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: An earthquake – 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 in this year.

1969: Robin Knox-johnston sailed into Falmouth to complete his 312-day, non-stop, round-theworld voyage.

1989: Archaeologists unearthed a 2,000-year-old mummy in a gold-covered coffin in an Egyptian oasis. Wrapped in linen and dried flowers, she had a child beside her.

Birthdays

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

Quotes of the day

“By the time you get to my age, you become too settled in the skills you know you have. I can sort of do my job. I know quite a lot about parenting. But to be absolutely at the beginning of something – at square one – it’s just a great feeling” – actor Juliet Stevenson, 64, enthuses to The Guardian about her newfound love of painting.

“We don’t need herbs ... [but they are] “also the thing that makes the difference between feeding and eating” – food writer Mark Diacono, author of Herb: A Cook’s Companion