On this day
1431: Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who became a national heroine, was burned at the stake in Rouen for heresy. She was canonised in 1920 on the anniversary of her death.
1498: Christopher Columbus set sail on his third voyage of discovery in which he would discover the South American mainland.
1536: King Henry VIII of England married Jane Seymour, the third of his six wives, in the Queen’s Chapel, Whitehall, 11 days after the execution of his second wife Anne Boleyn.
1593: Christopher Marlowe, the English playwright who greatly influenced Shakespeare, was killed in a tavern brawl.
1656: The Grenadier Guards, the senior regiment of the British Army, was formed. 1672: Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, was born in Moscow. He decided that all Russians should be cleanshaven. Those exempted had to pay a beard tax.
1842: An attempt was made on the life of Queen Victoria as she drove down Constitution Hill with Prince Albert. The would-be assassin was John Francis.
1946: Labour minister of food John Strachey announced that bread would be rationed, with the greatest allowance going to manual workers in heavy industry. 1959: The first full-sized experimental hovercraft, built by Saunders-roe, was launched at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
1989: Cliff Richard released his 100th pop single.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A group of leading technology experts warned that artificial intelligence technology should be considered a societal risk, prioritised in the same class as pandemics and nuclear wars.