ON THIS DAY
1807: Round-arm bowling was introduced to English cricket by John Willes of Kent in the Kent v England match at Penenden Heath.
1837: London’s first railway station, Euston, opened.
1871: The English Football Association Challenge Cup Competition was formed, to become better known as the FA Cup. The first final saw the Wanderers beat the Royal Engineers by one goal to nil, watched by a crowd of 2,000.
1885: The original vamp, Theda Bara, was born in Cincinnati. She stunned audiences in her 1915 debut movie A Fool There Was, which was inspired by Kipling’s poem The Vampire – hence the expression.
1940: The first singles charts were published in the US journal Billboard. No 1 was I’ll Never Smile Again by the Tommy Dorsey band, with vocals by Frank Sinatra.
1944: An assassination attempt on Hitler was made by a German staff officer, Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, at Rastenberg, East Prussia. He was summarily executed, as were 1,000 other people implicated in the plot.
1968: Actress Jane Asher broke off her engagement with Paul McCartney in a BBC television interview.
1969: “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind,” said Neil Armstrong when he emerged from the Eagle lunar module to take man’s first step on the Moon.
1973: Kung-fu film star Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Sweden was fighting its most serious wildfires in decades – including blazes above the Arctic Circle.
BIRTHDAYS: Jacques Delors, European politician, 94; Dame Diana Rigg, actress, 81; Kim Carnes, singer, 74; Carlos Santana, rock musician, 72; Paul Cook, rock drummer (Sex Pistols), 63; Charlie Magri, former boxer, 63; Jonathon Morris, actor, 59; Anton du Beke, ballroom dancer, 53; Josh Holloway, actor, 50.