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.
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