On this day

1818 - The 49th Parallel was established by the USA and Britain as the official boundary between Canada and the United States of America.

1822 - The Sunday Times was first published in England.

1960 - D.H Lawrence's controversial novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' put Penguin Books in the dock at the Old Bailey, London. They were accused of publishing obscene material but were eventually found not guilty.

1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy marries Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.

1973 - After fifteen years of construction, the Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect John Utzon, was officially opened.

1977 – A plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines along with backup singer Cassie Gaines, the road manager, pilot, and co-pilot.

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signals almost the end of French maritime power and leaves Britain's navy unchallenged until the twentieth century.

1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.

1879 - Thomas A. Edison invented the first working electric (incandescent) light, in his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory.

1944 – The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200 kilograms (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island, as the Battle of Leyte Gulf began.

1960 - Britain launched its first nuclear submarine, HMS Dreadnaught, at Barrow.

1797 - French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute jump. It was made from a hot air balloon 2,300 feet above Paris.

1918 - The Great Influenza Epidemic began; it was a worldwide epidemic that would eventually claim 18 million lives.

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval "quarantine" of the Communist nation.

1966 - Russian KGB master spy, George Blake, escaped from Wormwood Scrubs in London where he was serving a 40 year sentence for spying against the British Government.

1975 - The 'Guildford Four' were sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of planting IRA bombs in pubs in Guildford and Woolwich. Fifteen years later they had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal, following an extensive inquiry into the original police investigation.

1986 - The world's youngest heart transplant patient, a two and a half month old baby from north west London, was given the heart of a five day old Belgian boy by Professor Magdi Yacoub at Harefield Hospital, Middlesex.

2008 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.

2009 - Microsoft released its Windows 7 operating system for the PC.

4004 B.C.E. - According to 17th century divine James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, and Dr. John Lightfoot of Cambridge, the world was created on this day, a Sunday, at 9 a.m

1642 - The first major battle of the English Civil War took place at Edgehill in South Warwickshire. Charles I and Prince Rupert led the Royalists and the Earl of Essex led the Parliamentarians.

1843 - Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square was finally completed. It commemorates Admiral Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

1954 - Britain, the US, France and the USSR agreed to end the occupation of Germany. On the same day, the Western nations agreed to allow West Germany to enter NATO.

1972 - Access credit cards came into use in Britain.

1978 - China and Japan exchanged treaty ratification documents in Tokyo, formally ending 40 years of hostility.

1991 - The House of Lords ruled that husbands could legally be convicted of raping their wives.

2001 - Apple Computer Inc. introduced the iPod portable digital music player.

1857 - The founding of the world's first official football club, Sheffield Football Club, in Yorkshire, by a group of former students from Cambridge University.

1901 – Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

1945 - The United Nations was formed with the aim to 'save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.'

2003 - Three British Airways Concordes landed at London's Heathrow Airport for the final time, ending an era of supersonic travel across the Atlantic.

2007 - Facebook Inc. sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from Google Inc.

1415 - In the Hundred Year's War, King Henry V's Longbowmen defeated a vastly superior French Army at the Battle of Agincourt.

1854 - Lord Cardigan led the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War. An ambiguous order from the commander, Lord Raglan, led Cardigan's brave cavalry to charge the Russians while fire came from three different sides.

1944 - The Japanese were defeated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest sea engagement of World War II. This loss made them increasingly dependent on using suicidal attacks of Kamikaze fighters.

2001 - Microsoft Corporation releases its new computer operating system to the public, Windows XP.

2009- A pair of suicide car bombings devastated the heart of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, killing 155 people, including 24 children.

1760 - George III was crowned, beginning one of the longest reigns in history (60 years), during which he went insane.

1881 - Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and professional killer Doc Holliday challenged the Clanton gang and the McLowerys to the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The McLowerys and one of the Clantons were killed.

1929 - London's world famous buses were painted red.

1955 - The U.S. Air Force officially proclaimed that there were no such things as flying saucers.

1959 – The world sees the far side of the Moon for the first time.

1989 - The re-built Globe Theatre in London reopened for the first time in 350 years.

2001 - President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act, giving authorities unprecedented ability to search, seize, detain or eavesdrop in their pursuit of possible terrorists.

2002 - A hostage siege by Chechen rebels at a Moscow theater ended with 129 of the 800-plus captives dead, most from a knockout gas used by Russian special forces who stormed the theater.

312 – Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross.

1904 - The first rapid transit subway, the IRT, opened in New York City. Today, the New York subway system is the largest in the world.

1936 – Mrs Wallis Simpson files for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.

1958 - First transmission of the BBC children's television programme Blue Peter.

1961 – NASA launches the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.

1967 - Britain passed the Abortion Act, allowing abortions to be performed legally for medical reasons.

1831 - English physicist Michael Faraday demonstrated the dynamo, founding the science of electro-magnetism.

1885 – The first porcelain toilet is built.

1886 - The Statue of Liberty, a gift from France designed by sculptor Frederic Bartholdi, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland. It was originally named Liberty Enlightening the World.

1922 - Fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.

1949 - The glove puppet Sooty, with Harry Corbett, made his first appearance on BBC TV.

1971 – Britain launches its first satellite, Prospero, into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket.

2007 – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner becomes the first woman elected President of Argentina.

1390 – The first trial for witchcraft in Paris took place, leading to the death of three people.

1618 – English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.

1863 – Eighteen countries meeting in Geneva agree to form the International Red Cross.

1929 – The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29' or 'Black Tuesday', ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

1960 – In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.

1967 – London criminal Jack McVitie is murdered by the Kray twins, leading to their eventual imprisonment and downfall.

1969 - The Internet was created when the first connection was made between computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute. That connection, ARPANET, was the precursor to the Internet developed by the Department of Defense.

1991 – The American Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.

2004 - European Union leaders signed the EU's first constitution.