IT HAPPENED TODAY
1453:
The Hundred Years War ended when the French defeated the English at Castillon.
1717:
George I, Hanoverian King of England, held a public concert on the Thames for Handel )to conduct his hour-long Water Music. The king enjoyed it so much he asked for two complete encores.
1841:
The first issue of the magazine Punch was published in London.
1889:
Erle Stanley Gardner, US author and lawyer who created Perry Mason, was born.
1917:
The British Royal Family adopted the name House of Windsor in place of House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1945:
The Potsdam Conference began with world leaders Truman, Stalin and Churchill planning for the future peaceattheendoftheSecondWorld War.
1975:
Walt Disney’s Disneyland
was opened in California.
Billie Holiday, jazz singer — probably the greatest of them all — was arrested on her death bed in hospital for possession of narcotics. She died later that day.
An international space link-up between US astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts took place when they crossed over from their docked spacecraft and shook hands 140 miles above Britain’s south coast.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
Scientists had discovered two genes linked to a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s, which could help in the hunt to find a cure for the disease, it was revealed.
BIRTHDAYS:
Tim Brooke-Taylor, comic actor, 78; Peter Sissons, newscaster, 76; Alun Armstrong, actor, 72; Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
71; Wayne Sleep, dancer, 70; David Hasselhoff, actor, 66; Darren Day, actor, singer and television presenter, 50; Konnie Huq, TV presenter, 43.