On this day: Evita opens | Brazil’s 3rd World Cup

On this day in 1978, Evita opened at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. Picture: Getty

Longest day

1675: Work began on the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral, burned in Great Fire of London in 1666. Money for the rebuilding was raised by a coal tax.

1796: Explorer Mungo Park reached the River Niger.

1813: The Battle of Vittoria, Wellington’s decisive victory over the French in the Peninsular War.

1837: Natal Republic was founded by Dutch settlers and a constitution proclaimed.

1843: The Royal College of Surgeons was founded in London.

1854: The first Victoria Cross was won by a 20-year-old Irishman, Charles Lucas. He picked up an unexploded bomb aboard HMS Hecla at Bomarsund in the Baltic and threw it over the side.

1887: Britain annexed Zululand, blocking Transvaal’s attempts to gain access to coast.

1919: Seventy-two warships of the German fleet were scuttled in Scapa Flow, Orkney.

1929: Premiere of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Blackmail, at the Regal Cinema, Marble Arch, London, the first full-length talking feature film in Britain.

1937: Lawn tennis at Wimbledon was televised for the first time.

1942: Tobruk fell to German forces with the capture of 25,000 Allied troops.

1948: The first successfully produced microgroove (long playing) records were unveiled by Doctor Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records.

1970: Brazil beat Italy in Mexico City to become football’s world champions and win the Jules Rimet Trophy for a record third time.

1970: Tony Jacklin became the first Briton since Ted Ray in 1920 to win the US Open golf championship, at Chaska, Minnesota.

1977: Menachem Begin became prime minister of Israel.

1978: The Lloyd Webber/Rice musical Evita, about the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, opened at the Prince Edward Theatre, London.

1982: John Hinckley was acquitted of the attempted murder of president Ronald Reagan on grounds of insanity.

1988: In New York, a pair of crimson shoes worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz fetched $165,000 (£97,000) at auction.

1989: Police arrested 250 people in a huge operation to stop hippies celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge.

1990: Prime minister Margaret Thatcher dismissed plans for Britain joining European exchange rate system.

1994: Singer George Michael lost an English High Court battle to break free from a long-term recording contract with Sony Records.

2000: Section 28 (outlawing the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in the UK) was repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.

2004: SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.

2006: Pluto’s newly-discovered moons were officially named “Nix” and “Hydra”.

2010: Britain’s military death toll in Afghanistan reached 300.

2012: The first strike by doctors in the UK for almost 40 years took place.

2012: The credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded 15 banks and financial institutions. UK banks downgraded included Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC.

BIRTHDAYS

Ray Davies CBE, singer (The Kinks), 70; Don Black OBE, lyricist, 76; Natasha Desborough, radio presenter, 40; Marcella Detroit, singer, 62; John Edrich MBE, cricketer, 77; Wally Fawkes MBE, cartoonist (Trog) and jazz musician, 90; Sir Bernard Ingham, head of Government Information Service 1989-90, 82; Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP and literary critic, 84; Anne Kirkbride, actress, 60; Juliette Lewis, actress, 41; Nils Lofgren, guitarist, 63; Ian McEwan CBE, novelist, 66; Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP, 1974-97 and 2005-present, foreign secretary 1995-97, 68; David Morrissey, actor, 50; Doug Savant, actor, 50; Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, second in line to the Throne, 32.

ANNIVERSARIES

Births: 1813 William Aytoun, Edinburgh-born poet; 1882 Rockwell Kent, artist; 1884 Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, Second World War commander; 1905 Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialist, dramatist and novelist; 1912 Mary McCarthy, novelist; 1921 Jane Russell, actress; 1940 Julian Wilson, BBC horse racing commentator; 1944 Tony Scott, film director; 1953 Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan 1988-90 and 1993-96.

Deaths: 1377 King Edward III; 1527 Niccolò Machiavelli, statesman and writer; 1652 Inigo Jones, architect; 1849 John Hatchard, publisher and bookseller; 1852 Friedrich Froebel, educationist and founder of the kindergarten system; 1908 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer; 1969 Maureen Connolly (“Little Mo”), tennis champion; 2001 John Lee Hooker, blues singer.