Did you know what happened on this day in history?
A sonic boom cloud forms around Felix Baumgartner as he breaks the speed of sound. The cloud is a physical manifestation of the 'breaking' of the sound barrier
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Did you know
Acacia trees in Africa communicate with each other. They emit gasses to alert other trees to produce the toxin, tannin, which protects them from hungry animals.
On this day in history, October 14
1066 The Norman conquest of England begins with the Battle of Hastings, at which Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson dies, paving the way for all of England to fall to the French.
1639 The first official governor of the Cape, Simon van der Stel, who authorised the expansion of the early Dutch settlement beyond Table Mountain, is born on a ship in the Indian Ocean en route to Mauritius. Widely known for his development of the wine industry, he was the first Cape governor of mixed race – conveniently forgotten about by the Apartheid government.
1888 Louis le Prince films the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.
1899 A young reporter, Winston Churchill, who goes on to be Britain’s greatest prime minister, leaves for South Africa to cover the Anglo-Boer War. Captured by the Boers, he is interrogated by Transvaal state attorney Jan Smuts – a man he would come to regard as ‘a fortifying influence’.
1939 A German submarine sneaks into the ‘impregnable ‘British naval base at Scapa Flow and sinks the battleship HMS Royal Oak.
1947 American test pilot Chuck Yeager is the first person to break the speed of sound.
1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis begins.
2012 Felix Baumgartner becomes the first skydiver to break the sound barrier after jumping from 38km above Earth and reaching a speed of 1 609kp/h. In July, 2025, he dies in a paragliding accident in Italy, aged 56. His jump from the edge of space is watched live around the world.
2017 A truck bombing in Somalia kills 358 people and injures more than 400.
2019 Spain jails nine Catalan separatist leaders for a 2017 independence referendum, prompting violent clashes in Barcelona.
2020 A copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio sells for a record $9.98 million.
2023 Australia votes in a referendum to deny indigenous communities more rights.
2024 New largest-known prime number, 2^136279841-1, is discovered.
2024 A Russian is rescued after 67 days adrift in an inflatable boat after his brother and nephew die in the Sea of Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East.