Today in history

1539 – Explorer Hernando De Soto claims Florida in the Americas for Spain.

1621 – Dutch West India Company receives charter for New Netherlands, now New York.

1657 – Death of William Harvey, English physician who discovered the nature of the circulation of blood and the function of the heart as a pump.

1769 – Captain James Cook, a year into his circumnavigation of the world, observes the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun from Tahiti, the main purpose of his voyage.

1818 – The last of the Maratha Wars between the British and the Maratha Confederacy in India ends, securing British supremacy in India.

1864 – More than 7000 Union troops are killed or wounded in less than an hour at Cold Harbour, near Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War.

1937 – Britain’s Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, marries American divorcee Wallis Simpson in France.

1940 – Allied evacuation from Dunkirk, France, is completed in World War II.

1941 – Finnish vessel Pamir is seized five days after its arrival in Wellington Harbour. The Government regarded Finland as a ‘‘territory in enemy occupation’’ and pressed the Pamir into service.

1942 – The Battle of Midway, the turning point in the sea war in the Pacific, begins.

1959 – Singapore becomes selfgoverning.

1968 – Pop artist Andy Warhol is shot and critically wounded in his New York film studio, known as ‘‘The Factory’’, by feminist and actress Valerie Solanas.

1969 – Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collides with the US destroyer Frank E Evans in the South China Sea, resulting in the deaths of 74 Americans.

1989 – Chinese troops storm Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators.

1992 – The world’s largest environmental summit, the Earth Summit, opens in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

1998 – A high-speed train derails in Eschede, Germany, killing 101 people.

2000 – Archaeologists scouring the Mediterranean seabed announce they have found the 2500-year-old ruins of the submerged Pharaonic cities Herakleion, Canopus and Menouthis, that until now were known only through Greek tragedies, travelogues and legends.

Today’s Birthdays: Jefferson Davis, first and only president of the US Confederacy (1808-1889); George V, King of England (1865-1936); Josephine Baker, US cabaret artist (1906-1975); Allen Ginsberg, US poet (1926-1997); Suzi Quatro, US singer (1950-); Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player (1986-).