ON THIS DAY

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, 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) died. His best known works include Animal Farm and 1984.

1954: The USA launched the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclearpowered submarine.

1966: The Monte Carlo rally ended in uproar over the disqualification of the British cars expected to fill the first four places.

1976: British and French Concordes made their maiden flights from London to Bahrain and Paris to Rio de Janeiro.

1981: Fifty-two American hostages held at the US embassy in Tehran for more than 14 months were freed after 444 days.

1991: Iraq threatened to use shotdown allied airmen as human shields against bomb attacks.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Greta Thunberg and three other young climate activists scolded the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum for not doing enough to deal with the climate emergency.

BIRTHDAYS: Ken Maginnis, Baron Maginnis of Drumglass, politician,

83; Jack Nicklaus, former golfer, 81; Placido Domingo, tenor, 80; Martin Shaw, actor, 76; Jill Eikenberry, actress, 74; Billy Ocean, singer,

71; Geena Davis, actress, 65; Ian Salisbury, former cricketer, 51; Nicky Butt, former footballer, 46; Emma Bunton, singer, 45; Philip Neville, former footballer, 44.