1939 the German battleship Bismarck was launched at Hamburg.
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2005 three PayPal workers started a video-sharing website, calling it YouTube.
1882 the first cargo of frozen meat left New Zealand for Britain on the SS Dunedin.
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1942 Singapore surrendered to Japanese forces.
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1944 the Allies bombed Monte Cassino monastery in Italy to prevent the Germans fortifying it.
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1965 Canada flew its newly adopted red maple leaf flag for the first time.
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1965 Nat King Cole, singer and jazz pianist who sold more than 50 million records, died of cancer aged 45.
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1971 Britain adopted decimal currency.
1659 the first known British cheque (for £400) was written by Nicholas Vanacker.
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1824 the first meeting of the Athenaeum Club — for “Literary and Scientific men and followers of the Fine Arts” — took place in London.
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1923 the archaeologist Howard Carter entered the sealed burial chamber of Tutankhamun in Thebes, Egypt. (The ruins of Thebes are found within the modern city of Luxor.)
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1959 Fidel Castro became prime minister of Cuba, and would govern until 2008.
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1960 the US nuclear submarine Triton set off on the first underwater round-the-world voyage.
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1998 the Angel of the North, a sculpture by Antony Gormley, was unveiled in Gateshead.
1600 the philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome for heresies including maintaining that Earth was not the only inhabited planet.
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1818 German inventor Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patented the draisine, forerunner of the bicycle.
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1864 AB (Banjo) Paterson, poet (Waltzing Matilda), was born in Orange, New South Wales.
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1880 Tsar Alexander II of Russia survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded at the Winter Palace, St Petersburg.
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1909 Geronimo, Apache leader, died in captivity aged 79.
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1972 the House of Commons voted to join the European Common Market.
1478 George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, was said to have been drowned in a butt of malmsey at the Tower of London.
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1678 John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was published, much of it having been composed while he was in prison for illegal preaching.
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1929 the winners of the first Academy Awards (known as Oscars from 1931) were announced, with the presentation being held later that year. (See 16 May.)
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1930 Pluto was discovered by the American astronomer Clyde W Tombaugh.
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1979 snow fell in the Sahara Desert.
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2005 a law banning hunting with dogs came into force in England and Wales.
1473 Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer who proposed that the sun not the Earth was the centre of the Universe, was born in Poland.
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1861 Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia.
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1878 the patent for Thomas Edison’s phonograph (the original gramophone) was issued.
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1897 the Women’s Institute was founded by Adelaide Hoodless in Ontario, Canada, and came to Britain during the First World War.
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1945 US marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, whose capture created a forward air base in the war against Japan.
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1985 the BBC televised the first episode of EastEnders.
1632 Thomas Osborne (1st Duke of Leeds), statesman and leader of the Tories who was imprisoned twice on charges of bribery, was born.
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1811 Austria declared itself bankrupt because of the cost of fighting Napoleon.
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1816 the opening night of Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville was a fiasco, with one performer singing an aria with a bleeding nose after tripping on a trapdoor, and a cat attacking another during the finale to the first act.
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1947 Viscount Mountbatten of Burma was appointed last viceroy of India.
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1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
1741 Jethro Tull, inventor of the more efficient horse-drawn seed-drill, died at Hungerford, Berks.
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1862 Nathaniel Gordon became the only American to be executed for slave trading, their shipping being illegal under the 1820 Piracy Act.
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1916 the ten-month-long Battle of Verdun began with nine hours of the heaviest artillery bombardment ever witnessed.
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1964 24,000 rolls of Beatles wallpaper were flown to America.
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1965 Malcolm X was assassinated in New York aged 39 by three members of the Nation of Islam.
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1972 President Nixon began his historic visit of rapprochement to China.
1878 Frank Woolworth opened his first store in Utica, New York.