On this day

1653: Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament which had governed during the English Civil War.

1770: Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales, Australia.

1841: The Murders In The Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, considered the first modern detective story, was published in the USA.

1887: The world’s first motor race took place along the banks of the River Seine from the centre of Paris to Neuilly.

1889: Adolf Hitler was born in Austria, the son of a customs official who changed his name from Schickelgruber.

1945: Soviet troops entered Berlin.

1989: Earth narrowly missed being struck by a passing asteroid weighing 400 million tons.

1999: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 21 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School, Colorado.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duke of Edinburgh praised those tackling the coronavirus pandemic across the UK in his first major statement since retiring from public duties in 2017.

Schoolgirls join a vigil for the 13 people killed at Columbine in 1999.