January 28 » Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent, becomes the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined one shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8mph (13km/h), thereby exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2mph (3.2km/h).
February 1 » La bohème premieres in Turin at the Teatro Regio (Turin), conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini.
March 1 » Battle of Adwa: An Ethiopian army defeats an outnumbered Italian force, ending the First Italo-Ethiopian War.
May 26 » Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
June 28 » An explosion in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.
December 10 » Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi premieres in Paris. A riot breaks out at the end of the performance.
Christening day January 31, 1897
The temperature on January 31, 1897 was about -7.0 °C. The airpressure was 74 cm mercury. The atmospheric humidity was 86%. Source: KNMI
February 28 » Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, is deposed by a French military force.
April 30 » J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.
June 16 » A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
August 2 » Anglo-Afghan War: The Siege of Malakand ends when a relief column is able to reach the British garrison in the Malakand states.
August 31 » Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
September 1 » The Tremont Street Subway in Boston opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
Day of death September 14, 1963
The temperature on September 14, 1963 was between 7.8 °C and 21.5 °C and averaged 14.2 °C. There was 10.3 hours of sunshine (80%). The average windspeed was 1 Bft (weak wind) and was prevailing from the north-northwest. Source: KNMI
March 8 » The Ba'ath Party comes to power in Syria in a coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command.
October 18 » Félicette, a black and white female Parisian stray cat becomes the first cat launched into space.
November 2 » South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.
November 22 » U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards.
November 23 » The BBC broadcasts An Unearthly Child (starring William Hartnell), the first episode of the first story from the first series of Doctor Who, which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama.
November 29 » U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: Gert Esterhuizen, "Family tree Eric Esterhuizen", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-eric-esterhuizen/I14474.php : accessed January 8, 2026), "Rudolph Cornelius PRETORIUS (1896-1963)".
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