Did you know?
The story of Just Nuisance, the World War 2 dog-sailor, is well known — there is even a statue of him in Simon's Town. Not so well known is the story of Rifles, a leopard who sailed on the HMS Hyacinth between 1917 and 1919 and even saw battle. She was given to the crew as a cub in Mombasa and became a much-loved comrade. She once fell overboard along the west coast of Africa and swam until she could be rescued. Her dislike of civilians caused the commander to donate her to the London Zoo.
The last person to be hanged in South Africa was Solomon Ngobeni, on 4 November 1989. He was convicted of killing a truck driver during a robbery. Barend “Wit Wolf" Strydom, who killed eight black people on Pretoria's Strijdom Square on 15 November 1988, was sentenced to death on 25 May 1989, but before he could be hanged a moratorium on the death penalty was announced in 1990. In 1992, Strydom was released by President FW de Klerk as one of 150 “political prisoners".
A scaramouch is a boastful coward.
To be lachrymose is to be tearful.
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