Historical Events:

• 1789: 1st national Thanksgiving in USA.
• 1885: 1st meteor photograph.
• 1948: 1st polaroid camera sold for $89.75 in Boston at the Jordan Marsh department store. The Land Camera model 95 becomes the prototype for all Polaroid Land cameras produced for the next 15 years.
• 1998: Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Republic of Ireland's parliament.
• 2005: Mark Thatcher appears in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court in connection with the failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. His lawyers are granted an adjournment to February 18.

Arts, Music, TV:

• 1859: Last weekly installment of Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" is published in literary periodical All the Year Round.
• 1865: "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll published in USA.
• 1974: Candice Derman, SA TV presenter, is born in Johannesburg.
• 1975: The Afrikaans writer Breyten Breytenbach is sentenced in the Pretoria Supreme Court to nine years imprisonment for offences under the Terrorism Act. He has pleaded guilty to entering South Africa to start an organisation, Atlas or Okhela, intended to be the White wing of the ANC.
• 1978: 1st lesbian theme TV movie - "Question of Love"
• 2004: Celebrated South African poet Sheila Cussons dies in Cape Town at the age of 82.

Sports:

• 1868: 1st baseball game played in enclosed field in SF, at 25th & Folsom.
• 1954: Test Cricket debut of Colin Cowdrey v Australia at Gabba.
• 1974: Greenidge scores 107 in 2nd innings of Test Cricket debut v India.
• 1994: The SA rugby team beats Wales 20-12 in Cardiff.
• 1998: Ian Rodgers (42), SA rugby test referee, dies of cancer in Pietermaritzburg.


















Source: historyorb.com & sahistory.org.com
Compiled by: Thandi Xaba