The Times On This Day: Facts and trivia for every day of the year

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1981 a three-man British team, led by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, completed the longest and fastest crossing of Antarctica after 75 days and 2,500 miles.

12 JANUARY

1628 Charles Perrault, author of fairytales (Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty), was born in Paris.

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1856 John Singer Sargent, portrait painter, was born in Florence.

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1879 the British declared war on the Zulu leader Cetewayo.

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1948 the London Co-op opened the first supermarket in the capital at Manor Park.

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1950 64 submariners and dockyard workers were killed when the tanker Divina struck Truculent on the Thames.

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1970 a Boeing 747 landed at Heathrow after its first flight from New York.

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1976 Agatha Christie, crime novelist, died aged 85.

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2010 316,000 people died in an earthquake in Haiti.

13 JANUARY

1893 the Independent Labour Party formed by Keir Hardie to promote working-class representation.

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1906 Aleksandr Popov, who used radio waves to transmit a message in 1896, independently of Guglielmo Marconi, died in St Petersburg.

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1929 Wyatt Earp, gambler and law officer involved in the gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881, died.

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1941 James Joyce, novelist, died in Zurich aged 58.

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1978 Nasa selected its first women astronauts.

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1989 the Friday the 13th virus struck at IBM-compatible computers.

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2004 Harold Shipman, who killed more than 250 people, hanged himself in prison.

14 JANUARY

1874 Johann Philipp Reis, whose telephone was not a commercial success, died.

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1878 the first demonstration of Alexander Graham Bell’s newly invented telephone given to Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight.

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1898 Rev Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, died.

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1957 Humphrey Bogart, actor (Casablanca), died of cancer aged 57.

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1977 Anthony Eden, prime minister 1955–57, died.

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1983 Metropolitan Police officers shot and gravely injured film editor Stephen Waldorf, mistakenly believing him to be an escaped convict.

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1989 Muslims in Bradford ritually burnt a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

15 JANUARY

1559 Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England.

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1759 the British Museum opened at Montague House, London.

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1815 Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson, died in poverty at Calais.

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1867 40 skaters drowned when the ice broke on Regent’s Park lake, London.

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1970 the Nigeria-Biafra war concluded with Biafra’s surrender after the deaths of more than one million people.

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1973 President Nixon halted US bombing in North Vietnam after peace talks in Paris.

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2001 the Wikipedia website went online.

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2009 US Airways Flight 1549 safely crash-landed in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey.

16 JANUARY

1604 the Hampton Court Conference ended, in which King James I authorised a new translation of the Bible.

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1920 prohibition of the sale of alcohol began in America.

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1944 General Dwight D Eisenhower arrived in England as supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe.

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1969 21-year-old student Jan Palach set fire to himself in Prague in protest at the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

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1970 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi became the leader of Libya, following a coup against King Idris.

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1979 the Shah of Iran was forced into exile in Egypt.

17 JANUARY

1773 Captain Cook’s Resolution crossed the Antarctic Circle, the first ship to do so.

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1874 conjoined Thai-American brothers Chang and Eng Bunker, regarded as the original Siamese twins, died within two hours of one another, aged 62, in North Carolina.

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1912 Captain Robert Scott reached the South Pole, to discover his rival Roald Amundsen had reached it first.

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1983 the BBC introduced breakfast television.

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1991 allied forces launched Operation Desert Storm against Iraqi positions following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

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1995 more than 6,400 people were killed when an earthquake struck Kobe, Japan.

18 JANUARY

1778 Captain Cook sighted the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).

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1813 Joseph Farwell Glidden, farmer who patented the first commercially viable barbed wire, born in New Hampshire.

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1871 William of Prussia was proclaimed the first German Emperor.

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1882 AA Milne, children’s writer, was born.

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1884 Arthur Ransome, children’s writer, was born.

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1911 piloted by Lt Eugene B Ely, the first aircraft to land on a ship touched down on the cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbour.

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1919 the Versailles Peace Conference opened.

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1989 Bruce Chatwin, travel writer (In Patagonia) and novelist, died in Nice aged 48.

19 JANUARY

1736 James Watt, designer of the steam engine that largely powered the Industrial Revolution, was born in Greenock, Renfrewshire.

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1813 Sir Henry Bessemer, inventor of a steel production process that reduced the alloy’s price to a fifth of its former cost, was born in Charlton, Hertfordshire.

