1500.- Spanish navigator Vicente Hannes Pinson discovered Brazil.

1531.- A catastrophic earthquake shook Portugal. The capital, Lisbon, was completely destroyed and about 30.000 people were killed.

1788.- British ships with the first British settlers, including a group of prisoners, sailed into Botany Bay (Sydney), Australia, where they formed a colony.

1827.- Peru declared independence.

1841.- British sovereignty over Hong Kong was proclaimed. Six days later, China was forced to cede Hong Kong to Britain.

1880.- American General Douglas MacArthur was born. During World War II, he was the commander of US troops in the Far East and, on behalf of the United States, in September 1945, was a signatory to Japan's capitulation.

1891.- The German engineer Nikolaus August Otto, who built the first gasoline engine in 1861, died, and in 1876 he invented the four-stroke internal combustion engine, known as the Otto engine, which enabled the development of automobiles.

1905."Kalinan", the largest diamond in the world, worth 3.106 carats, was discovered in Pretoria, South Africa.

1918.- Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who took power in 1965 and became secretary general of Romania's ruling Communist Party, was born. In 1967 he became President of the Council of State, and in 1975 President of Romania when he soon built a strong cult of personality, relying solely on the political police. After the December uprising in 1989, which was soon joined by the military, he was ousted from power and on December 25, after a secret trial, he was shot dead along with his wife Elena.

1925.- American film actor and director Paul Newman was born, who distinguished himself with psychologically nuanced interpretations of characters with strong individual qualities. Movies: "Long Hot Summer", "Sweet Story of Youth", "Violence", "Hanging Judge", "Buffalo Bill and the Indians", "The Color of Money" (Oscar), directed by "Rachel, Rachel".

1942.- The United States sent the first forces to Europe, where at that time the war was fought only on the Eastern Front and in the territory of Yugoslavia. The troops were stationed in Northern Ireland.

1946.- The first Macedonian grammar by Professor Krume Kepeski was published in Skopje.

1947.- A plane crash in Denmark has killed Swedish Crown Prince Gustav Adolf, leaving five children, including Sweden's current King Carl XVI Gustav.

1950.- India was formally declared a Republic within the British Commonwealth.

1952.- Large demonstrations erupted in Cairo against the British presence in Egypt. The demonstrations turned into riots, during which the famous Shepherds Hotel burned down.

1956.- Lazar Tanev, the first president of the City Assembly of the free Skopje, died in Skopje. He was born in Skopje, in 1884.

1965.- Hindi became the official language of India, sparking unrest in the south of the country where it was less widely used. Therefore, in February 1965, the Government of India decided to make English an official language.

1972.- A JAT "DC-9" plane flying on the line Copenhagen - Belgrade crashed over Czechoslovakia, after the explosion of the bomb. The accident killed 26 passengers and crew members, and only flight attendant Vesna Vulovic survived the fall of almost 10.000 meters.

1973.- The American film actor of Romanian origin Edward Robinson, who became famous for his roles as a gangster in crime films, but also as a great comedian, has died. Movies: "Little Caesar", "Kid Calabed", "The Unexpected Dr. Glitterbaus", "The Whole City Tells", "Double Damage", "Woman at the Window", "Cape Largo", "Violence", "Green Sun" .

1993.- Vaclav Havel has been elected the first president of the Czech Republic.

1994.- Romania became the first former member of the Warsaw Pact to sign the Partnership for Peace with NATO.

1994.- In Rome, the Republic of Macedonia was accepted as a full member of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IFAD).

1994.- Aco Filip, Macedonian writer, died. He was born in Resen in 1922. The following books have been published by this author: "Monograph on the poet Mite Bogoevski", the novel "Conversation with the portraits", published in Albanian, the collection of short stories "The long death of the pelican", the novels "Terrorist", "Prayer of St. Clement", "Homemade tales" (short stories) and the novel "Boljko", published immediately after his death. He has also authored several screenplays for documentaries.

1996.- Died Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky, Russian poet and essayist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987, crown winner of the Struga Poetry Evenings. He is considered one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. An interesting feature of Brodsky is that, despite his great knowledge of English, he wrote poetry in Russian. However, in the last years of his life, his prose works were printed in English. "Selected Poems" were published in Macedonian, on the occasion of receiving the Golden Wreath of the SPE.

2000.- More than a year later, because a DNA test showed the possibility of former US President Thomas Jefferson having a son with his black slave Sally Hemmings, the Jefferson Foundation acknowledged it, but also acknowledged that he could be the father of all six of her children.

2000.- Rahilka Firfova Gjorgova - Raca, the "magic muse" of Kocho Solev, died in Skopje. The Macedonian poet Kocho Solev on October 6, 1928 took her name as a pseudonym and became known as Racin. She was born in Veles, in 1911.

2001.- An earthquake in the western Indian state of Gujarat has killed at least 18.000 people.

2003.- Czech-American tennis player Martina Navratilova, 46, along with Indian tennis player Leander Paes won the Australian Open doubles title, becoming the oldest female tennis player to win a Grand Slam at a single tournament.

2016.- Colin Werncombe, British musician known as Balck, author of the 53 hit "Wonderful Life", has died at the age of 1980. The melancholic song "Wonderful Life" from 1986 was a worldwide hit, especially in Europe. . The album of the same name has sold several million copies. The second big hit from the same record was the song "Everything's Coming Up Roses".