On This Day

[Raistlin]

Births

1732 Nevil Maskelyne, English Astronomer Royal

1887 Le Corbusier, Swiss architect

1906 Janet Gaynor, US film actress

1914 Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnologist

1930 Richie Benaud, Australian cricketer and commentator

1939 Melvyn Bragg, English writer and TV presenter

Deaths

1536 William Tyndale, English Bible translator

1891 William Henry Smith, English newsagent, bookseller and statesman

1892 Alfred Tennyson, English poet

1896 George du Maurier, English novelist

1992 Denholm Elliott, English actor

Events

1769 Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, landed in New Zealand.

1883 The Orient Express completed its first run from Paris to Constantinople (now Istanbul) in nearly 78 hours.

1908 Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1927 Warner Brothers' The Jazz Singer, the first talking feature film (starring Al Jolson), premiered in New York.

1928 Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.

1968 The first three places in the US Grand Prix were taken by British drivers: Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, and John Surtees.

1978 London Underground's first woman driver started work.

1981 One day after the 11th anniversary of his election to office, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists.

1996 Yao Wen-yuan, possibly the last surviving member of the 'Gang of Four', was freed after serving 20 years in prison.

[Raistlin]

Births

1732 Nevil Maskelyne, English Astronomer Royal

1887 Le Corbusier, Swiss architect

1906 Janet Gaynor, US film actress

1914 Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnologist

1930 Richie Benaud, Australian cricketer and commentator

1939 Melvyn Bragg, English writer and TV presenter

Deaths

1536 William Tyndale, English Bible translator

1891 William Henry Smith, English newsagent, bookseller and statesman

1892 Alfred Tennyson, English poet

1896 George du Maurier, English novelist

1992 Denholm Elliott, English actor

Events

1769 Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, landed in New Zealand.

1883 The Orient Express completed its first run from Paris to Constantinople (now Istanbul) in nearly 78 hours.

1908 Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1927 Warner Brothers' The Jazz Singer, the first talking feature film (starring Al Jolson), premiered in New York.

1928 Chiang Kai-shek became president of China.

1968 The first three places in the US Grand Prix were taken by British drivers: Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill, and John Surtees.

1978 London Underground's first woman driver started work.

1981 One day after the 11th anniversary of his election to office, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists.

1996 Yao Wen-yuan, possibly the last surviving member of the 'Gang of Four', was freed after serving 20 years in prison.

[Raistlin]

Births

1872 John Cowper Powys, English novelist

1878 Alfred Munnings, British painter

1895 Juan Perón, Argentine dictator

1929 Betty Boothroyd, British MP, the Speaker of the House of Commons

1937 Merle Park, British ballerina

1941 Jesse Jackson, US politician

Deaths

1575 Jan Massys, Flemish painter

1754 Henry Fielding, English novelist

1869 Franklin Pierce, 14th US president

1953 Kathleen Ferrier, English contralto

1967 Clement Attlee, British statesman

1992 Willy Brandt, former German federal chancellor

Events

1085 St Mark's Cathedral in Venice was consecrated.

1871 The Great Fire of Chicago started. It burned until the 11th, killing over 250 people and making 95,000 homeless.

1905 A permanent waving machine was first used on a woman's hair, by Charles Nessler.

1915 The Battle of Loos, in World War I, ended.

1939 Western Poland was incorporated in the Third Reich.

1965 London's Post Office Tower, Britain's tallest building, opened.

1967 A breathalyser was used on a motorist for the first time, in Somerset, England.

1973 LBC (London Broadcasting), Britain's first legal commercial radio station, began transmitting.

1982 A new law in Poland banned Solidarity and forbid the setting up of new trade unions.

1989 The Latvian Popular Front announced its intention to seek independence from the USSR.

[Raistlin]

