IT HAPPENED TODAY
AD 304:
Saint Agnes was martyred — burnt at the stake at the age of 13 when she refused to marry the husband chosen by her father.
1793:
Louis XVI, King of France since 1774, was guillotined after being found guilty of treason.
1846:
The Daily News, the newspaper edited by Charles Dickens (above), was first published.
1907:
Taxi cabs were officially recognised in Britain.
1911:
The first Monte Carlo Rally began.
1924:
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, father of the Russian Revolution, died of a brain haemorrhage at Gorki, outside Moscow.
1950:
George Orwell (pen name of British author Eric Arthur Blair, below) died. His best known works include Animal Farm and 1984.
1954:
Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine.
1976:
British and French Concordes made their maiden flights from London to Bahrain and Paris to Rio de Janeiro.
1991:
The USA launched the USS
Iraq threatened to use shot-down allied airmen as human shields against bomb attacks.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
A stone circle thought to be thousands of years old turned out to be a lot more modern after a former farm owner admitted building the replica in the 1990s.
BIRTHDAYS:
Ken Maginnis, Baron Maginnis of Drumglass, politician, 82; Jack Nicklaus, former golfer, 80; Placido Domingo, tenor, 79; Martin Shaw, actor, 75; Jill Eikenberry, actress, 73; Billy Ocean, singer,
70; Geena Davis, actress, 64; Ian Salisbury, former cricketer, 50; Nicky Butt, former footballer, 44; Emma Bunton (above) singer, 44; Philip Neville, former footballer, 43.