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1915 in the first air raid on Britain, a German zeppelin crossed the Norfolk coast and bombed Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn.

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1937 aviator Howard Hughes set a new record by flying from Los Angeles to New York in 7 hours and 28 minutes.

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1966 Indira Gandhi became India’s first woman prime minister.

20 JANUARY

1841 Britain and China signed the Convention of Chuanbi, which ceded Hong Kong to the British.

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1900 RD Blackmore, novelist (Lorna Doone), died.

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1900 John Ruskin, art critic, died.

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1942 Reinhard Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, which established the framework for the final solution to the Jewish question.

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1972 unemployment in the UK rose above one million for the first time since the 1930s.

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1987 Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy in Lebanon, was kidnapped in Beirut.

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1993 Audrey Hepburn, actress (Roman Holiday, My Fair Lady), died aged 63.

21 JANUARY

1790 Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed the guillotine to the newly formed National Assembly of Paris as a humane method of execution.

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1793 King Louis XVI of France was executed (by guillotine).

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1907 taxi cabs were officially recognised in Britain.

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1911 the first Monte Carlo car rally began.

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1924 Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov), Russian revolutionary, died at Gorki, Moscow, aged 53.

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1950 George Orwell (Eric Blair), essayist and novelist, died aged 46.

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1954 the first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched.

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1976 Concorde made its inaugural commercial flight, from London to Bahrain in 3hr 37min.

22 JANUARY

1440 Ivan III, the Great, whose conquests created a consolidated Russian state, was born.

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1666 Shah Jahan, Mughal emperor of India, died.

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1788 George Gordon Byron (6th Baron Byron), poet, was born.

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1901 Queen Victoria, Britain’s monarch since 1837, died.

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1905 Russian troops fired on marching workers in St Petersburg, killing more than 500 in the first Bloody Sunday.

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1924 Ramsay MacDonald became Britain’s first Labour prime minister.

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1944 the Allied landings began in Anzio, Italy.

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1946 President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group, from which, two years later, the CIA was created.

23 JANUARY

1790 Fletcher Christian and the Bounty’s other mutineers landed on Pitcairn Island.

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1806 William Pitt the Younger, prime minister 1783–1801 and 1804–06, died aged 46.

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1837 John Field, Irish composer who created the piano nocturne, died in Moscow.

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1883 Gustave Doré, graphic artist who illustrated such works as Dante’s Divine Comedy, died.

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1943 Tripoli was captured by British forces under Field Marshal Montgomery.

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1985 the proceedings of the House of Lords were televised for the first time.

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1989 surrealist painter Salvador Dalí died in Figueres, Spain, aged 84.

24 JANUARY

41 Gaius Caesar (Caligula), Roman Emperor from 37, was murdered.

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1664 Sir John Vanbrugh, soldier, playwright and architect of Blenheim Palace, died.

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1712 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia 1740–86, born in Berlin.

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1895 Lord Randolph Churchill, statesman and father of Sir Winston, died aged 45.

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1965 Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister 1940–45 and 1951–55, died aged 90.

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1972 a Japanese soldier, Shoichi Yokoi, was discovered on Guam, 28 years after the Japanese surrender, believing that the Second World War was still in progress.

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1984 the Apple Macintosh personal computer went on sale.

25 JANUARY

1533 King Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in secret.

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1640 Robert Burton, author of The Anatomy of Melancholy, died.

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1759 Robert Burns, Scottish poet whose popularity is reaffirmed in the Burns Night celebrations, was born in Alloway, Ayr.

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1919 the League of Nations was founded to resolve international disputes.

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1924 the first Winter Olympics began in Chamonix, France.

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1947 gangster Al Capone died at home of a heart attack.

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1971 Idi Amin deposed the Ugandan president Milton Obote.

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1990 Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan, became the first head of government to give birth.

26 JANUARY

1790 Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was first performed in Vienna.

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1824 Théodore Géricault, painter who used corpses in the morgue as models for The Raft of the Medusa, died.

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1855 Gérard de Nerval, French Romantic poet who kept a lobster as a pet, died.

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1885 General Charles Gordon was killed at Khartoum during the rising led by the Mahdi.

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1905 the largest diamond in the world, the Cullinan, was mined at Pretoria, South Africa.

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1950 India became a republic within the Commonwealth.

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1998 President Bill Clinton denied having had sexual relations with intern Monica Lewinsky.

