On this day: Earl Mountbatten murdered by the IRA

Lord Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Picture: Getty

55BC: Julius Caesar landed in Britain.

1647: The General Assembly approved the Westminster Confession of Faith.

1859: The world’s first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake.

1883: Krakatoa, a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java, erupted with thousands killed by the resulting tidal waves.

1912: Tarzan Of The Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first went into print as a magazine serial.

1916: Italy declared war on Germany.

1939: Nazi Germany demanded Danzig and the Polish corridor.

1939: The world’s first jet-propelled aeroplane, the Heinkel 178, made its first flight in Germany.

1945: American troops began landing in Japan at end of Second World War.

1955: The first edition of the Guinness Book Of Records was published.

1966: Francis Chichester left Plymouth in Gipsy Moth IV on his single-handed voyage around the world.

1966: French president Charles de Gaulle arrived in Ethiopia from Somaliland, where his visit was marred by bloody rioting.

1979: Earl Mountbatten was murdered by members of the IRA, in a fishing boat explosion off Mullaghmore, County Sligo.

1986: Twelve black people were shot dead by police in Soweto, and a town councillor was hacked to death in worst riots in more than a year in a black township in South Africa.

1990: BBC Radio Five, Britain’s first new national radio station for 23 years, began broadcasting.

1991: European Community members recognised the independence of the Baltic states.

1995: The International Rugby Union Board, meeting in Paris, ended 125 years of amateur rugby and sanctioned payment to players and officials at all levels.

1996: Seven Iraqis were arrested after hijacking a Sudan Airways jet and ordering it to fly to Stansted in Essex.

2007: The skeletal remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and his sister Anastasia were found near Yekaterinburg, Russia.

BIRTHDAYS

Siobhan Redmond, Glasgow-born actress, 55; John Lloyd, tennis player and broadcaster, 60; Peter Ebdon, snooker player, 44; Archibald Montgomerie, 18th Earl of Eglinton, 6th Earl of Winton, Hereditary Sheriff of Renfrewshire, 75; Lady Antonia Fraser DBE, writer, broadcaster, historian, 82; Jeanette Winterson OBE, writer, 55; Aaron Paul, actor, 35; Mark Webber, racing driver, 38; Tom Ford, fashion designer, film director, 53; Bernhard Langer, golfer, 57; Mark Ilott, Test cricketer, 44; Denise Lewis OBE, Olympic gold medal-winning athlete, 42; Dietmar Hamann, football player and manager, 41; Glen Matlock, musician (Sex Pistols), 58.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 551BC Confucius, Chinese philosopher; 1877 Charles Rolls, motor manufacturer and aviation pioneer; 1882 Sam Goldwyn, film producer; 1890 Man Ray, photographer, and film-maker; 1899 CS Forester, novelist; 1908 Sir Donald Bradman, cricketer; 1925 Viscount Rothermere, newspaper proprietor.

Deaths: 1576 Titian, painter; 1965 Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret), architect; 1967 Brian Epstein, Beatles manager; 1975 Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; 1979 Earl Mountbatten; 1990 Stevie Ray Vaughan, guitarist.