Births

1835 Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer

1900 Alastair Sim, British actor

1908 Jacques Tati, French film director

1935 Don McCullin, British war photographer

1940 John Lennon, rock singer and songwriter

1955 Steve Ovett, English athlete

Deaths

1562 Gabriel Fallopius, Italian anatomist

1958 Pope Pius XII

1967 André Maurois, French writer

1987 Clare Booth Luce, US writer and politician

1988 Jackie Millburn, English footballer

Events

1470 English king Henry VI was restored to the throne after being deposed in 1461.

1779 The first Luddite riots, against the introduction of machinery for spinning cotton, began in Manchester.

1875 The Universal Postal Union was established, with headquarters in Berne, Switzerland.

1888 The massive marble Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills, was opened.

1934 Alexander, King of Yugoslavia, and French foreign minister, Louis Barthou were assassinated by Croatian terrorists in Marseilles.

1967 Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Argentinian-born guerilla leader and revolutionary, was murdered in Bolivia.

1970 Cambodia declared itself the Khmer Republic.

[Raistlin]

Events

732 The Franks, under Charles Martel, defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Tours.

1886 The dinner jacket was first worn in New York by its creator at the Tuxedo Park Country Club, after which it was named.

1903 Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union to fight for women's emancipation in Britain.

1911 China's Imperial Dynasty was forced to abdicate, and a republic was proclaimed, under Sun Yat-Sen.

1935 George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess opened in New York City.

1961 Following a volcanic eruption, the entire population of the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha was evacuated to Britain.

1973 US Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being fined US $10,000 for income tax evasion.

Births

1684 Jean Antoine Watteau, French painter

1731 Henry Cavendish, English physicist

1813 Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer

1918 Thelonious Monk, US jazz pianist and composer

1930 Harold Pinter, British dramatist

1946 Charles Dance, British actor

Deaths

1469 Fra Filippo Lippi, Italian painter

1963 Edith Piaf, French singer

1964 Eddie Cantor, US actor and entertainer

1983 Ralph Richardson, English actor

1985 Orson Welles, US actor and producer

1985 Yul Brynner, US film actor

[Raistlin]

Births

1738 Arthur Phillip, English admiral

1821 George Williams, founder of the YMCA

1885 François Mauriac, French author

1925 Richard Burton, Welsh actor

1937 Bobby Charlton, English footballer

1957 Dawn French, English actress and comedienne

Deaths

1531 Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss religious reformer

1809 Meriwether Lewis, US explorer

1889 James Joule, English physicist

1896 Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer

1961 'Chico' Marx, US comedian

1963 Jean Cocteau, French poet, dramatist, and film director

1993 Jess Thomas, US operatic tenor

Events

1521 Pope Leo X conferred the title of 'Defender of the Faith' (Fidei Defensor) on England's Henry VIII for his book supporting Catholic principles.

1689 Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, assumed control of the government.

1899 The Anglo-Boer War began.

1923 Rampant inflation in Germany caused the mark to drop to an exchange rate of 10,000,000,000 to the pound.

1968 The US spacecraft Apollo 7 was launched from Cape Kennedy, with a crew of three.

1980 The Soviet Salyut 6 returned to earth; its cosmonauts had been in space for a record 185 days.

1982 The Mary Rose, which had been the pride of Henry VIII's English fleet until it sank in the Solent in 1545, was raised.

1996 Former South African defence minister Magnus Malan and nine others were aquitted of murder and conspiracy to murder in a 1987 hit-squad attack that killed 13 people.

[Raistlin]

Events

1492 Columbus sighted his first land in discovering the New World, calling it San Salvador.

1822 Brazil gained independence from Portugal.

1901 US President Theodore Roosevelt renamed the Executive Mansion 'The White House'.

1915 Edith Cavell is shot by a German firing squad after helping 200 British and French POWs escape to Holland.

1928 The first iron lung was used, at Boston Children's Hospital, Massachusetts.

1948 The first Morris Minor, designed by Alec Issigonis, was produced at Cowley, Oxfordshire.

1968 The 19th Olympic Games opened in Mexico City.

1984 During the Tory Party Conference at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, an IRA bomb exploded in the hotel in an attempt to murder the British cabinet.

