1167 King John, supposedly England’s worst king, is born. Author Thomas Costain, described Richard the Lionheart’s brother as ‘selfish, cruel, shameless, cynical, lustful, dishonourable and utterly false’. A slightly more measured assessment by historian JC Holt, called John ‘suspicious, vengeful and treacherous’.
1497 A flotilla of three Portuguese ships under the command of Vasco da Gama sail up the eastern seaboard of southern Africa, and moor overnight in the lee of a headland, which may have been the Bluff. Probably because of the date, Da Gama names the land Terra do Natal. It is not known whether sailors landed to take on fresh water, which seems improbable as they make landfall three days later, at the mouth of the Limpopo.
1524 Vasco da Gama dies en route to India.
1651 Accompanied by 82 men and 8 women, Jan van Riebeeck sets off from Texel, in The Netherlands, for the Cape of Good Hope, where he is to oversee the setting up of a refreshment station to supply Dutch ships on their way to the East.
1914 The Christmas Truce of World War I begins with a series of unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front as French, German, and British soldiers cross ‘no-man’s land’ to exchange greetings, food and souvenirs, sing carols and play games of football. New research points to the fact that despite the difficulties they endured, soldiers never tried to stop fraternising with their opponents, not just during Christmas but throughout the year.
1928 At Kommetjie, near Cape Town, 103 whales are washed ashore.
1953 A bridge on New Zealand’s North Island is damaged by a volcano and collapses as a passenger train crosses over it, killing 151 people.
1989 Hunted by invading US forces seeking to arrest him, Panama’s dictator, Manual Noriega, seeks asylum at the Vatican embassy.
2008 The Lord’s Resistance Army begins a series of attacks in the DRC, massacring more than 400 people.
2012 Eleven children die after a minivan plunges into a pond in Jiangxi, China. | The Historian