IT HAPPENED TODAY
1791: The optical telegraph (semaphore machine) was unveiled in Paris.
1836: Texas was proclaimed a republic, independent of Mexico.
1882: Robert MacLean tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Queen Victoria at Windsor.
1930: Novelist DH Lawrence (above) died in France of tuberculosis.
1949: The first round-the-world non-stop flight was completed by Captain James Gallagher and his 13-man USAF crew. It took 94 hours, during which the plane, Lucky Lady II, was refuelled four times in flight.
1958: A British team led by Vivian Fuchs completed the first crossing of the Antarctic, covering 2,158 miles in 99 days.
1969: The French-built supersonic airliner Concorde made its maiden flight from Toulouse.
1970: Southern Rhodesia broke away from the UK and became a republic under Ian Smith.
1986: The Queen signed the Australia Bill in Canberra, formally severing any Australian constitutional ties with the UK.
1995: Financial dealer Nick Leeson (above), whose multimillion-pound dealings on the high-risk derivatives market in Singapore bankrupted Barings Bank, was arrested at Frankfurt airport after a week-long manhunt.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft launched, marking the first major step towards US ambitions to resume sending astronauts into space on its own spacecraft on American soil.
BIRTHDAYS: Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet Union president, 89;
John Irving, novelist, 78; JPR Williams, former rugby player, 71; John Altman, actor, 68; Ian Woosnam, golfer, 62; Jon Bon Jovi, rock singer, 58; Daniel Craig (above), actor, 52; James Arthur, singer, 32.