James Cook claims Australia's east coast for Britain (1770), and Brazil declares war on Germany, Italy and Japan (1942). Born on this day: Deng Xiaoping, Claude Debussy and Dua Lipa. Died: Roger Martin du Gard, Jomo Kenyatta and Richard III.
29 events, 65 births and 77 deaths on this date.
Cook landed on Possession Island off the Queensland coast and formally took the eastern seaboard of Australia for the British Crown, naming it New South Wales. The claim opened the way for British settlement there, though the land was already home to Aboriginal peoples.
Nathaniel Dance-Holland · Public domainBrazil joined the Allies in the Second World War after Axis submarines sank several of its merchant ships. It became the only South American country to send troops to fight in Europe.
Iceland was the first country in the world to formally recognise the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The move came as the three Baltic states were pressing to break free from the Soviet Union.
A squadron of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards struck a German reconnaissance patrol, marking the first action by British troops on the Western Front. It was a small skirmish, but it opened the British army's fighting in a war that would soon bog down into trenches.
The body gave Indian traders in the Natal colony a structured way to resist measures that singled them out. It marked one of Gandhi's early organised campaigns, and the methods he developed in South Africa would later shape his work in India.
A revolt led by Vincenz Fettmilch turned on the city's Jewish community, and its quarter was looted. Jewish residents were then driven out of Frankfurt, a free city within the Holy Roman Empire.
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Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese leader who guided China from 1978 to 1989, opening its economy to market reforms. Often called the chief designer of modern China, he was purged twice by Mao before returning to power.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Debussy broke with the German tradition of Wagner and the classical symphony, writing music of shifting colour and mood. His opera Pelléas et Mélisande, finished in 1902, brought him international fame.
Adam Cuerden · Public domain
Dua Lipa is an English singer and songwriter who began as a model before signing with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. She has won seven Brit Awards and three Grammys, including for her album Future Nostalgia.
Harald Krichel · CC BY-SA 4.0
French novelist best known for Les Thibault, a sprawling family chronicle that won him the 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature. He also worked as an archivist and wrote plays.
Nobel Foundation · Public domain
Kenyatta was Kenya's first Prime Minister and then its first President, leading the country from British colony to independence. He died in office in 1978, after years of imprisonment and exile for his anti-colonial campaigning.
Pridan Moshe · Public domain
Richard III was the last Plantagenet king of England, ruling from 1483 until he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field. His death there is often seen as the close of the Middle Ages in England.
Barthel ii · Public domain
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