ON THIS DAY
1602: The Bodleian Library at Oxford University opened to the public.
1674: The blind English poet John Milton died at the age of 65. A student once wrote in an essay on Milton: “He got married and wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.”
1847: Dracula creator Bram Stoker was born in Dublin.
1886: Fred Archer, English champion jockey who won the Derby five times, shot himself, aged only 29.
1895: Wilhelm Rontgen discovered X-rays during an experiment at the University of Wurzburg with the flow of electricity through a partially evacuated glass tube.
1920: The first Rupert Bear cartoon appeared in the Daily Express.
1923: The Munich Beer Hall Putsch marked the start of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.
1932: Franklin D Roosevelt – promising a “New Deal” for America – swept into the White House on a landslide in the US presidential election.
1960: John F Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon to become US president.
1966: Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke became the first African-American elected to the United States Senate.
1967: Radio Leicester, the first BBC local radio station, was opened.
1974: The famous fruit and vegetable market at Covent Garden in London closed after more than 300 years.
1987: An IRA bomb exploded shortly before a Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, killing 11 people.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the USA, positioning himself to be a leader who “seeks not to divide, but to unify”. BIRTHDAYS: Nerys Hughes, actress, 80; Roy Wood, rock musician, 75; Bonnie Raitt, singer/guitarist, 72; Rupert Allason (espionage writer Nigel West), 70; Rickie Lee Jones, singer-songwriter, 67; Parker Posey, actress, 53; Tara Reid, actress, 46; Brett Lee, former cricketer, 45; Jane Danson, actress, 43; Joe Cole, footballer, 40; Jack Osbourne, TV personality, 36.