What a day this was.
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Only in Africa will thieves be regrouping to loot again and the youths whose future is being stolen will be celebrating it. | Akinwande Soyinka
Ants keep aphids as ‘sugar cattle’. Our agricultural revolution only happened 10 000 years ago. By then, ants had been keeping aphids as livestock for about 100 million years. Aphids produce large amounts of honeydew, a sweet surplus liquid. The ants gently touch the aphids’ abdomen with their antennas to make the aphids release their sugary treat. An ant colony can easily harvest 10–15 kg of sugar from aphids over a summer. Ants have been found to ‘herd’ their cattle by restricting the aphids’ capacity to disperse to other plants.
1199 On this day in history, March 25, England’s King Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) is hit in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt in France. The wound becomes gangrenous and the storied king dies, aged 41. Legend has it that the bolt was fired by a boy seeking revenge for his family’s death.
1658 Slavery proper begins in the Cape with the arrival of the Amersfoort in Table Bay. Onboard the ship are 170 slaves taken from a Portuguese vessel.
1807 The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act is passed by Parliament in London, England. It outlaws the slave trade within the British Empire. Any British captain caught transporting slaves was fined £100 for every slave on board. However, many captains simply tossed their human cargo overboard to avoid fines.
1835 Durban pioneer Captain Allen Gardiner sets up the first educational institution in Natal when a school for Black children opens its doors on the Berea, where the original St Thomas’ Church, a prefabricated wood and iron structure sent out from England, is built.
1990 The first of more than 100 people to die during the ‘Seven-Day War’ between IFP and ANC supporters dies in Edendale Valley, near Pietermaritzburg. About 30 000 people flee; hundreds are injured and 3 000 houses are burned down. The conflict became symbolic of the broader political violence that killed about 20 000 people in South Africa between 1990 and 1994 during the fragile transition from apartheid to democracy.
2017 The largest banana split ever, 8.04 km long, is made in Innisfail, Australia.
2019 Nasa cancels a planned historic all-female spacewalk because it doesn’t have enough spacesuits to fit women.
2019 A British Airways flight from London flies to Edinburgh, Scotland, instead of Düsseldorf, Germany, when the wrong flight plan is submitted.
2024 Homes belonging to Sean “Diddy” Combs are searched amid allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault against the rapper.
2024 The UN Security Council issues its first demand for a cease-fire in Gaza, with the US abstaining from the vote, which angers Israel. A UN-appointed expert says there are grounds to believe that Israel is committing genocide.
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