1541: Members of a Spanish expedition seeking gold, led by Hernando de Soto, become the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River, south of what is now Memphis, Tennessee.
1927: US aviator Charles A Lindbergh lands in Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across Atlantic Ocean.
1994: Bakili Muluzi sworn in as Malawi's first democratically elected president.
2012: US President Barack Obama and leaders around the globe lock in place their exit path from the war in Afghanistan, affirming they will close the largely stalemated conflict at the end of 2014, but keep their troops fighting and dying there for two more years.
Albrecht Duerer, German artist (1471-1528); Alexander Pope, English poet (1686-1744); Henri Rousseau, French painter (1844-1910); Lazaro Cardenas, Mexican president (1895-1970); Andrey Sakharov, Russian physicist, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1921-1989); J Malcolm Fraser, former Australian prime minister (1930-2015); Leo Sayer, British singer (1948- ); Mr T, US actor (1952- ); Al Franken, US comedian/politician (1951- )
