On This Day

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Births

1768 Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples

1867 Carl Laemmle, US film producer, founder of Universal Pictures

1873 Adolph Zukor, US film magnate

1873 Charles Péguy, French poet and socialist

1899 Francis Poulenc, French composer

1925 Gerald Durrell, British author and naturalist

Deaths

1536 Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England

1619 Nicholas Hilliard, English miniaturist painter

1932 André Maginot, French politician

1988 Trevor Howard, British actor

1989 Michinomiya Hirohito, Emperor of Japan

Events

1558 Calais, the last English possession on mainland France, was recaptured by the French.

1610 Galileo discovered Jupiter's four satellites, naming them Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

1785 The first aerial crossing of the English Channel was made by Jean Pierre Blanchard and Dr John Jeffries, in a hot-air balloon.

1927 The London-New York telephone service began operating, a three-minute call costing £15.

1932 Chancellor Heinrich Brüning declared that Germany cannot, and will not, resume reparations payments.

1975 OPEC agreed to raise crude oil prices by 10%, which began a tidal wave of world economic inflation.

1990 The Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public, as its accelerated rate of 'leaning' raised fears for the safety of its many visitors.

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Events

1705 Georg Friedrich Handel's opera Almira was produced in Hamburg.

1815 The Americans, under Andrew Jackson, defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans.

1886 The Severn Railway Tunnel, Britain's longest, was opened.

1889 US inventor Herman Hollerith patented his tabulator, the first device for data processing; his firm would later become one of IBM's founding companies.

1916 In World War I, the final withdrawal of Allied troops from Gallipoli took place.

1921 David Lloyd George became the first prime minister tenant at Chequers Court, Buckinghamshire.

1959 French general Charles de Gaulle became the first president of the Fifth Republic.

1973 The trial opened in Washington of seven men accused of bugging Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, DC.

1993 Bosnian President Izetbegovic visited the USA to plead his government's case for Western military aid and intervention to halt Serbian aggression.

Births

1824 Wilkie Collins, English novelist

1935

1937 Shirley Bassey, Welsh-born singer

1942 Stephen Hawking, English physicist and mathematician

1947 David Bowie, English rock singer and actor

1961 Calvin Smith, US athlete

Deaths

1642 Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer

1825 Eli Whitney, US inventor of the cotton gin

1895 Paul Verlaine, French poet

1976 Zhou Enlai, Chinese leader

1988 Gregori Maximilianovich Malenkov, Soviet leader

1990 Terry-Thomas, English film comedy actor

1996 François Mitterrand, French statesman

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Events

1522 Adrian of Utrecht, Regent of Spain, is elected Pope Adrian VI (-Sept 1523). He is the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II from Poland, 1978.

1799 British prime minister William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax, at two shillings (10p) in the pound, to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.

1902 New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.

1969 The supersonic aeroplane Concorde made its first trial flight, at Bristol.

1972 The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong harbour.

1972 British miners went on strike for the first time since 1926.

1991 US secretary of state Baker and Iraqi foreign minister Aziz met for 61/2 hours in Geneva, but failed to reach any agreement that would forestall war in the Persian Gulf.

1995 Russian cosmonaut Valeri Poliakov, 51, completed his 366th day in outer space aboard the Mir space station, breaking the record for the longest continuous time spent in outer space.

Births

1898 Gracie Fields, English singer

1904 George Balanchine, US choreographer

1908 Simone de Beauvoir, French novelist and critic

1913 Richard Nixon, 37th US president

1914 Gypsy Rose Lee, US striptease artist and actress

1941 Joan Baez, US singer

Deaths

1848 Caroline Lucretia Herschel, English astronomer

1873 Napoleon III, French emperor

1923 Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand writer

1949 Tommy Handley, English radio comedian

1984 Frederick Gibberd, British architect

1985 Robert Mayer, British philanthropist

1995 Peter Cook, English satirist and entertainer

1995 Prince Souphanouvong, Laotian politician

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Births

1769 Michel Ney, French marshal

1903 Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor

1908 Paul Henreid, Austrian actor

1910 Galina Ulanova, Russian ballerina

1927 Johnny Ray, US singer

1945 Rod Stewart, English rock singer

Deaths

1778 Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist

1862 Samuel Colt, US gunsmith

1951 Sinclair Lewis, US novelist

1961 Dashiell Hammett, US detective-story writer

1971 Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel, French fashion designer

1985 Anton Karas, Austrian composer

Events

1840 The penny post, whereby mail was delivered at a standard charge rather than paid for by the recipient, began in Britain.

1863 Prime Minister Gladstone opened the first section of the London Underground Railway system, from Paddington to Farringdon Street.

