ON THIS DAY
1875: Dr Albert Schweitzer, missionary surgeon, organist and Nobel Prize winner (1952), was born in Alsace.
1878: Queen Victoria was given a demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s new invention, the telephone.
1898: Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, died.
1900: Puccini’s opera Tosca was premiered in Rome, despite a bomb scare by the composer’s envious contemporaries.
1904: Photographer and stage designer Sir Cecil Beaton was born in London.
1953: Marshal Tito was elected president of Yugoslavia.
1957: Actor Humphrey Bogart died. His wife Lauren Bacall placed a gold whistle in his coffin with the inscription: “If you need anything, just whistle” – a line from their first film together, To Have and Have Not.
1989: British Muslims held public burnings of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.
1997: The trial began of footballers John Fashanu, Bruce Grobbelaar and Hans Segers for allegedly being bribed by an east Asian gambling ring to throw matches. All three were later acquitted.
On this day last year: An RAF pilot helped launch a rocket into space from over the Pacific Ocean.
Birthdays
Jack Jones, singer, 85; Trevor Nunn, theatre director, 83; Faye Dunaway, actor, 82; Carl Weathers, actor, 75; Steven Soderbergh, film director, 60; Emily Watson, actor, 56; LL Cool J, actor and rap star, 55; Dave Grohl, rock singer, 54.
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