Also on this day

World’s first perforated postage stamp, the Penny Red, is issued.

Allied troops enter Iraq, starting the ground phase of the first Gulf War.

Fidel Castro, right, steps down as Cuban president after 32 years.

were holding mass rallies, infamously in their stronghold of Nuremberg.

When the Great Depression hit in 1930, its time came. In elections two years later it triumphed and on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor. As Führer, he remained in power until his death in 1945 – bringing war to the world and causing the deaths of millions.

At its peak, the party had eight million members, one in 10 of the population. Its paramilitary wing, the SS, kept dissent crushed. The swastika, originally a religious symbol in Eastern faiths, was perverted into the ultimate emblem of evil.

How an obscure party, led by an uneducated failed painter, came to such dominance remains a matter of debate. But the Nazis came to power in full view of a watching world. It might give us comfort to believe that such atrocities could never happen again. But it is as well to remember the words of philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

QUESTION: Which four-time Formula One winner was born on this day in 1955?

Last week I asked which American jazz pianist, whose works include Round Midnight, died on February 17, 1982. The answer was THEOLONIUS MONK.

Watch Shaun and his colleagues on The Chase on ITV at 5pm every day of the week.