1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon with four vessels in search of a sea route to India.

1822: Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet, was drowned in Italy while sailing his small schooner Ariel to his home on the Gulf of Spezia.

1882: Eccentric composer Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne.

1884: The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was founded.

1889: John L Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain in Mississippi after 75 rounds - the last bare-knuckle heavyweight title contest.

1907: Florenz Ziegfeld's first play, Follies of 1907, opened on Broadway. Like the others that followed, it contained 13 characters in the title for good luck.

1918: National Savings stamps went on sale in Britain.

1961: The first all-England women's singles final took place at Wimbledon between Christine Truman and Angela Mortimer, who won in three sets.

1965: Horse racing starting stalls were introduced in the Chesterfield Stakes at Newmarket.

1965: Ronald Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, scaled the wall of Wandsworth Prison with a rope ladder and escaped. He had served 15 months of his sentence. He eventually settled in Brazil.

LAST YEAR: The Government survived a bid to wreck its health service reforms despite 62 Labour MPs joining a Commons revolt.