On this day ...

DECEMBER 22

1715: James Stuart, the ‘Old Pretender’, landed at Peterhead to lead a Jacobite rebellion. It failed.

1716: Lincoln’s Inn Theatre, London, put on England’s first pantomime, which included Harlequin, Columbine and Pantaloon.

1858: Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer of popular operas including La Boheme, Madame Butterfly and Turandot, which he never completed, was born in Lucca.

1894: Alfred Dreyfus, French officer found guilty of selling military secrets, was sent to Devil’s Island. Innocent of the crime, he was eventually exonerated.

1895: Wilhelm Roentgen made the first radiograph, or X-ray - of his wife’s hand.

1916: The British Ministry of Pensions was established.

1938: A fish identified as a coelacanth, thought to have been extinct for 65 million years, was caught by a fisherman off the coast of South Africa.

1989: A Romanian revolution overthrew President Nicolae Ceausescu, above, ; Ceausescu’s son Nicu was arrested.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: In London’s Belgravia, Grosvenor Crescent was identified as the UK’s most expensive street. BIRTHDAYS: Noel Edmonds, TV presenter, above, 70; Ralph Fiennes, actor, 56; Dan Petrescu, former footballer and manager, 51; Gary Anderson, darts player, 48; Vanessa Paradis, actress/ model, 46; Leigh Halfpenny, Welsh rugby player, 30; Jordin Sparks, singer, 29.