Today in history

1593 The Portuguese cargo ship Santo Alberto was wrecked on the coast of Pondoland, south-west of the mouth of the Umtata River

1855 South African author and feminist Olive Schreiner is born

1953 Queen Mary dies

1969 Joseph Kasavubu, first president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, dies

1991 Twelve people were killed in the eastern Rand township of Daveyton, near Benoni

1993 President FW de Klerk, pictured, tells Parliament that South Africa had constructed six nuclear fission devices