ON THIS DAY

• 1405: Pope Pius II was born. Pope Gregory XII also died on this day in 1417, as did Pope Pius III, who died in 1503. • 1826: The last state lottery was held in Britain. • 1910: The trial of Dr Crippen began at the Old Bailey. • 1922: The British Broadcasting Company was officially established. • 1926: Bing Crosby made his first commercial recording, I’ve Got The Girl.

• 1961: Henri Matisse’s Le Bateau attracted big crowds when it went on show in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was not until 116,000 people had seen it, 46 days later, that someone noticed it was hanging upside down. • 1967: The Soviet Union successfully sent a space probe

into the atmosphere of the planet Venus for the first time in history. • 1977: German anti-terror troops stormed a high-jacked Lufthansa airliner at Mogadishu, Somalia, killingthree Palestinian terrorists and freeing all the hostages.

• ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Final preparations were under way for the launch of a Britishbuilt spacecraft getting ready to travel five billion miles to Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.

• BIRTHDAYS: Barry Gifford, novelist, 73; Martina Navratilova, tennis legend, 63; Jean-Claude Van Damme, actor/director, 59; Wynton Marsalis, jazz trumpeter/ composer, 58; Michael Stich, former tennis player, 51; Robbie Savage, former footballer/pundit, 45; Zac Efron, actor, 32; Lindsey Vonn, former US alpine skier, 34; Freida Pinto, Indian actress, 34.