18 augustus

Henry’s guns battered the port for five weeks, but dysentery did more harm to his own army than the defenders did. It killed the Bishop of Norwich and the Earl of Suffolk, whose son died at Agincourt a month later, and sent hundreds more home sick.

Issued at Pavia, it names Leonardo Borgia’s “architect and general engineer” and orders every officer in his lands to give him free passage and whatever help he asks for.

A licence to ship 4,000 Africans straight from Africa to the Indies, granted to a court favourite who sold it on to Genoese merchants. The Taíno were dying out, and the colonists wanted labour to replace them.

The young Charles I (later Emperor Charles V) granted a court favourite, Lorenzo de Gorrevod, a licence for 4,000 Africans to be carried to the Indies, and he sold it on to Genoese merchants. The first voyage direct from Africa to the Americas probably sailed in 1525 or 1526; until then captives…

Watching a total eclipse from Guntur in India, Jules Janssen saw a bright yellow line in the spectrum of the solar prominences. In October Norman Lockyer saw it in London without an eclipse, placed it apart from the sodium lines, and named the element for Greek helios, the Sun. For 27 years it was…

Royal assent this day; in force from 1 January 1883. A married woman could now own, buy, sell and bequeath property in her own name, as a single woman could. An 1870 Act had let her keep only her own earnings and a few small inheritances.

Lucy is better, and sitting on the seat she taps it with her heel: “My poor little feet didn’t make much noise then!” She remembers the night of 10 and 11 August, while Mina watches how she looks.

The 36th and deciding state. Harry Burn, 24, switched his vote after a letter from his mother: “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.” The Secretary of State certified the amendment on 26 August at home, with no ceremony. In the South, poll taxes and…

A dance at the Horticultural Society in Port Sunlight, after a two-hour rehearsal. Starr had shaved off his beard and cut his hair for the job; the line-up that made every record played together for the first time that night.

At 45, Wiles was too old for a Fields Medal, which goes only to mathematicians under 40. At the International Congress in Berlin the International Mathematical Union gave him a special silver plaque instead.

Demi Vollering won the last stage on Alpe d’Huez, but Kasia Niewiadoma held on to win the women’s Tour by four seconds: the smallest margin of any Tour, men’s or women’s.