ON THIS DAY, JULY 16

622 The beginning of the Islamic calendar – Muhammad begins flight from Mecca to Medina (the Hijra).

1054 Start of the East-West Schism of the Roman empire and Roman Catholicism.

1429 Joan of Arc and the French army she leads enter the city of Rheims.

1439 Kissing is banned in England to stop the Black Death from spreading.

1618 Captain John Gilbert patents the first dredger in Britain.

1661 The first banknotes in Europe are issued by a Swedish bank. The concept was first used in China.

1897 The South African Committee, investigating the Jameson Raid, releases its report finding that it was conducted almost exclusively through the support and encouragement of Cecil Rhodes and the mining houses in the Transvaal.

1935 The world’s first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

1942 The Vichy France regime orders the arrest of 13 152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation.

1945 The Atomic Age begins when the US detonates a nuclear weapon in New Mexico.

1948 The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane marks the first hijacking of a commercial plane.

1950 American POWs are massacred by the North Korean Army.

1969 Apollo 11 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Collins on the first manned mission to land on the moon.

1971 General Francisco Franco appoints Prince Juan Carlos as his deputy in Spain.

1994 Comet Shoemaker-Levy hits Jupiter.

1999 Scion of the powerful Kennedy clan John F Kennedy jr dies when the plane he pilots crashes off Martha’s Vineyard, killing him, his wife and sister-in-law.

2006 The first of the Gripen Swedish fighter planes, bought under the controversial arms deal, is taken by road to Ysterplaat Air Force Base from Cape Town Harbour.

2018 Twelve new moons are discovered orbiting Jupiter, bringing the planet’s total to 79. | THE HISTORIAN