1986 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to visit China.

1997 John Denver (born John Deutschendorf), US country singer and songwriter, died when his plane crashed into Monterey Bay near San Francisco, California.

1997 Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were convicted in the USA of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, New York.

Births

1537 Edward VI, King of England

1860 Elmer Ambrose Sperry, US inventor

1866 James Ramsay McDonald, British statesman

1872 Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer

1875 Aleister Crowley, British occultist

1935 Luciano Pavarotti, Italian operatic tenor

Deaths

1492 Piero della Francesca, Italian painter

1845 Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer

1859 Robert Stephenson, English civil engineer

1870 Robert E Lee, US Confederate general

1915 Edith Cavell, English nurse

1924 Anatole France, French author

1940 Tom Mix, US western film actor

1993 Leon Ames, US film actor

[bothwell_buyer]

For the first time ever, I had a Black Grouse whisky, cut with Morgans Spiced and laced with Schweppes diet lemonade

[Raistlin]

Events

1307 On the orders of Philip IV of France, the arrest of the Templars on charges of heresy took place in Paris.

1399 Henry Bolingbroke is crowned in Westminster Abbey to become Henry IV.

1792 The cornerstone of the White House, Washington, DC, was laid by President George Washington.

1884 Greenwich, London, was adapted as the universal time meridian of longitude from which standard times throughout the world are calculated.

1894 The first Merseyside 'derby' football match was played at Goodison Park between Liverpool and Everton, with Everton winning 3 - 0.

1904 Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams was published.

1923 Ankara replaced Istanbul as the capital of Turkey.

1988 The cardinal of Turin confirmed reports that the Shroud of Turin, believed to carry the imprint of Christ's face, had been scientifically dated to the Middle Ages.

1996 Damon Hill won the 1996 Formula One world championship motor racing title with a victory in the Japanese Grand Prix, the last race of the season.

1997 Kjell Magne Bondevik of the Christian People's Party became prime minister of Norway.

Births

1821 Rudolf Virchow, German pathologist

1853 Lillie Langtry, British actress

1921 Yves Montand, French singer and actor

1925 Margaret Thatcher, British politician

1941 Paul Simon, US singer and songwriter

1959 Marie Osmond, US singer

Deaths

AD 54 Claudius I, Roman emperor

1715 Nicholas de Malebranche, French philosopher

1815 Joachim Murat, King of the Two Sicilies

1822 Antonio Canova, Italian sculptor

1905 Henry Irving, English actor

1966 Clifton Webb, US actor

[bothwell_buyer]

in the UK today at ten past 8, the time/date will be.......................

20.10 20.10 2010 which doesn't happen very often!

[Raistlin]

Births

1644 William Penn, Quaker founder of Pennsylvania

1882 Éamon de Valera, Irish statesman

1890 Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th US president

1894 E E cummings, US poet

1899 Lillian Gish, US film actress

1940 Cliff Richard, English singer

Deaths

1944 Erwin Rommel, German field-marshal

1959 Errol Flynn, Australian actor

1976 Edith Evans, English actress

1977 Bing Crosby, US singer and film actor

1990 Leonard Bernstein, US conductor and composer

1997 Harold Robbins, US author

Events

1066 The Battle of Hastings was fought on Senlac Hill, where King Harold was slain as William the Conqueror's troops routed the English army.

1884 Photographic film was patented by US entrepreneur and inventor George Eastman.

1920 Oxford degrees were conferred on women for the first time.

1947 The first supersonic flight (670 mph) was made in California by Charles Yeagar in his Bell XI rocket plane.

1971 The US spacecraft Mariner 9 transmitted the first close-up TV pictures of Mars to Earth.

1982 A mass wedding took place in Seoul, South Korea, when 5,837 couples were married simultaneously.

1996 Pop singer and actress Madonna gave birth to her first child, Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon.

