ITHAPPENED TODAY
1802:
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was published.
1831:
George Pullman, US industrialist and inventor who designed the deluxe railway carriages that bear his name, was born.
1847:
Alexander Graham Bell (above), inventor of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh.
1875:
Bizet’s Carmen was first performed at the Opera Comique in Paris. Critics called it “painful, blatant, noisy and eminently repulsive”, and the composer died broken-hearted three months later.
1911:
Jean Harlow (below), the platinum blonde actress, was born Harlean Carpenter in Kansas City.
1931:
The US Congress adopted The Star-Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key, as the national anthem.
1961:
Edwin Bush was Britain’s first suspected criminal to be identified by means of an identikit picture.
1974:
A Turkish Airlines DC-10 plane crashed near Paris, killing more than 340 people, including members of an English rugby club.
1985:
The miners’ strike came to an end, almost a year after it had begun.
1991:
Estonia and Latvia voted for independence from the Soviet Union.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
Britain’s most committed pub-crawlers chalked up their 20,000th boozer — three decades after setting off to tour 300 inns listed on a brewery map.
BIRTHDAYS:
Miranda Richardson, actress, 60; Fatima Whitbread, former athlete, 57; Charlie Brooker, screenwriter, 47; Darren Anderton, former footballer, 46; Ronan Keating, pop singer, 41; Alex Zane, television presenter, 39; Jessica Biel (above), actress/model, 36.