On this day: Cannes film festival | Mahatma Gandhi

1440: Eton College was founded.

1746: Prince Charles Edward Stuart sailed to safety in France, aboard the French ship L’Heureux.

1870: National unification of Italy was achieved.

1917: The first RSPCA animal clinic was opened in Liverpool.

1932: Mahatma Gandhi began fast in prison to protest against treatment of India’s untouchables. Four days later, his demand that they be given representation were met.

1946: The first Cannes film festival opened.

1962: Mississippi governor Ross Bennett, defying American court order, refused to let a black student enrol at state university. Ten days later, civil rights activist James Meredith, accompanied by 750 federal marshals, enrolled. Two died in ensuing riots.

1963: United States president John F Kennedy went before United Nations General Assembly and proposed joint US-Soviet expedition to the Moon.

1973: More than 30,000 people packed into the Astrodome at Houston, Texas, to see a “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, a man 26 years her senior. She trounced him.

1977: Vietnam was admitted to United Nations.

1989: In Brussels, the European Community announced it would prosecute Britain over polluted drinking water.

1990: Acid rain in Britain was said to be the worst in Europe. The Lake District had the worst levels, in some areas having doubled since 1979. The Department of the Environment said there was no cause for alarm.

1991: The Archbishop of Canterbury blamed social deprivation for riots on Tyneside, and criticised the government’s education policy.

1995: A European court ruled football transfer fees were illegal.