ON THIS DAY

1793: French King Louis XVI went on trial and was sentenced to the guillotine. 1840: American Charles Wilkes discovered the coast of Antarctica. 1853: Verdi’s Il Trovatore was premiered in Rome. 1915: The first casualties were suffered in an air raid over Britain, when a German Zeppelin bombed Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. 1937: The 18-year-old Margot Fonteyn made her debut in Giselle at Sadler’s Wells. 1942: The Japanese invaded Burma. 1943: Singer Janis Joplin was born in Texas. 1966: Indira Gandhi became prime minister of India. 1990: England’s rebel cricketers flew into South Africa as police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of 150 protesters at Johannesburg airport. 2009: Up to 1,500 tonnes of timber floated in the English Channel after a Russian-registered cargo ship lost part of its load in rough seas. BIRTHDAYS: Javier Perez de Cuellar, former UN secretary-general, 96; Richard Lester, film director, 84; Michael Crawford, actor, 74; Julian Barnes, author, 70; Dolly Parton, country singer, 70; Dennis Taylor, snooker commentator, 67; Sir Simon Rattle, conductor, 61; Stefan Edberg, former tennis player, 50; Jenson Button, racing driver, 36. QUOTES OF THE DAY: “My body is a temple - it’s big and it doesn’t move” - Jo Brand, who is undertaking a cross-country charity walk. “I am a complete nightmare to make tea for. I like it very strong with some milk in it and I have to have it at the optimum temperature, which is just after it’s too hot but before it gets anywhere near room temperature” - Nigella Lawson. “Everybody has some weird thing that they do to get ready. Mine is as a knife-thrower. I’m a ninja. They won’t let me do it on stage as the insurance won’t let me” - Entertainer Alice Cooper. “Let us not continue the sad but common practice of building up people - especially women - just to viciously tear them down when we perceive them to have erred” - Actress Anne Hathaway. “We have a nostalgic sensibility in the UK. We are creating period dramas all the time which are full of white people. White stories told by white people” Actress Ruth Wilson. “I didn’t like some of David Bowie’s music, and I thought most of his outfits were pretentious twaddle” - Jeremy Clarkson. “Having a deterrent that has no missiles is like having an army with broken rifles and no ammunition” - Labour MP John Woodcock speaks out on Jeremy Corbyn’s defence policy.