1919 (-4 Feb) Soviet Republic of Bremen, NW Germany, is briefly proclaimed.

1920 The Treaty of Versailles was ratified, officially ending World War I with Germany.

1920 The League of Nations held its first meeting in Geneva.

1926 Fritz Lang's film Metropolis was first shown, in Berlin.

1946 The first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly took place in London.

1949 Vinyl records were launched by RCA (45 rpm) and Columbia (33.3 rpm).

1957 In Britain, Queen Elizabeth, after consulting former prime minister Winston Churchill, appointed Harold Macmillan as prime minister.

1992 An IRA bomb exploded in Whitehall, London, 300 m/975 ft from Downing Street; the IRA threatened further attacks on the mainland.

1997 Britain's Halifax Building Society unveiled a plan for stock market flotation, claiming that the share sale would be the country's largest-ever issue of public shares.

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Events

1569 England's first state lottery was held; tickets were obtainable from the West Door of St Paul's Cathedral, London.

1922 Leonard Thompson became the first person to be successfully treated with insulin, at Toronto General Hospital.

1963 The first disco, called the 'Whisky-a-go-go', opened in Los Angeles, USA.

1973 The Open University awarded its first degrees.

1977 Rolling Stone Keith Richards was tried in London for possession of cocaine, found in his car after an accident, and fined £750.

1980 Nigel Short, age 14, from Bolton in Britain, became the youngest International Master in the history of chess.

1991 An auction of silver and paintings that had been acquired by the late Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, brought in a total of $20.29 million at Christie's in New York.

Births

1807 Ezra Cornell, US philanthropist

1857 Fred Archer, English jockey

1864 Henry Gordon Selfridge, US entrepreneur and founder of the London department store

1903 Alan Paton, South African author

1929 Rod Taylor, Australian film actor

1953 John Sessions, English actor and comedian

Deaths

1753 Hans Sloane, British physician and naturalist

1928 Thomas Hardy, English poet and novelist

1966 Alberto Giacometti, Swiss sculptor and painter

1969 Richmal Crompton, English author

1972 Padraic Colum, Irish poet

1988 Isidor Rabi, US physicist

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Events

1866 The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded in London.

1875 Kwang-su was made emperor of China.

1906 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet embarked on sweeping social reforms after a Liberal landslide in the British general election.

1915 The US House of Representatives defeated a proposal for women's suffrage.

1964 The Sultan of Zanzibar was overthrown, following an uprising, and a republic proclaimed.

1970 The Boeing 747 aircraft touched down at Heathrow Airport at the end of its first transatlantic flight.

1971 PLO terrorist Abu Davoud, leader of the Black September group responsible for the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, was released from prison in France.

1991 US Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military power to force Iraq out of Kuwait.

1993 Sectarian violence continued for the eighth consecutive day in Bombay, India; 200 people died in nationwide clashes.

1995 Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew announced that as of 16 January British troops will no longer carry out daylight street patrols in Belfast.

Births

1746 Johann Pestalozzi, Swiss educational reformer

1856 John Singer Sargent, US painter

1876 jack London, US author

1893

1916 P W Botha, South African politician

1944 Joe Frazier, US heavyweight boxer

Deaths

1519 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

1625 Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flemish painter

1665 Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician

1897 Isaac Pitman, English teacher and inventor of shorthand

1960 Nevil Shute, English novelist

1976 Agatha Christie, English detective-story writer

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Births

1884 Sophie Tucker, US singer and vaudeville star

1911 Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, Australian politician

1918 Ted Willis, English dramatist

1919 Robert Stack, US film actor

1926 Michael Bond, English creator of the Paddington Bear stories for children

Deaths

1599 Edmund Spenser, English poet

1691 George Fox, English founder of the Society of Friends

1864 Stephen Foster, US songwriter

1941 James Joyce, Irish novelist

1978 Hubert Humphrey, US politician

Events

1893 The British Independent Labour Party was formed by Keir Hardie.

1898 French novelist Emile Zola published J'accuse/I Accuse, a pamphlet indicting the persecutors of Dreyfus.

1910 Opera was broadcast on the radio for the first time - Enrico Caruso singing from the stage of New York's Metropolitan Opera House.

1935 The League of Nations arranged an independence plebiscite in the Saarland.

1964 Capitol records released the Beatles' first single in the USA; 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' sold one million copies in the first three weeks.

1976 Argentina suspended diplomatic ties with Britain over the Falkland Islands.

1978 NASA selected its first women astronauts, 15 years after the USSR had a female astronaut orbit the Earth.

1991 Soviet troops killed 15 protesters in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, in a crackdown on pro-independence forces.

