ON THIS DAY

● 1859: The world’s first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake.

● 1883: Krakatoa, a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java, erupted with thousands killed by the resulting tidal waves.

● 1912: Tarzan Of The Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first went into print as a magazine serial.

● 1966: Francis Chichester left Plymouth in Gipsy Moth IV on his single-handed voyage around the world.

● 1967: The man who helped make The Beatles, Brian Epstein, died in his London home from an overdose of sleeping pills.

● 1975: The last descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, died, aged 83.

● 1979: Earl Mountbatten, the

Queen’s cousin, was killed when the IRA exploded a 50lb bomb on his boat Shadow V off the coast of CountySligo,Ireland.

● 1991: EC members recognised the independence of the Baltic states.

● 2009: English youth Michael Perham, aged 17 years, five months, became the youngest person to complete a solo circumnavigation of the world by sailboat, breaking the previous record by two months.

● ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A man who suffered a doublelevel amputation after catching his hand in an electric saw had it saved by surgeons following 17 hours of surgery.

● BIRTHDAYS: Tuesday Weld, actress, 77; Barbara Bach, actress, 73; John Lloyd, former tennis player, 66; Glen Matlock, rock musician, 64; Bernhard Langer, golfer, 63.