NOW & THEN

0 Rudyard Kipling awarded the Nobel prize for literature, the first British writer to receive it, on this day in 1907 1968: Boxer Joe Frazier retained his world heavyweight title by defeating Oscar Bonavena by unanimous decision after 15 rounds in Philadelphia.

1989: Czechoslovakia’s first non-communist government for 41 years came to power.

1993: The last shift left Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marked the end of a coalfield which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.

2007: Former Daily Telegraph owner, Lord Black, was jailed for six and a half years in the US for stealing £3 million from the newspaper empire he built.

2010: 14.9 million people tuned in to watch the live episode of Coronation Street which marked the show’s 50th anniversary.

2013: Uruguay became the first country to legalise the growing, sale and use of marijuana.