• 1882: Robert Koch discovers germ that causes tuberculosis.
• 1926: Harry Houdini's last performance, which was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.
• 1929: Black Thursday, the first day of the stock market crash, which began the world-wide Great Depression. This event aggravated the poor Whites problem in SA.
• 1986: SA signs treaty on Lesotho Highlands Water Project.
• 1998: Launch of Deep Space 1 comet/asteroid mission.
• 1800: The Cape of Good Hope Gazette appears for the first time.
• 1826: Louis Balthazar Meurant, Swiss-born SA musician and composer, dies in Cape Town.
• 1931: Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years for tax evasion.
• 1980: John Lennon releases "(Just Like) Starting Over" in UK
• 2005: Janita Claassen (58) SA singer dies of cancer in the Sungarden Hospice in Pretoria.
• 1931: Murray Bisset, SA cricket player in three tests (1898-1910), dies in Salisbury, Rhodesia.
• 1964: 18th Olympic games close at Tokyo, Japan.
• 1998: For the first time the world-champion South African rugby team accepts a Black player.
• 1998: An elephant tramples German tourist Rita Hahn to death on the Hans Merensky golf course in Phalaborwa, Limpopo.
• 1999: The Springbok rugby team beats England 44-21 on the Stade de France, Paris, in the World Cup quarter-final match, with Jannie de Beer setting a new world record by succeeding in five drop-goals, five penalty goals and two goal kicks.
Compiled by: Thandi Xaba