1993 Former East German leader Erich Honecker, who had been awaiting trial on charges of manslaughter, was released from a Berlin prison because of ill health.

1995 In response to British animal-rights protesters, the British Meat and Livestock Commission announced that calves exported from Britain to the Netherlands would be housed in spacious group pens rather than be confined in so-called veal crates.

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Births

1836 Henri Fantin-Latour, French painter

1875 Albert Schweitzer, French missionary surgeon

1904 Cecil Beaton, British photographer and stage designer

1909 Joseph Losey, US film director

1940 Trevor Nunn, British stage director

1941 Faye Dunaway, US actress

Deaths

1742 Edmond Halley, English astronomer

1867 Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, French painter

1898 Lewis Carroll, English mathematician and author

1957 Humphrey Bogart, US film actor

1977 Peter Finch, English actor

1977 Anaïs Nin, US novelist and diarist

Events

1858 Napoleon III, in Paris.

1900 Puccini's opera Tosca was first performed, in Rome.

1907 An earthquake killed over 1,000 people in Kingston, Jamaica, virtually destroying the capital.

1943 British Prime Minister Churchill met at Casablanca.

1953 Marshal Tito was elected the first president of the Yugoslav Republic.

1954 Marilyn Monroe.

1993 Amid increasingly intrusive coverage about the private lives of the British royal family, the government pledged to introduce legislation to criminalize invasions of privacy by the press.

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Events

1535 Henry VIII assumed the title 'Supreme Head of the Church'. English clergy abjure the authority of the Pope.

1559 The coronation of Queen Elizabeth I took place.

1759 The British Museum opened, at Montague House, Bloomsbury, London.

1797 London haberdasher James Hetherington was fined £50 for wearing his new creation, the top hat.

1880 The London Telephone Company published Britain's first telephone directory, listing 255 names.

1922 Michael Collins became the first prime minister of the Irish Free State and forms a provisional government.

1927 Captain Teddy Wakelam gave the first live rugby commentary on BBC radio of the match between Wales and England at Twickenham.

1971 The Aswan High Dam, on the Nile, financed by the USSR, was opened.

1973 President Nixon called a halt to the USA's Vietnam offensive.

1992 The EC granted diplomatic recognition to Slovenia and Croatia, essentially recognizing the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.

1995 The British government announced the end of 25 years of daylight patrols by the British army on the streets of Belfast.

1997 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat signed an agreement on Israel's long-delayed pullout from most of the city of Hebron and other parts of the West Bank.

Births

1622 Molière, French dramatist

1906 Aristotle Onassis, Greek shipowner

1913 Lloyd Bridges, US film actor

1918 Gamal Nasser, Egyptian leader

1929 Martin Luther King, US civil-rights campaigner

1937 Margaret O'Brien, US film actress

Deaths

1815 Emma Hamilton, English courtesan, mistress to Lord Nelson

1896 Matthew B Brady, US Civil War photographer

1919 Rosa Luxemburg, German socialist

1964 jack Teagarden, US jazz musician

1988 Sean MacBride, Irish politician

1993 Sammy Cahn, US lyricist

1994 Harry Nilsson, US singer and songwriter

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Events

1547 Ivan the Terrible was crowned first tsar of Russia.

1572 The Duke of Norfolk was tried for treason for complicity in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. He is executed on 2 June.

1759 The British Museum opened.

1809 The British defeated the French at the Battle of Corunna, in the Peninsular War.

1920 The 18th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages.

1925 Leon Trotsky was dismissed as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the USSR.

1932 Duke Ellington and his Orchestra recorded 'It Don't Mean a Thing' in New York.

1970 Colonel Khaddhafi became virtual president of Libya.

1979 The Shah of Iran and his family fled Iran for Egypt.

1982 Britain and the Vatican resumed full diplomatic relations after a break of over 400 years.

1991 A US-led international force launched Operation Desert Storm on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait less than 17 hours after the expiration of the UN deadline for Iraqi withdrawal.

1997 Ennis Cosby, the only son of US television comedian Bill Cosby, was shot to death on a freeway ramp in Los Angeles, California, while changing a flat tyre.

Births

1838 Franz Brentano, German philosopher

1853 André Michelin, French tyre-maker

1906 Diana Wynyard, British actress

1907 Alexander Knox, Canadian film actor

1909 Ethel Merman, US singer and actress

1948 Cliff Thorburn, snooker player

Deaths

1794 Edward Gibbon, English Historian

1891 Léo Delibes, French composer

1942 Carole Lombard, US film actress

1957 Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor

1967 Robert Van de Graff, US nuclear physicist

1979 Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, former Shah of Iran

1993 Florence Desmond, British actress

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Events

1377 The Papal See was transferred from Avignon in France back to Rome.

1773 Captain Cook's Resolution became the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle.

1852 The independence of the Transvaal Boers was recognized by Britain.

1912 English explorer Robert Falcon Scott reached the South Pole; Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him there by one month.

