On This Day
4th May 1493 – Pope Alexander VI divided the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Line of Demarcation. (No one told the New World.) 1494 – Christopher Columbus landed in Jamaica. 1675 – King Charles II of England ordered the construction of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. 1814 – Emperor Napoleon I of France arrived at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile. 1904 – Charles Stewart Rolls met Frederick Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester, England. (The rest as they say is history.) 1912 – Italy occupied the Greek island of Rhodes. 1932 – Mobster Al Capone began serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion. 1945 – British forces liberated Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg. 1945 – The North Germany Army surrendered to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. 1949 – The entire Torino football team (except for one player who did not take the trip due to an injury) was killed in a plane crash at the Superga hill at the edg...