What happened this week in history

Tony McCoy wins his 4000th race, in the 3.10pm at Towcester. EMN-160426-121359001

1715 - The folding umbrella was patented.

1776 - Rhode Island became the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.

1780 - The first Derby was run at Epsom. The winner was Diomed, the 6-4 favourite.

1814 - Emperor Napoleon I of France arrived at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his exile.

1859 - The Cornwall Railway opened across the Royal Albert Bridge, linking the counties of Devon and Cornwall.

1896 - The Daily Mail was published for the first time.

1904 - Mr Rolls and Mr Royce agreed to collaborate on the manufacture of cars.

1904 - Work began on the Panama Canal.

1916 - MPs agreed the conscription of all men aged between 18 and 41.

1926 - The general strike began. Almost half of Britain’s six million trade union members participated.

1953 - Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

1959 - The 1st Annual Grammy Awards were held.

1964 - The Pulitzer Prize committee decided there was no literature worth the prize that year.

1972 - The Don’t Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organisation founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to Greenpeace Foundation.

1979 - A Conservative election win saw Margaret Thatcher become Britain’s first woman prime minister.

1982 - Falklands War: HMS Sheffield was hit by an Argentine missile. 20 men died and 24 were injured in the sinking. It was the first British warship to be lost in 37 years.

1990 - Latvia declared its independence from the USSR.

1994 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed a peace accord, granting self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

2000 - The first London Mayoral contest ended in a clear victory for Ken Livingstone.