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Sometime around midnight on September the 17th, 1961,

a plane approached an airstrip near Nandola in what was then Northern Rhodesia, but is today Zambia.

The aircraft was a DC-6, and on board the second ever Secretary General of the United Nations an aristocratic

looking Swede called Dag Hammershold. He was on his way to try and mediate a dreadful

war in the Congo, but the plane crashed and Hamishold was killed.

Was it an accident?

The debate continues to this day.

According to his obituary in the New York Times, Hamishold was a respected Swedish diplomat

but little known to the world when eight years earlier he had become head of the UN. Part of the reason for his selection was the widespread

belief that he would keep his head down, play the dutiful administrator and not upset the

big players of the day. It did not work out that way.

With me, nominating Daghamershold is Georgina Godwin,

freelance presenter on Monacled 24 and the very first host on Zimbabwean breakfast TV. Georgina was also part

of the team which started Zimbabwe's first independent radio station.

It was shut down within a week by presidential decree, leading to her forced

relocation to the United Kingdom. Georgina, tell me, why are you nominating Dag Hamishold?

For me, he was simply the greatest statesman that ever lived. I think he was a man who had

his life not been cut, tragically short, would have utterly changed the world. The United Nations would have evolved

in a completely different way. It wouldn't be the toothless giant that we know today. I think

what he achieved within the UN, he's pioneered peacekeeping with sewers but what he also did was he was very quick to act to mobilize forces for instance in Congo when they were needed and he really, really determined that African and Asian

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