ON THIS DAY
1471: The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Barnet, in the War of the Roses. 1759: George Frideric Handel, German composer, died in London, where most of his music-making had been done. 1828: Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. 1865: Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16th president, was shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, dying the next day. 1894: Thomas Edison publicly demonstrated his “kinetoscope” moving picture machine in New York. 1917: Dr Lazarus Ludwig Zamenhof, Polish physician who invented the international language Esperanto, died. 1929: The Monaco Grand Prix was first run – 78 laps round the narrow streets and harbour of Monte Carlo. 1931: The Ministry of Transport issued the first Highway Code. 1983: The first cordless telephone, capable of operating up to 600ft from base, was introduced. 2003: The Human Genome Project was completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to an accuracy of 99.99%. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duchess of Cambridge had a fit of the giggles when she tried her hand at Bhutan’s national sport of archery and saw her arrow fall way short of the target. BIRTHDAYS: Julie Christie, actress, 77; Ritchie Blackmore, rock guitarist, 72; Julian Lloyd Webber, cellist, 66; Robert Carlyle, actor, 56; Gina McKee, actress, 53; Anthony Michael Hall, actor, 49; Adrien Brody, actor, 44; Sarah Michelle Gellar, actress, 40; Abigail Breslin, actress, 21.