ON THIS DaY

■■ 1500: Navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil and claimed it on behalf of Portugal. ■■1838: The British packet steamer Sirius became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic to New York from England.

■■1870: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), Russian revolutionary leader, was born in Simbirsk. ■■1884: A major earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale hit Colchester and parts of East Anglia.

■■1915: Germany first used poison gas at Ypres as a chemical weapon. ■■1933: Frederick Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls-Royce car company, died.

■■1943: The printing of British £1,000 notes was discontinued.

■■1969: Yachtsman Robin KnoxJohnston, above, sailed into Falmouth to complete his 312-day, non-stop, round-the-world voyage. ■■1989: Archaeologists said they had unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy in a gold-covered coffin in the Egyptian oasis, Fayoum. She was wrapped in linen and dried flowers and had a child beside her. ■■ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the United Nations warned that decisive action was needed to tackle the accelerating climate crisis.

■■BIRTHDAYS: Jack Nicholson, actor, 84, above; John Waters, film director, 75; Carol Drinkwater, actress and author, 73; Peter Frampton, rock singer, 71; Jancis Robinson, wine writer/broadcaster, 71; Ryan Stiles, actor and comedian, 62; Sheryl Lee, actress, 54; Dion Dublin, former footballer, 52; David Luiz, footballer, 34.

■■ The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%