ON THIS DAY

• 1167: King John (John Lackland) was born in Oxford.

• 1491: Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, was born in Loyola in northern Spain.

• 1524: Vasco da Gama, Portuguese navigator who found the sea route from Europe to the East, died on his second voyage after landing in India.

• 1809: American folk hero Kit Carson was born in Kentucky.

• 1818: A mouse put the organ out of order at St Nicholas Church, Oberndorf, Austria. Franz Xaver Gruber rescued the Christmas music for Midnight Mass by writing a carol for guitar and choir. It was called Stille Nacht (Silent Night). Gruber wrote the tune, but Josef Mohr wrote the lyrics for Silent Night.

• 1828: The trial of William Burke began in Edinburgh. The other body-snatcher, William Hare, had turned King’s evidence and was not brought to trial. Sentenced to death, Burke was hanged on January 28 1829.

• 1871: Verdi’s opera Aida had its world premiere in Cairo.

• 1904: The London Coliseum opened in St Martin’s Lane, with the first revolving stage in Britain.

• 1943: US President Franklin D Roosevelt appoints General Eisenhower Supreme Commander of the Allied forces

• LAST YEAR: Lava and ash were spewing from a new fracture on Italy’s Mount Etna , amid an unusually high level of seismic activity at the Sicilian volcano, according to observatory officials.

• BIRTHDAYS: Mary Higgins Clark, writer, 92; Carol Vorderman, TV mathematician and presenter, 59; Ed Miliband, former leader of the Labour Party, 50; Ricky Martin, pop singer, 48.