26-05-2025
Looking back: A seismic election changes SA politics forever, the 'Miracle of Dunkirk, and black South African on top of the world
Sibusiso Vilane at the summit of Mount Aconcagua in the Andes, the highest mountain in the Americas, in 2005. Vilane will soon be the first African to complete the Three Poles Challenge " having reached the North Pole, South Pole, and Mount Everest. Sibusiso Vilane at the summit of Mount Aconcagua in the Andes, the highest mountain in the Americas, in 2005. Vilane will soon be the first African to complete the Three Poles Challenge " having reached the North Pole, South Pole, and Mount Everest.
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 her1908 The first big commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made in Persia (Iran).
1940 The Dunkirk evacuation is begun 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.
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 about 3 hours, twice as fast as an airliner.
1991 Major-General Ken van der Spuy, veteran of both world wars, as well as the Russian Civil War, dies aged 99. He was South Africa's first qualified military pilot and the first South African Air Force pilot.
2003 Sibusiso Vilane, 32, is the first Black South African to summit Mount Everest.
2004 The New York Times publishes admission of journalistic failings, claims its flawed reporting and lack of scepticism during buildup to 2003 Iraq War helped promote belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
2018 Real Madrid beat Liverpool for their third straight Champions League title. Manager Zinédine Zidane becomes the first to win 3 consecutive titles.
2019 Nine climbers die in a week on Mount Everest after overcrowding leads to queues.
2021 Amazon says it will buy 97-year-old film and TV studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $8.45 billion.
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