On this day

z 1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon with four vessels in search of a sea route to India.

z 1822: Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet, was drowned in Italy while sailing his small schooner Ariel to his home on the Gulf of Spezia.

z 1889: John L Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain in Mississippi after 75 rounds – the last bare-knuckle heavyweight title contest.

z 1907: Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1907 opened on Broadway, his first, and like the others that followed, contained 13 characters in the title for good luck.

z 1918: National Savings stamps went on sale in Britain.

z 1965: Ronald Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, scaled the wall of Wandsworth Prison with a rope ladder and escaped. He had served 15 months of his sentence. He eventually settled in Brazil.