On this day: Commercial television started in UK

On this day in 1955 commercial television started in Britain  the first advertisement was for Gibbs toothpaste. Picture: Getty

EVENTS, birthdays and anniversaries on September 22.

66AD: Emperor Nero created the Legion I Italica.

1499: Switzerland became independent from the Holy Roman Empire.

1527: Cardinal Wolsey was stripped of the office of Lord Chancellor of England.

1598: Playwright and poet Ben Johnson was indicted for manslaughter following a duel.

1692: The last eight people were hanged for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts (20 were hanged in total).

1735: Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister to occupy No 10 Downing Street.

1745: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army returned to Edinburgh.

1761: The coronation of King George III.

1792: French Republic was formed by Nationa Convention, stripping the king of his powers, and the revolutionary calendar went into effect.

1862: American president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, ordering the freeing of slaves.

1902: The earliest British airship, 75 feet long and built by Stanley Spencer, made its maiden flight from Crystal Palace, London.

1905: During a race riot in Atlanta, Georgia, ten black people and two white people were killed.

1910: The Duke of York’s cinema opened in Brighton. It is still operating today, making it the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.

1934: The Gresford pit disaster in north Wales claimed the lives of 265 miners.

1949: Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, four years after first US nuclear detonation.

1955: Commercial television started in Britain – the first advertisement was for Gibbs toothpaste.

1965: Ceasefire was declared in war between India and Pakistan, but both sides later violated it.

1972: Idi Amin gave Uganda’s 8,000 Asians 48 hours to leave the country.

1975: A woman political activist was arrested after trying to assassinate American president Gerald Ford in San Francisco.

1980: Workers in Poland formed a new independent labour union, Solidarity.

1986: Two hijackers seized a Soviet airliner at Ural Mountains airport and killed two passengers before security agents recaptured plane and shot the hijackers.

1988: A radio operator died at his post sending distress messages after an explosion and fire on the Ocean Odyssey drilling rig in the North Sea – 66 men escaped.

1990: Jordan’s King Hussein appealed to US in live televised message to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia to avert “death, destruction and misery”.

1990: The Natural History Museum solved the Piltdown Man hoax. The culprit was the anthropologist Sir Arthur Keith.

1990: Alex Salmond was elected convener of the SNP.

2003: David Hempleman-Adams became the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an open-air, wicker-basket hot air balloon.

2011: Global shares fell sharply after the Federal Reserve gave a stark warning about the state of the US economy.

BIRTHDAYS

Billie Piper, actress and singer, 33; Scott Baio, actor, 55; John Caird, theatre director and writer, 67; Nick Cave, singer, 58; Chesney Hawkes, actor and singer, 44; Frazer Hines, British actor, 71; Joan Jett, rock musician, 57; Captain Mark Phillips, equestrian trainer, 67; Ronaldo, Brazilian footballer, 39; Sir John Tomlinson CBE, British operatic bass, 69; Fay Weldon CBE, novelist, 84; Harry Kewell, football coach and former player, 37; Andrea Bocelli, tenor, 57; Ruth Jones, actress and scriptwriter, 49; Sue Perkins, actress, comedian, writer, 46; Kristina Rihanoff, dancer, instructor and choreographer, 38; David Coverdale. rock singer (Whitesnake), 64; Rupert Penry-Jones, actor, 45; Paul Sculthorpe MBE, rugby league player 38; 72; Junko Tabei, first woman to reach summit of Mount Everest, 76.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1515 Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of King Henry VIII; 1694 Lord Chesterfield, who introduced the Gregorian calendar; 1756 William Smith, abolitionist and emancipator; 1791 Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist; 1880 Dame Christabel Pankhurst, suffragist; 1902 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, revolutionary, politician, supreme leader of Iran 1979-89; 1915 Arthur Lowe, actor (Dad’s Army); 1924 Rosamunde Pilcher OBE, author; 1931 Viscount Younger of Leckie, politician; 1932 Ingemar Johansson, world heavyweight boxing champion.

Deaths: 1985 Axel Springer, publisher; 1989 Irving Berlin, song writer; 1996 Dorothy Lamour, actress; 1997 Viscount Tonypandy, House of Commons Speaker; 1998 Betty Carter, jazz singer; 1999 George C Scott, actor; 2001 Isaac Stern, violinist and conductor; 2007 Marcel Marceau, mime artist; 2010 Eddie Fisher, American singer; 2011 Mansur Ali Khan, cricketer.