Today is Youth Day. Following on is a selection of significant and interesting snippets of news, with a South African angle, on this day over the ages
1784 Holland bans the wearing of orange.
1796 The American ship Hercules is lost off the Imfanta River in the Eastern Cape. She had been carrying rice from India to England, where it was needed because of high prices following a bad harvest. Thirteen hands aboard Hercules drowned, the survivors walked to the Cape.
1835 Cape Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban proclaims the land between the Keiskamma and Buffalo rivers as the Province of Queen.
1846 The Papal conclave elects Pope Pius IX, beginning the second-longest pontificate (31 years) after the apostle Peter ( years). While on his death bed at the ripe of age of 85, constant bell-ringing and prayers for his recovery are ordered, to which he asks one of he cardinals: ‘Why are you trying to stop me from going to heaven.’
1858 Abraham Lincoln famously declares: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
1900 The Anglo-Boer War takes a really nasty turn with the start of Lord Roberts’ scorched-earth policy, warning the Republican forces that houses in the vicinity of Boer activities will be burnt and the inhabitants taken prisoner
1903 Ford and Pepsi Cola are formed.
1911 IBM is founded.
1913 The government passes the Native Land Act, restricting the purchase or lease of land by Blacks.
1944 George Stinney, a 14-year-old African-American, is wrongfully executed for the murder of two white girls. He’s the youngest person executed in 20th-century America.
1948 The first aircraft hijacking is attempted by Chinese on a Cathay Pacific, but the plane crashes, killing all but one of the hijackers.
1952 Soviet fighters shoot down a Swedish Catalina reconnaissance flight.
1955 Rogue Argentinian Navy pilots drop bombs upon an unarmed crowd of President Juan Perón’s supporters in Buenos Aires, killing 364 and injuring at least 800.
1959 Government efforts to move the people of Cato Manor to KwaMashu meet violence.
1961 Soviet ballerino Rudolf Nureyev defects.
1976 The Soweto uprising begins. It is a series of demonstrations and protests led by black school children in protest against the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools. About 20 000 students took part, but were met with fierce police brutality and many were shot and killed. Up to 700 people died, the most famous of whom was Hector Petersen, 16. The courage of the youth to take a stand for what was right is recognised as the public holiday, Youth Day.
1999 Thabo Mbeki becomes president.
2010 Bhutan is first country to ban tobacco.
2012 The USAF Boeing X-37 returns after a secret 469-day mission circling the Earth.