NOW & THEN

Doctor Sir James Young Simpson, pictured experimenting with chloroform, first used it on this day in 1847 Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Writer’ Union.

1982: Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev as Soviet leader.

1987: Van Gogh’s Irises sold for a world record £30.2 million.

1996: 350 people died when a Saudi Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Airlines Ilyshin 76 collided in mid-air over India.

1998: US vice-president Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol.

2001: In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 en route to the Dominican Republic, crashed minutes after take-off from JFK, killing all 260 on board and five on the ground.

2003: Shanghai Transrapid set a new world speed record (311 mph) for commercial railway systems.

2010: Holiday company Pontin’s called in the administrators.