April 22: On this day in world history …. briefly
Interesting historic snippets and facts taken from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London.
1500: On his way to India with 13 ships, Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil and claims it for Portugal.
1838: The British packet steamer Sirius becomes the first steamer to cross from New York to Britain.
1915: The Germans use poison gas for the first time on the Western front.
1933: Death of Frederick Henry Royce, motor car manufacturer.
1959: Angler Alf Dean lands a mammoth great white shark at Denial Bay in Australia. Dean’s catch weighing 1 208kg and measuring 5.13m is the largest to be caught on a rod.
1964: British businessman Greville Wynne, imprisoned in the Soviet Union a year earlier for spying, is exchanged for the Soviet agent Gordon Lonsdale.
1969: British yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston completes his solo non-stop round-world trip in his ketch ‘Suhaili’ in 312 days.
1971: Haiti’s hated leader Francois Duvalier, known as ‘Papa Doc’ dies peacefully in bed at the age of 63.
1979: Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones escapes jail on a drug conviction in return for performing a benefit concert for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
1983: £1 coins are introduced in Britain to replace the paper £1 note.
1984: Medical researchers from USA and France identify a type of human cancer virus that may be the causative agent in the killer disease AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
1994: Richard Milhous Nixon died at the age of 81. The notorious ‘Watergate’ conspiracies were responsible for his fall from grace and ultimately his resignation.
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