On this day
1478: George, Duke of Clarence, was murdered in the Tower of London.. 1516: Mary I, Queen of England (1553-1558), daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, was born in Greenwich.
1546: Martin Luther, father of the Reformation, died at his birthplace at Eisleben, Germany, aged 62.
1564: The great Renaissance artist and sculptor Michelangelo died in Rome, aged 88.
1678: John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was published.
1745: Count Alessandro Volta, physicist who devised the first battery, was born in Como, Italy. He gave his name to the electrical unit volt.
1911: More than 6,000 letters and postcards were flown five miles from Allahabad to Naini Junction in India by Henri Picquet - the first official airmail. 1915: Germany’s blockade of Britain by
submarine began.
1930: American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto from a series of pictures taken the previous month at Lowell Observatory. 2005: Fox hunting became illegal in England and Wales. The Hunting Act outlawed hunting with dogs.