On this day
» 667: Author Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) was born in Dublin.
» 1835: Mark Twain, author of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, was born in Missouri.
» 1874: Sir Winston Churchill, a descendant of the great Duke of Marlborough, was born in Blenheim Palace.
» 1900: Oscar Wilde, Irish-born playwright, died in Paris aged 46.
» 1936: The Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire.
» 1955: The first floodlit football match at Wembley was played, between England and Spain.
» 1957: The great Italian tenor Beniamino Gigli died.
» 1968: The Trades Description Act came into force.
» 2009: The European Organisation for Nuclear Research announced that the Large Hadron Collider set a new world record for energy – making it the world’s highest energy particle accelerator.
» ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
The Queen sent the new republic of Barbados her “warmest good wishes for your happiness, peace and prosperity in the future” as it celebrated its “momentous day”.