ON THIS DAY

■ 1307: William Tell is reputed to have shot the apple off his son’s head on this day.

■ 1558: Mary I, “Bloody Mary”, died and was succeeded by Elizabeth I.

■ 1796: Catherine the Great of Russia died of a stroke, aged 67.

■ 1882: The Royal Astronomer witnessed an Unidentified Flying Object from the Greenwich Royal Observatory. It was described as a “strange celestial visitor – a circular object glowing green”.

■ 1887: Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (Monty), above, who led the Eighth Army to victory in North Africa in the Second World War, was born in London.

■ 1955: Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into its water supply.

■ 1959: Two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty-free goods in Britain.

■ 1970: The Sun pictured its first Page Three girl, Stephanie Rahn.

■ 1988: Franz Kafka’s manuscript of his classic novel The Trial (1925) was sold at Sotheby’s in London for £1m, a world record for a modern literary text. Kafka had died in poverty the year before.

■ 2009: The unfinished novel The Original Of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov was published 32 years after his death despite him asking in his will for the manuscript to be burned.

■ ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Footballer Marcus Rashford launched a book club so that all children could experience the escapism of reading.

■ BIRTHDAYS: Martin Scorsese, film director, 79; Lauren Hutton, actress, 78; Danny DeVito, actor and film director, 77; Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, actress, 63; Terry Fenwick, former footballer and manager, 62; Jonathan Ross, broadcaster, 61; Rachel McAdams, actress, 43.

■ The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%