1927: A kangaroo beat a racehorse in a specially staged raced held in Sydney. As the horse, ridden by a leading jockey, got off to a flying start, the jumped-up roo swept by in a cloud of dust, covering 33ft in a single leap.

1791: Dots and dashes man Samuel Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

1947: The Kon-Tiki set out from Callao in Peru to prove that early settlers could have emigrated from South America to Polynesia. On board the 45ft rope and balsa raft were the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, five human companies, a parrot who got washed overboard and a crab called Johannes.

1961: Sierra Leone became independent on this day.

1944: Britain became one gigantic armed camp as General Dwight Eisenhower completed his plans for the Allied invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe. All coastal areas were banned to visitors and all oversees travel by foreign diplomats in London was forbidden. Large scale military exercises were taking place in different parts of southern England, with fake concentrations of troops and dummy ships to keep the enemy guessing as to where and when the Allies assault would be mounted.