ON THIS DAY
DOMINION DAY IN NEW ZEALAND 1580: Sir Francis Drake arrived back in Plymouth in the Golden Hind after 33 months, to make him the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. 1687: The Parthenon in Athens was severely damaged when a mortar bomb, fired by the Venetian army, set off its gunpowder supplies. 1820: American frontiersman Daniel Boone died. 1887: The first gramophone, invented by Emile Berliner, a German immigrant living in Washington DC, was patented. 1934: The British liner Queen Mary was launched at John Brown’s Yard in Clydebank, Scotland. 1937: “The Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith died in a car crash in Mississippi, amid rumours that she had bled to death while a white person had been given preferential treatment. 1953: Sugar rationing ended in Britain. 1957: West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein’s musical based on Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet, opened in Broadway’s Winter Garden, New York. 1977: Sir Freddie Laker’s first Skytrain service began between Gatwick and New York. 1983: Australia II beat Liberty in the deciding race off Newport, Rhode Island, to deprive the US of the America’s Cup, which they had held since its inception. 1988: Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson flew home from the Seoul Olympics in disgrace, stripped of his 100m gold medal after failing a drugs test. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Former deputy prime minister John Prescott launched a tirade against television presenter Piers Morgan in a fraught live interview. BIRTHDAYS: Ricky Tomlinson, actor, 78; Ian Chappell, former cricketer, 74; Anne Robinson, TV presenter, 73; Bryan Ferry, singer, 72; Olivia Newton-John, singer, 69; Linda Hamilton, actress, 61; Tracey Thorn, singer (Everything But The Girl), 55; Lysette Anthony, actress, 54; Serena Williams, tennis player, 36.