ON THIS DAY

■■ 1307: William Tell is reputed to have shot an apple off his son’s head.

■■1558: Mary I, “Bloody Mary”, died and was succeeded by Elizabeth I.

■■ 1796: Catherine the Great of Russia died of a stroke, aged 67.

■■1882: The Royal Astronomer witnessed an Unidentified Flying Object from the Greenwich Royal Observatory. It was described as a “strange celestial visitor – a circular object glowing green”.

■■ 1887: Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (Monty), who led the Eighth Army to victory in North Africa in the Second World War, was born in London.

■■1955: Anglesey became the first authority in Britain to introduce fluoride into its water supply.

■■ 1959: Two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty-free goods in Britain.

■■1970: The Sun pictured its first Page Three girl, Stephanie Rahn.

■■ 1988: Franz Kafka’s manuscript of his classic novel The Trial (1925) was sold at Sotheby’s in London for £1 million, a world record for a modern literary text. Kafka had died in poverty the year before.

■■2009: The unfinished novel The Original Of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov was published 32 years after his death despite him asking in his will for the manuscript to be burned.

■■ ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A device was created to allow dogs to video call their owners. ■■ BIRTHDAYS: Martin Scorsese, film director, 80; Lauren Hutton, actress, 79; Danny DeVito, actor and film director, 78, above; Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, actress, 64; Terry Fenwick, former footballer and manager, 63; Jonathan Ross, broadcaster, 62; Rachel McAdams, actress, 44.

The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2021 was 65.7%