ON THIS DAY

● 1745: The Jacobites, under the Young Pretender, occupied Edinburgh.

● 1787: Some 39 delegates (out of 42), under the chairmanship of George Washington, approved the Constitution of the United States of America.

● 1827: Wides in cricket were first scored in the Sussex v Kent game at Brighton.

● 1894: A Gaiety Girl opened at Day’s Theatre, New York, the first British musical on Broadway.

● 1908: Lt Thomas Selfridge of the US Army Signal Corps was killed in a plane crash in Fort Meyer, Virginia, becoming the world’s first military aviation fatality.

● 1944: The British airborne invasion of Arnhem and Eindhoven in the Netherlands began as part of Operation Market Garden. The objective was to secure a bridge over the Rhine to act as part of an Allied invasion of Germany, but after a battle which lasted until September 27, the attempt failed.

● 1944: Blackout regulations were lifted to allow lights on buses, trains and at railway stations in Britain for the first time for five years.

● 1961: One of London’s biggest “ban the bomb” demos ended with 830 arrested, including actress Vanessa Redgrave and playwright John Osborne.

● 2018: A controversial plan to move a statue of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst from outside Parliament was shelved after a public outcry.

● BIRTHDAYS: Stirling Moss, former racing driver, 90; Des Lynam, broadcaster, 77; Billy Bonds, former footballer and football manager, 73; Damon Hill, former racing driver, 59.