• 1587 – Anglo-Spanish War: In the Bay of Cádiz, Francis Drake led the first of several naval raids on the Spanish Armada that destroyed so many ships that Philip II of Spain had to delay his plans to invade England for over a year.


• 1770 – British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour , the first European ship to land in eastern Australia, reached the coast of Botany Bay near present-day Sydney.



• 1903 – A 30 million cubic-metre landslide buried the town of Frank, Northwest Territories, and killed at least 70 of the town's residents, making it the deadliest landslide in Canadian history.