DATELINE

December 7

43 BC: Cicero (Marcus Tullius), the great Roman orator, was executed for his attacks on Mark Antony.

1732: The original Covent Garden Opera House opened with Way Of The World, by William Congreve.

1783: William Pitt the Younger became the youngest of Britain’s prime ministers - he was 24.

1815: Marshal Ney, Napoleon’s most famous general, was executed for supporting Napoleon at Waterloo when he was ordered by the Allies to arrest him.

1817: Captain Bligh, captain of mutiny ship The Bounty, died.

1941: The Japanese attacked the US fleet in Pearl Harbour in Hawaii.

1982: Charles Brooks Jnr, a prisoner at Fort Worth, was executed by a lethal injection, the first to die by this method in the US.

1988: Peter Langan, restaurateur, co-owner with Michael Caine of Langan’s, died in a fire at his home.