On this day

1628: Charles Perrault, French writer and collector of fairytales was born in Paris. His Tales Of Mother Goose included Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Puss In Boots.

1866: The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded. 1879: The British-Zulu War began.

1948: The London Co-op opened the first supermarket in Britain at Manor Park.

1959: Henry Cooper became the British and European heavyweight boxing champion when he defeated Brian London on points.

1960: Nevil Shute, popular author, notably of A Town Like Alice, died in Melbourne, Australia, where he had emigrated to in 1950.

1970: Nigeria’s civil war ended when the Biafran army surrendered.

1976: Dame Agatha Christie, pictured above right, the world’s most successful detective story writer, died, aged 85.

1982: Mark Thatcher disappeared in the Sahara while on the Paris-Dakar rally. He was later spotted by a search plane and rescued.

1987: Prince Edward, now the Earl of Wessex, resigned from the Royal Marines.

1990: The break-up of the USSR began as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania prepared for secession.

2010: A severe 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, pictured. The confirmed death toll rose above 150,000 in the Port-au-Prince area alone.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Figures showed that about 170 children and teenagers each day had teeth removed during the previous year, with sugar blamed for creating an “oral health crisis”.