On this day

1552: Death of Spanish missionary Francis Xavier, who helped Ignatius Loyola found the Jesuits.

1836: Three people died at Great Corby, near Carlisle in Cumbria, in the first fatal railway derailment.

1894: Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and other works, died of a stroke at his villa in Samoa.

1910: Neon lighting, developed by French physicist Georges Claude, was displayed for the first time at the Paris Motor Show.

1919: French Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir died near Cannes. He was 78.

1926: Novelist Agatha Christie disappeared from her Surrey home. She was discovered on December 14 staying under an assumed name at a hotel in Harrogate but had no recollection of how she got there.

1967: The first heart transplant was performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard and a team of surgeons in South Africa.

1984: More than 3,000 people died in a chemical factory spillage at Bhopal, central India.

1988: Health minister Edwina Currie claimed that most of Britain’s egg production was affected by salmonella.

2012: St James’s Palace announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expecting their first baby.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The UK prepared to launch its largest scale vaccination campaign in history.

Edwina Currie angered Britain’s egg producers in 1988.