IT HAPPENED TODAY
1851:
Melvil Dewey, who devised the library cataloguing system which bears his name, was born in New York.
1868:
London’s first traffic lights were installed in Westminster, to help MPs get to the House of Commons.
1868:
Whitaker’s Almanack was published for the first time.
1869:
Wyoming became the first American territory to grant women the vote.
1896:
Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Swedish chemist and industrialist who invented dynamite, died. On this day in 1901 the first Nobel Prizes were awarded.
1907:
Rudyard Kipling (above) was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first time it had been
awarded to an English writer.
1936:
Edward VIII signed the Instrument of Abdication. He chose his love of American divorcee Wallis Simpson over his royal duty.
1978:
Superman, directed by Richard Donner and starring Christopher Reeve (above), Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder, premieres in Washington, D.C.
2011:
The Sun, Earth and Moon fell almost exactly in line.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
A school leaver’s chances of going to university depend heavily on where they live, figures suggested.
BIRTHDAYS:
Sir John Birt, former BBC director-general, 74; Clive Anderson, television presenter, 66; Susan Dey, actress, 66; Kenneth Branagh, actor/director (above), 58; Brian Molko, singer/songwriter, 46; Meg White, drummer (The White Stripes), 44; Patrick Flueger, actor, 35; Xavier Samuel, actor, 35.