ON THIS DAY
1552: Death of Spanish missionary Francis Xavier, who helped Ignatius Loyola found the Jesuits. 1836: Three people died at Great Corby, near Carlisle in Cumbria, in the first fatal railway derailment. 1894: Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and other works, died of a stroke at his villa in Samoa.
1919: French Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir died near Cannes. He was 78.
1926: Novelist Agatha Christie disappeared from her Surrey home. She was discovered on December 14 staying under an assumed name at a hotel in Harrogate but had no recollection of how she got there. 1967: The first heart transplant was performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard and a team of surgeons in South Africa. 1984: More than 3,000 people died in a chemical factory spillage at Bhopal, central India. 1988: Health minister Edwina Currie claimed that most of Britain’s egg production was affected by salmonella.
2012: St James’s Palace announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expecting their first baby.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Bournemouth on England’s south coast was the most in-demand seaside hotspot for buyers in 2021, according to a property website.