1 September It Happened Today

1557  Death of French explorer Jacques Cartier.

1666  Death of Dutch painter Franz Hals.

1715  Death of French “Sun King” Louis XIV.

1875 Birth of American novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan.

1904 Helen Adams Keller, American writer and lecturer, graduates with honours from Radcliffe College in Massachusetts, despite being deaf and blind since the age of two.

1923 Birth of American heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano.

1939 Nazi Germany invades Poland.

1969 Colonel Gaddafi seizes power in Libya.

1972 Bobby Fischer becomes the first American world chess champion.