ON THIS DAY JUNE 19

1269 King Louis IX of France decrees that all Jews must wear a yellow badge in public or be fined 10 livres of silver.

1829 Sir Robert Peel introduces the Metropolitan Police Act 1829 into Parliament to establish a unified police force for London. London policemen have since been known as Bobbies, in acknowledgement of Sir Robert. 1910 Father’s Day is celebrated for the first time, in Spokane, Washington state, US. The idea soon catches on.

1913 The Natives Land Act, Act No 27, passed in South Africa: it confined blacks to hopelessly overcrowded reserves and deprived them of the right to buy land outside the native reserves.

1917 The British Royal Family, which had strong German ties, renounces its German names and titles and instead adopts Windsor. 1921 Turks and Christians of Palestine sign a friendship treaty against Jews.

1932 Hailstones kill 200 people in Hunan Province, China.

1941 Soviet anthropologist Michael Gerasimov opens the tomb of Timurid Empire founder Timur and allegedly finds the inscription that whoever opens the tomb shall “unleash an invader more terrible than I”. Three days later, Germany invaded Russia.

1944 Five of “The Magnificent Eleven” photos taken by Robert Capa during the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach, Normandy, were first published in Life Magazine.

1963 Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, returns to Earth.

1981 The heaviest known orange – a 2.5kg monster – is exhibited in Nelspruit.

1982 The body of “God’s Banker”, Roberto Calvi, is found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London.

1991 Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar surrenders to police.

2017 The first full genetic study of cats published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals they were domesticated 9 000 years ago and descended from the African wildcat. 2018 England smash the highest score (481/6) in ODI cricket history in a 242-run defeat of Australia (239) at Trent Bridge. | THE HISTORIAN