On this day ...

DECEMBER 17

1778: Sir Humphry Davy, above, chemist and inventor of the miner’s safety lamp, was born in Penzance.

1849: Thomas and William Bowler, felt hat-makers, sold their first bowler.

1888: The Lyric Theatre, in Shaftesbury Avenue, London, opened.

1903: The Wright brothers made the first successful controlled flight in a powered aircraft at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1939: The German battleship Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled off Montevideo, Uruguay, after the Battle of the River Plate.

1973: More than 30 people died after Arab guerrillas hijacked a West German airliner at Rome Airport.

1983: An IRA car bomb killed three police and three Christmas shoppers, and injured scores of others outside Harrods in London’s Knightsbridge.

1986: Mrs Davina Thompson created medical history when at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge she was given a new heart, lungs and liver.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A “milestone” pill treatment that holds back ovarian cancer and has the potential to prolong life was launched in the UK.

BIRTHDAYS: Tommy Steele, singer/actor, 82; Bernard Hill, above, actor, 74; Simon Bates, DJ, 72; Paul Rodgers, rock singer, 69; Mike Mills, rock musician (REM), 60; Tilly Vosburgh, actress, 58; Sara Dallin, singer (Bananarama), 57; Paula Radcliffe, athlete, 45; Milla Jovovich, actress/singersongwriter, 43.