1997 Vietnam devalued its currency, the dong, in response to the Southeast Asian economic crisis.

[Raistlin]

Births

70 BC Virgil, Roman poet

1608 Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist

1844 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher

1881 P G Wodehouse, English novelist

1905 C P Snow, English scientist and novelist

1920 Mario Puzo, US novelist

1959 The Duchess of York

Deaths

1730 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, French explorer

1817 Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Polish patriot

1934 Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré, French statesman

1946 Hermann Goering, Nazi leader

1964 Cole Porter, US composer and lyricist

Events

1581 The first major ballet was staged at the request of Catherine de' Medici at the palace in Paris.

1582 The Gregorian calendar was adopted in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France; 5 Oct became 15 Oct.

1915 In World War I, Bulgaria allied itself with the Central European Powers.

1917 Mata Hari, Dutch spy, was shot in Paris, having been found guilty of espionage for the Germans.

1928 The German airship Graf Zeppelin, captained by Hugo Eckener, completed its first transatlantic flight.

1961 The human-rights organization Amnesty International was established in London.

1973 Britain and Iceland ended the 'Cod War' with agreement on fishing rights.

1994 President Aristide returned to Haiti after three years in exile.

1997 British car driver Andy Green, driving the 13.7 m-/45 ft-long jet car Thrust SSC, set a new land speed record and broke the sound barrier at Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

[Raistlin]

Births

1758 Noah Webster, US lexicographer

1854 Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist and author

1863 Austen Chamberlain, British statesman

1886 David Ben-Gurion, Israeli statesman

1888 Eugene O'Neill, US dramatist

1927 Günter Grass, German novelist

Deaths

1555 Hugh Latimer, English bishop, Christian church reformer, and martyr

1555 Nicholas Ridley, English bishop and Protestant martyr

1793 Marie Antoinette, Queen of France

1959 George Marshall, US general and diplomat

1981 Moshe Dayan, Israeli general and politician

1989 Cornel Wilde, US film actor

1993 Paolo Bortoluzzi, Italian dancer and choreographer

1997 James Michener, US author

Events

1815 Napoleon was exiled to the Atlantic island of St Helena.

1846 The first public surgical operation using ether as an anaesthetic was performed at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

1902 The first detention centre housing young offenders was opened in Borstal, Kent, England

1922 The Simplon II railway tunnel, under the Alps, linking Switzerland and Italy, was completed.

1946 Nazi war criminals, including von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, and Streicher, were hanged at Nuremberg.

1964 China exploded a nuclear device.

1964 Labour Party leader Harold Wilson became prime minister.

1978 Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II the first non-Italian pope since 1542.

1987 Southern England was hit by hurricane-force winds, causing 19 Deaths

and hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of damage.

1995 Around 400,000 African-Americans assembled at the foot of the US Capitol to hear radical leader Louis Farrakhan uncompromisingly assert a separate black identity.

1996 The British government announced a plan to outlaw private ownership of most handguns, in response to the March 1996 massacre at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland.

[Raistlin]

Events

1727 John Wilkes, British political reformer

1885 Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Danish author

1903 Nathaniel West, US novelist

1915 Arthur Miller, US dramatist

1918 Rita Hayworth, US film actress

1938 Montgomery Clift, US film actor; Ann Jones, English tennis player

Deaths

1586 Philip Sidney, English poet and soldier

1849 Frédéric Chopin, Polish composer

1887 Gustav Robert Kirchoff, German physicist

1910 Julia Ward Howe, US author

1979 S J Perelman, US humorist

1993 William Paton, English pharmacologist

Events

1651 England's Charles II, defeated by Cromwell at Worcester, fled to France, destitute and friendless.

1777 British commander General Burgoyne surrendered to General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, a victory for the American colonists.

1914 An earthquake struck Greece and Asia Minor, killing over 3,000 people.

1931 US gangster Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison for income-tax evasion, the only charge that could be sustained against him.

