ON THIS DAY, MAY 26

1293 An earthquake in Japan kills about 23 000 people.

1872 During a ‘terrific gale’, seven ships are wrecked, with the loss of 10 lives, at the Buffalo River, East London.

1878 Interpretive dancer Isadora Duncan is born in San Francisco. She revolutionised the entire concept of dance by developing a free-form style and rebelled against tradition, performing barefoot in a loose fitting tunic.

She experienced worldwide acclaim as well as personal tragedy. Her two children drowned, her marriage failed, and she met a bizarre death in 1927 when a scarf she was wearing caught in the wheel of the open car in which she was riding, strangling her.

1908 The first big commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made in Persia (Iran).

1923 The first annual Le Mans Grand Prix d’Endurance 24-hour race is held. 1936 In the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, Tommy Henderson gets up to speak on the Appropriation Bill, and rattles on for 10 hours.

1940 The Dunkirk evacuation begins in order to save the British Expeditionary Force trapped by advancing German armies on the northern coast of France. Boats and vessels of all shapes and sizes ferried 200 000 British and 140 000 French and Belgian soldiers across the English Channel by June 2.

1941 Aircraft from the HMS Ark Royal sight the feared German battleship Bismarck, which had sunk the pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood.

1948 The Herenigde Nasionale Party pulls off a surprise general election win which will change the landscape of South Africa.

1961 A US Hustler bomber crosses the Atlantic in 3 hours – half that of a commercial airliner.

1970 The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 is the first passenger plane to exceed Mach 2.

1991 Major-General Ken van der Spuy, a veteran of both world wars and South Africa’s first qualified military pilot, dies, aged 99.

2003 Sibusiso Vilane, 32, is the first Black South African to summit Mount Everest.

2018 Real Madrid beat Liverpool for their third straight Champions League title. Manager Zinédine Zidane becomes the first to win 3 consecutive titles.