ON THIS DAY
■■ 1552: Death of Spanish missionary Francis Xavier, who helped Ignatius Loyola found the Jesuits. ■■ 1836: Three people died at Great Corby, near Carlisle in Cumbria, in the first fatal railway derailment. ■■ 1894: Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and other works, died of a stroke at his villa in Samoa. ■■ 1910: Neon lighting, developed by French physicist Georges Claude, was displayed for the first time at the Paris Motor Show. ■■ 1919: French Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir died near Cannes. He was 78.
■■ 1926: Novelist Agatha Christie disappeared from her Surrey home. She was discovered on December 14 staying under an assumed name at a hotel in Harrogate but had no recollection of how she got there.
■■ 1967: The first heart transplant was performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard and a team of surgeons in South Africa.
■■ 1984: More than 3,000 people died in a chemical factory spillage at Bhopal, central India.
■■ 1988: Health minister Edwina Currie claimed that most of Britain’s egg production was affected by salmonella.
■■ 2012: St James’s Palace announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expecting their first baby.
■■ ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The UK prepared to launch its largest scale vaccination campaign in history.
■■ BIRTHDAYS: Jean-Luc Godard, film director, 91; Paul Nicholas, actor, 77; Ozzy Osbourne, rock singer, 73; Daryl Hannah, actress, 61; Julianne Moore, actress, 61; Daniel Bedingfield, singer/ songwriter, 42; Anna Chlumsky, actress, 41; Amanda Seyfried, actress, 36.
The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%