On this day
» 1135: Henry I died “of a surfeit of lampreys”.
» 1581: Jesuit martyr Edmund Campion was hanged at Tyburn.
» 1640: The Portuguese drove out the Spanish to reclaim their independence.
» 1761: Madame Marie Tussaud, waxworks modeller, was born in Strasbourg.
» 1887: The 28th Beeton’s Christmas Annual went on sale. It featured A Study in Scarlet by A
Conan Doyle, which introduced the detective Sherlock Holmes.
» 1906: The Cinema Omnia Pathe, the world’s first purposebuilt picture palace, opened in Paris.
» 1959: Twelve countries signed an agreement to preserve Antarctica for peaceful scientific research.
» 1989: Pope John Paul II and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Rome to end 70 years of hostility between the USSR and the Vatican.
» 1990: The two halves of the Channel Tunnel were joined under the sea.
» 2009: International agreement The Treaty of Lisbon, also known as the Reform Treaty, came into force.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR:
Being HIV positive or taking preventative treatment for the disease was no longer a barrier for serving in the armed forces, the Ministry of Defence announced.