ON THIS DAY
1554: Spain. 1587: Christianity was banned in Japan. 1848: Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl, prime minister from 1902-05, was born in Scotland. He was foreign secretary from 1916-19 when he made his famous Balfour Declaration, promising the Zionists a homeland in Palestine. 1894: Walter Brennan, US actor who played character parts in more than 100 films and winner of three Oscars for best supporting actor, was born. 1907: Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s experimental camp, to test the feasibility of scouting, began on Brownsea Island, near Poole. Four days later, the Boy Scouts organisation was created. 1909: Louis Bleriot became the first man to fly across the Channel, flying his three-cylinder monoplane from near Calais to Northfall Meadow near Dover Castle. 1948: Bread rationing ended in Britain. 1959: The hovercraft, the SRN 1 as it was called, made its first English Channel crossing –from Dover to Calais – in a little over two hours. 1965: Former champion British boxer and nightclub owner Freddie Mills was found shot Mary I married Philip II of dead in his car in Soho. 1978: The first test-tube baby was born in Oldham General Hospital. It was a girl, and she was named Louise Joy Brown. 1989: Just 3.6 miles short of Dover, woman pilot Gloria Pullan had to ditch Louis Bleriot’s historic plane in the Channel while attempting to recreate his crossing in 1909. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Thousands of BHS staff were told they faced redundancy consultation as administrator Duff & Phelps geared up to close the chain’s 114 remaining stores. BIRTHDAYS: Annie Ross, singer/ actress, 87; Nicole Farhi, fashion designer, 71; Sheena McDonald, broadcaster, 63; Iman, model and wife of David Bowie, 62; Matt LeBlanc, actor, 50; Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, 47; Kevin Phillips, former footballer, 44.