On this day
1493: Christopher Columbus sailed from America to Spain in the Nina.
1809: Louis Braille, inventor of the alphabetic system for the blind which bears his name, was born in Paris.
1813: Isaac Pitman, English publisher and inventor of shorthand, was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
1884: The Fabian Society was founded to promote socialist ideals.
1885: The first successful appendix operation was performed by Dr William West Grant, in Iowa.
1929: Australian cricketer Don Bradman made his first Test century, playing against England in Melbourne.
1936: Billboard magazine in New York published the first popular music chart. 1958: Sir Edmund Hillary, with a New Zealand party, reached the South Pole, the first man to do so overland since Captain Scott.
1967: Donald Campbell died attempting to break the world water speed record on Coniston Water in the Lake District. 1972: Rose Heilbron became Britain’s first woman judge at the Old Bailey. 1986: Christopher Isherwood, novelist and playwright, died. His novel Goodbye To Berlin was adapted as the musical Cabaret.
1993: P&O European Ferries announced the closure of its passenger service between Dover and Boulogne after 170 years. 2009: Colin Freeman, the Sunday Telegraph’s chief foreign correspondent, was released by Somalian kidnappers after 40 days in captivity.
2014: Adventurer Richard Parks claimed a record for the fastest ever solo, unsupported journey to the South Pole by a Briton.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called up 3,000 defence force reservists as the threat of wildfires escalated.