On this day

• 1577: English explorer and navigator Sir Francis Drake began his voyage to sail around the world.

• 1708: William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, was born in London.

• 1738: Astronomer Sir William Herschel, who discovered Uranus, was born in Hanover. He died in Slough in 1822.

• 1899: Winston Churchill was captured by the Boers while covering the war as a

reporter for the Morning Post. He escaped a few weeks later.

• 1901: An electrical hearing aid was patented by Miller Reese of New York.

• 1956: Elvis Presley’s first film, Love Me Tender, was premiered in New York.

• 1983: The Greenham Common women’s group mounted their first protest as cruise missiles arrived at the US airbase in Berkshire.