IT HAPPENED TODAY
1859:
The world’s first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake.
1883:
Krakatoa, a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java, erupted with thousands killed by the resulting tidal waves.
1899:
CS Forester, English novelist, was born in Cairo. He published The African Queen in 1935 and two years later created a series of historical novels with his most popular character, Captain Horatio Hornblower.
1912:
Tarzan Of The Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (above), first went into print as a magazine serial.
1966:
Francis Chichester left Plymouth in Gipsy Moth IV on his single-handed voyage around the world.
1967:
The man who helped make The Beatles, Brian Epstein, died in his London home from an overdose of sleeping pills.
1975:
The last descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, died aged 83.
1979:
Earl Mountbatten (above), the Queen’s cousin, was killed when the IRA exploded a remote-controlled 50lb bomb on his boat Shadow V off the coast of Co Sligo, Ireland.
2009:
English teenager Michael Perham, aged 17 years, five months, became the youngest person to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world by sailboat, breaking the previous record by two months.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
An owl caused serious problems for a police force’s computer and phone systems after it flew into power cables.
BIRTHDAYS:
Tuesday Weld, actress, 75; Barbara Bach, actress, 72; John Lloyd, former tennis player, 64; Glen Matlock, rock musician, 62; Bernhard Langer, golfer, 61; Gerhard Berger, former motor racing driver, 59; Siobhan Redmond, actress, 60; Denise Lewis (above), Olympic heptathlon gold medallist, 46.