On this day

1701: Yale College in the United States received its charter.

1804: Hobart, Tasmania, was founded.

1888: The 555ft white marble Washington Monument, designed by Robert Mills, was opened.

1905: Sarah Bernhardt had the accident which was to blight her career. Playing Floria in Tosca, she had to jump from a parapet. Stagehands forgot the mattresses for her to land on, and she fell heavily on her right knee. Her leg was later amputated.

1940: Beatle John Lennon was born during an air raid in Liverpool.

1962: Uganda became independent.

1967: Revolutionary leader Che Guevara, pictured, was captured in Bolivia and shot.

1974: German businessman Oskar Schindler, credited with saving 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust, died at the age of

66.

1990: Hundreds of Chinese people queued to buy Big Macs when Mcdonald’s opened its first restaurant in Shenzhen.

2009: US president Barack

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.

Birthdays

The Duke of Kent, 85; Brian Blessed, actor, 84; John Pilger, investigative journalist and filmmaker, 81; Steve Ovett, former athlete, 65; David Cameron, Former Prime Minister/leader of the Conservative Party, 54; PJ Harvey, rock singer, 51; Sean Lennon, singer, 45; Mark

Viduka, former footballer, 45; Nicky Byrne, pop star (Westlife), 42; Chris O’dowd, actor, 41.

Quote of the day

“Frankly it’s not very secret if you ask anyone who knows me. Anybody who’s ever seen me play sport, doing politics or anything else will know that I’m not necessarily always good, but

I’m always trying to win” – Former Labour Cabinet minister and Strictly contestant Jacqui Smith on her “secret” competitive side.