ON THIS DAY MARCH 9

1451 Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci is born in Florence, Italy. He explored South America and the Amazon River, believing he had discovered a new continent. In 1507, a German mapmaker first referred to the lands discovered in the New World as America.

1562 Kissing in public – an act punishable by death – is banned in Naples, but the law seems to do little to prevent the spread of the plague, which claims many European lives.

1776 Adam Smith’s influential economics book, The Wealth of Nations, is published.

1816 Five of the Slachter’s Nek rebels are hanged at Van Aardtspos. Four of the nooses break and although the condemned men and public beg for mercy, the sentence is carried out using one rope. It is regarded as the beginning of Afrikaner struggle against British colonial rule.

1831 The French Foreign Legion is founded. 1839 The Prussian government limits the work week for children to 51 hours.

1841 The US Supreme Court rules that the captive Africans who seized control of the Spanish schooner Amistad, had been taken into slavery illegally.

1893 Congo cannibals kill thousands of Arabs during an uprising.

1916 Mexican general Pancho Villa invades the US, attacking a town in New Mexico, which leaves 18 dead.

1922 Martial law is declared in the Transvaal. 1934 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is born in Gzhatsk, Russia. On April 12, 1961, he became the first human in space, orbiting in a capsule 300km above the Earth’s surface. His space flight caused a worldwide sensation and marked the beginning of the space race.

1945 The first night bombing raid on Tokyo inflicts damage comparable to that inflicted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombs five months later.

1959 The Barbie doll makes its debut.

1953 A rusty 1.4kg shell, dating from 1901, explodes in a Johannesburg playground injuring more than 30 children and a teacher. It was found on a koppie near the school by one of the pupils, who brought it to school.

1965 £100 000 worth of gold that went missing on the Cape Town Castle, is found near the ship’s engine room in Durban.

1974 Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda surrenders after fighting from the jungle and mountains in the Philippines, 29 years afterthe end of World War II.

1998 Mozambican police arrest Robert McBride on charges of gun-running.

2006 Liquid water is discovered on a moon of Saturn.