On this day
1865: Rudyard Kipling, English author, was born in India where some of his best novels and short stories are set.
1879: The first performances of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates Of Penzance took place in the Bijou Theatre, Paignton. 1887: A petition to Queen Victoria, with more than one million names of women appealing for public houses to be closed on Sundays, was handed to the home secretary.
1894: Amelia Bloomer, American social reformer, died.
1916: Rasputin, influential Russian mystic who was a favourite of Nicholas and Alexandra, was killed by a group of conservatives led by Prince Yusupov. 1922: Russia declared the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
1979: Richard Rodgers, one of the world’s best-known composers of musicals, died in New York, aged 77.
With Oscar Hammerstein II, he wrote Carousel, South Pacific, The King And I and The Sound Of Music.
2006: Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging in Baghdad for crimes against humanity. 2009: British hostage Peter Moore was freed. The IT worker spent 31 months in captivity after he and his four bodyguards were seized from the Finance Ministry in Baghdad.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Greta Thunberg thanked broadcaster Sir David
Attenborough for helping to inspire her into climate activism.