Cape Town is hit by a violent earthquake, a sinking off Danger Point becomes the epitome of courage in the face of hopeless circumstances and the Taliban blow up the world’s largest Buddhas. These are some of the things from back in the day on February 26. Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba at the Al-Masjid al-Haram (Grand mosque) in Mecca. Picture: Reuters
Cape Town is hit by a violent earthquake, a sinking off Danger Point becomes the epitome of courage in the face of hopeless circumstances and the Taliban blow up the world’s largest Buddhas. These are some of the things from back in the day on February 26.
1531 An earthquake in Portugal kills thousands of people, flattening much Lisbon.
1616 Galileo is banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching that the earth orbits the sun, and, thus, that the earth is not the centre of the universe, as per the church’s teachings.
1815 Napoleon escapes prison on Elba. He and his supporters set out to re-take France.
1844 A violent earthquake hits Cape Town although there is not much to destroy. Other quakes, caused by the Milnerton Fault, occurred in 1811, 1809, 1695 and 1620.
1852 The English troop carrier, the Birkenhead runs aground off Danger Point, Gansbaai, and her sinking becomes one of the earliest maritime disaster evacuations during which the concept of ‘women and children first’ is known to have been applied. Owing to too few lifeboats, the chivalrous soldiers stand back, allowing the women and children to escape. The ‘Birkenhead drill’ of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, Soldier an’ Sailor Too, came to describe courage in face of hopeless circumstances.
1910 Gandhi supports the African People’s Organisation’s resolution to declare the Prince of Wales day of arrival in South Africa a day of mourning, in protest at the disenfranchisement of Indians, Coloureds and Africans.
1917 Russian February Revolution: Tsar Nicolas II orders the army to quell civil unrest in Petrograd (today’s St Petersburg), but the army mutinies. It is a prelude to the October Revolution that see the Bolsheviks, under Lenin, seize control the rise of communism, and the execution of the Tsar and his family.
1936 Adolf Hitler introduces Ferdinand Porsche’s Volkswagen (the people’s car).
1960 A New York-bound Alitalia airliner crashes into a field next to a cemetery in Shannon, Ireland, shortly after take-off. Of the 52 people on board, 34 were killed in what a local priest described as, ‘a scene from hell’.
1991 Coalition planes have a field day, bombing Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait during the Gulf War, killing hundreds and creating the so-called ‘Highway of Death’.
1995 The world’s second-oldest merchant bank, Barings Bank, collapses after rogue securities broker Nick Leeson gambles away billions of pounds while speculating.
2000 Cyclone Eline, which struck the Southern African countries of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique continues to ravage the areas with heavy rains. Heavy rains, which started on February 21, continue for months, flooding large agricultural areas and homes. Thirty three people die in Zimbabwe and 29 in Limpopo.
2001 The Taliban destroy two giant Buddha statues – the largest standing Buddhas in the world – in Bamyan, Afghanistan.
2018 A 7.5 magnitude earthquake in central Papua New Guinea kills at least 100 people.
2019 The UK’s highest winter temperature (21.2°C) is measured in Kew Gardens, London.
2020 For the first time in living memory, Saudi Arabia bars overseas pilgrims from the religious sites of Mecca and Medina because of Covid-19 fears.