ON THIS DAY
1628: Charles Perrault, French writer and collector of fairy tales was born in Paris. His Tales Of Mother Goose included Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Puss In Boots.
1866: The Royal Aeronautical Society was founded.
1879: The British-Zulu War began. 1948: The London Co-op opened the first supermarket in Britain at Manor Park.
1959: Henry Cooper became the British and European heavyweight boxing champion when he defeated Brian London on points.
1960: Nevil Shute, popular author, notably of A Town Like Alice, died in Melbourne, Australia, where he had emigrated in 1950.
1970: Nigeria’s civil war ended when the Biafran army surrendered.
1976: Dame Agatha Christie, the world’s most successful detective story writer, died, aged 85.
1982: Mark Thatcher disappeared in the Sahara while on the Paris-Dakar rally. He was later spotted by a search plane and rescued.
1987: Prince Edward resigned from the Royal Marines.
1990: The break-up of the USSR began as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania prepared for secession.
2010: A severe 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti. The confirmed death toll rose above 150,000 in the Port-au-Prince area alone.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Figures revealed that around 170 children and teenagers each day had teeth removed during the previous year, with sugar blamed for creating an ‘oral health crisis’.
BIRTHDAYS: Des O’Connor, singer/presenter, 87; Michael Aspel, TV presenter, 86; Maggie Bell, singer/songwriter, 74; Anthony Andrews, actor, 71; Brendan Foster, athletics commentator, 71; Howard Stern, radio DJ, 65; Melanie Chisholm, singer (Spice Girls), 45; Gemma Arterton, actress, 33.