ON THIS DAY

1556: Thomas Cranmer, first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, was condemned as a heretic under Catholic Queen Mary I and burned at the stake in Oxford. 1685: Composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany. He sired 20 children yet still found time to compose 300 cantatas, two oratorios, the St John and St Matthew Passions and Mass in B minor. 1918: The last major German offensive of the First World War began on the Somme. 1933: The first Nazi concentration camp was completed in Germany. It served as a prototype and model for the others that followed, including Auschwitz. 1963: Alcatraz, the notorious maximum security prison in San Francisco Bay, was closed. 1985: Riot police shot dead 17 black people at South Africa’s Langa township on the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. 1991: The poll tax was ditched as Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine unveiled a new property tax to replace it. 1993: The IRA claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in Warrington that killed a four-year-old child. 1995: Police raided the Tokyo headquarters of the Aum Shinrikyo religious sect after Sarin nerve gas was released on five trains in the Tokyo underground system. BIRTHDAYS Michael Heseltine, former deputy prime minister, 83; Gary Oldman, actor, 58; Matthew Broderick, actor, 54; Rosie O’Donnell, actress, 54; Ieuan Evans, former rugby player, 52; Matthew Maynard, former cricketer, 50; Adrian Chiles, television presenter, 49; Mark Williams, snooker player, 31. QUOTES OF THE DAY “It’s quite weird the way the arts community still have a long lasting cynicism of the artistic value of comedy, that comedy is just farting about for money” – Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr Bean. “I gradually got used to visiting Hollywood, but never got used to the teeth, which were dazzling not only in the case of the star, but of any male in his entourage. To be smiled at by Ernest Borgnine’s lawyer was to incur flash-burns” – Broadcaster Clive James. “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman’s got to do what he can’t” – Hollywood star Jennifer Garner. “I don’t have any talent. When I consider how successful I have been, I have to conclude that life is 99 per cent luck” - TV’s Jerry Springer. “It makes my hair look normal” – Tory MP Michael Fabricant, famed for his blond bouffant on seeing Conservative Karen Lumley’s purple rinse. “Europe is not perfect. It’s like a family. Your family can sometimes irritate the hell out of you but you wouldn’t walk away” – Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn.