Special feature on World Mental Health Day
1813: Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (above) was born in Le Roncole.
1877: Motoring pioneer William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, was born in Worcester.
1881: The Savoy Theatre, the first public building to be lit by electricity, opened with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.
1886: The dinner jacket made its first public appearance when it was worn by its creator at a ball at the Tuxedo Park Country Club, New York.
1903: Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union to fight for female emancipation in Britain.
1957: A major radiation leak was detected at the Windscale nuclear plant in Cumbria, after an accident three days earlier.
1961: A volcano erupted on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha and the whole population was brought to Britain.
1972: Sir John Betjeman was appointed Poet Laureate.
1975: After divorce in the early 1970s, followed by several reconciliations and separations, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (above) remarried in a village in Botswana. They divorced the following year.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duchess of Cambridge opened the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new photography centre, in her first visit since becoming the museum’s patron.
BIRTHDAYS: Murray Walker, former motor racing commentator, 96; Nicholas Parsons, radio/TV personality, 96; Judith Chalmers, TV presenter, 84; Charles Dance, actor, 73; Chris Tarrant, broadcaster, 73; Midge Ure, singer, 66; Fiona Fullerton (above), actress, 63; Martin Kemp, actor/musician, 58; Tony Adams, former footballer/ manager, 53; Sir Matthew Pinsent, Olympic gold medal rower, 49.