ON THIS DAY

● 79 AD: Vesuvius erupted, destroying the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing 2,000 people. Paradoxically, the eruption destroyed Pompeii but also preserved it forever.

● 1572: The St Bartholomew’s Day massacre took place in Paris when thousands of French Huguenots were killed by order of the Catholic French court.

● 1724: George Stubbs, portrait and animal painter (especially horses), was born in Liverpool.

● 1891: The motion picture camera was patented by Thomas Edison.

● 1916: Eight people died when Zeppelins raided the outskirts of London.

● 1965: The 450,000-year-old body of a man was found in a Hungarian limestone quarry.

● 2006: The International

Astronomical Union (IAU) redefined the term “planet” such that Pluto was then considered a dwarf planet.

● 2008: Prime minister Gordon Brown promised that the London Games would be “the best Olympics ever” as the official handover to Mayor Boris Johnson took place in Beijing.

● 2014: A 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck Napa, California, in the northern San Francisco Bay area. It was the largest earthquake to strike northern California since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

● ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A Russian space capsule carrying a humanoid robot failed to dock as planned with the International Space Station.

● BIRTHDAYS: Antonia (AS) Byatt, writer, 84; Jean-Michel Jarre, composer, 72; Sam Torrance, golfer, 67; Stephen Fry, actor/ writer/presenter, 63.