1956 Calder Hall, Britain's first nuclear power station, was opened.

1959 The South African De Beers diamond firm announced that synthetic industrial diamonds had been produced.

1977 A US Supreme Court ruling allowed Concorde to use Kennedy Airport, New York.

1985 The House of Lords in Britain, in the Gillick case, permitted doctors to prescribe oral contraceptives to girls aged under 16 without parental consent.

1996 More than 1.5 million workers throughout France staged a one-day strike to protest against the government's austere budget proposals.

[Raistlin]

Events

1685 The Edict of Nantes, granting religious freedom to the Huguenots, was revoked by King Louis XIV of France.

1812 Napoleon begins his retreat from Moscow.

1826 Britain's last state lottery was held, prior to the launch of the National Lottery in 1994.

1887 Russia transferred Alaska to the USA for $7.2 million.

1922 The British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation) was officially formed.

1977 Germany's anti-terrorist squad stormed a hijacked Lufthansa aircraft at Mogadishu Airport, Somalia, killing three of the four Palestinian hijackers and freeing all of the hostages.

1989 Following a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations in East Germany, Erich Honecker was replaced as head of state by Egon Krenz.

1989 With the end of Communist rule, Hungary was proclaimed a free republic.

1996 A study published in the journal Science uncovered evidence for the first time of a causal link between inhalation of a toxin found in tobacco smoke and the development of cancerous cells.

Births

1697 Canaletto, Italian painter

1859 Henri Bergson, French philosopher

1919 Pierre Trudeau, Canadian politician

1926 Chuck Berry, US singer

1927 George C Scott, US film actor

1956 Martina Navratilova, Czech tennis player

Deaths

1865 Lord Palmerston, British politician

1871 Charles Babbage, English mathematician

1893 Charles François Gounod, French composer

1931 Thomas Edison, US inventor

1966 Elizabeth Arden, cosmetics company founder

1982 Pierre Mendès-France, French statesman

[Raistlin]

Births

1605 Thomas Browne, English author and physician

1784 Leigh Hunt, English poet and essayist

1859 Alfred Dreyfus, French army officer

1862 Auguste Marie Lumière, French photographic pioneer

1931 John Le Carré, English novelist

1944 Peter Tosh, Jamaican reggae musician

Deaths

1216 King John of England

1682 Thomas Browne, English author and physician

1745 Jonathan Swift, Irish author

1897 George Pullman, US engineer and sleeping-car manufacturer

1937 Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist

1987 Jacqueline du Pré, British cellist

Events

1781 Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, marking the end of the American War of Independence.

1813 The Allies defeated Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig.

1860 The first company to manufacture internal combustion engines was formed in Florence, Italy.

1864 In the American Civil War, General Sheridan was victorious over the Confederates at the Battle of Cedar Creek.

1872 The Holtermann nugget was mined at Hill End, New South Wales in SE Australia; weighing 630lbs, it was the largest gold-bearing nugget ever found.

1935 The League of Nations imposed sanctions on Italy, following her invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1987 Wall Street was struck by 'Black Monday', during which millions were wiped out on stock markets around the world.

1989 After serving 14 years in prison for the IRA Guildford and Woolwich bombings in England, the 'Guildford Four' had their convictions quashed.

.

[Raistlin]

Births

1605 Thomas Browne, English author and physician

1784 Leigh Hunt, English poet and essayist

1859 Alfred Dreyfus, French army officer

1862 Auguste Marie Lumière, French photographic pioneer

1931 John Le Carré, English novelist

1944 Peter Tosh, Jamaican reggae musician

Deaths

1216 King John of England

1682 Thomas Browne, English author and physician

1745 Jonathan Swift, Irish author

1897 George Pullman, US engineer and sleeping-car manufacturer

1937 Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist

1987 Jacqueline du Pré, British cellist

Events

1781 Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, marking the end of the American War of Independence.

