Other events on this day:
1996 – Five members of the ultra right wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), better known as the AWB, are each sentenced to 26 years imprisonment for participating in a bombing campaign that claimed the lives of 20 and injured hundreds in an attempt to disrupt the 1994 elections.
1839 – The man credited with founding the Garden Route town of Knysna and played a significant role in its development, George Rex, dies at the age of 74. Rex was at one point believed to have been the son of Britain’s King George III and Hannah Lightfoot. However, the claim was disproved by Patricia Storrar in “George Rex: Death of a Legend” and by genetic testing.
1702 – Dutch merchant ship the Merensteijn (or Merenstein as it is now spelled) sinks off Jutten Island, on the west coast of the Cape. The ship sinks with its cargo of gold and silver, and 101 of the 200 people on board lose their lives. The wreck was salvaged in 1972, along with some of the cargo. The area has now become a popular diving site. Read more.
1648 – Survivors of the shipwrecked Dutch ship, the Nieuwe Haarlem, are rescued by a fleet of 12 ships under the command of W.G. de Jong. The ship had gone down at the Cape the year before. The survivors built a small fort that they named “Sand Fort of the Cape of Good Hope”. On their return home, they convinced the Dutch East India Company to open a refreshment station at the Cape. In 1652, an expedition of around 90 settlers, under the command of Jan van Riebeeck, founded the first permanent European settlement at the Cape.