ON THIS DAY

The Mongol hordes of Batu Khan decisively defeat the Russians at the Battle of the Sit River, near Yaroslavl in Russia, during the Mongol invasion of Rus’.

During the Wars of the Roses in England, Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.

Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.

Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilisation and its wealth.

At the Battle of Vinegar Hill in New South Wales, Australia, Irish convicts lead the colony’s only significant convict uprising.

Known as “Old Stone Ar**” for the amount of time spent sitting as his desk, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov is succeeded by Andrei Vishinsky.

The US announces the first atomic power plant in Antarctica, but it was impractical to run and done away with after 10 years.

Ruthless London East End gang bosses, twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, are found guilty of murder. Both will die in captivity.

In an interview in the London Evening Standard, John Lennon says: “We (the Beatles) are more popular than Jesus”.

Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister.

A blind teenage boy receives a “bionic eye” at a Washington hospital.

US President Bill Clinton bans federallyfunded human cloning research.

A series of explosions at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, kills at least 250 people.

Former MI6 spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, causing a diplomatic uproar that results in mass expulsions of diplomats from all countries involved.

The Papal Conclave begins to select the successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

World’s worst listeria outbreak, suspected of killing 180 people, is tracked to a processed meat factory in Polokwane.