On this day, March 31
|Published
Russia denied entry to the Nato club, state of emergency over black-on-black violence, mudslides wreak havoc, tens of thousands flee Zululand because of Britain’s invasion and the world-famous Eiffel Tower opens.
1752 An expedition led by August F. Beutler into the interior of the country, rescues survivors of the French sloop Le Nécessaire in Algoa Bay. (Beutler’s 8-month expedition east from Cape Town explored as far as the present-day site of Butterworth. He wrote a comprehensive account of his trip which was to report on the tribes living along the route, the possibility of anything that might be profitable to the Dutch East India Company.)
1846 Martin West, lieutenant-governor of Natal, appoints a location commission to investigate the problems caused by about 100 000 Blacks who streamed into Natal, mostly from Zululand, after the British occupation. The commission recommends that a number of locations be established for Blacks.
1885 The UK establishes the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Botswana).
1889 The Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris. Built for the Exposition Universelle, at 300m high it holds the record for the tallest man-made structure for 41 years.
1900 General Christiaan de Wet’s men, in a battle that marks the first of the guerrilla phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War, clash with British forces at Sannaspos, east of Bloemfontein.
1932 About 150 wild swans die when they are swept over the Niagara falls. It’s not the first time this happens, nor the last.
1918 A massacre of ethnic Azerbaijanis is committed by armed groups of Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Bolsheviks. Nearly 12 000 Azerbaijani Muslims are killed.
1954 A year after Josef Stalin dies and a year before the Warsaw Pact was established, the Kremlin asks to join NATO, but is rebuffed.
1991 Self-confessed CCB agent Donald Acheson is deported to London. The Irish-born Acheson was implicated in the assassination of anti-Apartheid Windhoek lawyer and member of Swapo, Anton Lubowski.
1994 President FW de Klerk declares a state of emergency in Natal because of black-on-black violence in the province.
2000 The North Sea Jazz Festival starts in Cape Town – the first time a jazz festival on four simultaneous stages takes place in SA.
2017 Mudslides sweep through Mocoa, Colombia, killing more than 200 people.
