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Today in History: March 20th

───   08:00 Fri, 20 Mar 2015

Today in History: March 20th | News Article
Historical Event:

• 1880: Diamonds to the worth of about £50,000 are stolen from the post office in Cape Town.
• 1870: Charles Gustav Fichardt, founder member of the National Party and Bloemfontein businessman, is born in Bloemfontein.
• 1873: The Rev. Jozua Francois Naude, church secretary of the Transvaal Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church and founder of the first Afrikaans primary school in Transvaal, is born.
• 1947: Dr Dadoo and Dr Naicker met Mahatma Gandhi in Patna and held several hours of discussions with him (Mahatma Gandhi).
• 1953: The first mountain zebra foal is born in the National Mountain Zebra Park near Cradock.
• 2001: The of National HIV prevalence survey is released at Public Sector Ante-natal clinics.

Arts, Music, TV:

• 1927: John Joubert, South African composer, is born in Cape Town.
• 1950: Daniel Cornelis Boonzaier, first cartoonist at a SA newspaper (Die Burger), dies in Cape Town.
• 1993: Gerard Sekoto (80), SA artist who left SA for Paris in 1947, dies.
• 1997: V.S. Pritchett, short-story writer and critic, dies at the age of 96.

And did you know...

• The world's most expensive musical instrument, a Stradivarius violin, was sold in 2011 for US$15.9 million.
• The song Jingle Bells was originally written for Thanksgiving.

Sports:

• 1973: Sports Minister, Dr. P. Koornhof, says the government will not allow organisations inside or outside the country to disrupt the South African games.

And did you know...

• The word “soccer” originated as a slang abbreviation of the word ‘association.”
• Ronaldinho's deal with Coca-Cola ended after he was caught sipping a Pepsi in a news conference.
• The original 2014 World Cup's ball was produced in Pakistan.
• The British coined the term “Soccer” I the late 1800s, not America.
















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

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