On this day

1035: Death of Canute, Danish King of England.

1660: John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, was jailed for preaching without a licence.

1840: Sculptor Auguste Rodin was born in Paris.

1859: The man who invented the leotard – Jules Leotard – gave the world’s first flying trapeze display in Paris.

1919: The first flight from England to Australia began from Hounslow with Ross and Keith Smith in a Vickers Vimy. They landed safely on December 10.

1931: Abbey Road recording studio in London was opened by Sir Edward Elgar.

1944: Tirpitz, last of Hitler’s fleet of “unsinkable battleships”, was sunk off the Norwegian coast by Lancaster bombers.

1979: In response to the hostage situation in Tehran, US president Jimmy Carter ordered a halt to all petroleum imports into the United States from Iran.

1997: Ramzi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.