1945 Soviet forces liberate Warsaw from the Germans.

1959 Senegal and the French Sudan joined to form the Federal State of Mali.

1966 A B-52 carrying four H-bombs collided with a refuelling tanker, killing eight of the crew and releasing the bombs.

1977 US double murderer Gary Gilmore became the first to be executed in the USA in a decade; he chose to be executed by firing squad.

1992 An IRA bomb, placed next to a remote country road in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, killed seven building workers and injured seven others.

1994 Southern California was declared a disaster area following an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale in which 61 people died.

1995 An earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale hit the city of Kobe in Japan, causing extensive damage and an estimated 5,000 Deaths

1996 A dissident French bishop, dismissed by the Pope for his liberal views, established the first diocese on the Internet.

1997 A jury in London's Old Bailey decided that Szymon Serafinowicz, the first person charged with Nazi crimes under Britain's War Crimes Act, was unfit to stand trial due to his failing health.

Births

1706 Benjamin Franklin, US statesman and scientist

1863 David Lloyd George, English statesman

1899 Nevil Shute, English novelist

1899 Al Capone, US gangster

1942 Muhammad Ali, US boxer

1956 Paul Young, English singer

Deaths

1751 Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, Italian composer

1903 Quintin Hogg, English merchant and philanthropist

1911 Francis Galton, English anthropologist and explorer

1964 T H White, English writer

1990 Ruskin Spear, British artist

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Events

1778 Captain Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii.

1871 Wilhelm, King of Prussia from 1861, was proclaimed the first German Emperor.

1911 The first landing of an aircraft on a ship's deck was made by US pilot Eugene Ely, in San Francisco Bay.

1919 The Versailles Peace Conference opened.

1944 The German siege of Leningrad, which began Sept 1941, was relieved.

1972 Former Rhodesian prime minister Garfield Todd and his daughter were placed under house arrest for campaigning against Rhodesian independence.

1976 British Labour MPs Jim Sillars and John Robertson launched the Scottish Labour Party (SLP) to campaign for greater devolution for Scotland.

1978 The European Court of Human Rights cleared the British government of torture but found it guilty of inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners in Northern Ireland.

1995 A network of caves containing hundreds of apparently undisturbed cave paintings and engravings thought to date from 17,000 to 20,000 years ago were discovered near the town of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the mountains of southern France.

1997 Hutu militiamen shot dead three Spanish aid workers and three soldiers and seriously wound an American in a night attack in NW Rwanda.

Births

1779 Peter Mark Roget, English lexicographer

1882 A A Milne, English author

1892 Oliver Hardy, US comedian

1904 Cary Grant, US film actor

1913 Danny Kaye, US film actor and comedian

1933 David Bellamy, English botanist

Deaths

1862 John Tyler, 10th US president

1936 Rudyard Kipling, English author

1954 Sydney Greenstreet, British film actor

1963 Hugh Gaitskell, British statesman

1980 Cecil Beaton, English photographer and designer

1988 George Markstein, British author

1993 Jean Plaidy, English historical novelist

1995 Johann Butenandt, German biochemist

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Events

1419 Rouen surrendered to Henry V, completing his conquest of Normandy.

1764 John Wilkes was expelled from the British House of Commons for seditious libel.

1793 King Louis XVI was tried by the French Convention, found guilty of treason and sentenced to the guillotine.

1853 Verdi's opera Il Trovatore was first staged in Rome.

1915 More than 20 people were killed when German zeppelins bombed England for the first time; the bombs were dropped on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.

1942 The Japanese invaded Burma (now Myanmar).

1966 Indira Gandhi became prime minister of India.

1969 In protest against the Russian invasion of 1968, Czech student Jan Palach set himself alight in Prague's Wenceslas Square.

1984 The Islamic Conference Organization voted to invite Egypt back to membership, which was suspended since the Camp David accord.

