Birthdays On this day

Willie Carson, former jockey, 80, pictured; Marg Helgenberger, actress, 64; Frank Bruno, former boxer, 61; Steve Bould, former Arsenal footballer, 60; Diana Krall, singer and pianist, 58;

Paul Scholes, former footballer, 48; Danny Wallace, actor, filmmaker and writer, 46; Maggie Gyllenhaal, actress, 45 1724: Highwayman Jack Sheppard was hanged in front of 200,000 people at Tyburn. 1869: The formal opening of the Suez Canal took place. It had taken 10 years to make the 100-mile canal devised by Ferdinand de Lesseps.

1896: Oswald Mosley, English Fascist leader, was born.

1920: The Bolsheviks defeated the White Russians in the Crimea, ending Russia’s Civil War.

1937: MPs voted in favour of air raid shelters being erected in towns and cities. Winston Churchill insisted they were “indispensable”. Labour opposed this, fearing it would mean a big rise in rates.

1959: The Sound Of Music, a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, opened on Broadway. 1960: Clark Gable, the “King of Hollywood” and Oscar winner, died after shooting the final scenes of The Misfits opposite Marilyn Monroe.

1989: A pillar of South African apartheid crumbled when beach access restrictions were removed by president FW de Klerk.

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: The Cambridge Dictionary revealed its word of the year for 2021 was “perseverance”, with editors crediting global interest in Nasa’s mission to Mars.