Imagine going down on one knee and proposing with this monster rock!
Now that's a stone! A replica of the massive Cullinan Diamond, discovered near Pretoria in 1908. It is the world's largest, although it has been cut down into many smaller diamonds.
Image: File
Did You Know
Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes – one for physics in 1903, the other for chemistry in 1911 for her work on radioactivity.
On This Day in History
1492 Christopher Columbus first learns about growing and harvesting maize – South Africa’s staple food – from the natives of Cuba.
1605 Catholic rebel Guy Fawkes tries and fails to blow up England’s protestant King James I and the British parliament by placing barrels of gunpowder beneath the Houses of Parliament in London. He is tortured and executed with seven others. The day has since been celebrated as Guy Fawkes Day.
1799 The 64-gun ship Sceptre is wrecked in Table Bay and 300 lives are lost.
1908 The Cullinan diamond is cut into two big stones, The Star of Africa and the Cullinan 2, as well as seven big and 96 smaller stones.
1917 Russian revolutionary Lenin calls for the October Revolution.
1935 The game of Monopoly goes on sale.
1940 Franklin D Roosevelt is the first and only president of the US to be elected to a third term, and later for a fourth.
1969 The Springbok rugby tour of the UK is disrupted by an anti-apartheid demonstration.
1975 Cuban soldiers and Russian military equipment arrive in Luanda, Angola, while SA is clandestinely supporting Unita. When SA realises that the US does not support its operation, troops are withdrawn.
2000 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie is laid to rest 25 years after his death during a funeral procession through Addis Ababa.
2006 Saddam Hussein, ex-president of Iraq, is sentenced to death for the massacre of the 148 Shias in 1982.
2009 Major Nidal Hasan kills 13 colleagues and wounds 32 at Fort Hood, Texas.
2015 A dam bursts in Brazil, the deluge and resultant mudslides kill 17 people.
2018 Voyager 2 probe leaves the solar system – it is only the second human-made probe to reach interstellar space after Voyager 1.
2019 Actress Emma Watson, interviewed in Vogue magazine, says she is happy to be single – ‘I call it being self-partnered’, launching worldwide discussion on the term.
2019 China sets new rules for gaming for young people to try to curb gaming addiction, including a maximum of 90 minutes a day.
2024 Former Republican President Donald Trump is re-elected president of the US.
DAILY NEWS