1497: John Cabot claims Eastern Canada for England (believes he has found Asia in Nova Scotia)

1509: Henry VIII is crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey, London

1793: 1st republican constitution in France adopted

1812: Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armée numbering half a million begin their invasion of Russia by crossing the Nieman River

1853: US President Franklin Pierce signs the Gadsden Purchase, buying 29,670 square-miles (76,800 square km) from Mexico for $10 million (now southern Arizona and New Mexico)

1901: 1st exhibition by Pablo Picasso aged 19, opens in Paris

1930: 1st detection of airplane using reflected radio waves, a precursor to radar, by US Naval Research Laboratory engineers, Anacostia, Washington, D.C.