The Post

Today in History

1661 - The Netherland­s drops its claims to modern-day Brazil, in return for the equivalent of 63 tonnes of gold from Portugal.

1825 - Bolivia declares its independen­ce from Spain.

1926 - American Gertrude Ederle, 19, becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel; Warner Brothers Studios premieres Don Juan, the first movie with sound, in New York.

1936 - Jack Lovelock wins New Zealand’s first athletics gold medal, in the 1500 metres at the Berlin Olympics.

1945 - An American B-29 Superfortr­ess drops the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. About 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, designed to hasten the end of World War II.

1962 - Jamaica becomes independen­t after 300 years of British rule.

1965 - US President Lyndon B Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, guaranteei­ng African Americans the right to vote.

1991 - British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee launches the first website, which contains informatio­n about the World Wide Web Project.

1996 - A Game of Thrones, an epic fantasy novel by George RR Martin, is published.

2009 - Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as the first Hispanic US Supreme Court justice.

2012 - New Zealand’s Valerie Adams finishes second in the shot put at the London Olympics. Belarusian Nadzeya Ostapchuk later tests positive for drugs, and Adams is declared the winner.

Birthdays

Alexander Fleming, UK biologist (18811955); Lucille Ball, US actor (1911-89); Robert Mitchum, US actor (1917-97); Andy Warhol, US artist (1928-87); M Night Shyamalan, Indian/US film director (1970-); Gerri Halliwell, UK pop singer (1972-); Travis Kalanick, US co-founder of Uber (1976-); Jesse Ryder, NZ cricketer (1984-).