On this day

1704: The Battle of Blenheim took place in Germany, in which Anglo-Austrian forces under Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated the French and Bavarian armies.

1860: Annie Oakley, marksman who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, was born. Nicknamed “Little Sure Shot” by Sitting Bull, she was said to have been able to hit the thin edge of a playing card from 30 paces.

1888: John Logie Baird, electrical engineer who helped pioneer television, was born in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire.

1889: The coin-operated phone was patented in US by William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut.

1899: Alfred Hitchcock, pictured above right, English film director who became a US citizen in 1955, was born. He made the first British sound film – Blackmail (1929) – although dialogue began only in reel two as the studio was not equipped in the early sequences. He made many films, including Rebecca in 1940 and Psycho in 1960. the 1910: Death of Florence Nightingale, pictured left, the “Lady With The Lamp” during the Crimean War.

1915: “Brides in the Bath” murderer George Joseph Smith, who drowned his brides in a zinc bath after ensuring their finances were set up in his favour, was hanged. It was Friday the 13th.

1961: East German border guards stopped cars passing to the east through the Brandenburg Gate, thus sealing the border and preventing an exodus to the West. Barbed wire was erected, later to be replaced by the Berlin Wall.

1964: The last hangings in Britain took place – Peter Allen at Walton Prison, Liverpool, and John Walby at Strangeways, Manchester.

1997: The first episode of South

Comedy Central.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: An endangered killer whale that drew international attention as she carried her dead calf on her head for more than two weeks was finally back to feeding and frolicking with her pod. Park aired on