1813 The Allies defeated Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig.

1860 The first company to manufacture internal combustion engines was formed in Florence, Italy.

1864 In the American Civil War, General Sheridan was victorious over the Confederates at the Battle of Cedar Creek.

1872 The Holtermann nugget was mined at Hill End, New South Wales in SE Australia; weighing 630lbs, it was the largest gold-bearing nugget ever found.

1935 The League of Nations imposed sanctions on Italy, following her invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1987 Wall Street was struck by 'Black Monday', during which millions were wiped out on stock markets around the world.

1989 After serving 14 years in prison for the IRA Guildford and Woolwich bombings in England, the 'Guildford Four' had their convictions quashed.

[Raistlin]

Births

1760 Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese artist and printmaker

1772 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet

1833 Alfred Nobel, Swedish industrialist

1912 Georg Solti, British conductor

1917 Dizzie Gillespie, US jazz trumpeter

1956 Carrie Fisher, US film actress

Deaths

1556 Pietro Aretino, Italian writer

1687 Edmund Waller, English poet

1805 Horatio, Viscount Nelson, English admiral, killed at Trafalgar

1969 jack Kerouac, US poet and novelist

1992 Bob Todd, English comedy actor

Events

1805 The British defeated the Franco-Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar.

1858 Offenbach's opera Orpheus in the Underworld was first performed, in Paris.

1934 Mao Zedong's Long March, with his 100,000-strong Communist army, began.

1950 Tibet was occupied by Chinese forces.

1960 Britain launched its first nuclear submarine, the HMS Dreadnought.

1966 The Welsh village of Aberfan was engulfed by a collapsed slagheap, killing 144, including 116 children.

1967 Egyptian missiles sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat, with the loss of over 40 lives.

1984 Niki Lauda became world motor-racing champion for the third time.

1991 Jesse Turner, an American who had been held hostage in Lebanon for just under five years, was freed by his captors.

[Raistlin]

Births

1811 Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer

1844 Sarah Bernhardt, French actress

1919 Doris Lessing, English novelist

1925 Robert Rauschenberg, US artist

1938 Derek Jacobi, English actor

1943 Catherine Deneuve, French film actress

Deaths

741 Charles Martel, leader of the Franks

1806 Thomas Sheraton, English furniture maker

1906 Paul Cézanne, French painter

1973 Pablo Casals, Spanish cellist

1975 Arnold Joseph Toynbee, English historian

Events

1797 The first parachute jump was made by André-Jacques Garnerin from a balloon above the Parc Monceau, Paris.

1878 The first floodlit rugby match took place, Broughton v Swinton, at Broughton, Lancashire, England.

1883 New York's Metropolitan Opera House opened.

1909 French aviator Elise Deroche became the first woman to make a solo flight.

1910 Dr Hawley Crippen was found guilty of poisoning his wife and was sentenced to be hanged on 23 October 1910.

1935 Haiti was struck by a hurricane, causing over 2,000 Deaths

1962 US President Kennedy announced that Soviet missile bases had been installed in Cuba.

1975 The 'Guildford Four' were sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of planting IRA bombs in pubs in Guildford and Woolwich.

1987 The first volume of the Gutenberg Bible was sold at auction in New York for $5.39m/£3.26m a record price for a printed book.

1996 The Canadian Auto Workers union ended their 21-day-long strike after reaching a tentative agreement with General Motors of Canada Ltd.

