On this day:
2004 SpaceShipOne completes the world’s first manned private spaceflight
1921 The UK, the Dominions, and India, become the British Commonwealth of Nations
1948 Lord Mountbatten resigns as Governor General of India (formerly the last Viceroy)
1991 P.V. Narasimha Rao becomes Prime Minister of India as head of the Congress minority government
Born on this day:
1905 Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, writer
Gone on this day:
1527 Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian historian, philosopher