ON THIS DAY
1663: The first Theatre Royal, in London’s Drury Lane, opened.
1765: HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship, was launched at Chatham having cost £363,176 and three shillings. It is now preserved at Portsmouth.
1812: Robert Browning, Victorian poet, was born in London.
1833: Johannes Brahms, German composer, was born in Hamburg, Germany.
1840: Peter Tchaikovsky, the great Russian composer, was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk.
1915: The Cunard liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German submarine off Ireland with the loss of 1,198 lives.
1919: Maria eva Peron, “Evita”, legendary Argentinian, was born in Los Toldos, near Buenos Aires, Argentina, the illegitimate daughter of a cook.
1945: Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.
1973: The Washington Post won the Public Service Pulitzer Prize for the work of its reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in exposing the Watergate scandal.
2007: The tomb of Herod the Great was discovered by Israeli archaeologists south of Jerusalem. ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Duchess of Cambridge hailed the “power of photography” as she launched the book of her landmark project to capture images of life under lockdown.
BIRTHDAYS: Richard O’Sullivan, actor, 78; Anne Dudley, musician and composer, 66; Traci Lords, actress, 54; Eagle-Eye Cherry, singer, 54; Breckin Meyer, actor, 48; Kate Lawler, former Big Brother contestant, 42; Matt Helders, drummer (Arctic Monkeys), 36.