ON THIS DAY AUGUST 8

1503 King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England, at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1509 Krishnadeva Raya is crowned emperor of Vijayanagara at Chittoor.

1709 The first known ascent in a hot-air balloon, by Bartolomeu de Gusmao.

1843 Natal is made a British colony.

1854 Smith & Wesson patents metal bullet cartridges.

1865 King Moshesh (Moshoeshoe, Msheshwe) of the Basuto beats off an attack by Kommandant Louw Wepener of the Orange Free State.

1918 The Battle of Amiens begins a string of almost continuous Allied victories with a push through the German front lines (100 Days Offensive).

1938 Great Trek centenary celebrations start.

1942 The Quit India Movement is launched in India against British rule in response to Mohandas Gandhi’s call for swaraj, or complete independence.

1945 The USSR declares war on Japan in the closing stages of World War II.

1960 Charges against 53 of the 76 black people detained after the Sharpeville massacre are dropped.

1963 The Great Train Robbery takes place in England when a gang of 15 steals £2.6 million in banknotes. 1966 Beatle records are banned by the SABC, due to John Lennon’s controversial “Jesus” comments.

1969 Photographer Iain Macmillan takes the iconic photo that becomes the cover image of the Beatles’ album Abbey Road, at a zebra crossing in London.

1974 President Richard Nixon, in a live, nationwide television address to the US public, announces his resignation in the wake of the Watergate Scandal.

1975 As a result of rainfall from Typhoon Nina, the Banqiao Dam in China fails, causing the collapse of almost 6 million buildings and 229 000 deaths.

1987 Lynne Cox becomes the first to swim from the US to Russia across the frigid Bering Strait.

1988 Ceasefire in the Angolan conflict is announced, ending 20 years of bush warfare.

1988 Russian troops begin to pull out of Afghanistan after a disastrous 9-year war.

2010 A mudslide in Gansu, China, kills more than 1 400 people.