ON THIS DAY, MAY 8

1671 In London, Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as “Captain Blood”, is caught attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. King Charles II is so impressed with Blood’s audacity that, far from punishing him, he restores his estates in Ireland and makes him a member of his court with an annual pension.

1865 President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South at an end; it is the commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War.

1926 The first flight over the North Pole is claimed by Richard Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett. The discovery of Byrd’s diary suggests they might have turned back 280km short due to an oil leak.

1927 Canberra replaces Melbourne as the capital of Australia.

1941 The submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

1945 The European phase of World War

II ends at 12.01am. The day is celebrated annually as Victory Day in Russia, a holiday commemorating the 20 million Russians who died in “The Great Patriotic War”.

1962 A laser beam is bounced off the moon for the first time.

1966 Abram (Bram) Fischer is sentenced to life imprisonment on a charge of conspiracy to commit sabotage.

1980 A Liberian freighter rams a bridge in Florida’s Tampa Bay, collapsing a 426m part of the span. Six cars and a Greyhound bus plunge 45m into the water.

1994 Nelson Mandela is elected unopposed as the first black president of South Africa, in the first session of the National Assembly.

2001 In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede that followed a controversial decision by the referee.

2019 French adventurer Jean-Jacques Savin, 72, successfully crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a barrel, arriving in Martinique. | THE HISTORIAN