ON THIS DAY MAY 15

1525 The Battle of Frankenhausen sees a German peasant army surrounded with 5 000 of them slaughtered, ending the peasants’ uprising against their feudal masters.

1897 The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee is founded in Berlin by Magnus Hirschfeld, the first-ever LGBT rights organization.

1902 The Vereeniging peace conference to discuss ways of ending the Anglo-Boer War begins. After long discussions the delegates conceded to the British proposal to relinquish their independence and become British colonies, with 54 votes to 6. The peace was then signed in Melrose House, Pretoria, on May 31, 1902.

1928 Mickey Mouse makes his first appearance in the silent film, Plane Crazy. 1936 Amy Johnson arrives in Croydon, England, having flown from South Africa in a record time of 4 days and 16 hours.

1940 Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1944 The 14 000 Jews of Munkacs, Hungary, are deported to Auschwitz.

1945 World War II: The final skirmish in Europe is fought near Prevalje, Slovenia.

1948 Troops from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attack the new state of Israel. 1993 SA flyweight Jacob “Baby Jake” Matlala, wins the World Boxing Organisation world championship title.

1997 Apartheid policeman and Vlakplaas assassination squad commander Dirk Coetzee, together with Almond Nofomela and David Tshikakalanga, is found guilty of murdering human rights lawyer and UDF activist Griffiths Mxenge in 1981. Mxenge’s mutilated body was found near Umlazi Stadium, Durban. Four years after her husband’s murder, Victoria Mxenge was shot and hacked to death in front of her children at their Umlazi home in Durban. 2010 Jessica Watson at age 16 becomes the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world.

2012 International Day of Families.

2019 Findings from China’s Chang’e-4 rover to the Moon suggests that a huge asteroid created a giant crater on the Moon’s far side with an impact so great that it cracked its crust and reached the mantle below. The findings are published in Nature. | THE HISTORIAN