ON THIS DAY
1422: King Henry V died in France, struck down with dysentery. 1888: Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, first victim of Jack the Ripper, was found in Buck’s Row in the East End. 1900: Coca-Cola first went on sale in Britain.
1908: At the age of 60, WG Grace retired from first-class cricket. 1936: Elizabeth Cowell, Britain’s first woman TV announcer, made her debut at Alexandra Palace.
1962: Trinidad and Tobago became independent, having been a British possession since 1802.
1962: Chris Bonington and Ian Clough became the first Britons to conquer the north face of the Eiger.
1968: Gary Sobers (now Sir Garfield) of Nottinghamshire became the first cricketer to score six sixes off an over, at Swansea against Glamorgan. 1969: Rocky Marciano, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1952 to 1956, who retired undefeated, died in an
Iowa air crash.
1972: American swimmer Mark Spitz won his fifth gold medal at the Munich Olympics.
1997: Diana, Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in central Paris along with Dodi Fayed.
2012: The manufacturer of antimorning sickness drug thalidomide apologised for the thousands of children born without limbs as a result of its use.