On this day...

622: The traditional starting day of the Islamic Era, when a persecuted Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina.

1723: Sir Joshua Reynolds, English portrait painter who was elected first President of the Royal Academy in 1768, was born.

1918: The last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, was murdered by the Bolsheviks along with his entire family in the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg. 1935: The world’s first parking meters went into service in Oklahoma, devised by newspaper editor Carlton Magee.

1945: The first atomic bomb was detonated at an airbase in the desert of New Mexico.

1953: Hilaire Belloc, writer of many talents, died. He had written his own epitaph, which read: “When I am dead, I hope it may be said, his sins were scarlet but his books were read.”

1970: The first state of emergency in Britain since 1926 was called by Prime Minister Edward Heath as dockers went on strike.