It’s 11 July, and that means it’s time for another edition of Throwback Thursday! Today, we’re taking a look back at three prominent events that went down on this day in history:

1895 – Mata Hari: Marriage and (Im)Morality

From a striptease to an alleged war spy, it would be an understatement to say that exotic dancer-cum-courtestan Mata Hari led a very colourful life.

But before she was the enigmatic Mata Hari, she was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, a young Dutch woman who was about to get married on this day to a man 20 years her senior.

Zelle was one month shy of her 19th birthday when she married Rudolf MacLeod, a 39-year-old colonial army officer based in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), on 11 July 1895. MacLeod had placed an ad in the paper, stating his desire for a wife; looking for a bit of excitement in her life, Zelle answered his ad and wedded him.

Although her marriage was doomed from the start, given MacLeod’s alcoholism and allegations of physical abuse on his part, Zelle immersed herself in the Indonesian culture; she adopted the name “Mata Hari” (meaning “eye of the day” in Malay), and began performing as a dancer.

Following the failure of her marriage to MacLeod, Mata Hari moved to Paris, France in 1903. Within a few years, she reinvented herself as an exotic dancer. She proved to be quite a hit in saloons in France and beyond, dazzling spectators with her sultry moves and equally sultry looks.

By the mid-1910s, however, Mata Hari resorted to becoming a courtesan in order to make ends meet. As such, she had many relationships with influential persons in Europe, including politicians and high-ranking military officers, in the years leading up to World War I.

As a Dutch citizen, Mata Hari was free to travel between European borders. However, her constant travelling – combined with whispers of her affairs with major military figures – made her a suspect in the eyes of British and French authorities, who thought that Germany had employed her as a spy.

In February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in Paris on a charge of espionage. After a brief trial – throughout which she maintained her innocence – she was found guilty, despite a lack of concrete evidence. Eight months later, she was executed by a French firing squad.

To this day, it is unknown if Mata Hari was truly a spy or merely a victim who got caught up in the political machinations of the time. Suffice to say, one wonders if she would have had a different fate – if not a different life! – if she hadn’t answered MacLeod’s ad all those years ago.

1967 – Whoopee! It’s The Newlywed Game!

A lot of people regret getting hitched the moment they say “I do.” Fortunately, if you were a newly-married couple who appeared as contestants on “The Newlywed Game”, you might have found a way to rekindle your spark … or get divorced, depending on how badly you played the game!

Debuting on American screens on 11 July 1967, “The Newlywed Game” was a game show which pitted – you guessed it – newly-married couples against each other. In each round, the husbands and wives would take turns answering questions while their significant others were backstage; when they returned, the spouses would get asked the same questions. Each matching answer was worth a certain amount of points per round.

For example, inaugural host Bob Eubanks could ask the wife, “What’s your husband’s favourite condiment?”, while her hubby’s backstage during the first round. If the returning husband’s answer matched that of his lovely lady’s – “Mustard!” – then they would earn five points.

By the end of the game, the couple with the most points won a prize, which ranged from appliances and furniture to luxury honeymoon getaways over the years.

“The Newlywed Game” is considered one of the greatest, memorable game shows to ever have been created. It’s known for popularising the phrase “Making whoopee”, a tongue-in-cheek euphemism for … well, dancing the horizontal tango, if you catch our drift.

It was also unintentionally hilarious, for couples would often come up with the most outrageous answers. For example, when Eubanks asked the husbands, “What Spanish word or phrase would your wife say best describes her bust?”, one of them replied, “Nada!”

Grounds for divorce, that is!

“The Newlywed Game” ran for over four decades with multiple hosts until ending in 2013. Although it had its crazy (and sometimes cringe) moments, the show remains beloved by many folks to this day.

2015 – The Great Escape Part II

After 13 years on the run, notorious Mexican drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was recaptured in February 2014.

Little did anyone know, he was about to stage his most epic escape yet in over a year’s time.

Following his recapture, Guzmán was transferred to the Altiplano maximum-security prison in Alomoya, west of Mexico City. However, after 15 months of incarceration, it was time for Guzmán to take another shot at freedom.

On the night of 11 July 2015, El Chapo put his daring escape plan into action: with the aid of his associates on the outside, the Sinaloa Cartel chief escaped through a tunnel that had been dug three stories directly underneath the shower area of his prison cell.

Upon further inspection by the authorities, they discovered that the tunnel – which was accessed by a ladder and measured more than 1.5 kilometres – was equipped with lighting and ventilation, as well as a motorcycle on rails to ease Guzmán’s escape. The tunnel let out at a construction site, where Guzmán was able to taste freedom for the first time in 15 months.

For the next six months, El Chapo remained on the run: he continued his drug-trafficking operations, all while evading the Mexican police, who came under intense pressure from national and international agencies and media outlets to recapture him.

Eventually, Guzmán was recaptured on 8 January 2016. Today, the 67-year-old is now serving a life sentence at the ADX Florence, a maximum-security prison in the US state of Colorado – given his age and the high level of security at this facility, it seems unlikely that he will ever escape again.

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