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

1609: William 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)

1910: Funeral for Britain’s King Edward VII held in Westminster Abbey, has one of the largest assemblages of European royalty

1927: At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris, aboard Spirit of St Louis in the 1st solo nonstop transatlantic flight

1927: Treaty of Jeddah is signed between the United Kingdom and Ibn Saud recognizing the independence of the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd, the forerunner of Saudi Arabia

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

Source: Οnthisday.com