1828,	Albrecht Grafe, pioneer eye surgeon, founded modern ophthalmology.
1859,	Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, brought Sherlock Holmes to life (twice).
1874,	Dr Daniel François Malan, architect of South Africa’s apartheid policy, which he introduced when he became Premier in 1948. He first instituted the Group Areas Act which divided the country into separate residential areas for different races, black and white.
1880,	Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, South African mining industrialist and philanthropist who formed the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa in 1917 which by the 1950s controlled 95 per cent of the world’s diamond industry.
1907,	Laurence Olivier, actor.
1920,	Thomas Gold, astronomer, established the steady-state theory of the universe.
1943,	Betty Williams, Northern Irish peace campaigner and joint Nobel prize winner with Mairead Corrigan, founder of the Ulster Peace Movement.

      Events On This Day In History...

600,	(B.C. Again), The lucky rabbits foot is first used. (I'll bet the rabbit didn't feel so lucky!).
0337,	Death of Constantine "the Great"
1200,	Treaty of LeGoulet
1216,	French invasion troops land in England
1246,	Henry Raspe elected King of Germany
1308,	INVERURIE
1455,	FIRST ST. ALBANS (York defeats Lancaster) (Wars of the Roses)
1455,	The Lancastrians defeated the Yorkists in the first battle in the War of the Roses, at St Albans.
1457,	Death of St. Rita
1471,	Murder of Henry VI in the tower of London
1499,	CALVEN GORGE (Swiss victory)
1509,	Death of Henry VII Tudor, King of England
1511,	Bologna captured by the French
1526,	Holy League of Cognac; Francis I repudiates Treaty of Madrid
1542,	Council of Trent summoned by Pope Paul III
1570,	Abraham Ortelius publishes first uniform Atlas, the
1611,	First English Baronet (Bacon) created by James I, King of
1621,	1st wedding in New England, future Gov. Edward Winslow &
1795,	The Scottish explorer, Mungo Park, set sail on his first voyage to Africa which he would relate in his book Travels in the Interior of Africa.
1807,	Townsend Speakman begins making and selling fruit-flavored carbonated drinks - in Philadelphia.
1908,	The Wright brothers patented their flying machine, and the following year, on 23 May, the British Aeronautical Society presented them with its gold medal for achievement.
1915,	The worst rail disaster in Britain took place when a troop train collided with a passenger train at Gretna Green in Scotland, killing 227 people.
1927,	The world’s first ‘open plan’ zoo, Whipsnade, opened in Bedfordshire.
1972,	Richard Nixon became the first US President to visit Russia, where he signed a pact with Leonid Brezhnev to reduce the risk of military confrontation. This day, one year later, Nixon admitted the Watergate cover-up by the White House following the Senate Select committee’s hearings which began on the 17th. (On 30 May 1975, he was warned he could be impeached for not surrendering the Watergate tapes.)
1990,	New Zealand yacht Steinlager 2, captained by Peter Blake, won the Whitbread Round the World Race. New Zealanders also came second and third.