On this day

1321: Italian poet Dante Alighieri died in Ravenna.

1759: The British under General Wolfe won the Battle of Quebec – but Wolfe was shot and died in the fighting.

1788: New York became the federal capital of the new United States of America.

1874: Composer Arnold Schoenberg was born in Vienna. As a triskaidekaphobe (someone afraid of the number 13), he predicted he would die on the 13th at the age of 76 (7+6=13). He did, on July 13 1951 at 13 minutes to midnight. His last word was “harmony”.

1909: The first performance took place of Oscar Strauss’s The Chocolate Soldier, the operetta based on Shaw’s Arms And The Man. It introduced the famous song, My Hero.

1915: The process for making breakfast cereal flakes was patented by Frank Martin, as previously the combination of corn, oats and grain had proved indigestible for the public.

1944: William Heath Robinson, the English artist known for his drawings of complex machinery which performed simple tasks, died.

1957: The Mousetrap, a murder-mystery, became Britain’s longest running play, reaching its 1,998th performance.

1985: The World Health Organisation declared Aids a worldwide epidemic.

2008: Hurricane Ike ravaged parts of Texas and Louisiana, battering the US coast with 110mph gusts of wind and torrential rain.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The death toll had risen to at least 31 people as wildfires continued to rage across the west coast of the United States.