ON THIS DAY

• 1813: Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi was born in Le Roncole.

• 1877: Motoring pioneer William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, was born in Worcester.

• 1881: The Savoy Theatre, the first public building to be lit by electricity, opened with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience.

• 1886: The dinner jacket made its first appearance in public when it was worn by its creator at a ball at the Tuxedo Park Country Club, New York.

• 1903: Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union to fight for female emancipation in Britain.

• 1957: A major radiation leak was detected at the Windscale nuclear plant in Cumbria, after an accident three days earlier.

• 1961: A volcano erupted on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha and the whole population was brought to Britain.

• 1975: After divorce in the early 1970s, followed by several reconciliations and separations, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor remarried in a remote village in Botswana. They divorced again the following year.

• LAST YEAR: The Duchess of Cambridge opened the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new photography centre, in her first visit since becoming the museum’s patron.

• BIRTHDAYS: Murray Walker, former motor racing commentator, 96; Nicholas Parsons, radio and TV personality, 96; Judith Chalmers, TV presenter, 84; Charles Dance, actor, 73; Chris Tarrant, broadcaster, 73; Midge Ure, rock singer, 66; Fiona Fullerton, actress, 63; Martin Kemp, actor/musician, 58.