1500: Navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it on behalf of Portugal.

1838: The British packet steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic to New York from England. The journey took 18 days and 10 hours.

1870: Vladimir llyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Russian revolutionary leader, was born in Simbirsk.

1884: A major earthquake hit Colchester and parts of East Anglia, damaging 1,200 buildings and killing four people.

1915: Germany first used poison gas at Ypres.

1933: Death of Frederick Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls Royce car company.

1943: The printing of British £1,000 notes was discontinued.

1969: Yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into Falmouth to complete his 312-day, non-stop, round-the-world voyage.

1972: John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook arrived in Australia to become the first people to row across the Pacific.

1989: Archaeologists said they had unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy in agold covered coffin in the Egyptian oasis, Fayoum. She was wrapped in linen and dried flowers and had a child beside her.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Police were working to reassure ethnic communities in Preston after nearly five hours of racially-aggravated violence.

BIRTHDAYS: George Cole, actor, 78; Aaron Spelling, TV producer, 75; Glen Campbell, singer, 67; Jack Nicholson, actor, 66; John Waters, film director, 57; Carol Drinkwater, actress, 55; Peter Frampton, rock singer, 53; Jancis Robinson, wine writer/broadcaster, 53; Ryan Stiles, actor and comedian, 44; Sheryl Lee, actess, 36; Dion Dublin, footballer, 34.