1993 IBM announced a loss of $4.97 billion for 1992, the largest single-year loss in US corporate history.

1995 Russian forces overwhelmed the resistance forces in Chechnya.

Births

1736 James Watt, Scottish inventor

1809 Edgar Allan Poe, US author and poet

1839 Paul Cézanne, French painter

1943 Janis Joplin, US rock singer

1946 Dolly Parton, US country singer

1966 Stefan Edberg, Swedish tennis player

Deaths

1576 Hans Sachs, German poet and composer

1729 William Congreve, English dramatist

1833 Louis Hérold, French composer

1865 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French journalist and anarchist

1990 Bhagwam Shree Rajneesh, Indian guru

[Raistlin]

Births

1763 Theobald Wolfe Tone, Irish nationalist

1896 George Burns, US comedian and actor

1920 Federico Fellini, Italian film director

1926 Patricia Neal, US film actress

1930 Edwin Aldrin, US astronaut

1946 Malcolm McLaren, British rock impresario

Deaths

1837 John Soane, English architect

1900 John Ruskin, English art critic and writer

1936 George V, King of Great Britain

1984 Johnny Weissmuller, US film actor and swimmer

1990 Barbara Stanwyck, US film actress

1993 Audrey Hepburn, British film actress

Events

1265 The first English parliament met in Westminster Hall, convened by the Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort.

1841 Hong Kong was ceded by China and occupied by the British.

1886 The Mersey Railway Tunnel was officially opened by the Prince of Wales.

1892 The game of basketball was first played at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1942 At the Wannsee Conference in Germany, Nazi leaders and senior officials met in a Berlin suburb to discuss 'the Final Solution of the Jewish Question'; that is, the destruction of European jewry.

1944 The RAF dropped 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.

1945 German forces in Hungary surrender to the Soviet army.

1948 assassination attempt was made on the life of Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi, India.

1961 John F Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th US president, and the first Roman Catholic to hold this office.

1969 Richard Nixon took the oath as 37th US president.

1972 The number of unemployed in Britain exceeded 1 million.

1981 Fifty-two Americans, held hostage in the US embassy in Teheran for 444 days by followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, were released.

1987 Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy in the Middle East, disappeared on a peace mission in Beirut, Lebanon.

1997 William Jefferson Clinton was sworn in for his second term as US president.

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Births

1813 John Charles Fremont, US explorer

1824 Thomas Jonathan ('Stonewall') Jackson, US Confederate general

1905 Christian Dior, French couturier

1924 Benny Hill, English comedian

1940 jack Nicklaus, US golfer

1941 Placido Domingo, Spanish operatic tenor

Deaths

1901 Elisha Gray, US inventor

1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Russian leader

1932 Lytton Strachey, English critic and biographer

1950 George Orwell, British novelist

1959 Cecil B De Mille, US film director

Events

1793 Louis XVI, King of France, was guillotined in Place de la Révolution.

1846 The first issue of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens, was published.

1911 The first Monte Carlo car rally was held; it was won seven days later by French racer Henri Rougier.

1919 Sinn Féin MPs elected to the Westminster parliament proclaimed an Irish Republic and elected a president (Éamon de Valera) and ministers; meanwhile the Irish Republican Army (IRA) attacked British authorities in Ireland.

1941 The British communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, was banned due to wartime restrictions.

1954 The world's first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched.

1976 Concorde inaugurated its commercial service with simultaneous take-offs, from Paris to Rio de Janeiro and from London to Bahrain.

1994 Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted by a jury in Virginia, USA of maliciously and unlawfully wounding her husband by severing his penis, by reason of temporary insanity.

1997 The US House of Representatives fined House Speaker Newt Gingrich $300,000 for using tax-exempt donations for political purposes and submitting false evidence to the House Ethics Committee.

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Events

1771 The Falkland Islands were ceded to Britain by Spain.

1879 British troops were massacred by the Zulus at Isandhlwana.

1905 Insurgent workers were fired on in St Petersburg, Russia, resulting in 'Bloody Sunday'.

1924 Ramsay MacDonald took office as Britain's first Labour prime minister.

1959 British world racing champion Mike Hawthorn was killed while driving on the Guildford bypass.

1972 The United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, and Denmark joined the Common Market.

1973 In the USA, the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, legalized abortion (in the first six months of pregnancy) in all states.

1973 US boxer George Foreman knocked out Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, becoming the world heavyweight boxing champion.

1992 Rebel soldiers seized the national radio station in Kinshasa, Zaire's capital, and broadcast a demand for the government's resignation.

1995 Two Palestinian suicide bombers from the Gaza Strip detonated powerful explosives at a military transit point in central Israel, killing 19 Israelis, and themselves.

1996 A mass grave containing nearly 3,000 Muslim and Croat victims of Serb ethnic cleansing was discovered near the Bosnian town of Brcko.

