1498: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India becoming the first European to reach India by sea

1609: Shakespeare’s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by publisher Thomas Thorpe

1862: US President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American West (80 million acres by 1900)

1864: Spotsylvania campaign in US Civil War ends after 10,920 killed or injured

1927: At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris, aboard Spirit of St Louis (1st non-stop flight)

1927: Saudi Arabia becomes independent of Great Britain in the Treaty of Jeddah

1990: Hubble Space Telescope sends its 1st photographs from space

Source: Onthisday.com