What happened today, back in the day
1510 The Muslim residents of Goa surrender to Portuguese forces, who slaughter them.
1520 German religious reformer Martin Luther publicly burns a papal edict demanding that he recants.
1799 France is the first country to adopt the metric system.
1851 American librarian Melvil Dewey is born in Adams Center, New York. He invents the Dewey decimal book classification system and urges the use of the metric system.
1896 Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel dies in San Remo, Italy. His will stipulates his $9 million estate be used to reward those who have made valuable contributions to humanity. The prizes are presented in Stockholm annually on the anniversary of his death.
1907 The worst night of the Brown Dog riots in London, when 1 000 medical students clash with 400 police officers over a memorial for animals that have been vivisected.
1926 The second part of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which he has a working title of Four-and-a-Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice, is published.
1932 The ‘Great Emu War’ ends in Western Australia. Defeated military commander Major Meredith compares the flightless birds to Zulus: ‘If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army... They are like Zulus, whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop.’
1936 Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicates to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
1941 The Royal Navy’s capital ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, sailing to help with the defence of Singapore, are sunk by Japanese planes off Malaya.
1978 Israel’s Prime Minister Begin and Egypt’s President Sadat win the Nobel Peace Prize.
1996 President Mandela signs the new Constitution, guaranteeing equal rights to all. Analysts call it one of the world’s most liberal.
2016 Musician Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, but doesn’t go to collect it.
2019 Sydney, Australia, is blanketed in smoke from nearby bush fires pushing air quality to 11 times hazardous levels
2022 Tens of thousands of people protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh, for new elections amid a cost-of-living crisis.