ON THIS DAY

1861: London’s first tram cars, drawn by horses, began operating from Bayswater, designed by a Mr Train from New York.

1919: In Italy, fascism became an organised political movement following the founding of Fasci di Combattimento by Benito Mussolini a month earlier.

1921: Donald Campbell, who emulated his father, Sir Malcolm, by breaking land and water-speed records, was born in Horley, Surrey.

1966: The first official meeting for 400 years between the Catholic and the Anglican churches took place in Rome between Pope Paul VI and Dr Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

1971: Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, proclaimed its independence.

1981: Englishman Mike Hailwood, nine times world motor cycling champion, died two days after a car crash in which his nine-year-old daughter was also killed.

1981: All animal transportation on the Isle of Wight and in southern Hampshire was banned in a successful attempt to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. 1989: A 1,000-foot diameter asteroid missed the Earth by a mere 400,000 miles.

1991: In a speech to Conservatives at Southport, John Major outlined plans for his Citizen’s Charter.

2001: The Mir space station was disposed of. It broke up in the atmosphere before falling into the Pacific near Fiji.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Joe Wicks’ attempt to keep the nation’s children fit during the coronavirus crisis got off to a flying start, with his first workout racking up hundreds of thousands of hits on Youtube.