ON THIS DAY, JUNE 24

217BC Ambushed by Hannibal, the Romans are defeated at the Battle of Lake Trasimene. 843 Vikings destroy French city of Nantes. 1314 The Battle of Bannockburn ends with a decisive victory by Robert the Bruce’s Scottish forces, allowing Scotland to regain its independence from England.

1842 Dick King returns by boat to Port

Natal after his epic 10-day horse-ride to Grahamstown to fetch help against the boers. 1901 A young Pablo Picasso, 19, opens his first exhibition in Paris.

1916 The first Battle of the Somme begins, lasting five months and killing more than a million troops over a mere 125 square miles. Many South African soldiers died.

1948 The Soviet Union starts the Berlin Blockade.

1949 The first television western, Hopalong Cassidy, is aired on NBC. 1978 Twelve missionaries are murdered by nationalist guerrillas in Rhodesia.

1982 A British Airways Boeing 747, Speedbird 9, flies into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up from Indonesia’s Mount Galunggung, resulting in the failure of all four engines. 1992 New York mafia boss John Gotti begins a life sentence for murder and other crimes. 1995 Nelson Mandela presents Francois Pienaar with the Webb-Ellis trophy for leading the Springboks to victory in the Rugby World Cup in an iconic post-apartheid moment. 1999 The Springboks beat England 44-21 in Paris in the World Cup quarter-finals, with Jannie de Beer setting a world record with five drop-goals, five penalties and two conversions. 2010 The longest tennis match, between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, lasts 11 hours and 5 minutes, over 3 days.

2012 Lonesome George, the last known individual of Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, a subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise, dies. 2013 Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power and having sex with an underage prostitute.

2016 British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns after the UK votes to leave the EU. 2018 Women are allowed to drive for the first time in Saudi Arabia. | THE HISTORIAN