ON THIS DAY

1348: Edward III established the Order of the Garter. 1793: French King Louis XVI went on trial and was sentenced to the guillotine. 1840: American Charles Wilkes discovered the coast of Antarctica. 1853: Verdi’s Il Trovatore was premiered in Rome. 1915: The first casualties were suffered in an air raid over Britain, when a German Zeppelin bombed Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. 1937: The 18-year-old Margot Fonteyn made her debut in Giselle at Sadler’s Wells. 1942: The Japanese invaded Burma. 1943: Singer Janis Joplin was born in Texas. 1966: Indira Gandhi became prime minister of India, following in the footsteps of her father Jawaharlal Nehru. 1990: England’s rebel cricketers flew into South Africa as police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of 150 protesters at Johannesburg airport. 2009: Up to 1,500 tonnes of timber floated in the English Channel after a Russian-registered cargo ship lost part of its load in rough seas. BIRTHDAYS: Javier Perez de Cuellar, former UN secretary-general, 97; Richard Lester, film director, 85; Michael Crawford, actor, 75; Julian Barnes, author, 71; Dolly Parton, country singer, 71; Dennis Taylor, snooker commentator, 68; Sir Simon Rattle, conductor, 62; Stefan Edberg, former tennis player, 51; Jenson Button, racing driver, 37. QUOTES OF THE DAY: “Seven out of 10. It sounded like a Ukip conference speech” - Ukip leader Paul Nuttall sums up the Prime Minister’s Brexit speech. The Prime Minister has been talking about Jam - the so-called ‘just about managing’. Thanks to Universal Credit, for many families their income is about to be toast” - SNP MP Drew Hendry. “Agriculture and food and drink are great British success stories yet for half a century they have been held back by the ceaseless meddling of Brussels’ self-appointed vegetable police” - Tory MP Rishi Sunak. “I was the first woman to burn my bra. It took the fire department four days to put it out” - Singer Dolly Parton. “I have no problem with make-up, filters, styling and lighting. My reminder to people is this: don’t compare your real self to a filtered image” - TV’s Susanna Reid. “I am scared of my wife” - Outgoing US President Barack Obama, announcing that his smoking days were over. “They are without doubt, the best in the world. But I doubt Trump took the bait” - Russian President Vladimir Putin on his country’s prostitutes. “I’m a one-man idiot” - Comedian Eddie Izzard