ON THIS DAY
1912: William Booth, English social reformer, evangelist and founder of the Salvation Army, died aged 83. 1913: Adolphe Pegond baled out from a Bleriot airplane 700 feet above Buc in France. His parachute brought him down safely, making him the first to parachute from a plane.
1924: British sprinter Eric Liddell refused to run in the heat of the 100m at the Paris Olympics because it fell on a Sunday and was against his religious convictions. He had been tipped as the likely winner. 1956: Calder Hall, in Cumbria, the world’s first large-scale atomic power station, began generating.
1968: Russia sent tanks into Czechoslovakia.
1977: The Voyager I spacecraft was launched on its journey via Jupiter and Saturn to become the first man-made object to leave the Solar System.
1989: The Thames pleasure cruiser Marchioness was hit by a dredger and 51 young people attending a party on the boat were killed.
1989: George Adamson, British naturalist and conservationist, best known for his work with his wife Joy and the lioness Elsa, was murdered by bandits in a game park in Kenya. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Airbnb announced it was banning house parties worldwide, as it tried to clean up its reputation and comply with coronavirus-related limits on gatherings.