Today in History

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama becomes the first European to reach India by sea.

1503 – Portuguese Afonso de Albuquerque rediscovers an island in the South Atlantic on Ascension Day, and names it Ascension Island.

1506 – Italian explorer Christopher Columbus dies, aged 54, in Spain.

1609 – Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly. 1770 – Captain James Cook sights what becomes known as Fraser Island, Queensland.

1856 – The paddle steamer City of Dunedin, bound for Nelson from Wellington, disappears. No trace is found of 47 passengers and crew.

1870 – First known shipload of Pacific Island labourers arrives in Auckland, with 27 men from the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).

1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a patent to make blue jeans with copper rivets.

1927 – Saudi Arabia becomes independent of Britain by the Treaty of Jeddah.

1941 – German airborne forces begin their invasion of Crete. More than 650 New Zealanders were killed and 2000 taken prisoner.

1943 – Japanese aircraft attack naval installations at Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia – the furthest south of any such raids.

1990 – Hubble Space Telescope sends its first photos from space.

1993 – An estimated 93 million people tune in for the final episode of Cheers, left, in the US. 2006 – Nuri al-Maliki is sworn in as Iraqi prime minister at the head of a national unity government.

Birthdays

Honore de Balzac, French writer (1799-1850); John Stuart Mill, UK philosopher (1806-73); James Stewart, US actor (1908-97); Sir Woolf Fisher, NZ businessman (1912-75); Joe Cocker, UK singer (1944-2014); Cher, US singer (1946-); Margaret Wilson, NZ politician (1947-); Louis Theroux, UK broadcaster (1970-).