IT HAPPENED TODAY

OCTOBER 11

1399: The Order of the Bath was constituted.

1521: Pope Leo X conferred the title of Defender of the Faith on Henry VIII. Twelve years later Henry broke with Rome to marry Anne Boleyn (above).

1844: Baked beans magnate HJ Heinz was born of German parents in Pittsburgh.

1899: The Boer War began between the British Empire and the Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

1919: The first airline meals were served on a Handley-Page flight from London to Paris. They were prepacked lunch boxes at three shillings each (15p).

1957: The Radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, planned by Sir Bernard Lovell, went into operation.

1958: The BBC TV sports programme Grandstand was first transmitted.

1973: The start of the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East.

1982: English ship Mary Rose, which sank during an engagement with France in 1545, is raised at Portsmouth, England.

1986: Nuclear weapons negotiations between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev (above) opened in Reykjavik. They ended in failure.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Two astronauts from the US and Russia were reported safe after an emergency landing in Kazakhstan following the failure of a rocket taking them to the International Space Station.

BIRTHDAYS: Sir Bobby Charlton, former footballer, 82; John Nettles, actor, 76; Alan Pascoe, former athlete, 72; David Morse, actor, 66; Dawn French (above), comedienne, 62; Joan Cusack, actress, 57; Stephen Moyer, actor, 50; Emily Deschanel, actress, 43; Michelle Wie, golfer, 30.