ON THIS DAY

1471: The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet, in the War of the Roses. 1759: George Frideric Handel, German composer, died in London, where most of his music-making had been done. 1828: Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. 1865: Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president, was shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, dying the next day. 1894: Thomas Edison publicly demonstrated his ‘’kinetoscope’’ moving picture machine in New York. 1917: Dr Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof, Polish physician who invented the international language Esperanto, died. 1929: The Monaco Grand Prix was first run – it comprised 78 laps round the narrow streets and harbour of Monte Carlo. 1931: The Ministry of Transport issued the first Highway Code. 1983: The first cordless telephone, capable of operating up to 600ft from base, was introduced. 2003: The Human Genome Project was completed with 99 per cent of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99per cent. BIRTHDAYS: Julie Christie, actress, 76; Ritchie Blackmore, rock guitarist, 71; Julian Lloyd Webber, cellist, 65; Robert Carlyle, actor, 55; Gina McKee, actress, 52; Anthony Michael Hall, actor, 48; Adrien Brody, actor, 43; Sarah Michelle Gellar, actress, 39; Abigail Breslin, actress, 20. QUOTES OF THE DAY: “Nowadays there is no difference between fame and infamy. People would rather be known as an absolute idiot than not be known at all. People now live their life like an open wound and they are rewarded for it” - Comic actor Ricky Gervais. “I am quite a young 34. I feel like I am 18 still. I am such a big kid. I annoy the hell out of people” - Former Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding. “If global warming meant temperatures rose by one or two degrees, France would become a desert - which would be no bad thing” - Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary. “She does have a sense of humour, but she is a bit of a cold fish” - The BBC’s former royal correspondent Jennie Bond on the Queen. “This is a terrific challenge for a word I cannot yet pronounce” - Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who wants to use the word “honorificabilitudinitatibus”, the longest word used in a Shakespeare play, in the Commons at Prime Minister’s Question Time to mark the 100th anniversary of the Bard’s death. “I am making the world a better place one day at a time” - Actress Lindsay Lohan.