Births

1440 Ivan III (the Great), Grand Duke of Muscovy

1561 Francis Bacon, English politician and philosopher

1788 Lord Byron, English poet

1875 D W Griffith, US film producer and director

1940 John Hurt, English actor

1948 George Foreman, US boxer

Deaths

1719 William Paterson, Scottish financier

1900 David Edward Hughes, English inventor

1901 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain

1973 Lyndon B Johnson, 36th US president

1978 Herbert Sutcliffe, English cricketer

1985 Arthur Bryant, British historian

1993 Abe Kobo, Japanese novelist and playwright

1993 Brett Weston, US photographer

1994 Jean-Louis Barrault, French actor and stage director

1994 Telly Savalas, US actor

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Events

1556 An earthquake in Shanxi Province, China, is thought to have killed some 830,000 people.

1571 The Royal Exchange in London, founded by financier Thomas Gresham, was opened by Queen Elizabeth I.

1924 The first Labour government was formed, under Ramsay MacDonald.

1943 The British captured Tripoli from the Germans.

1960 The US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste, designed by Dr Piccard, descended to a record depth of 10,750 m /35,820 ft in the Pacific Ocean.

1978 Sweden banned aerosol sprays because of damage to environment, the first country to do so.

1985 The proceedings of the House of Lords were televised for the first time.

1997 A British woman received a record £186,000 damages for Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).

Births

1783 Stendhal, French novelist

1832 Edouard Manet, French painter

1898 Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Russian film director

1899 Alfred Denning, British judge and former Master of the Rolls

1928 Jeanne Moreau, French actress

1957 Princess Caroline of Monaco

Deaths

1806 William Pitt the Younger, British prime minister

1931 Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina

1944 Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter

1947 Pierre Bonnard, French painter

1976 Paul Robeson, US actor and singer

1989 Salvador Dali, Spanish painter and sculptor

1994 Brian Redhead, English journalist and broadcaster

[Raistlin]

Events

1848 James Marshall was the first to discover gold in California, at Sutter's Mill near Coloma.

1916 The US Supreme Court ruled that income tax is unconstitutional.

1916 Conscription was introduced in Britain.

1935 Beer in cans was first sold, in Virginia, USA, by the Kreuger Brewing Company.

1952 Vincent Massey was the first Canadian to be appointed governor-general of Canada (-Sept 1959).

1962 French film director François Truffaut's Jules et Jim premiered in Paris.

1978 A Russian satellite crashed near Yellow Knife in Canada's Northwest Territory.

1990 Japan launched the first probe to be sent to the Moon since 1976; it placed a small satellite in lunar orbit (March).

1991 More than 15,000 Allied air sorties were flown in the Gulf War, with 23 aircraft lost.

Births

AD 76 Hadrian, Roman emperor

1712 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia

1917 Ernest Borgnine, US film actor

1928 Desmond Morris, English zoologist and writer

1941 Neil Diamond, US singer and songwriter

1961 Nastassja Kinski, German film actress

Deaths

AD 41 Caligula, Roman emperor, assassinated

1895 Randolph Churchill, British politician

1920 Amadeo Modigliani, Italian artist

1965 Winston Churchill, British prime minister

1983 George Cukor, US film director

1993 Thurgood Marshall, US jurist and civil-rights leader

[Raistlin]

Events

1504 The English Parliament passed statutes against retainers and liveries, to curb private warfare.

1917 The USA purchased the Danish West Indies (now the Virgin Islands) for $25 million.

1924 The 1st Winter Olympic Games were inaugurated in Chamonix in the French Alps.

1938 Due to intense sunspot activity, the aurora borealis, or 'northern lights', were seen as far south as western Europe.

1971 Idi Amin led a coup that deposed Milton Obote and became president of Uganda.

1971 US court, Charles Manson and others were found guilty of murdering actress Sharon Tate and four others.

1981 Jiang Qing, Mao's widow, was tried for treason and received a death sentence, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment.

1985 South Africa's new three-chamber Parliament for Whites, Indians, and Coloureds.

1997 Melbourne, becoming the youngest grand slam tennis champion this century.

Births

1627 Robert Boyle, Irish physicist and chemist

1759 Robert Burns, Scottish poet

1874 William Somerset Maugham, English author

1882 Virginia Woolf, English author

1886 Wilhelm Furtwängler, German conductor

1928 Edvard Shevardnadze, Russian politician

Deaths

AD98 Marcus Cocceius Nerva, Roman emperor

1586 Lucas Cranach the Younger, German painter

1855 Dorothy Wordsworth, English writer

1947 Al Capone, US gangster

1990 Ava Gardner, US film actress

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Events

1500 Vicente Yáñez Pinzón discovered Brazil.

1736 Stanislaus I formally abdicated as King of Poland.

1788 The first convicts from England land in Australia.

1837 Michigan became a US state.

1841 Hong Kong was proclaimed a British sovereign territory.

1871 England's Rugby Football Union was founded in London, by 20 clubs.

1885 General Charles Gordon was killed by the forces of the Mahdi at Khartoum.

1905 The Cullinan diamond, weighing 114 lbs, was found by Captain Wells at the Premier Mine, near Pretoria, South Africa.

