The D'Oliveira affair was a controversy over the inclusion of Basil
D'Oliveira, a mixed-race cricketer of South African origin, in the
England cricket team selected to tour apartheid-era South Africa in
1968–69. D'Oliveira had moved to England primarily because apartheid
restricted his cricketing career; he played Test cricket for England
from 1966. The English cricketing authorities wished to maintain
traditional links with South Africa and have the tour go ahead without
incident; the South Africans publicly indicated that D'Oliveira could
play, but secretly worked to prevent this. D'Oliveira's omission from
the tour party, ostensibly on cricketing merit, prompted a public outcry
in Britain; when he was then chosen to replace an injured player, the
South Africans alleged political motivations behind England's team
selection. Following abortive attempts at compromise, the English
cancelled the tour before it began. Sporting boycotts of South Africa
were already under way but this controversy was the first to have a
serious impact on South African cricket. South Africa was almost totally
isolated from international cricket from 1971 to 1991.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Oliveira_affair>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1329:
Pope John XXII issued a papal bull that some of the works of
German theologian and mystic Meister Eckhart were heretical.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart>
1782:
Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, a leading
British Whig Party statesman, began his second non-consecutive term as
Prime Minister of Great Britain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Watson-Wentworth,_2nd_Marquess_of_Rockingham>
1915:
Typhoid Mary (pictured), the first person to be identified as
an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever, was placed into quarantine,
where she spent the rest of her life.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary>
1945:
World War II: The United States Army Air Forces began Operation
Starvation, laying naval mines in many of Japan's vital water routes and
ports to disrupt shipping.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Starvation>
1975:
Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an oil
pipeline spanning the length of Alaska, began.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_the_Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
fan death:
The urban legend originating in South Korea that if an electric fan is
left running overnight in a closed room it can cause the death of those
inside.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fan_death>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I did not think; I investigated. … It seemed at first a new
kind of invisible light. It was clearly something new, something
unrecorded.
--Wilhelm Röntgen
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_R%C3%B6ntgen>