[Raistlin]

Births

1760 Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese artist and printmaker

1772 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet

1833 Alfred Nobel, Swedish industrialist

1912 Georg Solti, British conductor

1917 Dizzie Gillespie, US jazz trumpeter

1956 Carrie Fisher, US film actress

Deaths

1556 Pietro Aretino, Italian writer

1687 Edmund Waller, English poet

1805 Horatio, Viscount Nelson, English admiral, killed at Trafalgar

1969 jack Kerouac, US poet and novelist

1992 Bob Todd, English comedy actor**DID HE TAKE 2DAYS TO DIE?........SEE ENTRY 21 OCTOBER**

Events

1805 The British defeated the Franco-Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar.

1858 Offenbach's opera Orpheus in the Underworld was first performed, in Paris.

1934 Mao Zedong's Long March, with his 100,000-strong Communist army, began.

1950 Tibet was occupied by Chinese forces.

1960 Britain launched its first nuclear submarine, the HMS Dreadnought.

1966 The Welsh village of Aberfan was engulfed by a collapsed slagheap, killing 144, including 116 children.

1967 Egyptian missiles sank the Israeli destroyer Eilat, with the loss of over 40 lives.

1984 Niki Lauda became world motor-racing champion for the third time.

1991 Jesse Turner, an American who had been held hostage in Lebanon for just under five years, was freed by his captors.

[Raistlin]

Events

1648 The Treaty of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty Years' War in Europe.

1857 The first football club was formed by a group of Cambridge University Old Boys meeting in Sheffield.

1901 Mrs Ann Edson Taylor braved a descent over Niagara Falls in a padded barrel to help pay the mortgage.

1929 Share values on the Wall Street stock market, New York, crashed starting with 'Black Thursday'.

1945 The United Nations charter came into force.

1977 Saudi Arabia purchased the transatlantic liner France for use as a floating luxury hotel.

1987 Heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno knocked out Joe Bugner at White Hart Lane, London.

1989 US television preacher Jim Bakker was sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000/£272,000 for his multi-million dollar scam.

1996 In the journal Nature, British scientists reported the strongest evidence yet connecting BSE to the fatal human brain ailment Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

Births

1632 Anton van Leuwenhoek, Dutch microscope pioneer

1767 Jacques Lafitte, French banker and politician

1882 Sybil Thorndike, English actress

1915 Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone

1923 Robin Day, English TV presenter

1941 Bill Wyman, English bass guitarist

Deaths

1537 Jane Seymour, 3rd wife of King Henry VIII of England

1601 Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer

1945 Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian politician and Nazi collaborator

1948 Franz Lehár, Hungarian composer

1957 Christian Dior, French couturier

1989 Mary McCarthy, US author

1993 Jo Grimond, Scottish politician and writer

1993 Jiri Hajek, Czech human-rights campaigner

1997 Michael Balfour, US-born English actor

[Raistlin]

Events

1415 The English army, led by King Henry V, defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt, during the Hundred Years' War.

1839 Bradshaw's Railway Guide, the world's first railway timetable, was published in Manchester, in England.

1854 Lord Cardigan led the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War.

1900 The Transvaal, a region in South Africa which is rich in minerals, especially gold, was annexed by the British.

1941 The first German offensive against Moscow failed.

1961 The British satirical magazine Private Eye was first published.

1971 Taiwan was expelled from the UN to allow the admission of the People's Republic of China.

1983 Over 2,000 US troops invaded Grenada.

1993 The Liberal Party won a decisive victory in the Canadian general election

1997 An estimated 1.5 million black women participated in the Million Woman March in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to protest against the notion of blacks as victims.

Births

1800 Thomas Babington Macaulay, English historian and essayist

1825 Johann Strauss the Younger, Austrian composer

1838 Georges Bizet, French composer

1881 Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist

1888 Richard Evelyn Byrd, US aviator and explorer

1889 Abel Gance, French film director

Deaths

1400 Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet

1510 Giorgione, Italian painter

1647 Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist and inventor of the barometer

1760 King George II

1902 Frank Norris, US novelist

1913 Frederick Rolfe, English writer

1993 Vincent Price, US film actor

[Raistlin]

Events

1825 The Erie Canal, linking the Niagara River with the Hudson River in N America, was opened to traffic.

1860 Italian unification leader Giuseppe Garibaldi proclaimed Victor Emmanuel King of Italy.

1881 The legendary 'Gunfight at the OK Corral' took place at Tombstone, Arizona.

1905 Sweden and Norway ended their union and Oscar II, the Norwegian king, abdicated.

1927 Duke Ellington and his orchestra recorded the jazz classic, 'Creole Love Song'.

1929 T W Evans of Miami, Florida, became the first woman to give birth aboard an aircraft.

1956 The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency was formed.

1965 Queen Elizabeth presented the Beatles with their MBEs at Buckingham Palace.

1985 A US infant, known as Baby Fae, was given a baboon's heart to replace her malformed one.

1997 Jacques Villeneuve, driving a Williams-Renault, became the first Canadian to win the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship.