27 JANUARY

1302 Dante Alighieri was expelled from Florence for his political activities, and while in exile wrote his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy.

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1880 the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was granted a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

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1944 Leningrad (now St Petersburg) was relieved after a 28-month siege.

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1945 the Soviet army liberated 5,000 inmates of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

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1967 Virgil Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chafee, astronauts, died after an electrical fault ignited pure oxygen in their Apollo 1 spacecraft.

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1972 Mahalia Jackson, the “Queen of Gospel”, died.

28 JANUARY

814 Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor since 800, died aged 71.

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1547 King Henry VIII, who had reigned since 1509, died aged 55.

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1596 Sir Francis Drake, English admiral and circumnavigator of the globe, died aged 55 at Portobelo, Panama.

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1807 London’s Pall Mall became the first street in the world illuminated by gaslight.

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1896 the first speeding fine was imposed on a British motorist for exceeding 2mph in a built-up area.

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1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lift-off and its crew of five men and two women were killed.

29 JANUARY

1819 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore, with it becoming a British colony five years later.

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1820 King George III, who had reigned since 1760, died aged 81.

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1856 the Victoria Cross was established by royal warrant to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War.

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1860 Anton Chekhov, playwright, was born in Taganrog, Russia.

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1886 Karl Benz patented the first automobile.

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1942 Desert Island Discs was first broadcast by the BBC.

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1996 Venice’s opera house, fatefully named La Fenice (The Phoenix), was completely destroyed by fire, suspected to be arson.

30 JANUARY

1649 King Charles I, who had reigned since 1625, was executed in Whitehall.

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1661 Oliver Cromwell was ritually executed, more than two years after his death.

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1790 the first lifeboat was tested by Henry Greathead of South Shields.

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1933 Hitler was sworn in as German chancellor.

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1948 Mahatma Gandhi, Indian leader, was assassinated in Delhi.

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1965 Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral took place in London.

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1968 the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive against South Vietnam.

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1972 British troops killed 13 people during a civil rights march in Londonderry on what is now known as Bloody Sunday.

31 JANUARY

1606 Guy Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder Plot conspirators were executed.

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1788 Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), leader of the Jacobite rebellion, died in Rome aged 68.

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1858 the Great Eastern steamship, the largest vessel in the world, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched.

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1929 Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union.

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1983 the wearing of front seatbelts in cars was made compulsory in Britain.

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1990 the first McDonald’s restaurant in Russia opened in Pushkin Square, Moscow.

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2010 Avatar became the first film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide.

1 FEBRUARY

1851 Mary Shelley, who at 21 wrote Frankenstein, died aged 54.

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1874 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, poet, dramatist and librettist (Der Rosenkavalier), was born in Vienna.

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1884 publication of the first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary.

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1896 the world premiere of Puccini’s opera La Bohème took place in Turin, with Arturo Toscanini conducting.

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1910 the first British labour exchange opened.

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1915 Stanley Matthews, footballer, was born in Stoke-on-Trent.

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1924 Britain formally recognised the Soviet Union.

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1974 Ronald Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, was arrested by Brazilian police in Rio de Janeiro.

2 FEBRUARY

1650 Nell Gwyn, comic actress and mistress of King Charles II, was born.

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1709 Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, was rescued after being marooned for four years on an island off Chile.

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1901 the state funeral of Queen Victoria took place at Windsor.

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1972 the British embassy in Dublin was burnt down by demonstrators protesting the killings on Bloody Sunday two days previously in Londonderry.

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1977 the Pompidou Centre opened in Paris.

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1979 Sid Vicious (Simon John Ritchie), bass guitarist of the Sex Pistols, died in New York aged 21.

3 FEBRUARY

1761 Richard (Beau) Nash, dandy who developed Bath into the most fashionable spa town in England, died.

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1877 The Celebrated Chop Waltz, better known as Chopsticks, music for the piano by 16-year-old Euphemia Allen, was registered at the British Museum.

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1919 President Woodrow Wilson attended the first meeting of the League of Nations in Paris.

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1924 Woodrow Wilson, 28th American president 1913–21, died aged 67.

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1960 Harold Macmillan made his Wind of Change speech to the South African parliament.

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1969 Yassir Arafat was appointed chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

4 FEBRUARY

1911 Rolls-Royce commissioned its famous figurehead, The Spirit of Ecstasy, from the sculptor Charles Sykes.

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1927 Malcolm Campbell set the land-speed record at 174.88mph in his 12-cylinder Napier-Campbell Blue Bird on Pendine Sands, Carmarthen Bay.

