The list

1 May, 1873: David Livingstone (below), missionary and explorer, died. Livingstone's indomitable will made him one of the British Empire's greatest legends, though the same qualities often had ill effects on his native bearers and guides. Neither his mission nor his exploration was entirely successful. He made few conversions; he thought the Zambezi was navigable when it was not; he looked for the source of the Nile in entirely the wrong place. But he provoked loyalty as well as awe. When he died, in what is now Zambia, his bearers removed his innards so that his body, dried and salted, could withstand the nine-month journey to the coast. It was then shipped home to a grand burial in Westminster Abbey.

1876: Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India

1931: Empire State building opened

1960: Gary Powers shot down over the USSR in a US U-2 spy plane