60: St. Paul is thought to have been shipwrecked at Malta

1720: Edmond Halley is appointed as the second Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory

1763: Treaty of Paris ends the French-Indian War, France agrees to surrender Canada to Great Britain

1824: Simón Bolívar is named dictator by the Congress of Peru

1906: British battleship HMS Dreadnought launches after only 100 days and renders all other capital ships obsolete with its revolutionary design

1952: India holds its first general election; Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru remains in power

Source: Onthisday.com