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1945 the Yalta conference opened, at which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin discussed strategy for the final months of the war.

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1962 The Sunday Times issued the first colour supplement in Britain.

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1968 the world’s largest hovercraft (165 tons and costing £1.75 million) was launched at Cowes, Isle of Wight.

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1971 the British carmaker Rolls-Royce declared itself bankrupt.

5 FEBRUARY

1811 the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, was declared Prince Regent.

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1887 Verdi’s Otello received its world premiere at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

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1920 the RAF College at Cranwell, Lincolnshire, opened.

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1982 Laker Airways collapsed with debts of £270 million.

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1983 the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was imprisoned in France.

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1987 Liberace, pianist known for his flamboyant costumes, died.

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1999 South African president Nelson Mandela made his last State of the Nation speech to parliament before retiring.

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2008 tornados killed 57 people in the southern United States.

6 FEBRUARY

1685 King James II acceded to the throne.

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1919 William Rossetti, writer and brother to Christina and Dante Gabriel, died.

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1945 Bob Marley, singer-songwriter, was born in Nine Mile, Jamaica.

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1952 Queen Elizabeth II acceded to the throne while visiting Kenya.

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1958 seven members of the Manchester United football team were among those killed in an air crash in Munich.

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1964 France and Britain agreed to build a Channel tunnel.

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1971 astronaut Alan Shepard became the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.

7 FEBRUARY

1812 Charles Dickens, novelist and social critic, was born in Portsmouth.

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1863 HMS Orpheus was wrecked off New Zealand, killing 185 sailors.

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1940 Disney’s film Pinocchio was given a gala premiere in New York.

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1971 Swiss men voted to allow women to vote in federal elections and to stand for parliament.

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1974 prime minister Edward Heath called a snap election.

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1992 ministers from the 12 European Community countries signed the Maastricht treaty.

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2005 Ellen MacArthur completed her single-handed round-the-world voyage in the record-breaking time of 71 days 14 hours and 18 minutes.

8 FEBRUARY

1587 Mary Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, aged 44.

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1725 Peter the Great, tsar of Russia since 1682, died aged 52.

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1872 Robert Southwell Bourke (6th Earl of Mayo), Viceroy of India, was assassinated in the Andaman Islands.

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1924 the gas chamber was first used as a form of execution when Gee Jon was put to death in Nevada for murder.

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1965 a ban was announced on cigarette advertising on British television.

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1983 Shergar, the Aga Khan’s Derby winner, was kidnapped from stables in Co Kildare and, despite a ransom demand, was never seen again.

9 FEBRUARY

1540 the first recorded race meeting in England was held at Roodee Fields, Chester.

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1567 Lord Darnley, consort of Mary Queen of Scots, was murdered in Edinburgh.

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1933 ten days after Hitler had become German chancellor, members of the Oxford Union voted against fighting for “King and Country”.

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1972 the British government declared a state of emergency after a month-long miners’ strike.

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1979 Trevor Francis became the first British footballer to break the £1m transfer fee when he signed for Nottingham Forest.

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1996 an IRA bomb exploded in London’s Docklands, killing two and injuring 100.

10 FEBRUARY

1355 the St Scholastica’s Day riot began in Oxford, with opposing forces of town and gown on the rampage for three days.

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1837 Alexander Pushkin, Russian writer, died following a duel with his wife’s admirer.

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1931 ceremonies began to inaugurate New Delhi as the capital of India (in place of Delhi).

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1962 Gary Powers, the US pilot of a U2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was exchanged in Berlin for a KGB agent.

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1964 the Great St Bernard Tunnel under the Alps between Switzerland and Italy was opened to traffic.

11 FEBRUARY

1852 the first flushing public lavatory for women opened in Bedford Street, London.

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1858 a 14-year-old French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed that a beautiful lady, later identified as the Virgin Mary, appeared to her near Lourdes.

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1878 the first weekly weather report was issued by the Meteorological Office.

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1975 Margaret Thatcher became the first woman leader of a British political party.

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1977 the heaviest recorded crustacean, a lobster weighing 44lb 6oz, was caught off Nova Scotia in Canada.

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1990 Nelson Mandela was released from prison in South Africa after 27 years in captivity.

12 FEBRUARY

1554 Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for nine days, was executed aged 16.