On this day

1783: The last public hanging in England took place at Tyburn (now Marble Arch in London) – forger John Austin was the last to die there.

1867: Scientific genius Marie Curie was born in Warsaw. She and her husband Pierre shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 and she was awarded a second prize in 1911 for her discovery of radium.

1872: The Marie Celeste, the ill-fated brigantine, sailed from New York – and was found mysteriously abandoned near the Azores some time later.

1885: A golden spike was driven into the track at Craigellachie in British Columbia to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway after four-and-a-half years’ work.

1917: Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, led by Lenin, pictured above left, overthrew prime minister Alexander Kerensky’s government. 1935: Australian pilot Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith flew over Calcutta in India on a flight from England – and was never seen again.

1967: Henry Cooper beat Billy Walker and became the first and only boxer to win three Lonsdale Belts outright.

1974: Lord Lucan, pictured above right, disappeared, following the murder of his children’s nanny and serious assault of his wife in London. He has never been seen since.

1980: Actor Steve McQueen died.

1990: Mary Robinson was elected as the first female president of the Irish Republic.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: A man used his surfboard to fend off a shark that bit him on his calf off an Australian beach, two days after a fatal attack on the Great Barrier Reef.

“Social media is so amazing, it’s such an incredible tool and really brings people together and it helps me have such a personal relationship with listeners. But I think at times it can almost be too much, regardless of what you do, or how old you are, or just I think in general it can be a breeding ground for hate and anxiety” - Dua Lipa, pictured, discusses her love/hate relationship with social media on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show.

“In the circumstances where we don’t reach a majority Lib Dem government our priority will still be stopping Brexit. I have also had MPs from both those parties saying to me that they think I would be a better prime minister than Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson” - Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson says she is best suited to be the next prime minister.

“She’s (Greta Thunberg) wonderful and she’s impervious to people slagging her off. She’s sort of the Joan of Arc of the environment. I think she needs a big white horse” - Margaret Atwood, pictured, praises climate activist Greta Thunberg as she speaks on the Extinction Rebellion podcast.

“I’m no longer the Speaker, I don’t have to remain impartial now and if you asked me honestly do I think that Brexit is good for our global standing? The honest answer is no, I don’t. I think that Brexit is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period, and that is my honest view” - Former Commons Speaker John Bercow gives his thoughts on Brexit.