies of England prompts monk Eilmer of Malmesbury to predict the country’s destruction. Shortly after the Normans do invade and take over.
1888 Eastman Kodak, the US company, is founded by George Eastman, who popularised the use of roll film, which helps bring photography into vogue. Roll film remains in use until digital images mostly replace it.
1895 Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets off from Boston, US, on the sloop Spray.
1901 Described as ‘a striking and beautiful object’, ‘The Great Comet of 1901’, visible over most of SA, is first sighted.
1915 In Asia Minor during World War I, the first modern-era genocide began with the deportation of Armenian leaders from Constantinople, resulting in the complete elimination of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire. About 2 million Armenians died.
1916 Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and five others launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island to rescue the crew of the ice-bound ship Endurance.
1967 Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov becomes the first human to die during a space mission. As of 2022, there have been 188 fatalities in incidents regarding spaceflight. In-flight accidents have killed 15 astronauts and 4 cosmonauts in five separate incidents. There is a memorial on the Moon, The Fallen Astronaut memorial, which includes the names of most of the known astronauts and cosmonauts killed before 1971.
1969 Beatle Paul McCartney says there is no truth to rumours that he is dead.
1979 Rhodesian bishop Abel Muzorewa wins the general election, making him prime minister of the interim Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, on the country’s path to independence
1980 Eight US servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw when their top-secret mission to rescue Americans held hostage in the US embassy in Iran goes horribly wrong.
1990 The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is installed as the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church, taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
2006 Six people die after striking security guards throw them off a train in Benoni.
2013 The world’s deadliest structural failure occurs when 1 134 garment workers are killed when a building collapses in Bangladesh.
2015 Armenia commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
2018 Streaming music services overtake sales of CDs and vinyl.
2022 Violent clashes between Arab nomads and members of the Massalit community in Sudan's West Darfur state result in the deaths of at least 168 people.