1014 King Brian Boru of Ireland defeats Viking forces at Battle of Clontarf, freeing Ireland from foreign control.
1516 Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria endorses “The German Beer Purity Law”, ensuring beer is only brewed from three ingredients – water, malt and hops.
1616 Shakespeare dies – on his birthday – at the age of 52. The Oxford English Dictionary has credited him with introducing almost 3 000 words to the English language.
1729 Cape Governor Pieter Gysbert van Noodt (48) dies of a heart attack at the same time as four deserters are hanged on his order, giving rise to speculation about a curse placed upon him by one of the deserters.
1849 Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky and members of the Petrashevsky Circle are arrested in St Petersburg.
1867 Queen Victoria and France’s Napoleon III reject plans for a channel tunnel.
1880 French Empress Eugenie arrives in Durban to visit the grave of her son, the Prince Imperial, who died in the Zulu War.
1914 Afrikaans receives its first official recognition when poet CJ Langenhoven addresses the Cape Provincial Council.
1950 Chiang Kai-shek evacuates Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao Zedong and the communists.
1969 Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for killing Senator Robert Kennedy.
1970 President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, banning cigarette adverts on television and radio.
1984 Motown singer Marvin Gaye, whose many hits include I Heard It Through the Grapevine, is shot dead by his father at age 45. His father, who had a brain tumour, was sentenced to six years of probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
1984 Aids-virus identified as HTLV-III (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).
1985 Coca-Cola releases New Coke – to an unfavourable response. The original formula is back on the market three months later.
2005 The first YouTube video is posted. The 18-second clip, Me At The Zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at San Diego Zoo.
2019 Southampton striker Shane Long scores the fastest goal in English Premier League history when he nets after 7.69 seconds in a 1-1 draw at Watford.
2020 Then-president Donald Trump suggested a dangerous theory that injecting disinfectant could cure the Coronavirus. - The Historian
The Independent on Saturday