Happy birthday They said it In the past

Published on Monday 2 August 2004 12:09

Donna Air, TV presenter, 25; Isabel Allende, novelist, 62; Joanna Cassidy, actress, 59; Wes Craven, film director, 65; Julia Foster, actress, 61; Edward Furlong, actor, 27; Sammy McIlroy, football manager, 50; Peter O’Toole, actor, 72; Rose Tremain, author, 61;Alan Whicker, broadcaster and writer, 79;

"Unlike the rest of my body they are ugly. I hate wearing revealing shoes"

- Britney Spears on her feet.

"They can call me a traitor, but that doesn’t worry me. My family have been called traitors before. In 1778, the third duke sailed around Southampton harbour flying the flag of the breakaway republic of America"

- The Duke of Richmond, unworried that his fiercely pro-European stance may upset his fellow peers.

"Her shrike-call has put hands over ears for a generation. Even in print, she is top decibel"

- Political commentator Edward Pearce on Janet Street-Porter.

"I don’t have a TV and I don’t watch news: there’s too much blood and guts"

- Former BBC newsreader Jan Leeming.

1100: William II of England was killed by an arrow in the New Forest, allegedly mistaken for a deer.

1784: The first specially-built Royal Mail coach ran from Bristol to London.

1788: Thomas Gainsborough, English painter, died.

1865: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was published, but was quickly withdrawn because of bad printing. Only 21 copies of the first edition survive, making it one of the rarest 19th-century books.

1876: James Butler, or Wild Bill Hickok, Marshal of the West, was shot dead by Jack McCall while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota. He was holding two black aces, two black eights and the jack of diamonds - known to this day as "the dead man’s hand".

1894: Death duties were introduced in Britain.

1921: Enrico Caruso, the great Italian tenor, died aged 48 from peritonitis.

1973: More than 40 people died when fire swept through the Summerland amusement centre at Douglas, Isle of Man.

1980: Right-wing terrorists exploded a bomb at Bologna railway station in Italy, killing 84.

1990: Iraq invaded Kuwait and took control after eight hours. The Kuwaiti Royal Family fled to Saudi Arabia, and a puppet government was installed.

From the News can be found on page 26