ON THIS DAY
1453: The Hundred Years War ended when the French defeated the English at Castillon. 1717: George I, Hanoverian King of England, held a public concert on the Thames for Handel to conduct his hour-long Water Music. The King enjoyed it so much he asked for two complete encores. 1841: The first issue of the magazine Punch was published in London. 1889: Erle Stanley Gardner, US author and lawyer who created Perry Mason, was born. 1917: The British Royal Family adopted the name House of Windsor in place of House of Saxe-CoburgGotha. 1945: The Potsdam Conference began with world leaders Truman, Stalin and Churchill planning for the future peace at the end of the Second World War. 1955: Walt Disney’s Disneyland was opened in California. 1959: Billie Holiday, jazz singer – probably the greatest of them all – was arrested on her death bed in hospital for possession of narcotics. She died later that day. 1969: Oh Calcutta!, the sex revue devised by theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, opened in New York. Critic Clive Barnes said the show gave pornography a dirty name. 1975: An international space link-up between US astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts took place when they crossed over from their docked spacecraft and shook hands 140 miles above Britain’s south coast. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Carrie Fisher told an audience of Star Wars fans that she gave her on-screen son Adam Driver a spanking when she met him for The Force Awakens. BIRTHDAYS: Tim Brooke-Taylor, comic actor, 77; Peter Sissons, newscaster, 75; Alun Armstrong, actor, 71; Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, 70; Wayne Sleep, dancer, 69; David Hasselhoff, actor and singer, 65; Darren Day, actor, singer and television presenter, 49; Jaap Stam, retired footballer, 44; Konnie Huq, TV presenter, 42.