ON THIS DAY

■■ST CRISPIN AND CRISPINIAN’S DAY – Crispin and Crispinian were brother shoemakers who were martyred by being pricked to death by cobblers’ awls. They are the patrons of shoemakers.

■ 1400: Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, died.

■■1415: The Battle of Agincourt took place at which the heavily outnumbered English army of Henry V defeated the French.

■ 1825: Johann Strauss the Younger, Austrian composer of waltzes such as The Blue Danube and operettas including Die Fledermaus, was born in Vienna.

■■1881: Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and creator of Cubism, was born in Malaga, Andalusia.

■ 1900: Britain annexed the former Boer South African Republic and renamed it the Transvaal Colony.

■■1936: The first radio request programme was broadcast. A station in Berlin introduced You Ask – We Play.

■ 1951: Margaret Thatcher was, at 26, the youngest candidate to stand at a general election. The Tories won overall by a narrow margin but she failed to win her seat.

■■1961: The first edition of Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, was published.

■ 1964: President Kaunda took power in Zambia.

■■1983: US Marines invaded Grenada.

■ ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Britain’s oldest person died at the age of 112.

BIRTHDAYS: Alan Smith, former cricketer, 85; Anne Tyler, novelist, 80; Fred Housego, TV personality, 77; Jon Anderson, singer (Yes), 77; Glynis Barber, actress, 66; Phil Daniels, actor, 63; Michael Lynagh, former rugby player, 58; Mathieu Amalric, French actor, 56; Zadie Smith, author, 46; Natasha Khan, Bat for Lashes singer, 41; Shaun Wright-Phillips, footballer, 40; Katy Perry, American singer, 37, above.