1997 The Florida Marlins, a 1993 National League expansion team, won their first baseball World Series, defeating the Cleveland Indians by four games to three.

Births

1759 Georges Danton, French revolutionary leader

1879 Leon Trotsky, Russian Communist leader

1916 François Mitterrand, French statesman

1919 Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, last Shah of Iran

1930 John Arden, English dramatist

1942 Bob Hoskins, English actor

Deaths

1440 Gilles de Rais, French marshal

1764 William Hogarth, English artist and engraver

1902 Elizabeth Stanton, US feminist

1972 Igor Sikorsky, US aeronautical engineer

1973 Roger Hollis, British civil servant and alleged double agent

[Raistlin]

Births

1728 Captain James Cook, English naval explorer

1782 Niccoló Paganini, Italian violinist and composer

1858 Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president

1905 Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet

1923 Roy Lichtenstein, US painter

1932 Sylvia Plath, US poet

1939 John Cleese, English actor and comedian

Deaths

1505 Ivan III (the Great), Tsar of Russia

1804 George Morland, English painter

1968 Lise Meitner, Austrian nuclear physicist

1969 Eric Maschwitz, English lyricist

1977 James M Cain, US novelist

Events

1662 England's Charles II sold Dunkirk to Louis XIV of France for 2.5 million livres.

1901 In Paris, a 'getaway car' was used for the first time, when thieves robbed a shop and sped away.

1904 The first section of New York City's subway system was opened.

1917 US troops entered the war in France.

1936 Mrs Wallis Simpson was granted a divorce from her second husband, leaving her free to marry Britain's King Edward VIII.

1971 The Republic of Congo changed its name to the Republic of Zaire.

1979 St Vincent and Grenadines gained independence.

1986 The City of London experienced 'Big Bang' day, due to the deregulation of the money market.

1997 The Dow Jones index made its biggest drop in history-554 points-triggering the first ever automatic trading cut-off.

[Raistlin]

Births

1903 Evelyn Waugh, English novelist

1909 Francis Bacon, British painter

1914 Jonas Salk, US microbiologist

1927 Cleo Laine, British singer

1936 Carl Davis, US composer

1941 Hank Marvin, English guitarist

Deaths

1704 John Locke, English philosopher

1792 John Smeaton, English civil engineer

1899 Ottmar Mergenthaler, German inventor of the Linotype

1975 Georges Carpentier, French boxer

1987 Woody Herman, US bandleader

1988 Pietro Annigoni, Italian painter

Events

1636 Harvard University, the first in the USA, was founded.

1746 An earthquake demolished Lima and Callao, in Peru.

1831 English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday demonstrated the first dynamo.

1886 The Statue of Liberty, designed by Auguste Bartholdi, was presented by France to the USA to mark the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

1893 HMS Havelock, the Royal Navy's first destroyer, went on trials.

1914 George Eastman, of Eastman Kodak Company, announced the introduction of a colour photographic process.

1962 Nikita Khrushchev of USSR announced the withdrawal of the 'offensive weapons' from Cuba.

1971 By a margin of 112 votes, the House of Commons backed Prime Minister Edward Heath's decision to apply for EEC membership.

1982 Felipe González became Spain's first Socialist prime minister, with a sweeping electoral victory.

1990 Non-Communist parties triumphed in elections in Georgia, USSR, with calls for independence and a market economy.