On this day ...

DECEMBER 26

1891: Novelist Henry Miller, who wrote books Tropic Of Cancer and Tropic Of Capricorn, was born in New York.

1893: Mao Tse-Tung (or Zedong), Chinese Communist leader, was born in the Hunan province.

1898: Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.

1906: The world’s first feature film, The Story Of The Kelly Gang, was screened in Melbourne.

1908: Jack Johnson became the first African-American boxer to win the world heavyweight title, knocking out Tommy Burns in Round 14 in Sydney, Australia.

1943: The German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk by the Royal Navy.

1974: American comedian Jack Benny, above, died.

2004: A giant 9.1-magnitude quake and tsunami killed 230,000 people in about a dozen nations across southern Asia.

2006: Former US president Gerald Ford, who replaced Richard Nixon in 1974, died at his home in California, aged 93.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A Jack Russell had to be rushed to the vets after managing to glue its teeth together by chewing on a glossy leaflet. BIRTHDAYS: Jane Lapotaire, actress, 74; Dermot Murnaghan, newscaster, 61; Lars Ulrich, drummer, 55; Jared Leto, above, actor, 47; Jerome “Geronimo” Le Banner, kickboxer, 46; Shane Meadows, filmmaker, 46; Chris Daughtry, musician, 39; Yohan Blake, sprinter, 29.