ON THIS DAY
1757: The Battle of Plassey took place in Bengal, with victory for the British, led by Clive of India, over Indian forces laying the foundations of the British Empire in India.
1763: Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon, was born on the French island of Martinique as Marie Rose Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie.
1848: Adolphe Sax was awarded a patent for the saxophone.
1860: On St John’s Eve, Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky completed St John’s Night On A Bare Mountain. After his death, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov edited it and removed St John from the title.
1872: The first practical typewriter was patented by Christopher Sholes in Milwaukee, USA. Its keys were in alphabetical order, but in November they were changed to the Universal Keyboard, in the same order of type as a printer’s case.
1894: Edward VIII, the king who abdicated for the love of Wallis Simpson, was born in Richmond, Surrey.
1902: Edward VII founded the Order of Merit for his Coronation Honours. One of the first recipients was Viscount Kitchener. The order is limited in number to 24 at any one time.
1951: British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the Soviet Union.
1956: General Gamal Abdel Nasser became Egypt’s first president after an election in which voting was compulsory, and he was the only candidate.