1939 In the Spanish Civil War, Franco's forces, with Italian aid, took Barcelona.

1950 India became a republic within the Commonwealth.

1965 Hindi was made the official language of India.

1982 Unemployment in Britain passed 3 million.

1992 Russian president Boris Yeltsin announced that his country would stop targeting US cities with nuclear weapons.

Births

1880 Douglas MacArthur, US general

1908 Stephane Grappelli, French jazz violinist

1913 Jimmy Van Heusen, US popular composer

1918 Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanian dictator

1925 Paul Newman, US film actor

1928 Eartha Kitt, US singer

1928 Roger Vadim, French film director

Deaths

1823 Edward Jenner, English physician

1885 Charles George Gordon, British general

1891 Nikolaus August Otto, German engineer

1973 Edward G Robinson, US film actor

1979 Nelson Rockefeller, US statesman

1992 José Ferrer, US actor

[Raistlin]

Events

1191 Richard I 'the Lion Heart' conquered Cyprus from its independent Greek ruler, then joined the Crusaders at Acre in N W Israel.

1449 Afonso V of Portugal defeated a rebellion by his brother, Peter, who was killed, at Alfarrobeira.

1631 Flemish commander Count Tilly's imperialist army sacked Magdeburg; terrible carnage ensued and the city caught fire, leaving only the cathedral standing.

1927 By the treaty of Jeddah Britain recognized the independence of Saudi Arabia.

1941 German forces invaded Crete.

1946 A bill for nationalization of British coal mines passed the Commons stage.

1950 The US Senate committee denied Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of Communist infiltration of the State Department.

1990 Romania held its first free elections since 1937; the National Salvation Front won two-thirds of seats and Ion Iliescu was elected president.

1995 Italy's anti-corruption magistrates in Milan requested the indictment of former Premier Berlusconi on bribery charges.

1996 Iraqi and UN officials signed an agreement providing for the limited sale by Iraq of oil worth up to £2 billion, to provide funds for humanitarian supplies.

Births

1444 Donato d'Agnolo Bramante de Urbino, Italian architect

1444 Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter

1799 Honoré de Balzac, French novelist

1803 Thomas Lovell Beddoes, English poet and physiologist

1806 John Stuart Mill, English philosopher

1851 Emil Berliner, German telephone and recording pioneer

1908 James Stewart, US film actor

1915 Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader

Deaths

1444 St Bernardino of Siena

1506 Christopher Columbus, Genoese navigator

1509 Caterina Sforza, Countess of Forli

1726 Nicholas Brady, Anglican clergyman

1864 John Clare, English poet

1896 Clara Schumann, German pianist

1956 Max Beerbohm, English writer and caricaturist

1975 Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor

[Raistlin]

Births

1841 Henry Morton Stanley, British journalist and explorer

1884 Auguste Piccard, Swiss balloonist and deep-sea explorer

1892 Ernst Lubitsch, US film director

1921 Jackson Pollock, US artist

1936 Alan Alda, US film actor and director

1948 Mikhail Baryshnikov, Russian ballet dancer

Deaths

814 Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor

1596 Francis Drake, English buccaneer and explorer

1613 Thomas Bodley, English scholar and diplomat

1928 Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Spanish writer and politician

1939 W B Yeats, Irish poet

1988 Klaus Fuchs, German spy

Event

1521 The Diet of Worms began, at which Protestant reformer Luther was declared an outlaw by the Roman Catholic church.

1547 Edward VI, aged nine, succeeded as King of England (-1553) on the death of Henry VIII.

1788 The first British penal settlement was founded at Botany Bay.

1807 London became the world's first city to be illuminated by gas light, when the lamps on Pall Mall were lit.

1871 Franco-Prussian War, Paris fell to the Prussians after a five-month siege.

1918 The Bolsheviks occupied Helsinki, Finland.

1935 Iceland became the first country to introduce legalized abortion.

1942 El Alamein.

1986 The US space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lift-off from Cape Canaveral, killing five men and two women on board.

1993 Solicitors for British prime minister John Major issued writs for libel against the New Statesman and Scallywag for publishing stories detailing rumours of an affair between Major and Clare Latimer, a caterer.

[Raistlin]

Events

1728 John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was first performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, London.

1848 Greenwich Mean Time was adopted by Scotland.

1856 Britain's highest military decoration, the Victoria Cross, was founded by Queen Victoria.

1861 Kansas became a US state.

1886 The first successful petrol-driven motorcar, built by Karl Benz, was patented.

1916 In World War I, Paris was bombed by German zeppelins for the first time.

1919 US states ratified the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing the manufacture, transport, and sale of alcoholic drinks (to take effect on 16 Jan 1920).

