1405: Chinese fleet commander Zheng He sets sail to the Spice Islands on his first major expedition, leading 208 vessels, including 62 treasure ships with 27,800 sailors

1533: Pope Clement VII excommunicates England’s King Henry VIII

1818: English poet John Keats writes “In the Cottage Where Burns is Born,” “Lines Written in the Highlands,” and “Gadfly”

1877: Kate Edger becomes New Zealand’s first woman graduate and first woman in the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts

1897: Salomon August Andrée and crew leave Spitsbergen in northern Norway by balloon, heading for the North Pole

1944: Franklin Roosevelt announces he will run for a fourth term as President of the United States

1995: More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys are massacred by Bosnian Serbs after they overrun the UN “safe haven” of Srebrenica on directive of Radovan Karadžić

Source: Onthisday.com