ON THIS DAY

1770 Captain Cook leaves Botany Bay.

1840 The “penny black’” stamp, issued in Britain, goes into circulation there as the first prepaid adhesive postage stamp in history.

1860 General Giuseppe Garibaldi and his “Thousand Redshirts” sail from Genoa to conquer Sicily and Naples, pushing Italy towards unification.

1910 Britain’s King Edward VII dies in London after a nine-year reign.

1937 The German airship Hindenburg explodes on landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey (right). Thirty-six people die.

1954 Roger Bannister breaks the four-minute barrier for the mile, at Oxford.

1960 Princess Margaret marries commoner Anthony Armstrong-Jones in London’s Westminster Abbey.

1998 Steve Jobs introduces Apple’s first iMac, a personal computer that becomes hugely successful and helps revive the struggling company.