Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. Parliament passed An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown in 1689. The last recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji occurred in 1707. The first of three major earthquakes on the New Madrid fault line in southeastern Missouri occurred in 1811. The quake was felt as far away as Boston and New York. And in 1997, nearly 700 Japanese children were hospitalised after an episode of Pokémon induced seizures.
Also born today: Ludwig von Beethoven (1770-1827), George Santayana (1863-1952), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Noel Coward (1899-1973), Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), Liv Ullman (1938), Benny Andersson (1946) and Bill Hicks (1961-1994).
It is the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa.