1942 The BBC Radio 4 programme 'Desert Island Discs', devised and presented by Roy Plomley, was first broadcast.

1963 Britain was refused entry into the EEC.

1976 A male model, Norman Scott, alleged in court that he was the homosexual lover of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe in the 1960s.

1978 The use of environmentally damaging aerosol sprays was banned in Sweden.

1991 In the Gulf War, Iraq began its first major ground offensive into Saudi Arabia.

Births

1737 Thomas Paine, English political writer and reformer

1880 W C Fields, US film actor and comedian

1915 Victor Mature, US film actor

1923 Paddy Chayefsky, US writer

1939 Germaine Greer, Australian feminist and author

1943 Katharine Ross, US film actress

Deaths

1820 George III, King of England

1899 Alfred Sisley, English painter

1928 Douglas Haig, British field marshal

1962 Fritz Kreisler, US violinist

1964 Alan Ladd, US film actor

1980 Jimmy Durante, US comedian

[Raistlin]

Events

1649 The Commonwealth of England was established upon the execution of Charles I.

1790 The first purpose-built lifeboat was launched on the River Tyne.

1889 Rudolph, crown prince of Austria, and his 17-year-old mistress, Baroness Marie Vetsera, were found shot in his hunting lodge at Mayerling, near Vienna.

1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

1958 Yves Saint Laurent, aged 22, held his first major fashion show in Paris.

1968 The Vietcong launched the Tet offensive against South Vietnamese cities.

1972 'Bloody Sunday'.

1994 In chess, Peter Leko became the world's youngest-ever grand master.

1995 The UN Security Council authorized the deployment of a 6,000-member UN peace-keeping contingent to assume security responsibilities in Haiti from US forces.

1995 Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health announced that clinical trials had demonstrated the effectiveness of the first preventative treatment for sickle cell anaemia.

1996 Gino Gallagher, the reputed leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, was shot and killed as he queued for his unemployment benefit, arousing fears of feuding within the INLA.

1997 A New Jersey judge ruled that the unborn child of a female prisoner must have legal representation; he denied the prisoner bail reduction to enable her to leave the jail and obtain an abortion.

Births

1860 Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist and writer

1882 Franklin D Roosevelt, 32nd US president

1932 Gene Hackman, US film actor

1937 Vanessa Redgrave, English actress

1938 Boris Spassky, Russian chess champion

1951 Phil Collins, English pop singer and drummer

Deaths

1649 Charles I, King of England

1934 Frank Doubleday, US publisher and editor

1948 Orville Wright, US aviation pioneer

1948 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian leader, assassinated

1963 Francis Poulenc, French composer

1982 Stanley Holloway, English actor and singer

1995 Gerald Durrell, English naturalist, writer, and zoo curator

[Raistlin]

Events

1606 The executions of Winter, Rockwood, Keys, and Guy Fawkes, the Gunpowder Conspirators, took place in London.

1747 The first clinic specializing in the treatment of venereal diseases was opened at London Dock Hospital.

1858 The Great Eastern, the five-funnelled steamship designed by Brunel, was launched at Millwall.

1876 All Native American Indians were ordered to move into reservations.

1929 The USSR exiled Leon Trotsky; he found asylum in Mexico.

1943 The German Sixth Army surrenders to the Soviet Army at Stalingrad.

1946 A new constitution in Yugoslavia created six constituent republics (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia) subordinated to a central authority, on the model of the USSR.

1950 In the USA, President Truman instructed the Atomic Energy Commission to proceed with development of the hydrogen bomb.

1958 Explorer I, the first US Earth satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral.

1971 Telephone service between East and West Berlin was re-established after 19 years.

1976 Population of the world reached 4 billion.

1983 The wearing of seat belts in cars became compulsory in Britain.

1994 Gerry Adams, president of Irish republican party Sinn Féin, was granted a visa to visit the USA.

1995 US President Clinton invoked presidential emergency authority to provide a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy.

Births

1797 Franz Schubert, Austrian composer

1872 Zane Grey, US novelist

1882 Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina

1893 Freya Stark, English traveller and writer

1923 Norman Mailer, US novelist

1929 Jean Simmons, English film actress

Deaths

1788 Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender to the English throne

1933 John Galsworthy, English novelist

1944 Jean Giraudoux, French novelist and dramatist

1951 C B Cochran, British theatrical producer

1956 A A Milne, English author

1974 Samuel Goldwyn, US film producer

1995 George Abbott, US playwright, theatre director, and producer