ON THIS DAY JULY 24

1304 England’s King Edward I takes Stirling Castle, using the War Wolf, the largest trebuchet. On seeing the enormous machine, the terrified Scots try to surrender, but Edward preferred to see what his weapon could do. 1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate in favour of her 1-year-old son, James VI, aka “The wisest fool in Christendom”. He succeeds England’s Elizabeth Tudor – who had Mary executed – unites the two kingdoms, and translates the Bible into contemporary English, which is in use to this day (the Authorised King James Version).

1793 France passes the first copyright law. 1851 Window tax is abolished in Britain. 1862 Politician and Jock of the Bushveld author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick is born in King William’s Town.

1911 American explorer Hiram Bingham discovers Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas.

1917 The trial of Dutch spy and exotic dancer Mata Hari begins in Paris. Convicted, she is later shot by a firing squad.

1944 Soviet troops liberate the concentration camp Majdanek.

1964 Anti-apartheid campaigner Frederick John Harris’s bomb explodes in Johannesburg station, killing one person and wounding 22. Harris is hanged for it.

1969 Apollo 11, which took the first men to the moon, lands in the Pacific Ocean.

1978 South Africa’s Margaret Gardiner becomes Miss Universe.

1982 Heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys a bridge at Nagasaki, killing 299 people.

1983 The Black July anti-Tamil riots begin in Sri Lanka, killing between 400 and 3 000 people. Black July is generally regarded as the beginning of the Sri Lankan civil war.

2002 On the 200th anniversary of his birth, the ashes of French author Alexandre Dumas’ (The Three Musketeers) are interred in the Panthéon in Paris in a televised ceremony. 2013 A high-speed train derails on a curve in the line in Spain, killing 78 passengers.

2013 A gunfight between the Knights Templar drug cartel and Mexican police leaves 22 people dead. | THE HISTORIAN