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According to his notes, Leonardo da Vinci tests his flying machine for the first time. The flight was unsuccessful, and he adandoned the idea for several years.

Australian cricketer Don Bradman makes his first Test Match century playing for Australia against England in Melbourne.

On the same day and within one hour, the ‘Flying Finn’, Finnish long distance runner Paavo Nurmi, breaks two world indoor running records at New York’s Madison Square Gardens.

South African police use strong arm tactics to disperse demonstrations against rebel cricketers who are defying a ban on playing in segregated South Africa.

George V, King of England, dies. He is succeeded by Edward VIII, who abdicates 325 days later, before his coronation, because of his insistence in marrying American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

The Union of Utrech is signed, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands, which were controlled by Spain.

Manchester United player Eric Cantona is fined £20,000 and banned from playing football for nine months after he attacked a fan who taunted him.

Stanley Kubrick's film 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' opens in America.

In Kosovo, a bomb, which is thought to have been planted by ethnic Albanian extremists, explodes on a bus carrying Serbs to a religious ceremony. At least seven people die.

In America, Robert Preston, a discontented US army private, steels a helicopter, flying it to the White House where he hovers over the building before landing. President Nixon is not in the White House during the incident.

Fifteen Egyptian commandos are killed in a gun battle with Greek Cypriot soldiers at Larnaca airport in Cyprus, whilst trying to solve a hostage crisis.

Controversial British historian David Irving is sent to jail in Austria for denying the Holocaust.

In India, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims catches fire, killing fifty seven people.

In Britain, a plane carrying 99 Vietnamese orphans sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper, lands at Heathrow Airport, London.