BACK IN THE DAY, MARCH 24

1593

The Portuguese cargo ship Santo Alberto is wrecked off Pondoland, south-west of the mouth of the Umtata River. Through the admirable leadership of the captain, only 28 Portuguese and 34 slaves drown, while 125 sailors and 160 slaves reach the shore safely. Most of the survivors who set out for Delagoa Bay get there and establish considerable contact with the Bantu. Another party was not so fortunate – of a group of 28, 26 died.

Similar disasters continued throughout the 17th century and reached such proportions that some regard them as the main reason for the Portuguese empire’s collapse.

1882 German physician and microbiologist Robert Koch announces the isolation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis.

1944 The Great Escape: 76 Allied PoWs break out of the German prison camp Stalag Luft III; 73 are recaptured and 50 executed on Hitler’s orders, among them South Africans, Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, who organised the escape, and lieutenants Johannes Gouws, Clement McGarr and Rupert Stevens.

1989 In Prince William Sound, Alaska, the tanker Exxon Valdez spills 240 000 barrels of crude oil after running aground.

1999 Nato attacks Yugoslavia.

2015 A plane crashes in the French Alps in a pilot mass murder-suicide, killing 150 people.

2017 A fire, believed to be the biggest in Durban’s history, breaks out at a 21ha warehouse. It burns for three days, takes millions of litres of water and more than 100 firefighters to be extinguished.

2018 Australian batsman Cameron Bancroft is caught scuffing the match ball during a Test in Cape Town, resulting in a scandal.

2021 Insurgents attack the town of Palma, in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, killing 87 people and displacing some 15 000. Among the dead is South African Adrian Nel, killed while driving a vehicle in a convoy fleeing the area. The attack leads to a nearly two-week battle between the insurgents, said to be linked to Islamic State, and the Mozambique Defence Armed Forces, other Mozambican security forces and private military contractors. |