Today in history

585BC – Likely date of the first predicted solar eclipse, forecast by Greek philosopher Thales. It becomes one of the cardinal dates from which other dates in ancient history are calculated.

1431 – Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution.

1742 – The first indoor public swimming pool opens, in Goodman’s Fields, east London.

1788 – The Federalist papers, a series of 85 essays on the proposed US Constitution and republican government, written by Alexander Hamilton, JamesMadison and John Jay, are published in book form.

1830 – US Congress authorises native Indians to be removed from all states to the western prairie.

1920 – An accused murderer is convicted almost entirely on fingerprint evidence for the first time in New Zealand. Police found Dennis Gunn’s prints on three cash boxes from a robbery in which Auckland postmaster Augustus Braithwaite was killed.

1936 – Alan Turing submits his paper On Computable Numbers to a mathematics society, setting out the theoretical basis for modern computers.

1937 – Neville Chamberlain becomes prime minister of Britain; Volkswagen is founded to produce a low-price ‘‘people’s car’’.

1940 – The Belgian army surrenders to invading German forces.

1959 – US Army launches Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight. Both survive.

1961 – Peter Benenson publishes ‘‘The Forgotten Prisoners’’ in The Observer, in London, heralding the creation of Amnesty International.

1964 – The charter of the Palestine Liberation Organisation is issued at the start of a meeting of the Palestine National Congress in Jerusalem.

1972 – Burglars break into the Democratic National Headquarters at Watergate inWashington DC, and install telephone bugs; death of the

Duke ofWindsor, left, formerly Edward VIII, in Paris, aged 77.

2021 – Canadian officials announce discovery of the remains of more than 200 children, some as young as 3, buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest indigenous residential school.