ON THIS DAY
1823: The first pleasure pier, The Chain Pier at Brighton, opened. It closed in 1896 and was destroyed in a storm the same year.
1882: To beat copyright pirates, Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan was premiered in London and America.
1884: Evaporated milk was patented by John Meyenberg, of St Louis, USA.
1969: John Lennon returned his MBE in protest against British involvement in Biafra and support of US action in Vietnam.
1984: Britain’s top rock stars, responding to a call by Bob Geldof, gathered together under the name Band Aid to record Do They Know It’s Christmas, in aid of the Ethiopian famine appeal.
2005: Soccer legend George Best, who was a long-term alcoholic, died, aged 59.
2010: Bernard Matthews died at the age of 80. The farmer and businessman became a household name after he amassed a multimillion-pound fortune through his vast poultry empire.