ON THIS DAY

1748: Isaac Watts, who wrote the hymns When I Survey The Wondrous Cross and O God Our Help In Ages Past, died.

■■1823: The first pleasure pier, The Chain Pier at Brighton, opened. It closed in 1896 and was destroyed in a storm the same year.

1882: To beat copyright pirates, Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan was premiered in London and America, the first show to open simultaneously in both countries.

■■1884: Evaporated milk was patented by John Meyenberg, of St Louis, USA.

1952: Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap opened in London, at the Ambassadors Theatre. Richard Attenborough played the detective, and notices said the play had a “fair degree of success”.

■■1969: John Lennon, above, returned his MBE in protest against British involvement in Biafra and support of US action in Vietnam.

1984: Britain’s top rock stars, responding to a call by Bob Geldof, gathered together under the name Band Aid to record Do They Know It’s Christmas, in aid of the Ethiopian famine appeal.

■■2005: Soccer legend George Best, a former Manchester United, Fulham and Northern Ireland star, who was a long-term alcoholic, died after suffering multiple organ failure, aged

59.

2010: Bernard Matthews died at the age of 80. The farmer and businessman became a household name after he amassed a multimillion-pound fortune through his vast poultry empire and appeared in a memorable series of television commercials.

■■ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A “world first” trial assessing a cannabis-based drug to treat an aggressive form of brain cancer was given the go-ahead, a charity announced.

BIRTHDAYS: Yvonne Kenny, soprano, 72; Brian Little, former footballer and manager, 69; Blythe Duff, actress, 60; Dougray Scott, actor, 57; Jill Hennessy, actress, 54; Christina Applegate, actress, 51.