On this day

1607: Captain John Smith landed on the Virginia coast and started the first permanent English settlement in the New World – Jamestown.

1830: The republic of Ecuador was created.

1835: Death of architect John Nash, who planned Regent’s Park and Trafalgar Square.

1842: Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, composer, was born in Lambeth, son of a bandmaster at Sandhurst Military College.

1846: The United States declared war on Mexico.

1914: Joe Louis, heavyweight boxing champion, known as the “Brown Bomber”, was born in Lexington, Alabama.

1943: German and Italian forces in Africa surrendered. 1961: Death of Gary Cooper, American actor who was twice an Oscar winner.

1981: Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in St Peter’s Square in Rome.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The first giant tunnelling machine was launched, as part of the controversial HS2 project.