ON THIS DAY
1772: Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan) was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon. 1805: Lord Nelson, English naval hero, was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar – dying at the precise moment the Franco-Spanish fleet surrendered. 1833: Alfred Nobel, industrialist, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prizes, was born in Stockholm. 1858: The Can-Can was first performed in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld in Paris. 1918: The “Spanish flu” epidemic started in Britain, eventually killing approximately twice as many as died in the First World War. 1940: Geoffrey Boycott, Yorkshire and England cricketer, was born in Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire. 1950: Chinese forces occupied Tibet. 1952: The President of the Kenya African Union, Jomo Kenyatta, was arrested following the declaration of a state of emergency in the British colony of Kenya. 1966: Disaster struck the mining village of Aberfan when a colliery slag tip slid down the side of a hill and engulfed a row of houses, a farm and a school. Of the 144 people who died, 116 were children. 1982: Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness made history by becoming the first members of Sinn Fein to be elected to the Ulster Assembly. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Prince of Wales planted a tree in the memorial garden for the Aberfan disaster, which killed 116 children and 28 adults. BIRTHDAYS: Peter (Lord) Mandelson, former European Union trade commissioner, 64; Julian Cope, musician, 60; David Campese, former Australian rugby player, 55; Paul Ince, football manager, 50; Jade Jagger, jewellery designer, 46; Andrew Scott, actor, 41; Kim Kardashian, reality TV star/model, 37.