ON THIS DAY

1797: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, second wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and author, in 1818, of Frankenstein, was born in London. 1860: The first tram service in Britain opened, at Birkenhead on Merseyside. 1871: Lord Rutherford, pioneer of subatomic physics, was born in Spring Grove, New Zealand. In the 1920s he was the first to split the atom. 1881: The first stereo system was patented by Clement Ader of Germany, for a telephonic broadcasting service. 1937: Joe Louis defeated Welshman Tommy Farr in an epic fight in New York to retain the world heavyweight boxing title. 1939: The great evacuation of children from British cities began. With the Second World War four days away, thousands of youngsters were moved to the country to avoid the anticipated German bombing. 1963: The “Hotline” between the US president and the Soviet premier was established to reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war. BIRTHDAYS: Elizabeth Ashley, actress, 77; Sue MacGregor, broadcaster, 75; Robert Crumb, cartoonist, 73; Timothy Bottoms, actor, 65; Mark Strong, actor, 54; Cameron Diaz, actress, 44; Andy Roddick, tennis player, 34. QUOTES OF THE DAY: “My friend told me there’s three keys to keeping people impoverished taking away their esteem, taking away their resources and taking away their role models” - Singer Kanye West. “It would be amazing. It would be good if I could get the word ‘Sir’ on my passport. It might get me through passport control quicker. There have got to be some perks” - Olympic champion Mo Farah on the possibility that he might be knighted. “It was like a train hitting me in the face. I wanted to marry him and have his babies” -Socialite Federica Amati describes meeting her new husband, male model Paul Sculfor. “Like any hot-blooded male however, I appreciate beauty, which can sometimes be enhanced by a bikini. Equally, often there can be something quite attractive, alluring, even sensual, about concealment. It leaves more to the imagination. Whilst there are of course exceptions, as a general rule, most of us look far better with all our clothes on” - Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne. “To think, Angela, if things had turned out differently. this could all have been yours” - What David Cameron ,when prime minister, reportedly said in a reference to the Second World War to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, when the pair walked together in the Buckinghamshire countryside. “I didn’t experience a fish finger until I was 17” - 2015 Great British Bake Off champion Nadiya Hussain.