ON THIS DAY

● 1826: John Wisden, original compiler of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack of cricket statistics, price one shilling (5p), was born in Brighton. He had a sports goods shop in Leicester Square, London.

● 1847: Jesse James, American outlaw, was born near Kansas City. With his elder brother Frank, he led the first gang to carry out train robberies.

● 1963: Christine Keeler, one of the girls at the centre of the Profumo scandal, was arrested and charged with perjury.

● 1972: Palestinian terrorists, members of the Black September Group, killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

● 1980: The 10-mile St Gotthard road tunnel in Switzerland, the longest in the world, was opened.

● 1982: Douglas Bader, famed pilot with false legs and leader of “the few” – the several hundred RAF pilots who defeated the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain – died.

● 1987: No Sex Please, We’re British closed after 6,671 performances over 16 years – the longest running theatre comedy in the world.

● 1991: The USSR was no more as the Congress of People’s Deputies in Moscow scrapped the old power structures built up over 70 years and gave the Soviet republics their independence.

● ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Luxury fashion house Burberry announced that it would no longer use real fur.

● BIRTHDAYS: Johnny Briggs, actor, 84; Dick Clement, scriptwriter, 82; George Lazenby, actor, 80; Raquel Welch, actress, 79; Werner Herzog, film director, 77; Al Stewart, singer/songwriter, 74; Michael Keaton, actor, 68; Mark Ramprakash, cricketer, 50.